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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

#101

Post by cpeterso »

graeme wrote: post #82
DanBC wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video and bandwidth are impressive - 1995 was still painfully slow for many people. People maybe had 56 kbit/s, but perhaps that dropped back to 33.3 kbit/s because of noisy lines. (v90 was approved late 1998). I was stuck on 14.4 kbps for ages. Oh god. ("Sloppy" is apparently a modem speed simulator. ( http://www.dallaway.com/sloppy/ ) ) But I think the magic would be video and bandwidth on a handheld device?

I've noticed that the web has gotten more useful. Google has an answer for more and more things. Wikipedia covers more topics. The qualitative difference is real, but hard to measure, because we can't search the web as it was in 2004, using the google of 2004. I know I only went halfway back. If you go to 1995, there's a whole class of services that didn't exist.

Yeah, Wikipedia would be a pretty big "future shock" (though more social than technological).

And another social surprise would be Facebook because of the number of non-techies using the Internet.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#102

Post by nerdfiles »

olalonde wrote: post #77
nerdfiles wrote: post #27

For the past couple of months I've lived without iPhone (with Prompt and Textastic) or phone for that matter (except for the occasional Skype call). I've tried to restrict my development and general Web usage to ~2 hours a day. I recall bumping into a colleague at around 3-4a.m. We had a smoke and then he got called away to do tech support on some web app he had been contractually obligated to support. Given experien…

Lots of applause lights in there ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/jb/applause_lights/ ). I'm pretty sure things are not nearly as bad as you seem to believe.

It's largely anecdotal, personal writing. So your description of my style may be technically accurate, but I feel your point suffers as a Mary-the-Color-Scientist observation.

Take Paul Grice's Maxims for conversational exchange: Many maxims are at play, and we shouldn't expect for anyone to be "in control" of their execution of a maxim (maxim of relevance, truth, etc.). And an important point is that Grice notes a maxim of relevance: relevant _information_.

Do I aim to supply anyone with _information_ with my post? Am I giving you information? From my post, does it seem like I, the author, would see _information_ as imperative to my point? Yes, naturally programmers expect an optimally informative state such that transaction might occur, but...

Please, just read the sentences. I'm not a politician trying to convince you. I am a human being with an approximate grasp of Academic English. I mean, you're re-labeling my style with "UNINFORMATIVE."

How do you expect me to take that?

And "as bad as you seem to believe." Please point to anywhere in what I have written that suggests I have described an overarching state of affairs to which we should all direct our attention.

My point is nothing more than "it is a lifestyle choice amongst many". Of course as someone who works out daily, as my anecdotal bits clear emphasize, I am at once suggesting my own bias. But "things"... I'm nowhere in that post talking about _things as they are_ or "the grand scheme."

You've applied that concept, not me. I'm mainly interested in this idea that _Everything before the Internet is boring_. I am thinking in terms that we have all well acknowledged: hours spent in front of a screen. The 5:01 developer intuits this. When I consider my hours not spent in front of a screen, I have sport, books, travel, etc. Others have this as well. Sometimes family or quite simply that too-sunny-fucking-idyllic-sunday feeling that tells you: What I am discussing here, with this poet, must be more interesting than work. So my point is actually a request for us to halt the discussion. Before we talk about values (good, bad, etc.), let's first acknowledge that it is a lifestyle. We should understand the values of the lifestyle (notably the one the original author seems to reject).

And as a follow-up: What motivates this linguistic policing?

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#103

Post by 6ren »

ramanujan wrote: post #88
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…

It is pretty interesting to list everything internet-related (from VOIP to bill payments to search) and realize that we're in a period similar to the era in which electricity became a utility. In the early 20th century, electricity was still uncommon in many places; Lenin's slogan[1] in the 1920s was that "Communism = Soviet Power + Electrification of the whole country". Paul David[2] is an economic historian who poi…

Removing constraints (aka increasing flexibility) seems like a good bet, even if you don't know exactly how it will be helpful (all things being equal - i.e. you don't add new constraints/trade-offs) . There are forces/demands applied to everything, and things settle into an equilibrium of trade-offs between those forces (provided you don't add onerous new constraints). If you release some constraints... you can enable a shift to a new equilibrium of trade-offs.

