Posted On: Wednesday - March 20th 2024 7:43PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Internets History Americans
This post is a continuation from Let your fingers do the walking.
We discussed the difference in society and the divide (per Mr. Hail) between the days of the Yellow Pages as THE way to look up businesses and the internet searching of today in that last post. We saw the change as generally an improvement - that's one of the very few! Here, let me give a summary of the use of the White Pages, used for looking up people... to like, call them, on what was simply a telephone. (Imagined younger PS readers, please don't make me put up Captain Picard again, mmmkayyy?)
Going along with what commenter E.H. Hail discussed in some detail in the comments last time, back in the long heyday of the phone books, life was more structured in this way. This book, dropped on the porches of all houses and apartments, even in the ghetto, I gotta assume involving hazard pay, was THE listing of the phone numbers of anyone one might know by name and want to call, with exceptions. It was the comprehensive listing, and the only one. The big phone company - even after being broken up into "Baby Bells" - had this information. Nobody else had it, well, besides the NSA, maybe the FBI, but no other company (OK, besides "The Company" too). "The phone company" owned those smaller insulated lines* up on the, you know, telephone poles.
Yeah, telephone, the old term for those phone apps most of us have on our.... errr, phones.
"Oh, yeah, I have that app. It seems to come installed on every phone I get. Whaddya' need that app for so bad? All it does is let you talk to people. Who needs THAT? They should call these things texters, Tik-tokers, Browsers, or something we use a lot. Or, call them Personal Computers.***
How would one get in this "phone book"? I never thought much about it then, but obviously it would go by names used for billing for the land lines. Having one's name in it meant adulthood, and it was a very big deal to some of us.
Well, after all, Steve Martin had finally gone out on his own. He'd have not been listed before, with the landline having been listed under his family name when he was a poor black child.
It was a different world. Even with the Bart Simpson style pranksters and some annoying human sales calls of the day, people did not feel the need to get away from others by hiding their info, as now. One could indeed have an "unlisted number", but it seemed really weird, and, as I recall, one had to pay extra for that each year. (Once the books came out, it was a done deal, one way or another. There were no daily "updates".) Women had a reason to keep their man's name in the book for security - it was a White Pagiarchy, I tell ya'. Addresses were in there too, right alongside the phone numbers.
Nowadays, with various cell phone companies around, one encompassing big book or website of numbers would be hard to come by. Either way, a big difference in life now is the lack of societal trust. We are very careful what information we give out and to whom. If you want to reach someone the old-fashioned way, even knowing his name, you must make contact with some other method, including meeting him in person. of course, in order to be able to call him. That seems normal now. It was not normal back in the day of the White Pages. The way it was: Got a name? Look him up and call. Simple. He, possibly she, really didn't want to hear from you? He, or she, could hang up in style. That's really hard on phones that are no longer made of bakelite plastic.
* They weren't all small either. In the big city, as this one crew was digging up an old big line (probably to replace with fiber optics), they let me have one piece, about a yard long, that was about 1 1/2" O.D. Inside that black insulation, I couldn't count, but estimated, over 1,000 conductors, each non-stranded copper surrounded by its own color-coded insulation.** I had 0.6 miles of wire for projects, this back when I could strip the ends with my teeth. I don't do that anymore.
** A cool job for a math or crypto guy would have been figuring out the best scheme for the color-coding.
*** Aren't these things the real personal computers, more than those IBM AT desktops were?
Comments:
Moderator
Friday - March 22nd 2024 4:31PM MST
PS: "I recently heard the number of office-workers who are fully remote, and it's still high. Many more are part-remote, so the aggregate in-person contact is now at the kinds of lows associated with depressed-and-unemployed people. This may work well for some, in some situations, especially older-and-established people. It is a disaster for the young and anyone who is seeking a transition and wants/needs to meet new people, should meet new people and get things moving.
The entire social-norm has shifted many notches towards "everyone is a cog in an anonymous machine, without any real or meaningful contact with his fellows, in a giant panopticon, in which everyone is "free" not to know anyone, go anywhere, or do anything!"
Yep, there are quite a few factors that have people more isolated from each other than ever. This push toward remote work from the PanicFest had it happening a lot sooner than it would have otherwise. But, yeah, that's a depressing view of it you have, but I can't argue with your observations.
The entire social-norm has shifted many notches towards "everyone is a cog in an anonymous machine, without any real or meaningful contact with his fellows, in a giant panopticon, in which everyone is "free" not to know anyone, go anywhere, or do anything!"
