I was TBM and working in high-tech at the time. An engineer had recommended that I find manuals and software drivers using the (then-new) Mosaic Web browser instead of the more kludgy FTP.

As I did my first search, a Web page loaded full of text and amazing, clickable hyperlinks.

My VERY FIRST thought seeing this Web-based power was:
"Wow!! How is the Church going to control this!"

How telling of my own brainwashing to think that I: 1) saw the threat to the Church while doing an unrelated activity, and 2) realized that Church had controlled my content all my life.

Two years later I had an epiphany on RfM and was out. (I had avoided all "anti" material up to that point and was actually searching for "pro" material for my Elders Quorum lesson.)

Twenty years later it is clear that the Church can't control it.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2014 08:20PM by kingsolomonsmines.

By now having their own 'custom'(read: paid google a lot of $$$) search engine for all gospel topics. It is even advertised as a search engine that will not turn up any 'anti' results!

#notacult

For the sake of undermining TSCC, the internet did not come out a moment too soon. I'm sure some of the suits in COB look back longingly at the early 90s, when TSCC was a well-oiled corporate machine unchallenged by easily accessible (and damning) information. Having a vegetable prophet who supposedly led TSCC and exing a bunch of intellectuals at once (as was the case in 1993) would not survive the scrutiny of today's internet-connected world.

I shudder to think about how much more powerful TSCC would have become had the advent of the internet been delayed by 20 years.

This made me think of a tech parallel.

Microsft's Wondows OS is in decline nearly 20 years after avoiding the Internet. They were forced to the Internet with their heals dug in. It wasn't until Windows 98 that they had the language of the Internet, IP, fully built into the operating system.

Despite the delay, Microsft hit a stock market capitalization record of $619B in 1999 with their business momentum and generally growth of computing. In other words, they (and Bill gates) got crazy rich.

Now tablets have again left Microsoft in the dust and their recovery attempts have been mostly a copycat bust. (I'm even typing this on an iPad and I was raised to dislike Apple.)

Microsoft's market cap is down to $304B today, less than half of it's peak glory.

Even the big and rich make missteps and fail to react in a timely matter. They just don't always fall hard (or fast) yet it IS happening.

Innovation is their only hope in the long term.

I was in middle school when Netscape came out. I didn't know about Mosaic.

When we first got the internet, probably 1996, I remember some mo was over at my house speaking to my dad. My dad proudly saying God invented the internet so the church could go forth. He was excited at how fast everyone could learn about the church and join.

HAHAHAHAHHAAHAA!

My father in law still says this, even though my wife gave him the ces letter a few months ago (which he has yet to read).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2014 12:56AM by johnnyboy.

I was working at a high-tech Fortune 500 company in the eighties when a Phd in R&D gave a presentation about the prospects of new computer inter-linking going down to the consumer level (the term "Internet" wasn't even used).

I remembered thinking this will probably never happen, but if it did, the church would probably go crazy because traditional information systems would be totally bypassed.

This expert kept talking about the traditional "gatekeepers" disappearing, with institutions and people communicating directly (and anonymously when necessarily).

This technology would become a whistle blowers paradise.

I had no idea how right he was!

I assume that you are referring to DARPAnet (funded by US defense spending). When I started using the Internet in 1990, it was for Government, "educational," and non-profit use only. However, businesses had already been using it in dribs and drabs for a few years.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2014 08:24PM by kingsolomonsmines.

I remember back in the 1990s when everybody had a website except for the Mormon church, which for the longest time only had a placeholder graphic of Space Jesus at LDS.org. My mother worked for LDS Social Services, and she said they were saying around the office that the Internet was pretty much used only for porn and the Church would probably never make use of it. I had the hardest time explaining to her that websites are like dynamic books. Are all books of any one topic? Then why would the Internet only be for porn? People at church were so ignorant and superstitious about the Internet I could hardly believe it -- people who should have known better. I think Eric had this website going before LDS.org progressed beyond their placeholder. The Church was completely broadsided, and it's their own fault.

Of course, once the Church figured out that they can use their websites (and now smartphone apps) to track their members and control the information they can access, they're all over that.

What first struck me about the web (ca. 1997, Netscape) was how you could find a community of like-minded people, no matter how narrow or obscure your interest. You could gain knowledge and exchange ideas. You could be alerted to relevant materials, find them, and exchange them.

It was inevitable that people questioning or leaving the Mormon church would find each other.

The Chinese are one step ahead of the Morons. Surely, with 14 million members, TSCC can support its own operating system. (Snicker)

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/sinosphere/2014/01/17/china-unveils-new-native-operating-system/

I discovered Recovery from Mormonism in the late 90's on the old Prodigy web service.

Prodigy, like the Mormonism and Microsoft missed out big time on the opportunity they were blind to. Even smart people can be their own enemies at times.

I hope it's ok with you that I copied much of this thread to my Internet Section at the salamander?

http://www.salamandersociety.com/internet/

http://youtu.be/JUs7iG1mNjI

The Internet has been the most important invention in my lifetime by a mile. I work on the Internet, play on it, and did my graduate work on it.

I discovered the Internet when George Washington U had a bank of computers with Mosaic on it. I spent an hour exploring the Louvre and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Over the next 2 years, I would come out and leave the church because of information I found on the net.

The movie Pleasantville really sums up the experience many Mormons had with the Internet. Suddenly, our world became a lot larger and our naivete exposed. I recommended that film to my mom and she replied, "We were told in RS not to watch it."

Things that make you go "Hmmmmm."