All good things come to an end. Everything changes in one way or another. That’s just how life is. That constant sense of change is why I call our humanness a situation, not a condition.
At some point, humans hunted the very last mammoth. Built the last active shrine to Inanna. Brushed their fingers against the last nevel harp. Somersaulted for the last time across an enraged bull while their eardrums throbbed with the roar of approving crowds.
The difference between those ancient times and now is that when today’s hunt is but a tasty memory shared over cooking fires, someone can note it online and ask if anyone else has seen one of those beasties lately. Our knowledge grows by the day, and we share information with each other more easily and completely now than we have in the entire prior history of our species.
It wasn’t always like this.
From the ground up to the sky
Nearly thirty years ago, I created my first website.
That wasn’t really possible until the advent of Netscape in 1994. It was a very primitive application, though. Browsing in the sense we do it today just wasn’t a thing. And neither was making a website.
To get a website up, people needed a few very important things:
- They had to know someone at a university. ISPs were still rare in 1995, and few offered website hosting. But universities embraced the internet very quickly. They regularly gave employees and students what we called shell accounts. These were Unix-based command-line accounts similar to Windows’ “users.” Often, those who had these accounts shared access with friends eager to hop onto the information superhighway. The URL would be decidedly unglamorous, like, say, UBC.edu.ca/users/~ccassidy/site/index.html. But nobody really cared. It’s not like search engines were really up to speed yet. That’s what web rings were for. Otherwise, you had to already know where you were going on that highway.
- They had to know how to use Unix and write HTML from scratch. This was not negotiable. Easy PC-based website builders did not exist. A site began with <HTML> and ended with </HTML>, with the fun happening in between. Fancy folks might add Javascript flourishes for fancy tickertape footer text or page counts. Maybe they’d even use frames (ooh la la!).
- Some way to get graphics into a hard drive, unless you wanted a text-only site or found exactly what you needed online. Until the early 2000s, this generally meant taking photos on a regular camera, then getting the results digitized by a regular film development shop onto a CD. The quality was potato, to say the least. I’ve still got many Kodak CDs filled with digitized pictures I took for websites.
That first primitive site I made was more of a proof-of-concept than an actual site. But I will never forget the sheer rush of finishing that first index page and seeing it load on a PC’s browser window.
An instant connection
There’s this very emotional scene in Poltergeist. The mother of a missing little girl cries out to her distressed child. And the girl’s invisible spirit whooshes down the staircase and clean through her mother.
It’s a connection, a contact, so immediate and so intimate that afterward, the mother can even smell her child on her hands, her clothes.
That’s the scene that came to my mind as I marveled at the page. I was the first in my peer group to do this. My friends already knew what the URL would be, and I knew they were looking at it right then.
I felt like a bolt of lightning connected us. Just this brief touch, like the tips of the wings of seabirds brushing those of other birds as they flew. This connection. Whatever it was, I wanted more of it.
Everything changes, but some stuff never will
Since then, I’ve just about always run websites. It got a lot easier very quickly, too. By the end of the 1990s, various companies offered simplified web-building and hosting access. One of the most important at the time was iVillage. I parked oh so many cat pages there!
All around me, websites sprouted up. Anyone who could scrape together shell access, graphics, and homegrown HTML could put up a site about anything under the sun. And that’s just about what happened. Internet 1.0-1.5 was an incredibly wild ride. Later on, LiveJournal and its many imitators, WordPress and Blogger, social media of all stripes, the internet gave millions of people voices—and that feeling of connection.
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of connection.
We’re social beasts and always have been. We’re wired to communicate, to share, to learn, to grow. It’s how we went from being hunter-gatherers to building pyramids, steam engines, and space stations. There’s never been a better tool for connection than the internet. I don’t think there ever will be a better one, either, unless we figure out how to communicate telepathically with brain implants.
And let’s face it: Even then, it’ll probably require the internet.
The sky’s still the only limit we have
Thirty years later, I’m a lot closer to the end of my ride than to its beginning. I know that. In those years, I’ve seen so many changes to the internet.
For the past few years, OnlySky has been one of the most welcome of those changes.
I watched as professionals crafted this site from the ground up. Stuff I’ve never been able to do, they did easily. The folks behind the site drew together an incredibly talented pool of writers and journalists (if I may say so myself), too.
Once everything was ready, we set forth with this vision of what a media site could be. What writing could be. What storytelling could be. As a result, my best work has come from my time at OnlySky. I’ll carry those lessons forward.
I still believe wholeheartedly in what OnlySky has accomplished. Its talented writers are heading to different spaces (where I hope they find only the softest of landings), but they aren’t disappearing. And neither am I.