Yep, there are quite a few factors that have people more isolated from each other than ever. This push toward remote work from the PanicFest had it happening a lot sooner than it would have otherwise. But, yeah, that's a depressing view of it you have, but I can't argue with your observations.
Al Corrupt
Thursday - March 21st 2024 1:28PM MST
PS
The real deal back in the day was the reverse lookup book (phone numbers to people & addresses). I think the books were only distributed to businesses willing to pay for them.
The real deal back in the day was the reverse lookup book (phone numbers to people & addresses). I think the books were only distributed to businesses willing to pay for them.
Moderator
Thursday - March 21st 2024 6:56AM MST
PS: Mr. Hail, there's quite a bit to that "if you're ever in" blast from the past. If someone had already said "look me up", that meant he knows you, of course, and ought to have given you his phone # and probably address already. I thought it was more a way of saying, "let's try to meet up, if you are ever in Anytown, State."
There was "if you are in Chicago, give me a call". Nowadays, that sounds stupid. Why do I have to be nearby to call you? Well young people, that'd due to long-distance charges, which could be significant. So, even if you didn't have time to visit, if you were making a flight connection at O'Hare or Midway, you could put one thin dime - later one thicker quarter - and talk to you friend for as long as you wanted. It was worth doing.
I want to write more but do have to go now. Later - thanks for all the comments!
There was "if you are in Chicago, give me a call". Nowadays, that sounds stupid. Why do I have to be nearby to call you? Well young people, that'd due to long-distance charges, which could be significant. So, even if you didn't have time to visit, if you were making a flight connection at O'Hare or Midway, you could put one thin dime - later one thicker quarter - and talk to you friend for as long as you wanted. It was worth doing.
I want to write more but do have to go now. Later - thanks for all the comments!
Moderator
Thursday - March 21st 2024 6:52AM MST
PS: "Yes, because calling someone to sell him something involved a human dialing the phone. Unlike today, where there's a little machine that dials all the numbers and only connects the salesman when someone picks up on the other end."
Yes, M, one could deal with these calls better, and as you describe, the calls using software now are basically free, labor-wise and charge-wise. (That's another subject that I was going to write to Mr. Hail, the change in things since there are no more long-distance charges on cell phones.)
I agree that famous people or those who could be targets would have gotten themselves unlisted. Others may have been those that THOUGHT they were very important.
Yes, M, one could deal with these calls better, and as you describe, the calls using software now are basically free, labor-wise and charge-wise. (That's another subject that I was going to write to Mr. Hail, the change in things since there are no more long-distance charges on cell phones.)
I agree that famous people or those who could be targets would have gotten themselves unlisted. Others may have been those that THOUGHT they were very important.
M
Thursday - March 21st 2024 4:31AM MST
PS
"One could indeed have an "unlisted number", but it seemed really weird, and, as I recall, one had to pay extra for that each year."
Yes, because calling someone to sell him something involved a human dialing the phone. Unlike today, where there's a little machine that dials all the numbers and only connects the salesman when someone picks up on the other end.
There were some operations like that ("boiler room"), but for most ventures it didn't pay to have a bunch of people cold calling at all hours.
Unlisted was usually for celebrities. I imagine there would be a lot of people trying to call Steve Martin for various reasons. Or politicians - the mayor has an office number, why are you trying to call his house?
"One could indeed have an "unlisted number", but it seemed really weird, and, as I recall, one had to pay extra for that each year."
Yes, because calling someone to sell him something involved a human dialing the phone. Unlike today, where there's a little machine that dials all the numbers and only connects the salesman when someone picks up on the other end.
There were some operations like that ("boiler room"), but for most ventures it didn't pay to have a bunch of people cold calling at all hours.
Unlisted was usually for celebrities. I imagine there would be a lot of people trying to call Steve Martin for various reasons. Or politicians - the mayor has an office number, why are you trying to call his house?
Hail
Thursday - March 21st 2024 12:53AM MST
PS
Thirty-one minutes of viewing material that Peak Stupidity may be interested in:
- - -
Tucker Carlson interviews Ron Paul
(interview released: March 19, 2024)
15m30s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fQFgBtePpU
- - -
Tucker Carlson interviews Steve Baker, a journalist rounded up and arrested by the FBI recently (on March 1st, 2024) for actions on January 6th, 2021
(interview released: March 20, 2024)
15m30s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNpul-vxYXM
- - -
The "Merrick" Garfinkel Justice Dept (sic.) continues with its strategy of doing a slow-roll of arrests even in 2024.
