The absence of the internet

I’m a member of Generation X, the last generation to grow up in an analog world before stepping firmly into a digital one.

It was a perfect time to be alive:

A childhood entirely absent of computers and the internet, filled with the outdoors, cassette tapes, and books, followed by all of the advantages of the internet for my entire adult life.

Not a bad way to grow up.

Having lived in both the analog and digital worlds, I can report that there are both good and bad things about not having access to the internet.

For example:

More than 20 years ago, when the internet was still in its infancy, I told a colleague that Europeans deliberately gave blankets laced with smallpox to the  indigenous people of North America, intending to spread the disease in order to kill them in large numbers.

Essentially, my ancestors – and perhaps yours – engaged in biological warfare. They attempted to use weapons of mass destruction in order to kill tens of thousands of men, women, and children. The land that I purchased – the parcel upon which my home currently sits – was likely stolen from indigenous people who may have been murdered during its acquisition.

The references to this attempt at biological warfare are few but absolutely verifiable. There is no evidence, however, to indicate if this plan actually worked.

But it was most certainly attempted.

My colleague didn’t believe me when I told her about this. She said I was being ridiculous. She said that was lunacy to think that Europeans intentionally spread smallpox amongst the Native American population.

Absent any robust internet at the time, I would’ve needed to find a book containing this fact to prove my case. Even finding a book on the subject would’ve required a more robust internet.

I didn’t bother.

Three years later, she stumbled upon this information for herself in a book. To her credit, she acknowledged the accuracy of her statement and apologized to me.

Having all of human knowledge at our fingertips is an astounding thing. In the analog world, things were decidedly harder to know or prove.

Conversely, the absence of the internet was also a beautiful thing at times. When everyone in the world was wearing Levis jeans but I was wearing Lee jeans – because all I owned were hand-me-downs – I was asked by several bullying, sneering jackasses why I wore Lee jeans.

I assume that they asked this question because they felt small and stupid and perhaps even hopeless about their futures, so in an effort to make themselves feel slightly better about their pathetic station in life, they lashed out at easy targets.

Like my jeans.

My answer to their insidious question was immediate:

“Levi Strauss was a Nazi. I don’t wear clothing produced by a company founded by a Nazi.”

Absent the internet, the bullying jackasses would’ve needed to find a biography of Levi Strauss then read the whole damn thing to prove me wrong.

Even if that book existed in the mid 1980’s, discovering its existence and finding a copy without the internet would’ve been impossible, too.

And you thought the truth was slippery in today’s world.

The absence of the internet made everything harder to know and prove, which was annoying, but it also allowed you to lie with impunity, which was sometimes quite helpful.