Even before then, I’m not so sure going on the Internet (or any BBS, or ARPANET, or Usenet, or whatever) actually appreciably made anyone smarter. Made us all better at bickering about Star Trek, sure. And better at constructing ASCII cows and pirating software.
For instance, The Temple of The Screaming Electron had an entire subforum literally entitled “Bad Ideas.” I am intimately familiar with this because I moderated it for several years. You can trust me on this one, we were all morons back then, too.
And then, the Eternal September.
Even before then, I’m not so sure going on the Internet (or any BBS, or ARPANET, or Usenet, or whatever) actually appreciably made anyone smarter. Made us all better at bickering about Star Trek, sure. And better at constructing ASCII cows and pirating software.
For instance, The Temple of The Screaming Electron had an entire subforum literally entitled “Bad Ideas.” I am intimately familiar with this because I moderated it for several years. You can trust me on this one, we were all morons back then, too.