The 1984 thread is HILARIOUS - mainly because it feels *exactly* like a thread from the Atlas right now.
Including a post by Walter Mitty!
People on the internet were more well spoken back then, it seems.
The internet has gotten markedly dumber than it was in the mid-1990s, let alone the mid-1980s. Back then, it was dominated by people with high technical proficiency, high education levels, and/or high income (which correlates with education level). Nowadays, it's dominated by illiterate teenagers. The same phenomenon explains why the Golden Age of Television ended in the mid-1950s. Once television ownership moved beyond the elite, the broadcasters started pandering to the unwashed masses.