Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#121

Post by MoronInAHurry » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:21 AM UTC

logicalmonster wrote: post #64

The biggest societal altering impacts may be in terms of dating and reproduction. This has major cultural consequences. * There’s more than 1 reason for this, but approach patterns have changed. Men approaching women in real life is now rarer than it was in favor of online meeting through Apps. * Many relationships now happen based on online dating. In a sense, a series of algorithms are already dictating human repro…

Spend less time in incel communities. You're falling for baseless propaganda written and spread by depressed people looking for a way to "rationally" blame others for their unhappiness and self-perpetuating loneliness.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#122

Post by fao_ » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:29 AM UTC

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #62

abtinf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't lead to free exchange of ideas and values, it has created polarized societies Technology created polarized society? Before internet search, we were better educated and understood each other better?

Newspapers were at least, historically at least in the 20th century, were expected to inform and keep a separation between opinion and news. They clearly had a political slant, but they couldn't just ignore facts that they found inconvenient, or only mention them in hit pieces meant to discredit them. Exceptions to this, like Yellow Journalism and Hearst's use of his papers for personal and political ends were at lea…

> Newspapers were at least, historically at least in the 20th century, were expected to inform and keep a separation between opinion and news. They clearly had a political slant, but they couldn't just ignore facts that they found inconvenient, or only mention them in hit pieces meant to discredit them. Exceptions to this, like Yellow Journalism and Hearst's use of his papers for personal and political ends were at least considered failures of journalism in hindsight.

This is only partly true. One example that comes to mind, in the early 20th Century, Winston Churchill deliberately started a successful newspaper whose sole purpose was to disarm a general strike by workers who were underpaid. Not only did it suceed but Churchill bragged about it in Parliament to the opposition party after the strike had been defeated!

> In the Soviet Union they kept a tight control on the media, and Pravda was controlled by the ruling party to amplify it's message as a tool of propaganda. It would ignore inconvenient facts and stories based on their propaganda value, or if something inconvenient was too well known to ignore it would mention it only to discredit it.

I think it's worth mentioning here how most media companies are totally or partly controlled by the acting CEO of FOX News, Rupert Murdoch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch). In the UK he controls almost all paper-based newspapers that the public read, in addition to most non-BBC channels. As a result, the papers have a staunch xenophobic, neoliberal attitude -- to the point of openly calling leading members of the opposition party in the UK "Maoist" (One newspaper in particular published 1500 words of fan fiction about the opposition party's socialist policies, mixed in with the ordinary news) and naming and shaming members of the UK high court for ruling that does not agree with the paper's stance. The papers have been known to publish outright lies about the European Union -- to the point the EU set up a website specifically to debunk the lies published in mainly Murdoch-controlled papers: https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#123

Post by eldavido » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:30 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #108

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newspapers were at least, historically at least in the 20th century, were expected to inform and keep a separation between opinion and news. They clearly had a political slant, but they couldn't just ignore facts that they found inconvenient, or only mention them in hit pieces meant to discredit them. Exceptions to this, like Yellow Journalism and Hearst's use of his papers for personal and political ends were at lea…

> Newspapers were at least, historically at least in the 20th century, were expected to inform and keep a separation between opinion and news. They clearly had a political slant, but they couldn't just ignore facts that they found inconvenient, or only mention them in hit pieces meant to discredit them. Exceptions to this, like Yellow Journalism and Hearst's use of his papers for personal and political ends were at l…

This is a great point and pretty much mirrors my own views. I read the NYT but I'm under no pretense it's "neutral" or "fair and balanced". It is a highly partisan, albeit factual, news source that is selectively edited and clearly pushes a very specific worldview, through which every story is filtered. This worldview includes beliefs like: unions are always good, capitalism is at best suspect and makes a few rich, at worse a primary driver of inequality, all inequality is bad, middle-class wage stagnation is a huge problem, all government spending is good, regulation is the answer to any problem and any who oppose it are misguided/stupid, all law enforcement is racist/generally suspect, and my personal favorite, that some cabal of powerful people meet and regularly conspire to screw over ordinary "middle class Americans" (my wife and I call these hypothetical people "mustache twirlers", generally evil white men with white Persian lap cats and snifters of expensive cognac).

