This was the one site that helped me get the Hackers (1995 movie) references and culture and made it real. It was freeing to be able to pursue your passions and be seen for what you say and do instead of whatever social, religious or ethnic group or box you were put in and to also know and connect with others that shared a similar interest.

Unfortunately, those days are gone. It wasn't profitable for the powers that be to not be able to divide us by demographic groups, nationality and associations. How else could we be good little consumers and "voters". Forget free and critical thinking, these days, outside of rare sites like this I can't find anyone that hasn't fallen down some youtube or facebook rabbit hole. They all talk in propaganda. To the point where I don't even care what they think, I just try to get them to ctiticize or disagree with the propaganda they have fallen for even a little.

The old internet was cool but I also get that nostalgia isn't accurate. Most communities were very unwelcoming and hostile (anti-women,racist,bullying,etc...) but that was just people being naturally shitty. I had some of the best interactions and learned from people that would never get along with me IRL.

I think a lot of these hackers or their modern successors moved to twitter. Very unfortunate since clout and acceptance is all that matters there. It means you more or less have to communicate in a public arena where even if you take measures to be anonymous all the cool hackers now use their real names and are forced and force others back into our social cages. Back to speaking in politically conformant speech and to being seen as a label or group instead of as an individual.

But that's the world, can't stop change.

Wow, trip down memory lane. But does some of this push the boundaries of acceptable content? Or is this to be treated with the objective disconnection of a historical researcher. Eg http://textfiles.com/sex/808-laid.txt

This is funny in that despite it being hosted on textfiles.com it is an audio file... attempting to convince people to switch from binary formats to text formats.

http://audio.textfiles.com/basement/maketheswitch.mp3