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I'm leaving the Internet for a year

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Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#51

Post by wavephorm »

carguy1983 wrote: post #24

Life before the internet was incredibly boring most of the time. You spent the majority of your free time figuring out ways to wring the most value from the 10% of time spent doing actual things with actual people. A lot of it was filled with TV and moving around needlessly (to get things, to send things, to be somewhere at a certain time to pick up the phone...). It really sucked.

  Life before the internet was incredibly boring most of the time.
It's pretty boring most of the time today too. It seems to me as if the more "painless" our society becomes (less hard labor, more free time, movies, and porn), the more boring it becomes. Reading Twitter gives me a headache these days. Oh, you retweeted that someone I don't know went to a concert that was good. That's nice. Really, I don't give a shit.

I constantly switch sides. The internet makes me think we're heading toward the Huxley scenario. And the government, with their SOPA/CISCPA actions make me thing we're heading toward the Orwellian scenario. And it is still to be decided which direction we end up.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#52

Post by Cushman »

ctdonath wrote: post #36
Cushman wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't read it as whimsical; I was originally going to write something like "You're quitting smoking? Are you going to quit coffee, too?" It struck me as pretty harsh. I do think there's legitimate value to the idea-- I'd bet most people would be a lot happier without electricity or indoor plumbing than we'd imagine. But I think if somebody decided to try it for a year, a guy saying "No electricity, huh? Are you go…

Taking the absurd seriously... I dabble in a blog featuring $1 meals. I get snide quips from people criticizing "oh, but are you taking costs of running a gas/electric stove into account? betcha haven't taken THAT into account!" So...several meals posted (or coming soon) are indeed cooked over an open fire of random deadwood. So lighten up. The query is a half-serious challenge to go a step further. Those of us who H…

"Lighten up"? Come on, man. I thought you were mocking the guy, but I could see how you might not mean it that way, so rather than run off and accuse you, or drive-by downvote, I asked what you meant. Which I guess you took as a slight against your honor?

Clearly I need to stop taking everything so serious.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#53

Post by carguy1983 »

wavephorm wrote: post #51
carguy1983 wrote: post #24

Life before the internet was incredibly boring most of the time. You spent the majority of your free time figuring out ways to wring the most value from the 10% of time spent doing actual things with actual people. A lot of it was filled with TV and moving around needlessly (to get things, to send things, to be somewhere at a certain time to pick up the phone...). It really sucked.

Life before the internet was incredibly boring most of the time. It's pretty boring most of the time today too. It seems to me as if the more "painless" our society becomes (less hard labor, more free time, movies, and porn), the more boring it becomes. Reading Twitter gives me a headache these days. Oh, you retweeted that someone I don't know went to a concert that was good. That's nice. Really, I don't give a shit.…

What I meant was the internet helps me do things in the real world.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#54

Post by ThomPete »

The first time I moved to the US I always thought I would learn a lot about the states.

What I realized is that it taught me more about Denmark where I came from.

By leaving the internet my suspicion is that he will learn a lot about it and probably get his priorities straight.

If you can afford it, clever move.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#55

Post by narrator »

carguy1983 wrote: post #24

Life before the internet was incredibly boring most of the time. You spent the majority of your free time figuring out ways to wring the most value from the 10% of time spent doing actual things with actual people. A lot of it was filled with TV and moving around needlessly (to get things, to send things, to be somewhere at a certain time to pick up the phone...). It really sucked.

One thing about life before the Internet was that social connections were used for finding out information. Nowadays people just go on the Internet and find it. Knowing a lot about a lot of things doesn't really count for much. I used to program Macs in the 90s and you'd get these big old Inside Mac books and maybe a good Primer book and if you got stuck, there was no stack overflow. You just had to go ask somebody. People maintained friendships because they might need information from that person. Now that's become totally obsolete.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#56

Post by graeme »

sheraz wrote: post #43
sassafras wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's useful to keep in mind McCluhan's adage "the medium is the message". It's the way a new medium influences culture in and of itself that has the greatest impact on us, not the content it carries. Perhaps a better analogy for the Internet would be the printing press, but either way, it was arguably the ubiquity, accessibility and automation of electric power that changed society the most. Similarly, the fact that…

The problem with that famous line is that it is absolutely devoid of any meaning. The actual line is "The Medium is the Massage" -- NOTE: MASSAGE -- and it was largely criticized as being incoherent [1]. A lot of post-modern non-sense that was well-timed to a period of social and cultural upheaval among idealistic youth culture. For anyone interested in media commentary I recommend Niel Postman's "Amusing Ourselves t…

I haven't read McLuhan and have no opinion on his work. But from the article you linked to, the original phrase was "the medium is the message"

Your linked source also doesn't say anything about criticism of the phrase.

"The title is a play on McLuhan's oft-quoted saying "The medium is the message"."

"Why is the title of the book The Medium is the Massage and not The Medium is the Message? Actually, the title was a mistake. When the book came back from the typesetter's, it had on the cover 'Massage' as it still does. The title was supposed to have read The Medium is the Message but the typesetter had made an error. When McLuhan saw the typo he exclaimed, 'Leave it alone! It's great, and right on target!' Now there are possible four readings for the last word of the title, all of them accurate: Message and Mess Age, Massage and Mass Age."

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#57

Post by jakejake »

Every few months I see a grand announcement on Facebook from someone or another about how they are closing their account. It always strikes me as a plea for their friends to beg them to stay.

In this case obviously he is a writer so he probably has the idea that he will write a pulitzer-prize winning article about his year spent offline.

I think if you're truly fed up with technology, just drop out. No need to make a big announcement about it.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#58

Post by personlurking »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #46
dm8 wrote: post #18

Couple of years back I hiked in Himalayas and there was no access to Internet for 15 days. Not just Internet but no cell phones, TVs, iPod etc. For first 3-4 days when we were still in rural towns of India, we had electricity but after that we had no access to electricity. I must say it was the best experience of my life. I don't think I missed anything at all. As far as author goes, 1 year is a really long time. I'd…

It's one thing to go on a vacation and cut yourself off. It's another thing to cut yourself off for the day to day grind.

Here's one guy's experience of life (5 months of travels through Africa) before cell phones and, in general, most modern technology.

http://www.quora.com/Mobile-Phones/What-was-daily-life-like-...

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#59

Post by cjoh »

mortenjorck wrote: post #19

Having followed Paul's writing for awhile, I feel like I get where he's coming from and what he hopes to do with this endeavor. I really respect that. But I still have to question the viability, and ultimately the value, of this honestly rather extreme abstentionism. If he were moving to a village in Thailand, things would be different – he'd be surrounded by people who don't need the internet, and the society he'd b…

Agreed. If he's looking to "disconnect" it'd be more interesting to see him also go rural for a year.
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