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Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

theatlantic.com

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Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#71

Post by pm »

rohern wrote: post #52

This article is spot on in its thesis, though not always in its arguments. Everyone is convinced -- because the people who work in marketing are happy because they can sell ads -- that social media is an important thing. It is not. Social media is people doing what they were already doing, only more often and anywhere. Flirting with girls, talking with friends, etc. Making these activities digital is not changing soc…

All the companies I know, from local dev shops to funded startups to public behemoths, are hurting for good hackers. Even though there may be too many companies not doing things worthy of hackers, why aren't worthy hackers gravitating towards those companies that are worthy?

I agree though, we need more of these companies. I think of all the things that we could be doing, and I remember how I used to want to change the world before running a business got in the way. Sometimes you need an opportunity that puts you in a position to do something that truly fulfils your dreams, as Elon Musk did with PayPal.

Can only hope some of us are observant enough to have our preparation meet with opportunity.

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#72

Post by Schwolop »

rohern wrote: post #52

This article is spot on in its thesis, though not always in its arguments. Everyone is convinced -- because the people who work in marketing are happy because they can sell ads -- that social media is an important thing. It is not. Social media is people doing what they were already doing, only more often and anywhere. Flirting with girls, talking with friends, etc. Making these activities digital is not changing soc…

This comment is gold. Are you sure you don't want to move to Sydney and build robots with me?

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#73

Post by mtts »

swalsh wrote: post #70

I think there's a new paradigm in the making, many people are talking about it... but it's young. The internet of stuff is next! A lot of the building blocks are in place, personally I think Arduino is a really big component that is driving the revolution and Kickstarter is providing a surprisingly good platform for funding it. However there's still a few missing components. One of the goals of LTE is to power this n…

I'd love for this to be true, but I think it isn't. An internet of stuff depends on raw materials being dirt cheap. Unfortunately, during the last five years or so the price of raw materials has started to increase, not decrease, and for reasons so fundamental it's unlikely this process will end soon.

So rather than an internet of stuff the new paradigm in the making will probably have something to with scarcity. No idea what, exactly, but my bet would definitely on a future of scarcity rather than a future of abundance.

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#74

Post by mtts »

icebraining wrote: post #51
sparknlaunch12 wrote: post #39

Is the new future offline? We have grown attached to our electronic devices and online friends. Maybe we need to step back and think about going back?

Why?

We're so enthusiastic about the possibilities the internet offers us that we want to do everything online now, even things we're hardwired to do irl. Inane chatter in real life causes your body to release hormones that make you feel good. Inane chatter on facebook not so much. So maybe the future is indeed that we learn to take the internet for what it is: a fantastic tool for disseminating information and doing business, but nothing more. So the challenge will be to give people meaningful ways to interact with each other in real life now that the human component has been taken out of things like education and shopping.

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#75

Post by wladimir »

prostoalex wrote: post #29
gavinlynch wrote: post #9

I fail to understand this article because I think there are so many different topics the author touches on.. Innovation. Culture. Tech business and startups.. I think the author is conflating some of these concepts or just misunderstanding some. For instance, innovation. What does Facebook have to do with innovation? I'm sure there are a few innovative things they have done, but in my view the outline for the broad c…

tl;dr "Outside of iPhone, Kindle and mobile applications you nerds have invented absolutely nothing over past 10 years".

Don't forget all the mass surveillance and control that "we nerds" made possible.

The picture of the last 20 years is not rosy. Computer technology has advanced a lot, sure, but when I read things from the 70's it seems that there was a more enlightened society back then. I heartily agree with rohern's sentiment.

It's a societal problem. Even though a lot of people would love to work on really new and bold and innovative things, it's impossible to do if society doesn't enable it. For example if your project is immediately shot down due to legal reasons, or not financed out of fear or conservatism.

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#76

Post by patrickk »

shadowmint wrote: post #64
unimpressive wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People often go to bed regretting not doing what they could have done when instead they were on Facebook and Twitter and [insert the names of 90% of the startups you have heard of]. I know I have. Many more times than I care to admit. >it is that too many companies are not doing things worthy of hackers. Excellent. And since I always ask this question of people who lament the status quo: What did you have in mind?

