StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I’ll be honest, I was hoping for a wee bit more activity here. Oh, but what the hell. It’s been a while since I last used this guy or Brings back the warm and fuzzies.

Anyhoo. As I lie here, half-awake, I ponder if living in the past, thinking about what has been and can be no more, is a particularly insidious form of mental anguish.

All this is a roundabout way of saying I miss this place being in its prime. And the people that made it. Are there many of us old timers left? It’s probably a silly notion, pining for a world of yesterday is one thing, but the BBS that went with it? Folly. It’s a brave new world full of Reddits, Facebooks, Instawhatsits. And I’d trade it all in for ASVS and the like back in the day.

I don’t really know what this thread is. I just felt compelled to post and come what may.

Or you can debate the whole nostalgia-poisoning-of-the-mind thing and how it sells modern pop culture. Yeah, do that. Probably a Wisecrack episode already, though.

EDIT: Yep.

Nostalgia is a good and a bad thing. It reinforces a "things were better in the past" mentality. Sometimes that is a good thing because it allows you to have a good time to look back on and a way to improve one's current time. However, it becomes bad when it encourages stagnation. There is nothing wrong with liking the cars from the 1950s. There is something wrong with wanting to do away with the advances in automotive technology to go back to the exact level of technology in the 50s.

Admiral Valdemar wrote: I don’t really know what this thread is. I just felt compelled to post and come what may.

I understand this. Sometimes I go and look at stuff I made a long time ago. Sometimes it can make you pause and reflect. Sometimes it can inspire new thoughts. For me, it mostly helps me to realize what I need to grow out of.

Mainstream culture thinks nostalgia is pandering to a better time. Like Stranger Things and the It remake. They're not wrong...but they're slightly off base. I think there's more to it than that.

Admiral Valdemar wrote:All this is a roundabout way of saying I miss this place being in its prime. And the people that made it. Are there many of us old timers left? It’s probably a silly notion, pining for a world of yesterday is one thing, but the BBS that went with it? Folly. It’s a brave new world full of Reddits, Facebooks, Instawhatsits. And I’d trade it all in for ASVS and the like back in the day.

I find it hard to believe that many people would want to post on a forum these days. Not to say that it doesn't have an appeal to people, but it does feel rather antiquated. I mean, I remember the time when you could access many forums on dial-up internet. America Online. Yeah...that was crazy. Shit was slow even if you weren't loading a page full of images. Even the worst wi-fi based internet is still better than that. I have almost no nostalgia for how shitty that was. It's just bittersweet because of how much good was on the internet and how freer it was. People now will never know that. That's mildy depressing. I too sort of miss the old culture of internet boards.

Aleister Crowley wrote: ↑2018-10-15 08:19pm Nostalgia is a good and a bad thing. It reinforces a "things were better in the past" mentality. Sometimes that is a good thing because it allows you to have a good time to look back on and a way to improve one's current time. However, it becomes bad when it encourages stagnation. There is nothing wrong with liking the cars from the 1950s. There is something wrong with wanting to do away with the advances in automotive technology to go back to the exact level of technology in the 50s.

Aye. As you say later, I’ve no love lost over dial-up, even if it was a fun time trying to have online strategy games tied up in the two hour limit of continuous up-time, or missing the modem noises. A lot of the geekery has gone from being online, which is somewhat depressing.

I understand this. Sometimes I go and look at stuff I made a long time ago. Sometimes it can make you pause and reflect. Sometimes it can inspire new thoughts. For me, it mostly helps me to realize what I need to grow out of.

Mainstream culture thinks nostalgia is pandering to a better time. Like Stranger Things and the It remake. They're not wrong...but they're slightly off base. I think there's more to it than that.

I find it hard to believe that many people would want to post on a forum these days. Not to say that it doesn't have an appeal to people, but it does feel rather antiquated. I mean, I remember the time when you could access many forums on dial-up internet. America Online. Yeah...that was crazy. Shit was slow even if you weren't loading a page full of images. Even the worst wi-fi based internet is still better than that. I have almost no nostalgia for how shitty that was. It's just bittersweet because of how much good was on the internet and how freer it was. People now will never know that. That's mildy depressing. I too sort of miss the old culture of internet boards.

It’s funny how much of our media now seems to play on this. Star Wars is obviously another one, given how many reacted to TFA as being a rehash of ANH for a new generation. Yet, I can’t not enjoy the re-emergence of synthwave, or the ‘80s æsthetic in film, or 8-bit mobile games. Stuff like that can’t really be considered bad if it’s delivering a unique take on the genre or is executed well. Only so much originality in art, and it’s not like people who, say, shoot on film do it because they want to be hipsters, but because certain things are lost in digital, for instance.

But overall, I feel a malaise over wanting to relive a past moment and then realising that things have changed, and that it can only happen in my head. I can still enjoy that film I grew up with, but I can’t relive being a teen on an early Internet where exclusivity was more a thing, and where users I enjoyed talking to were often online and without other life distractions.

