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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?

#321

Post by geggam »

Eremotherium wrote: post #267
geggam wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely opposite of the nations foundations, I had no idea the concept of property being theft was actually entertained as a feasible concept "America's Founders understood clearly that private property is the foundation not only of prosperity but of freedom itself. Thus, through the common law, state law, and the Constitution, they protected property rights" https://www.cato.org/cato-handbook-policymakers/cato-ha…

1. Property is theft is an anarchist position. While libertarians (as you cite the Cato Institute) and anarchists have an overlap of some positions, they are greatly at odds in others. 2. Whenever somebody starts telling me what the Founding Fathers thought I expect some BS which is only there to support their opinion and is so lopsided that it might as well be called a lie.

To say property is theft is an oxymoron. Theft requires ownership.

Folks who say this assume they have a right to someone else's labor aka slavery

Completely nonsense in a modern society.

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

#322

Post by udit99 »

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…

I recommend reading "Digital Minimalism" by Cal Newport. It identifies this problem well and has a lot of practical suggestions for countering it. The one that worked for me was uninstalling twitter/reddit/HN apps and replacing them with using the browser. Doesnt sound like much but the added friction of typing out everything in the browser (I'm mostly on incognito) took my compulsive dopamine-fix phone-checking behavior down by a lot. For HN, I also try to rely on the "Hacker Newsletter" to counter any FOMO.

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

#323

Post by roarl »

Maybe this is me getting old(er), but personal unintended consequences is how little I care about new tech, especially the focus of mobile phones and how expensive they have gotten. Not only have I reached a point where I am actively reducing the amount of devices I have and different types of software. This also extends to turning off any kind of notification etc, very few things are important enough to disrupt my chain of thought at all, none when on a regular basis.

One of my other gripes is the dumbing down of software, where everything is so simplified that doing your own backups, or finding any kind of backups of a kind is just incredible inconvenient or impossible.

I grew up in the 90s (born mid 80s) and I long for that era of computing in terms of my relationship to it. While I absolutely know that I am looking at this with heavy, rose-tinted goggles, but life without the Internet was better. This is in the context of distraction, because the Internet has become the distraction-enabler through mobile phones, iPads etc. While it has enabled communication, it also enabled distraction. I'd wager that the personal productivity and/or happiness is severely reduced for a large amount of people and companies, due to "abusing the web".

Oh, I also never use my smartphone. I can talk with my friends for hours on it, but other than a few things here and there, I barely use it. But what I hate is the expectation that one should be available and accessible basically all the time. Friends and family have gotten used to my quirks, but I still feel the pressure of being available when the phone is close by.

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

#324

Post by roarl »

mattlondon wrote: post #234

My favourite one that surprised me and continues to surprise people: kids that have grown up with smartphones and iPads from birth are computer illiterate. People see their 5 year old using an iPad and the knee-jerk cliche thought/assumption us the classic "oh wow these kids just get technology!" (recall all the "I need my kid to program the VCR" type stuff from the 80s/90s - it is the same thing of older people assu…

My mother is a perfect example of this. She is fascinated that my 6-year old nephew just gets the iPad, he's unafraid to use it and can do so much! At his age I edited the startup of MS-DOS to free up RAM for playing games. Times have changed indeed.

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

#325

Post by heavyset_go »

geggam wrote: post #321
Eremotherium wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Property is theft is an anarchist position. While libertarians (as you cite the Cato Institute) and anarchists have an overlap of some positions, they are greatly at odds in others. 2. Whenever somebody starts telling me what the Founding Fathers thought I expect some BS which is only there to support their opinion and is so lopsided that it might as well be called a lie.

To say property is theft is an oxymoron. Theft requires ownership. Folks who say this assume they have a right to someone else's labor aka slavery Completely nonsense in a modern society.

> Folks who say this assume they have a right to someone else's labor aka slavery

If you read the article I posted, you'd see that your cursory objection is thoroughly false:

> Proudhon was clear that his opposition to property did not extend to exclusive possession of labor-made wealth.

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

#326

Post by 1123581321 »

onion2k wrote: post #241
pbosko wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's estimation for my country is always less than what is achievable if you stick to the speed limit. I guess they calculate it based on other drivers.