You can find me at RolltoDisbelieve.com, where I currently update twice a week, and on Patreon (where patrons get early access to posts—and where I park audio ‘casts of them). I hope you’ll join me for what comes next.
You may forget but
let me tell you
this: someone in
some future time
will think of us
– Sappho
17 Comments
Jörg · 03/07/2024 at 5:35 PM
Thank you for your articles!
Michael Neville · 03/07/2024 at 6:35 PM
Unfortunately OnlySky failed to live up to its potential. Many of us were disillusioned with what we saw as OS’s failures and shortcomings, but these didn’t get corrected or improved. It was a gallant effort, and the writing of the various authors was good to excellent, but the website itself was marginal at best. That’s too bad, it could have been great.
Kevin R. Cross · 03/07/2024 at 7:23 PM
Guess I’ll be heading over to RTD.
Timperator of Mankind · 03/08/2024 at 3:48 AM
…I missed the resurrection of RtD? Damn!
Captain Cassidy · 03/09/2024 at 5:32 PM
I wondered where you were 😉
BensNewLogIn · 03/08/2024 at 11:57 AM
Thank you, our good captain, for all of your columns and comments and the opportunity to think about issues. I can’t say that I’ve ever been pleased with only sky, but I’m grateful that it has been there. I still visit role to disbelieve almost every day, so at least I will still have that.
i’m getting on in years, and I know that I’m not as sharp as I was even five years ago, although I’m still doing pretty well. Your columns have always been thoughtful analyses of things I don’t know a lot about, so I always welcome them. They give me a chance to both think and write, but mostly to keep my brain engaged.
Best wishes for the future.
Bob Seidensticker · 03/08/2024 at 11:59 AM
Thanks for your in-depth articles!
Atea · 03/08/2024 at 1:19 PM
For what it is worth, I started losing interest when the names Biden and Trump started cropping up. I had hoped for a place where issues for atheists would be the main focus, not only fresh writing but a source for the everyday happenings in the world of nonbelief, both nationally and internationally.
Maybe some day. I can go anywhere for politics and since neither side of the aisle can be counted on to support separation of religion and government or the POV of nonbelievers, I’d rather have a place to go and read non-politically leaning essays.
Captain Cassidy · 03/09/2024 at 5:36 PM
I hear you <3
Gwen the Devout, patron saint of atheism · 03/10/2024 at 12:12 PM
I think of politics as a matter not of good vs. evil, but more like evil vs. lesser evil. Unfortunately we nonbelievers do not have any real representation when it comes to the two-and-only-two-party system. OTOH that is not a reason to say that politics has no place on a forum like this. Christian/Islamic/Hindu/Jeeish/… nationalism is an aspect of the rise of the far right all over the world, and let’s face it: a Trump win would be a huge lose for humanism (as well as humanity).
Geoff Benson · 03/08/2024 at 5:29 PM
Best wishes Cap’n. I read everything but seldom comment. I’ll be looking in at RTD.
raven · 03/08/2024 at 5:40 PM
I rarely comment but do read all of your blog posts and will continue at RtD.
Just because OnlySky is going away doesn’t mean we or the fight against toxic religion is going away.
I have nowhere to go anyway, not believing in any afterlives.
Freebird · 03/08/2024 at 7:29 PM
I’m sorry to hear this. May I say, Cassidy, that you’ve been my favorite writer on this network. Not only because our paths from religion to atheism sound very similar, but also because your writing is well-researched, thorough, and entertaining. I’ll be following you on RTD.
Wandering Spider · 03/08/2024 at 9:36 PM
I’ll continue to read you at RtD although I don’t comment there as much as I used to. I’ll probably be there more often now.
I also wish this had worked out because there’s a real need for a place like this, but this was also the worst commenting software I’ve seen in years. Not your fault but throwing it out there because man have I been frustrated with it.
Khanhhho · 03/09/2024 at 10:14 AM
The idea of a place to go for the nonreligious is good. The execution of which at OnlySky is underwhelming to say the least. I remember having all the hype and excitement when the announcement was out, only to get deflated and disappointed with the actual site. I only came here for the Captain because of her insightful articles and her consistency. Thank you, Captain for all your hard work and dedication.
Gwen the Devout, patron saint of atheism · 03/10/2024 at 12:13 PM
Well, I just created an account on RtD. See you there!
Zaqqum · 03/10/2024 at 9:11 PM
I had begun commenting on RtD in the Patheos era before the move. I suppose I could find it in me to do so again : ).