The greater the number of constraints you can release, to a greater degree, the more likely you are to prompt a revolution.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#104

Post by gouranga »

ars wrote: post #98
gouranga wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was incredibly inconvenient you mean? In the mid-90s, before broadband proliferation, I managed to get from London to Manchester via train (200 miles) which takes bloody forever. When I got there, I realised I'd forgotten the damn software I was supposed to be installing (100Mb of deployables). That resulted in an additional 400 mile round trip to London and back via slow train. A 2 day install job took 4 days and…

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to express mail it?

Cheaper yes but if you know the courier services in the UK at the time, there is no guarantee it'd get there on time.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#105

Post by [deleted] »

olalonde wrote: post #77
nerdfiles wrote: post #27

For the past couple of months I've lived without iPhone (with Prompt and Textastic) or phone for that matter (except for the occasional Skype call). I've tried to restrict my development and general Web usage to ~2 hours a day. I recall bumping into a colleague at around 3-4a.m. We had a smoke and then he got called away to do tech support on some web app he had been contractually obligated to support. Given experien…

Lots of applause lights in there ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/jb/applause_lights/ ). I'm pretty sure things are not nearly as bad as you seem to believe.

[deleted]

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#106

Post by gurkendoktor »

I think not getting a data plan for your smartphone (or using a dumbphone) is a pretty good balance nowadays. I can't think of a single thing I've been missing after my iPhone contract ran out. I still have the internet when I focus on it and work, but I don't run around like a short-sighted, Facebook-addicted zombie on the subway anymore.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#107

Post by zmmz »

ramanujan wrote: post #88
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…

It is pretty interesting to list everything internet-related (from VOIP to bill payments to search) and realize that we're in a period similar to the era in which electricity became a utility. In the early 20th century, electricity was still uncommon in many places; Lenin's slogan[1] in the 1920s was that "Communism = Soviet Power + Electrification of the whole country". Paul David[2] is an economic historian who poi…

Thanks for sourcing your article!

Could you also provide a link to more information about "Honda's dark factories"? I have no idea what it is, and Google did not help me.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#108

Post by zmmz »

cjoh wrote: post #59
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.

I disagree.

I think we all know that it's possible to "go rural". Many have done it.

What Paul is doing is far more interesting and valuable to him as a tech journalist. I see this as a research project, not as a rejection of the web. To quote:

> Now I want to see the internet at a distance. By separating myself from the constant connectivity, I can see which aspects are truly valuable, which are distractions for me, and which parts are corrupting my very soul. What I worry is that I'm so "adept" at the internet that I've found ways to fill every crevice of my life with it, and I'm pretty sure the internet has invaded some places where it doesn't belong.

He will still live in NYC, still write tech articles, but by disconnecting he will constantly have some distance from the material. I will be happy to read his observations on the field around him through his new perspective.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#109

Post by IsaacL »

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.

I tried Tim Ferris' "media fast" idea recently, though I only lasted 2 days (he recommends a week). No surfing, magazines, books, newspaper, TV...

I noticed I was bored, but I also felt that maybe it was good to be bored, at least once in a while. Having your desire for entertainment/attention constantly satisfied is just as unnatural as having your desire for sugar/fat/carbs constantly satisfied. Practicing meditation maybe helped me see that boredom can be beneficial.

Two other things I noticed: I suddenly had masses of free time. Previously, spare time was mopped up by surfing or reading books on my iPad. And while at the station I got the urge to look up something on my smartphone, remembered I wasn't allowed to, and rediscovered the forgotten experience musing about a question I had no way of finding the answer to.

Re: I'm leaving the Internet for a year

#110

Post by ottoweibraun »

nerdfiles wrote: post #27

For the past couple of months I've lived without iPhone (with Prompt and Textastic) or phone for that matter (except for the occasional Skype call). I've tried to restrict my development and general Web usage to ~2 hours a day. I recall bumping into a colleague at around 3-4a.m. We had a smoke and then he got called away to do tech support on some web app he had been contractually obligated to support. Given experien…

I specifically signed up to express my appreciation of your post - thanks for taking the time to comment. You very effectively articulate my own apprehension about our emersion in digital technologies and the compromises we possibly make as a consequence. It would be foolish (and futile) to extol a new luddistism; I fully appreciate the benefits of internet technologies working in the field myself but I think maybe we would all benefit from a more acute awareness of how and why we are using such services as FB and Twitter to determine when they are becoming counter productive. I have personally found terminating accounts for both these services profoundly beneficial.
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