In practical terms speeding actually makes very little difference to your journey time. Eg if you have a 100 mile drive on a 70mph road and you drive the entire way at 85mph your reward is saving about 10 minutes on a 1.5 hour trip. The downside risk is getting charged for speeding and being delayed for much more than 10 minutes. I've never though the cost/benefit shows it to be particularly worthwhile.

10 minutes a day on a commute to work and back is significant and, if you drop down a couple mph, is low risk. That’s almost an extra hour a week without giving up any valuable activity.

I could only see the cost/benefit looking not worthwhile if you already have a lot of free time. An adult commuting 90 minutes a day might only have 2-4 hours of free time per day during the workweek.

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

#327

Post by [deleted] »

mattlondon wrote: post #234

My favourite one that surprised me and continues to surprise people: kids that have grown up with smartphones and iPads from birth are computer illiterate. People see their 5 year old using an iPad and the knee-jerk cliche thought/assumption us the classic "oh wow these kids just get technology!" (recall all the "I need my kid to program the VCR" type stuff from the 80s/90s - it is the same thing of older people assu…

[deleted]

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

#328

Post by qeternity »

buboard wrote: post #320
qeternity wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an expat all of my life, I’ve really noticed this in the last 5 years. It’s also extremely hypocritical because I find myself walking around in places I have lived before, or been to many times, and feeling angry at the “tourists” ruining it.

As someone who lives in a pop tourist place, my reaction is less about being angry, it s more ‘what the hell are they all doing here’. It feels like those lines outside shops on black friday that i used to see on US TV. How can it be ‘cool’ to travel when everybody’s doing it?

I grew up in West LA, which is now overrun with tourists, largely Asian. So I feel it both in places that I have a reason to be in, but also in places which I feel I'm more entitled to than others.

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

#329

Post by apostacy »

mattlondon wrote: post #234

My favourite one that surprised me and continues to surprise people: kids that have grown up with smartphones and iPads from birth are computer illiterate. People see their 5 year old using an iPad and the knee-jerk cliche thought/assumption us the classic "oh wow these kids just get technology!" (recall all the "I need my kid to program the VCR" type stuff from the 80s/90s - it is the same thing of older people assu…

Some related threads from a few weeks ago about rising computer illiteracy among kids:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21241535

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21237540

I really have noticed that elderly people who have no computer experience have a better grasp of computing concepts than most kids. They understand physical media stores sounds and pictures, so it easy to explain that pictures and music lives on their sd card, like a phonograph or roll of film, except much more. They understand that you need an internet connection to communicate, like how you need your phone hooked up to make phone calls, since they have all had to deal with the phone company to get their phone working. And it is really simple to explain that a wifi router is just extending the internet into your living room. They understand sending an email and attaching a picture to it (use the paper clip and pick the picture). I was even able to explain the file system to someone, by saying that instead of just printing out his letters, he can store them inside a "folder", and print them out later as many times as he wants.

These concepts seem utterly lost on so many kids. They will send you a series of screenshots of a website instead of just sending the url. They are constantly losing data. They can not tell you where their data "lives"; whether it is in their iCloud or their phone or whatever.

It's not that horrible, but I am disappointed because I honestly thought that by now we would all be more computer literate. Isn't this what schools are supposed to teach?

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

#330

Post by zbentley »

buboard wrote: post #279
JDiculous wrote: post #98

Depression. People are spending the majority of their lives staring at a screen, and then wondering why they're depressed. In the moment it might not feel lonely. Exchanging DMs and posting on Reddit / HN / social media might feel like real communication. But ultimately there's a sense of emptiness to it, and it can't substitute real flesh-to-flesh human connection. But it feels like we're always expected to be on ou…

This is a real problem and , oddly the solution is to build even more immersive technologies that bring people closer together, thus making the jump from virtual life -> real life smoother. We can't expect to just tell people to "go out and meet people", because people's expectations have changed, and the street has no "mute" and "block" buttons.

> We can't expect to just tell people to "go out and meet people", because people's expectations have changed

And they can't/won't change again? That seems wrong.

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