Thirty-one minutes of viewing material that Peak Stupidity may be interested in:
- - -
Tucker Carlson interviews Ron Paul
(interview released: March 19, 2024)
15m30s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fQFgBtePpU
- - -
Tucker Carlson interviews Steve Baker, a journalist rounded up and arrested by the FBI recently (on March 1st, 2024) for actions on January 6th, 2021
(interview released: March 20, 2024)
15m30s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNpul-vxYXM
- - -
The "Merrick" Garfinkel Justice Dept (sic.) continues with its strategy of doing a slow-roll of arrests even in 2024.
Hail
Wednesday - March 20th 2024 11:37PM MST
PS
-- The authentic life, phone books, and Wokeness --
Some philosophers, especially of the 20th century, have tried to tackle the problem of so-called Authenticity. What is the authentic life? Is the modern world -- and now "post-modern" world -- "inauthentic" and does it promote or even enforce the inauthentic life? What does this mean? Is it bad? If it's bad, what do we do about it?
(This is a field in which Dieter Kief, who has a strong interest and knowledge of things philosophy, might have something valuable to add.)
I am reminded of that 'Authenticity' discussion here by this phone-books talk. Maybe especially by the PS entry's lines about "feeling like you really ARE someone" once your name gets in the phone book. Or maybe also feeling that the people you know are REAL people when you can "look them up" in the phone-book.
-- --
By the way: remember the specific line: "Look me up if you're ever in ____(city)___"?
I guess this expression still exists in the culture. But it is an anachronism (if "look someone up" means "look in the phone-book or equivalent for phone-number or address").
Very, very few people are going to literally show up in some distant place -- say, flying from Florida to Oklahoma City -- and ask someone where he might find a local phone-book to look up his friend's number. But this was a way people got in contact at times, if they knew where a person lived but lacked immediate contact-info.
A certain type of person was inclined to carry "address books" containing such info for everyone they knew, but anyway numbers and things might change, and the authoritative record was that "communal" source of the once- or twice-yearly phone-books.
What is the 2020s-equivalent of "look me up if you're ever in ____?" Come to think of it, both parts of that old expression are now invalid: "Look me up" implying phone-books, that is outdated as already mentioned; but the other part, "if you're ever in..." may also be dated, though to a lesser degree. It meant you expected your relationship with a person to "basically be on hold" until you could see him or her again in person, at which time it could be rekindled.
The entire premise of the part of social intercourse implied by "look me up when you're in..." and the norms associated with it, went under direct attack by the Corona-Panic Monster in 2020 and beyond, after years of pressure from "the Internet" in general.
I recently heard the number of office-workers who are fully remote, and it's still high. Many more are part-remote, so the aggregate in-person contact is now at the kinds of lows associated with depressed-and-unemployed people. This may work well for some, in some situations, especially older-and-established people. It is a disaster for the young and anyone who is seeking a transition and wants/needs to meet new people, should meet new people and get things moving.
The entire social-norm has shifted many notches towards "everyone is a cog in an anonymous machine, without any real or meaningful contact with his fellows, in a giant panopticon, in which everyone is "free" not to know anyone, go anywhere, or do anything!
-- --
So the post-"phone-book world" may lack authenticity. I am here using "phone books" in part as a symbol of bigger things, as just mentioned, but it is also useful literally here.
Wokeness itself could be a product of this feeling of inauthenticity, gone to seed over some generations and radicalized by trends associated with the Internet. Most Whites of Christian origin who are pro-Wokeness are not out to undermine others as a motivation and grab power for themselves; they are not evil or malicious; they ARE discontent, but it is often inward-focused. In most of these cases, they are rather seeking the "authentic." They have failed to find "the authentic" in the non-Wokeness or anti-Wokeness camps.
The "post-phone-book world" is one of anonymization, which can be viscerally anti-authentic in the way it feels. And remember that the b.2000s age-cohort in particular has basically never known anything else; and a fair portion of the b.1990s cohort may have hugely influenced by it, despite remembering the analog world to one or another degree. These things are not their fault.
