In the spirit of these:
https://tilde.club/~oldernow/2024-05-10-20-24-05-perhaps-pure-text-is-the-best-walled-garden-of-all.html
https://tilde.club/~oldernow/2024-05-10-20-57-39-the-textonly-revolution.html
it hit me that while people have become wisely concerned with the effect of "infinite scroll" on our psyche, their faith in what is arguably the cornerstone of "the web" prevents them from seeing that hypertext links aren't too different than infinite scroll: they're infinite click.
Mr. Berners-Lee no doubt had the best of intentions, but simply clicking to travel between collections of thoughts is, well, *too* simple for animals whose growth is in large part dependent on making efforts.
Whereas knowledge is one thing, *hard fought* knowledge is at least an order of magnitude more.
So while I don't doubt increasing collective concerns about links from a trust-ability point of view, I think the bigger concern is how the ease of navigation between collections of thoughts undermines their value.
In that context, I've decided to no longer create hypertext links. In fact, I want to be as done with hypertext in general as is possible without throwing any babies out with it.
I don't want readers who arrive by way of a click, and who are primarily focused on presentation. If they can't do as much as copy and paste a link, they're likely too stupid to understand what I'm saying anyway.
Similarly, I don't want readers who will only read my screed if/when it looks pretty. Goodbye, Superficial Suzies!
i don't know, i have to disagree. hyperlinks are what allows the internet to work. even things like search engines are based off them. you cannot use the internet without a hyperlink because it gets rid of the interconnectedness, the whole point of the thing. that's just my thoughts though
Hi beefox.
I think removing "hyperlinks" wouldn't "get rid of the interconnectedness". It would simply slow down traversing interconnectedness.
If I'm understanding it correctly, the html anchor tag provides convenience and increases readability by associating potentially ugly URLs and simpler text. But plain text URLs instead of anchor elements would still provide the interconnectedness, only that interconnectedness would appear uglier, and it would require more effort to copy/paste such URLs instead of simply clicking on the simpler text associated with them.
The theory is that from an addiction point of view, anchor-element-facilitated "infinite click" isn't too different from the "infinite scroll" I've been increasingly seeing cast in a negative light.