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Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

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Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#71

Post by sleepybrett »

curtisblaine wrote: post #18
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: for some reason, the world stops making computers, but keeps the ones that already exist Step 2: 100 years pass Step 3: computers are now an old (and dying) tradition, kept going only by a small group of people who understand how to care for the machines. Was that so hard?

Step 1 is really hard if computers are useful (why do you stop making something that's useful?), but step 3 is simply not believable: a society that has machines that could, at the minimum, help solving complex calculations and engineering problems much better than humans decides to completely ignore them. That's not how societies work.

1 happens every fucking day, hell wasn't there an article today about people who have older equipment that depend on floppy disks and how hard it is to find reliable disks these days? The article discussed an older embroidery machine, the only way to supply it with patterns to embroider was 3.5 inch floppy. His are starting to fail. But this is also true of older samplers, drum machines, synthesizers, etc.

Sometimes someone manages to spin up new manufacturing of retro components or things to replace the retro components (there are a few pcbs running around that can replace floppy drives that conform to certain interfaces with usb sticks or sd cards or even a network): Vacuum tubes, parts for vintage cars, parts for vintage watches, vinyl records, etc. but often before that happens the entire known supply needs to be scavenged.

So I can imagine a world where we manage to start doing the things we are doing with some new technology that is not digital silicon based computers that run on electricity. But there will be edges where the new technology is not compatible with some system, and in that edge lives this kind of speculation.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#72

Post by [deleted] »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #55
Syonyk wrote: post #33

> Solid-state computer components, on the other hand, have no mechanical decay, so they are practically eternal. I wish. Electrolytic capacitors seem to have a functional lifespan of about 10-20 years, transistors do wear out, electromigration is a problem in chips in the "hundreds of years" span discussed, and there are all sorts of other interesting failure modes of "solid state" electronics that mean they're not g…

I recently had to replace an SSD that was only 3 years old; it's dead-dead, as in, slowed down one day and then wouldn't boot. I've never had an HDD die this fast in my life. I know this is only one example but I'm curious if anyone else has a similar experience.

[deleted]

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#73

Post by Karrot_Kream »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #54
olddustytrail wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't (No1 easy to imagine). Computers are only useful because we have a stable society that we can build on. Post apocalyptic societies have zero practical use for computers.

> Post apocalyptic societies have zero practical use for computers. Post global nuclear war reconstruction would really benefit from having even a simple spreadsheet program to aid with resource allocation, wouldn’t it?

> Whatever you do with them [computers] is automatically seen as practice of an ancient and unchanging tradition.

During a nuclear war reconstruction scenario, computing wouldn't be seen as ancient or unchanging. We'd be in a transitory period where we try and recreate computing infrastructure with what we have and the power sources we have access to. But we wouldn't develop an ancient tradition or anything.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#74

Post by Jiro »

tobr wrote: post #13
nh23423fefe wrote: post #3

This kind of speculative fiction doesn't work. Usually the template is described as: take some part of the world and tweak it and then press play and see what the world looks like now. Instead this is just "invert some part of culture" which makes no sense. Culture is the emergent externalized collective intelligence of social creatures. You can't invent a culture which would preserve this property without asserting…

Imagine a world where you can just assert any fact as the starting point of speculative fiction. Then imagine that someone would write a piece where computers were inherently old.

It's like asking "would you believe in homeopathy if doctors all told you that it was correct?"

To which the answer is "Doctors believe things for reasons. You can't just flip a switch and change what doctors think without changing the entire world so that homeopathy is actually true, and that would be such a weird world that science in it would be unrecognizeable."

(And since I'm not ChatGPT, I can answer your entire question: "Such a story would have an incoherent world. I could imagine someone writing a story that takes place in an incoherent world, but you wouldn't be able to get useful insights from it.")

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#75

Post by sleepybrett »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #55
Syonyk wrote: post #33

> Solid-state computer components, on the other hand, have no mechanical decay, so they are practically eternal. I wish. Electrolytic capacitors seem to have a functional lifespan of about 10-20 years, transistors do wear out, electromigration is a problem in chips in the "hundreds of years" span discussed, and there are all sorts of other interesting failure modes of "solid state" electronics that mean they're not g…

I recently had to replace an SSD that was only 3 years old; it's dead-dead, as in, slowed down one day and then wouldn't boot. I've never had an HDD die this fast in my life. I know this is only one example but I'm curious if anyone else has a similar experience.

Have a virtual memory pagefile on it?

