Curated from Pessimists Archive

A program that can find software vulnerabilities

Before NYC moved to ban AI legal advice, it moved to ban legal advice over radio.

Virtues we now aspire to were once habits people vowed to quit

Ozzy Osborne died a saint - but was once considered a surrogate of Satan, if not the anti-christ himself.

July 20th, 2025 marks the 56th anniversary of the moon landing.

The Sony Walkman is now iconic of the 1980s, eliciting nostalgia for the ‘good old days’ of owning music, rather than renting it.

Before artificial meat was attacked as ‘unnatural’ by incumbents, artificial ice was also.

“Think Different” is Apple’s iconic motto, capturing the essence of what made it one of the world’s most beloved brands—often overlooked is how much criticism Apple often faces for daring to go against the grain…

Over two hundred years ago - in 1818 - Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter in which he communicated his distaste for ‘kids these days’ reading too many novels…

The ‘Smartphone theory of everything’ - the notion smartphones can be wholly or partly blamed for many negative ailments of modern society is everywhere.

When long distance telephone companies tried to thwart online telephony

Apple and the UK government are now in a pitched battle over encryption, which reminded us of a forgotten detail of encryption history…

In 1929, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) railed against the growing trend of recorded music in movie theaters instead of live musicians - a trend kicked off by ‘The Jazz Singer’ in 1927.

In March 1976 Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak presented the design of a circuit board for an early home PC at the now legendary ‘Homebrew Computer Club.’ In attendance was a young Steve Jobs who -…

In centuries past, things considered virtuous today; reading, cycling, listening to radio or playing chess were deemed by some as unhealthy vices or a waste of time at best.

The Oxford Dictionary just added "brainrot" as its newest official word—a tongue in cheek term for consuming too much short-form social media content.

The Sorrows of Young Werther was blamed for a supposed youth suicide epidemic

Radio was a new competing medium, so newspapers tried to blame it for a imagine mass-panic.

Not even Einstein was immune from the Lump of Labor Fallacy...

Fake photographs of the US president sparked calls for regulation of analog photo editing

The Eiffel Tower is just as iconic of France as croissants and baguettes, and equally emblematic of Paris, standing alongside landmarks like Notre-Dame or the Arc de Triomphe.

Translation of a letter protesting the Eiffel Tower

Skateboarding was considered a silly and childish phenomenon for much of its existence, its emergence in the late 1950s would see opposition almost immediately:

This week U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy published an op-ed in The New York Times calling for a ‘Warning Label on Social Media Platforms’, this part of a broader concern about adolescent…

The following newsletter is syndicated from a 2022 BigThink.com article we wrote inspired by The New York Times acquisition of Wordle. In April it was revealed subscribers to The New York Times…

In March 1976 Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak presented the design of a circuit board for an early home PC at the now legendary ‘Homebrew Computer Club.’ In attendance was a young Steve Jobs who -…

Before smartphones, beepers were in the crosshairs of parents, schools and lawmakers

"We cannot understand to what practical use a flying machine that is heavier than air can be put." - Manchester Guardian, 1908

The US Government Classed the Power Mac G4 as a Super-computer

Virtues We Strive to Embrace Were Once Vices We Swore to Eschew

Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly

Early Asimov Story Explored Reactionary Opposition to Tech-Progress

The Crypto Wars, Part - 1

When the Macintosh was Blamed for Ruining Student Writing

Like the web, telegraphy brought rapid changes in society along with very familiar anxieties and criticisms.

“What Hath Xerox Wrought” asked a 1976 Time Magazine headline

In 1961 a Gallup poll showed only 33% of Americans in favor of moon landing

Once headphones were controversial, heavily regulated wearable tech

Ted Kaczynski is dead. In this moment of hysteria about AI And its impact on civilisation, it is inevitable that debates about the merits of the ‘Unabomber Manifesto’ will move from the…

From paint in tubes to typewriters to photography to digital art, the history of creativity is a history of disruptive technologies.

Long before Geoffrey Hinton and Eliezer Yudkowsky sounded warnings about artificial intelligence, there was Dr.

Imagine a world where you must seek permission from the government to own a potentially dangerous weapon - not a firearm, not an explosive, but a tool for writing. As bizarre as it sounds, this…

Is Yudkowsky the False Prophet Ehrlich was?

We will be exploring the history of fears about technological unemployment.

The Inspiration for Dune's Butlerian Jidhad

❤️ Valentine's Day Special

Before AI, teachers and artists panicked about new tech

The article "The Typewriter in Social Correspondence" published in 1898, argues that the use of typewriters for personal correspondence will become more accepted in the future, just as the use of…

This article - written in 1984 - discusses the decline in popularity of the slide rule and its replacement by electronic calculators and computers.

Banning Smartphones, Social Media and AI Like ChatGPT is Stupid

190 years ago a guy had a nightmare about the 21st Century

Virtues of today - like reading books and cycling - were considered vices in the past.

A recent episode of the Ezra Klein Show about our relationship to time mentioned an ancient quote lamenting sun dials.

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How the British public overturned a live television ban on the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

In the process of exploring reactions to the advent and development of photography, we came across a fascinating article about ‘sun pictures’ - an early name for photography.

The New York Times, June 24, 1866

The Kansas Sunflower - Clyde, Kansas 02 Mar 1899, Thu • Page 6

THE EARLY 1900s WAS A TIME OF GREAT TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS, the world was changing rapidly thanks to the newly popular safety bicycle, the automobile, the growth of telephone ownership among many…

The Nebraska State Journal Lincoln, Nebraska - 31 May 1891, Sun • Page 16

Fears about old things when they were new

With the rise of Web3isGoingGreat.com chronicling the inevitable chaos of the early days of a new permissionless computer network - it is worth remembering the early days of the Web .

2022 So Far...

Déjà Flu Eh?

The Boston Globe, 16 Mar 1884, Sun • Page 1

Language is technology and like all technologies it evolves over time. These literary evolutions tend to receive scorn from older generations as…

😷 Masked Smile (Article Reading) In the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic San Francisco quickly instituted a mask mandate, when it was repealed there was a countdown in the streets and jubilation as…