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

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

#201

Post by throwaway87378 »

eldavido wrote: post #123
barry-cotter wrote: post #108

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 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, a…

> a left-leaning Sunday paper (WaPo/NYT)/news magazine.

The fact that either the Washington Post or the New York Times is considered left-leaning is one of the problems in US media. They are both corporate rags pushing the neo-liberal plutocrat agenda. Try Jacobin or the London Review of Books as a somewhat left of center starters.

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

#202

Post by gitgud »

abtinf wrote: post #21
danschumann wrote: post #8

I'm miserable and all the tech that has "enabled me to do anything" has made everything seem arbitrary. If you can do anything, why do anything?

You are describing a serious psychological issue. I urge you to seek treatment with psychologist or psychiatrist.

Well I think the comment is just pointing out how the ability of tech that can do anything makes the act of doing anything mundane... Which is sad, but may not be a serious psychological issue

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

#203

Post by dwaltrip »

jaxn wrote: post #131
andrepd wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I'm not as quick to assume reading a textbook is inherantly more meaningful than playing WoW.

Sure, perhaps not inherently. But do you think, looking across the world, that the median hour spent playing WoW is likely less meaningful than the median hour spent reading a textbook?

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

#205

Post by throwaway87378 »

Charlie_26 wrote: post #67
djokkataja wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do you find "the right book" these days?

I'm guessing you want me to say Google. But I'd actually use Amazon. Or even just walking into a good book store and reading a few! What have you got to lose?

> But I'd actually use Amazon.

Amazon book recommendations and keyword search are garbage. Sometimes even a direct search for title and author name will put the result halfway down the list. The two good things Amazon has going for it are the huge catalog (great for finding the right ISBN), and reviews dating back to the 1990s. Makes it easier to decide whether or not to purchase the book from a more ethical retailer.

Out of all the online bookstores, Thriftbooks has the best recommendations in my experience.

The best ways to find good books are still bibliographies and large public and university libraries - browse the shelves, ask the librarians. Online library catalogues usually beat online retailer catalogs for keyword searches.

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

#206

Post by busterarm »

gorgoiler wrote: post #167

Journey time calculations in Google maps, Uber etc. mean no one I know is ever on time. If you need to be somewhere at 8:30 and the journey “takes 17 minutes”, one psychologically sets 8:13 as the deadline for leaving the house. You pick up your keys at 8:13, actually leave a few minutes later, hit traffic or take a wrong turn or two, and end up crossing the threshold at your destination fifteen minutes late. It’s no…

My Uber estimates usually end up being half as long as the trip actually takes in NYC anyway.

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

#207

Post by 4ntonius8lock »

greggman2 wrote: post #165
sideshowb wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are also not supposed to step from sidewalk into road without looking.

It's hard for me to have sympathy for cyclists as I see so many run red lights and plow directly through pedestrians even when the pedestrians have the right of way. Maybe that's a few bad apples but it happens enough that it feels like the norm. Yes, 2 wrongs to make a right. If the light is red and the pedestrian is crossing without looking then I'd also be upset at the pedestrian.

Have that same attitude but change the word 'cyclist' for 'blacks' or 'latinos' or 'jews' or 'women'.

Then you will see why your attitude is abhorrently wrong. Or maybe not. Up to you.

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

#208

Post by sethammons »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #185
sethammons wrote: post #79

As tech gets more and more advanced and we get higher and higher levels of abstraction, I've noticed more and more programmers just don't understand _what_ their code is doing. There can be a lack of understanding of how calls translate to system calls and machine instruction. The abstraction is good, it allows you to do more and do it quickly. But when you don't understand what the abstraction is, then you are progr…

I should write a medium article on the questions we asked during interviewing and what the success rate was for each question (spoiler: it was depressing).

I'd be interested in that!

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

#209

Post by fouc »

gorgoiler wrote: post #167

Journey time calculations in Google maps, Uber etc. mean no one I know is ever on time. If you need to be somewhere at 8:30 and the journey “takes 17 minutes”, one psychologically sets 8:13 as the deadline for leaving the house. You pick up your keys at 8:13, actually leave a few minutes later, hit traffic or take a wrong turn or two, and end up crossing the threshold at your destination fifteen minutes late. It’s no…

I always have to buffer it, but I never quite know how much to buffer. Usually I add 5-10 minutes to the number. Or round it up.

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

#210

Post by fouc »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #39

Internet usage starts with users querying information they want, and services learning/adapting to deliver information in a format/context based on their activity. This has created some stellar search tools, a personalized network of services and communities available to people, and made the internet a paradise for new content from all over the world. Despite that all the information in the world is available to us,…

I saw an interesting argument that we've always had the so called filter bubbles before the internet, it's only more noticeable NOW, because of public spaces like twitter.
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