[DBWI] Does anyone remember the so-called Internet...

You know, the thing that was supposed to replace Minitel? It was ridiculously insecure and mostly used for porn, anyway. No wonder it was soon banned by international agreement. By 2000 it was so discredited that Al Gore's having taken the initiative in creating it probably cost him the presidency.
 
mostly used for porn, anyway

Yeah, there was a brief period there where people were expecting that the freedom to just access hardcore material from their desks would last forever. How did they NOT see that that was going to be shut down PDQ?

Funny to imagine what our culture would be like today if we had whole generations growing up on easy-access porn. Now, of course, we're back to lurking around dodgy newstands and scuzzy theatres to get your fix.

Gloria Steinem's testimony about the detrimental impact of internet smut at the Treaty Of Brisbane conference was pretty maudlin(you could even see her supposed ally Germaine Greer rolling her eyes next to her), but I guess it did the trick.

Conspiracy theorists have claimed that Hefner and Guccione were backing the feminists, since the old-school pornographers didn't think they could compete with the new tech. But that's just wacko.
 
Of course, having Santorum not be elected President in 1996 may prevent the general backlash against pornography in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
 
OT:

Going to have to call ASB on this one ... the international event horizon for the Internet was in late 90s at which point nothing could stop it (except for some Y2K or Pluto's Kiss), and it was to big for one nation (even USA, even accounting for exceptionism) to stop globally dead prehaps even as early as September 93.

I'm guessing you'd have to stop Eternal September, and the similar more subtle event happening in Europe at roughly the same time (up to ~95), from happening ... Specially considering the competing interests nations between and the differing social mores, and specially in the OP's case, on Porn ... Whereas the American Evangelical Right would be hard pressed between deciding to run away screaming and setting it on fire, much of the more liberal europe (specially non-catholic europe, specially Germany, Scandinaiva and Benelux) have a much more laissez faire relation ship with such things, and would keep moving forward with no regards, and lots of mocking laughter, at America, as they'd be willing to accept quite a bit of porn on the internet to get what already then could be seen as strong compelling ideas and strengths ... It might move slower but that train is unstoppable by this point.

All that said, I'm relatively certain that the American Military would be aggessively against any idea of banning the Internet as they were the ones fronting the cash for large parts of the research needed, and also gained a lot from it, in terms of ease of communication specially.
 
OT:

Going to have to call ASB on this one ...

Well, consider that not a fringe magazine but a mainstream conservative one had this cover in 1995:

Smash-the-Internet-cover-of-Weekly-Standard-WeeklyStandard-1995oct30-150504.jpg
 
Well, consider that not a fringe magazine but a mainstream conservative one had this cover in 1995:

As said, it was such a global deal at this point that even the most aggressive cave-dwelling Luddites can't stop it outside of their borders. Sure it would slow down the development of the Internet that US disconnected, but it wouldn't stop it since to many other nations would pick up the slack and be utterly unwilling to follow the Luddites
 
You know, the thing that was supposed to replace Minitel? It was ridiculously insecure and mostly used for porn, anyway. No wonder it was soon banned by international agreement. By 2000 it was so discredited that Al Gore's having taken the initiative in creating it probably cost him the presidency.

Thats why we communicate through Linux right now.
 
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