Additionally, I am surprised that places like SB.com are actually not only active, but thriving. I was hoping SDN would be on some level the same too, alas, not to the level of its glory days. Which is sad, really, because I think a forum community is something of an exception to the modern take on online circles, such as subreddits and WhatsApp groups. There’s something timeless to me about a good ol’ bulletin board, and he’ll, USENET groups would still be great to me, as primitive as they are, given that is some of their charm. No voting system for posts or obnoxious emoticons and memes being posted with little else. ASVS was, like here and SB, where I cut my teeth on navigating the online realm before the Average Joe got onboard and made it a less special place.

I miss the good old days when all we had to worry about was Peak Oil.

Admiral Valdemar wrote: It’s funny how much of our media now seems to play on this. Star Wars is obviously another one, given how many reacted to TFA as being a rehash of ANH for a new generation. Yet, I can’t not enjoy the re-emergence of synthwave, or the ‘80s æsthetic in film, or 8-bit mobile games. Stuff like that can’t really be considered bad if it’s delivering a unique take on the genre or is executed well. Only so much originality in art, and it’s not like people who, say, shoot on film do it because they want to be hipsters, but because certain things are lost in digital, for instance.

I can show you some amazing music. I've found a ton of amazing music of that type. One of the best parts of Stranger Things is the opening. I am a bit of a nostalgia nut both for the late 80s and all of the 90s.

Galvatron wrote: ↑2018-10-16 07:40am I miss the good old days when all we had to worry about was Peak Oil.

Ha. Today it’s Brexit. Tomorrow, also Brexit. I wish it was something less mind numbing like PO or WWIII, literally anything would be better.

Aleister Crowley wrote: ↑2018-10-16 07:43am
I can show you some amazing music. I've found a ton of amazing music of that type. One of the best parts of Stranger Things is the opening. I am a bit of a nostalgia nut both for the late 80s and all of the 90s.

There’s loads of great stuff in that genre now. It seems to be even more common now than at the time it came out, I just love synth. Gunship are my current fave.

Admiral Valdemar wrote: ↑2018-10-16 07:58am

Galvatron wrote: ↑2018-10-16 07:40am I miss the good old days when all we had to worry about was Peak Oil.

Ha. Today it’s Brexit. Tomorrow, also Brexit. I wish it was something less mind numbing like PO or WWIII, literally anything would be better.

Is it gonna be like Children of Men?

Galvatron wrote: ↑2018-10-16 08:37amIs it gonna be like Children of Men?

I hope so...cause that's one of my favorite movies. It's very interesting to see how the movie shows people acting. No more babies are born and people lose all their hope. Even though it's so bad...there is still something interesting about a world like that. Maybe it's my age or maybe it's my misanthropy. Would I survive in such a world? I'm not sure about that...but I would certainly try.

Galvatron wrote: ↑2018-10-16 08:37am
Is it gonna be like Children of Men?

I actually do think about the country being that crazy as to somehow inflict Blitz spirit when the rest of the world is entirely functional. Nigel Farage would wholeheartedly have detention camps like in CoM if he was in power. It’s crazy when the government is happy to make us all lop a leg off and say “hop faster” to sell this weird fantasy of Britain returning to glory. It’s perverse.

At least resource depletion has an end game. I have no idea how much more of this political clusterfuck I can deal with. The whole country has lost any sense with trying to deliver something that never offered any benefits out of, ironically, pining for a nostalgia that never really existed or cannot be achieved now.

Admiral Valdemar wrote: ↑2018-10-15 06:40pm I’ll be honest, I was hoping for a wee bit more activity here. Oh, but what the hell. It’s been a while since I last used this guy or Brings back the warm and fuzzies.

Anyhoo. As I lie here, half-awake, I ponder if living in the past, thinking about what has been and can be no more, is a particularly insidious form of mental anguish.

All this is a roundabout way of saying I miss this place being in its prime. And the people that made it. Are there many of us old timers left? It’s probably a silly notion, pining for a world of yesterday is one thing, but the BBS that went with it? Folly. It’s a brave new world full of Reddits, Facebooks, Instawhatsits. And I’d trade it all in for ASVS and the like back in the day.

I don’t really know what this thread is. I just felt compelled to post and come what may.

Or you can debate the whole nostalgia-poisoning-of-the-mind thing and how it sells modern pop culture. Yeah, do that. Probably a Wisecrack episode already, though.

EDIT: Yep.

Hiya friend! Am I an old enough poster to give you warm and fuzzy feelings of hot cocoa and nostalgia, and also charming enough to not get thwacked if I semi-necro this?

Let's find out.

Still here.

No matter what they say, nothing beats a wall of text once in a while.

Facebook/Reddit/etc never caught on with me.

Aye I find no real replacement for forums. Reddit and twitter are useful for small pieces of information and talking about video game hints but that's about it.

Honestly I stick around mainly because I want to see that other people still exist after this long. I interact with some who are no longer here elsewhere but you know, keep the idea alive and all that.

I know the main reason I keep coming back here is the 'passion' of the SDN members. I was going to say it was about the discourse (thinking on the various world news topics) but I won't lie, sometimes the discourse isn't that high brow... BUT where Facebook and the like discuss world news, current events or which sci-fi thing is best it usually gets reduced to the simplest discourse : one liners, memes, etc where the extra effort of digging through a forum and posting generally weeds out those who don't care. Yes there's trolls and the like (far less nowadays) but even if someone is blathering bs at least you know they are passionate enough about the topic to go to the effort.