People claiming to be against Wokeness have to either offer some totalizing alternative view of order, or consign their own efforts to being a "speed bump." I think a lot of conservatives are actually quite okay with this and maybe even conscious of it and their role. The Wokeness Train barrels down the track, without being able to be stopped; with right-wing conservatives of the 2030s or 2040s will be saying things like "Transsexuals are the True Conservatives" and that anti-White racial-preferences are the only way to uphold True Conservatism, and any individual of full-European ancestry is morally illegitimate under True Conservatism and should work to transfer resources to Based Brown Guys who insist and swear that they support True Conservatism. (We are nearly there already on all these points, I think.)
-- The authentic life, phone books, and Wokeness --
Some philosophers, especially of the 20th century, have tried to tackle the problem of so-called Authenticity. What is the authentic life? Is the modern world -- and now "post-modern" world -- "inauthentic" and does it promote or even enforce the inauthentic life? What does this mean? Is it bad? If it's bad, what do we do about it?
(This is a field in which Dieter Kief, who has a strong interest and knowledge of things philosophy, might have something valuable to add.)
I am reminded of that 'Authenticity' discussion here by this phone-books talk. Maybe especially by the PS entry's lines about "feeling like you really ARE someone" once your name gets in the phone book. Or maybe also feeling that the people you know are REAL people when you can "look them up" in the phone-book.
-- --
By the way: remember the specific line: "Look me up if you're ever in ____(city)___"?
I guess this expression still exists in the culture. But it is an anachronism (if "look someone up" means "look in the phone-book or equivalent for phone-number or address").
Very, very few people are going to literally show up in some distant place -- say, flying from Florida to Oklahoma City -- and ask someone where he might find a local phone-book to look up his friend's number. But this was a way people got in contact at times, if they knew where a person lived but lacked immediate contact-info.
A certain type of person was inclined to carry "address books" containing such info for everyone they knew, but anyway numbers and things might change, and the authoritative record was that "communal" source of the once- or twice-yearly phone-books.
What is the 2020s-equivalent of "look me up if you're ever in ____?" Come to think of it, both parts of that old expression are now invalid: "Look me up" implying phone-books, that is outdated as already mentioned; but the other part, "if you're ever in..." may also be dated, though to a lesser degree. It meant you expected your relationship with a person to "basically be on hold" until you could see him or her again in person, at which time it could be rekindled.
The entire premise of the part of social intercourse implied by "look me up when you're in..." and the norms associated with it, went under direct attack by the Corona-Panic Monster in 2020 and beyond, after years of pressure from "the Internet" in general.
I recently heard the number of office-workers who are fully remote, and it's still high. Many more are part-remote, so the aggregate in-person contact is now at the kinds of lows associated with depressed-and-unemployed people. This may work well for some, in some situations, especially older-and-established people. It is a disaster for the young and anyone who is seeking a transition and wants/needs to meet new people, should meet new people and get things moving.
The entire social-norm has shifted many notches towards "everyone is a cog in an anonymous machine, without any real or meaningful contact with his fellows, in a giant panopticon, in which everyone is "free" not to know anyone, go anywhere, or do anything!
-- --
So the post-"phone-book world" may lack authenticity. I am here using "phone books" in part as a symbol of bigger things, as just mentioned, but it is also useful literally here.
Wokeness itself could be a product of this feeling of inauthenticity, gone to seed over some generations and radicalized by trends associated with the Internet. Most Whites of Christian origin who are pro-Wokeness are not out to undermine others as a motivation and grab power for themselves; they are not evil or malicious; they ARE discontent, but it is often inward-focused. In most of these cases, they are rather seeking the "authentic." They have failed to find "the authentic" in the non-Wokeness or anti-Wokeness camps.
The "post-phone-book world" is one of anonymization, which can be viscerally anti-authentic in the way it feels. And remember that the b.2000s age-cohort in particular has basically never known anything else; and a fair portion of the b.1990s cohort may have hugely influenced by it, despite remembering the analog world to one or another degree. These things are not their fault.
People claiming to be against Wokeness have to either offer some totalizing alternative view of order, or consign their own efforts to being a "speed bump." I think a lot of conservatives are actually quite okay with this and maybe even conscious of it and their role. The Wokeness Train barrels down the track, without being able to be stopped; with right-wing conservatives of the 2030s or 2040s will be saying things like "Transsexuals are the True Conservatives" and that anti-White racial-preferences are the only way to uphold True Conservatism, and any individual of full-European ancestry is morally illegitimate under True Conservatism and should work to transfer resources to Based Brown Guys who insist and swear that they support True Conservatism. (We are nearly there already on all these points, I think.)