Make ubiquitous computing a reality (Raspberry PI is a step in this direction). Make personal analytics useful (something like http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/09/stephen-wolfram-reveals-t... , but in a way that is actually useful to normal people). Link the offline and online into one seamless reality (google glass) If I had to dream about the future and what it should be we're aiming for, it'd be joint universal aug…

Add Google self-driving car to that list. Reducing alcohol and speed related deaths to zero within our lifetime, getting rid of car parks (fleets of autonomous vehicles move onto the next customer), cheaper delivery of any physical product currently delivered by road, reduced CO2 emissions (cars know when they need servicing), more productive workforces- you can sleep during your commute, the list of benefits is mind boggling. I would love a kit that I could snap onto my car today that could do this (laws notwithstanding). It's going to be a massive game changer for societies.

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#77

Post by dharma1 »

I think it's the way evolution works. Sometimes it's slow for a while - then things click into place and there is rapid progress.

The Khan Academy (and other free online, high quality education) is probably the most revolutionary thing that has come out of the internet in the past few years.

I don't know how much effect it has at the moment in the developing world - whether resources like that are used in the classroom and by students - but the potential for transformation is huge. There is an enormous amount of people in the world with untapped talent because of lack of access to high quality education.

Biotech, synthetic biology etc aside, I think the next thing to facilitate change in computing is portable display technology - for personal use maybe it will be Google Glass once it's a mature product. For shared use I think low cost, lightweight high res laser/LED pico projectors will take off in the next couple of years. The computer itself will be a tablet/mobile phone, either with its own display or hooked up to one of these new display devices.

Battery tech is another interesting one - once we work out how to produce cheap, high energy density, long life batteries from a natural resource that is abundant, we'll see a lot of accelerated progress in several areas.

Of course the 1st world problems of not having enough cool gadgets and software will be put into perspective when the Earth's limited food/energy resources vs growing population starts playing out for real.

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#78

Post by icebraining »

mtts wrote: post #74
icebraining wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

We're so enthusiastic about the possibilities the internet offers us that we want to do everything online now, even things we're hardwired to do irl. Inane chatter in real life causes your body to release hormones that make you feel good. Inane chatter on facebook not so much. So maybe the future is indeed that we learn to take the internet for what it is: a fantastic tool for disseminating information and doing busi…

We're so enthusiastic about the possibilities the internet offers us that we want to do everything online now, even things we're hardwired to do irl.

We're "hardwired" to do everything IRL, simply because we couldn't have evoved to adapt to it in such a small period of time.

But here's others technologies that we weren't "hardwired" for, and which actually "re-wired" us: Language and Agriculture. I'm having an hard time figuring out how doesn't your argument apply to them too.

Inane chatter in real life causes your body to release hormones that make you feel good. Inane chatter on facebook not so much.

Well, I actually find inane chatter to be painful anywhere, but; the Internet is just Facebook now? I'm not hardwired to play online games, but they do make our bodies release dopamine and cortisol, even though we're not hardwired for it.

So maybe the future is indeed that we learn to take the internet for what it is: a fantastic tool for disseminating information and doing business, but nothing more.

But we're not hardwired for that either. How is that application good? Shouldn't we be transmitting information in form of songs, as it's natural?

So the challenge will be to give people meaningful ways to interact with each other in real life now that the human component has been taken out of things like education and shopping.

When was the human component taken out of things like education? And did the introduction of the web really remove a meaningful interaction, or did it just free up time that can now be spent with e.g. your family instead of with salespeople? Because that's my (anecdotal) experience.

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#79

Post by johnwyles »

superasn wrote: post #6

There is lots of stuff happening which I hope we'll probably see integrated soon in our mobile phones. The top two things which I'm waiting to see in my mobile is 1) The lightfield camera and 2) a device like the "sixth sense".

is the lytro really all that impressive that you would list it as one of two things you want to see in mobile? i think i would rather see about a dozen other things in mobile before I really cared about shifting focus for my crappy mobile pics - NFC being chief among them

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#80

Post by redwood »

swalsh wrote: post #70

I think there's a new paradigm in the making, many people are talking about it... but it's young. The internet of stuff is next! A lot of the building blocks are in place, personally I think Arduino is a really big component that is driving the revolution and Kickstarter is providing a surprisingly good platform for funding it. However there's still a few missing components. One of the goals of LTE is to power this n…

3d printing!!!
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