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#76

Post by aj7 »

mikewarot wrote: post #25

I've watched over time as the desktop stopped being the primary computing device of choice for many people. I've grown far too accustomed to the power and flexibility of a nice keyboard and 32" monitor, and virtually endless storage and general purpose compute that I own to fall into that usage pattern, but I understand the appeal. No Wednesday morning headaches from Microsoft, no applications breaking with the new P…

I don’t think much “computing” is done, in our sense of the word, on tablets and phones. Personally, I’ve found that almost any slightly complex, has-to-be-done-once-and p-right, action is better performed on an actual computer. And that’s not even considering writing new programs.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#77

Post by Karrot_Kream »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #51
nh23423fefe wrote: post #3

This kind of speculative fiction doesn't work. Usually the template is described as: take some part of the world and tweak it and then press play and see what the world looks like now. Instead this is just "invert some part of culture" which makes no sense. Culture is the emergent externalized collective intelligence of social creatures. You can't invent a culture which would preserve this property without asserting…

Imagine a world where everybody simply has an AI assistant in their pocket, that simply tells them anything they might need to know. Design programs for you. Draw you any image. Perhaps even construct virtual worlds. We are almost there already. Only weird old people would bother to learn how to program dumb desktop computers.

There's a lot of people who feel disquieted by the pace of software systems and aspire to do work in software that feels similar to the more methodological, slower paced work of more mature fields like HVAC engineering or structural engineering. These folks find solace in this kind of speculative fiction.

I feel their disquiet is misplaced. Any young, fast-moving field is going to be full of the same issues that software is in now. You can look back at the history of mechanical engineering during the industrial revolution to see many similar problems we had with unsafe projects, hyped-up snake oil, or iteration for the sake of iteration. The history of automobiles and aviation was also marked by similar issues. Slower paced engineering fields are more mature and have gone through decades or centuries of iteration before coming up with tried and true solutions. But fundamentally fiction speaks to the soul more than it speaks to any measurable outcome. Truly the only fix for this disquiet is to search inside rather than look out. Fiction can be a great tool for that.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#78

Post by Karrot_Kream »

aj7 wrote: post #76
mikewarot wrote: post #25

I've watched over time as the desktop stopped being the primary computing device of choice for many people. I've grown far too accustomed to the power and flexibility of a nice keyboard and 32" monitor, and virtually endless storage and general purpose compute that I own to fall into that usage pattern, but I understand the appeal. No Wednesday morning headaches from Microsoft, no applications breaking with the new P…

I don’t think much “computing” is done, in our sense of the word, on tablets and phones. Personally, I’ve found that almost any slightly complex, has-to-be-done-once-and p-right, action is better performed on an actual computer. And that’s not even considering writing new programs.

This hasn't been my experience. I'm able to be surprisingly effective on my smartphone. I've constructed trip itineraries, balanced outing budgets, shared shopping lists, designed room layouts, computed food and drink recipe ratios, built DJ sets, laid out wood pieces, and read books using my smartphone. Coding is probably the only thing that I find unparalleled with a keyboard and a seated position than my smartphone. I used to game more often when I was younger and I still generally prefer to game in a seated position though I have gamed on my smartphone before.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#79

Post by Karrot_Kream »

brokenmachine wrote: post #59
beardog wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise Gen Z and Alpha are not very technical. Many teens and 20 somethings have a hard time with seemingly basic tasks like finding files. As a 20 something myself, my public school did not offer any 'technical' courses beyond office programs and keyboarding.

In fairness, modern mobile devices seem to be determined to make how the filesystem works as opaque as possible.

Files and folders are based on a metaphor applying to paper-based organizational systems. People used to have typewriter printouts that they used to mark up by pen and place into folders, then file away into filing cabinets. Is there really a need for a filesystem other than in the vestiges of what we consider an operating system?

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#80

Post by [deleted] »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #55
Syonyk wrote: post #33

> Solid-state computer components, on the other hand, have no mechanical decay, so they are practically eternal. I wish. Electrolytic capacitors seem to have a functional lifespan of about 10-20 years, transistors do wear out, electromigration is a problem in chips in the "hundreds of years" span discussed, and there are all sorts of other interesting failure modes of "solid state" electronics that mean they're not g…

I recently had to replace an SSD that was only 3 years old; it's dead-dead, as in, slowed down one day and then wouldn't boot. I've never had an HDD die this fast in my life. I know this is only one example but I'm curious if anyone else has a similar experience.

[deleted]
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