Hail
Wednesday - March 20th 2024 11:10PM MST
PS
RE: Adam Smith's comment in the previous post (Phone Book Retrospective, Part I -- PS No.2916):
How would people find hard-to-find ammunition back in the 20th century? The answer would seem to be one of these:
1- Knowing a guy locally though your own network of friends, family, acquaintances;
2- "Knowing a guy who knows a guy," including via a friend who is big into these things and well-connected and can come up with something (the value of knowing people and getting in-person connections, the very kernel of "networking"; compare to the idea of 10,000 Twitter followers, how many has the person ever broken bread with?);
3- Subscribing to, or purchasing, or borrowing, or simply browsing a relevant magazine and looking through the ads or "classified section" of people offering things for sale (even at a library, not sure if they'd have such magazines);
4- "Letting your feet do the walking" (and, often, letting your gas-tank and internal-combustion engine assist), by stopping by every place that might have it and looking, or asking for info, the latter which could lead to variants on 1, 2, or 3.
There are major differences with Googling or other Internet methods. Sometimes the total time-and-energy expenditure difference may often not be all that big, assuming one already knows a bit what one is doing. The benefit is a much-higher degree, on average, of human connection and the empowerment of the value of people's expertise and social connections.
In principle there is a tradeoff between that "human-knowledge and connections" on one hand, and maximized availability and searchability of goods on the other hand; but, at social-scale (all things that all people in the society do in aggregate), the tradeoff may not be a good thing. Because these trends effect everyone and all aspects of things, and we have to take all the bad with the good.
Mr. Blanc said this in simpler and direct terms in his comment in No.2916: "Phone books. 'Information please'. The Sears and Wards catalogs. The card catalogue at the library. Not as spiffy as the things we have now, but things got done. And I believe that you’d find that just about everyone was more content."
RE: Adam Smith's comment in the previous post (Phone Book Retrospective, Part I -- PS No.2916):
How would people find hard-to-find ammunition back in the 20th century? The answer would seem to be one of these:
1- Knowing a guy locally though your own network of friends, family, acquaintances;
2- "Knowing a guy who knows a guy," including via a friend who is big into these things and well-connected and can come up with something (the value of knowing people and getting in-person connections, the very kernel of "networking"; compare to the idea of 10,000 Twitter followers, how many has the person ever broken bread with?);
3- Subscribing to, or purchasing, or borrowing, or simply browsing a relevant magazine and looking through the ads or "classified section" of people offering things for sale (even at a library, not sure if they'd have such magazines);
4- "Letting your feet do the walking" (and, often, letting your gas-tank and internal-combustion engine assist), by stopping by every place that might have it and looking, or asking for info, the latter which could lead to variants on 1, 2, or 3.
There are major differences with Googling or other Internet methods. Sometimes the total time-and-energy expenditure difference may often not be all that big, assuming one already knows a bit what one is doing. The benefit is a much-higher degree, on average, of human connection and the empowerment of the value of people's expertise and social connections.
In principle there is a tradeoff between that "human-knowledge and connections" on one hand, and maximized availability and searchability of goods on the other hand; but, at social-scale (all things that all people in the society do in aggregate), the tradeoff may not be a good thing. Because these trends effect everyone and all aspects of things, and we have to take all the bad with the good.
Mr. Blanc said this in simpler and direct terms in his comment in No.2916: "Phone books. 'Information please'. The Sears and Wards catalogs. The card catalogue at the library. Not as spiffy as the things we have now, but things got done. And I believe that you’d find that just about everyone was more content."
"People claiming to be against Wokeness have to either offer some totalizing alternative view of order, or consign their own efforts to being a "speed bump.""
It's just not easy for any guys or orgs with this in mind to get very far before they are called the kinds of names that have everyone disavowing them before the rooster crows thrice.
Finally, thanks for the Tucker vids. That video says the full thing (I figure it's much longer than 15 minutes, seeing as how old Ron Paul made it up to Maine to sit with Tucker at his big tree-cross-section table. I'd love to be there. I have more to say about this interview - especially about the one spot at which Tucker answers his own question about "how would a guy know all this was coming?" with "He's been a man of principle for 60 years." I really liked that, because first I thought Tucker was going to say something else, and, after all, not ALL of us couldn't see what's happening now coming. I'll put up the whole John Birch Society membership as an example.
I have to regain my "Team Tucker" password, dangit, because I'm not sure if I have it. They can send another, but which email address did I use? If nothing else, I will use my wife's PW again.