As a practical matter, I think the only thing a person can do is consciously seek out both sides of the story. Read a credible conservative daily (WSJ, Chicago Tribune) and a left-leaning Sunday paper (WaPo/NYT)/news magazine. Get both sides of the issue and see which you find more persuasive.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#124

Post by jkhdigital » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:31 AM UTC

DNA tests exposing family secrets that normally people would take to the grave.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#125

Post by vharuck » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

nperez wrote: post #106

For me, tech has turned into a crutch when I don't know what to do. I've caught myself in the middle of automatic behavior and it's a bit scary - opening Reddit or HN, closing it because I've already read everything on the front page, then opening it again a few seconds later without even thinking about it. I wonder what I would be doing without it. Creating art? Going out? I'd have to do something. It's something I…

In my college days, I played World of Warcraft too much. It got in the way of attending classes. Then my graphics card broke. So I started reading psychology textbooks totally unrelated to my classes.

Procrastinators gonna procrastinate. And time-wasters gonna waste time.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#126

Post by jakeinspace » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

mherdeg wrote: post #114

nperez wrote: post #106

For me, tech has turned into a crutch when I don't know what to do. I've caught myself in the middle of automatic behavior and it's a bit scary - opening Reddit or HN, closing it because I've already read everything on the front page, then opening it again a few seconds later without even thinking about it. I wonder what I would be doing without it. Creating art? Going out? I'd have to do something. It's something I…

Yishan Wong's response to that worry starts out: > The pre-internet era was boring. Some may say that it was just as stimulating but in different, more "vibrant, outdoorsy" ways, but they are wrong. I have lived in both and the internet definitely makes life more interesting. In fact, combining the outdoors with the internet is one of life's greatest pleasures. https://www.quora.com/How-did-people-waste-their-time-in…

This implies boredom is inherently bad. As a child, a lot of creative play came from boredom. Of course, we're all bound to lose some of that as we mature, but I can't help but feel that the availability of cheap distraction in the form of boundless information is allowing me to sabotage myself.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#127

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:44 AM UTC

dylz wrote: post #76

goobynight wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm try to respectfully decline them, but if they try to passive aggressively guilt me, I teeter on the cusp of countering by attacking back and trying to crack their self esteem. I haven't done it yet and wouldn't be proud of myself, but it would feel good.

I've seen the ones here do shit like yelling these animals are starving and abused while you go home to your luxury apartment, keep on ignoring their cries-esque stuff

Tell them you plan on eating animal flesh when you get home.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#128

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:49 AM UTC

vharuck wrote: post #125

nperez wrote: post #106

For me, tech has turned into a crutch when I don't know what to do. I've caught myself in the middle of automatic behavior and it's a bit scary - opening Reddit or HN, closing it because I've already read everything on the front page, then opening it again a few seconds later without even thinking about it. I wonder what I would be doing without it. Creating art? Going out? I'd have to do something. It's something I…

In my college days, I played World of Warcraft too much. It got in the way of attending classes. Then my graphics card broke. So I started reading psychology textbooks totally unrelated to my classes. Procrastinators gonna procrastinate. And time-wasters gonna waste time.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#129

Post by amiga_500 » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 1:53 AM UTC

maest wrote: post #86

amiga_500 wrote: post #17

Computers have made tracking huge quantities of debt feasible which itself is sold as collateral which exists only electronically, allowing private banks to issue usd credit irrespective of the fed. This has made land prices track productivity, leaving most on the breadline forever.

Im sorry, can you expand on how your first assertion leads to your second?

Land prices where demand > supply (most purchases) are bid up by credit, so available credit sets prices.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#130

Post by andrepd » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 2:00 AM UTC

vharuck wrote: post #125

nperez wrote: post #106

For me, tech has turned into a crutch when I don't know what to do. I've caught myself in the middle of automatic behavior and it's a bit scary - opening Reddit or HN, closing it because I've already read everything on the front page, then opening it again a few seconds later without even thinking about it. I wonder what I would be doing without it. Creating art? Going out? I'd have to do something. It's something I…

In my college days, I played World of Warcraft too much. It got in the way of attending classes. Then my graphics card broke. So I started reading psychology textbooks totally unrelated to my classes. Procrastinators gonna procrastinate. And time-wasters gonna waste time.

Your story is actually probably what the parent was trying to illustrate. Instead of wasting time with WoW, you "wasted" time with something more meaningful (all this being relative of course).