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I’m a user experience designer. My favourite story is from aviation engineering. I don’t remember the year or all the details, but the US Navy had put stupid amounts of money and time into engineering a new fighter jet. It was worked out on paper and built to exact specifications. Then, during the first human test of it, the pilot ejected on the tarmac before it took off. The plane crashed, obviously, but the pilot couldn’t explain what happened (apparently he had a concussion from his unscheduled landing).

The plane was built again, and shortly after takeoff, the pilot again ejected without explanation.

What the fuck was going on?

In the retelling I heard, someone finally noticed the design of the cockpit was to blame. In trying to cram all the standard controls plus new ones into the smallest amount of space, the designers had moved the eject lever right next to the lever to adjust the seat position – they’d coloured the eject lever red, but the pilot couldn’t see that since it was below and slightly to the right of his ass, and both levers were the same size and shape. Nobody noticed this was a problem until at least two pilots accidentally ejected on takeoff.

This might be apocryphal, I don’t know, but I learnt it as an example of how things might look good on paper, but you can’t really know until a user fucks everything up.

I’m not talking about trump, actually. He’s just a carnival barker. If he wins the next election, he’ll do whatever his handlers want him to do, which will hasten things. But him losing will not stop the fascist movement in progress. There’s a group of actual fascists who have been working on this for decades. Some are in Congress, some are high up in organisations like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society (writing bills and selecting judges), and others are consultants and advisers.

I’m actually concerned that when trump loses, people will think the threat has passed. His loss will mitigate it somewhat, but it won’t stop them. A large part of the threat is Christian nationalists in Congress, the Supreme Court, and in many other seats of power throughout the country.

Very true. But I doubt elephants have the capacity to intervene.

https://images.app.goo.gl/fQWwqgb2CPyjUDkM7

Jokes aside, if the US falls to fascism, it’s gonna be a massive problem for Europe. Imagine fascists in charge of the biggest nation with a history of colonialism, and the world’s largest stockpile of nukes.

It would be awesome if the other first-world nations started taking this threat seriously, before it’s too late.

I hadn’t heard of that, thank you! That trailer looks amazing. I’m excited for it now, too.

This physically hurt me.

Who can I sue? Any lawyers in the chat?

Your man card wasn’t forfeited, it’s gilded. Only real men can appreciate art.

Have you seen Sondheim’s Into the Woods? It’s a masterpiece. It’s on Prime if you haven’t seen it. It stars Chip Zien, Bernadette Peters, Joanna Gleason, Tom Aldredge, and other big names. I’d like to see anyone say Zein, Aldredge, and Sondheim aren’t ‘real men’.

Yes, and the man who proposed the theory retracted it later, saying it would be like basing human behavioural theory on observations made in a supermax prison.

That actually makes sense that these losers would venerate it, since the behaviours they idolise are very like what you’d see in prisons: machismo instead of real manhood, narcissism and subjugation instead of empathy, and hatred instead of compassion.

This is a fantastic post idea, and I don’t know where you should post it, but I really hope I can engage with you, wherever that is. Sorry, I’m kinda useless in this thread.

Your comment will be my head canon from now on, because I desperately hope that’s true. I’ve been traumatised by a few videos on WPD back in the day. :(

I assume your downvotes are from billionaires. If not, that’s just sad. If you’re defending billionaires and aren’t one yourself, I regret to inform you that you’re a mark.

Isn’t self immolation fairly agonising? I always assumed fire is the worst way to go.

Otherwise with that fan, you’ll have the entire downwind neighbourhood disappointed there’s not actually a bbq party.

Or far more awesome.

Oh, is that how I triggered that?

It was like having a clingy boyfriend for a while.

This shouldn’t have made me laugh so much.

Right, but I wasn’t talking so much about my own experience, rather my experience with other people during that time, because I was tech support for literally everyone I knew, so I knew what they all thought. Because they told me.

AOL was what most nontechnical people had during that time. There’s a reason for those AOL disc memes. It’s made fun of a lot, but that was how the internet became mainstream. They mailed them to everyone and their grandma, and their success was it was FREE** and the discs installed and configured everything for you: the browser, the ISP settings, and even their home page. You stuck the disc into your cup holder, and it gave you a friendly icon on your desktop to click to access The World Wide Web™ (or AOL’s private version of it – most people didn’t know better). Most people would never have discovered the internet otherwise.

eta: and yes, internet society was actually that divided in the early years. More so, if anything. AOL was so ubiquitous and marketed, they made a blockbuster movie out of it. You likely can hear the tone in your head, even if you never used AOL in your life. Few brands have attained that social status, or held it for long. Oscar Meyer, Disney, things like that. And it didn’t last a hundred years; merely a few. /e

It wasn’t just the discs – if you bought your computer from the furniture store it came set up that way. Non-tech people just clicked that icon and didn’t know any better. Keep in mind that accessing the real internet was difficult and required a lot of knowledge many people neither had nor wanted at the time. The computer was for spreadsheets and solitaire, and it was a very expensive luxury.

I doubt you’ll get the response you’re looking for, because the people you’re talking about are the same people you’re decrying today. I’m saying that idealised demographic didn’t really exist, and I’m not speculating about them. I was embedded deeply in a world of those people. I remember them very clearly. I made it my career to understand them.

I strongly believe you’re seeing them through a heavy fog of nostalgia.

eta: and back to the original point, I strongly believe that people who feel the internet has fallen short of our expectations don’t remember what our expectations really were.

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