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Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life?

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Re: Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life?

#21

Post by aeblyve »

getnormality wrote: post #19
aeblyve wrote: post #14

I feel that this is a basically reactionary perspective, despite the author's assertion that it is not. Doomscrolling, like drug addiction, is largely the product of the holistic social-biological environment of the actor. People generally do not intentionally throw away stimulating, happy, healthy lives to become destitute drug addicts, and a comparison of opening a parking payment application to being offered alcoh…

> Doomscrolling, like drug addiction, is largely the product of the holistic social-biological environment of the actor. Drug addiction is also a product of the availability of drugs. China has much less problems with opioid overdose than America because they learned their lesson in the 19th century.

Opium use in China was largely ended because of the Communist revolution there in the 20th century, and its policies on the matter.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/347925/

Re: Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life?

#22

Post by bdcravens »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #8

I recently won a water bottle in a raffle. It looked nice, stainless steel, big (probably 2 liters). When I unwrapped it, I saw a QR code that said "Instructions." Weird, why would I need instructions for a water bottle? Then I saw a large rubber plug in the bottom. I realized with horror, it's a bluetooth enabled heating/cooling element controlled by an app I'm supposed to download. The heating element is huge, take…

I don't know if I'd want that in a water bottle, since most high quality ones will maintain temperature for a long time. That said, I love my Ember "smart" coffee mug which keep coffee hot despite being open air. At the same time, I don't use any of the smart features. You can tweak things via Bluetooth, but I just keep it in default mode (ditto for my Oral-B iO9 toothbrush)

Re: Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life?

#23

Post by ToucanLoucan »

ryandrake wrote: post #3

Maybe this is a privileged outlook, but I've decided that each piece of technology needs to earn its place in my life, and I'm going to use it deliberately for a specific purpose, if I deem it to be worthy. The smartphone has not earned it yet. Im not going to live in an apartment that requires a smartphone to get into the door. That may involve me making sacrifices, I don't care. You have to draw a line somewhere. I…

The big differentiator for me is "Does this use of technology solve a problem?" I do have a smartphone, FWIW, but it's a tool. And granted, one of it's uses is to kill spare minutes while I'm waiting for someone in a car, or riding public transport somewhere, but that is a choice. I am consciously choosing to partake in social media as a distraction because I have nothing else going on.

In response to your examples here:

> Im not going to live in an apartment that requires a smartphone to get into the door.

110% agreed. I think some kind of smart lock or maybe an RFID thing is just a door lock that is far more error-prone than it needs to be. No reason for it.

> If parking somewhere requires an app

These I can like. The problem is you inevitably run into the problem you always run into: a given app provider is almost certainly not your local municipality, and you have no idea which provider a given area will have chosen to accomplish this. If this could be standardized into one provider, operating as a utility, that simply works everywhere in the United States, that would be fucking brilliant. Just pull up to any public owned lot or stall, scan a QR code, select how long you're parking, and be auto-billed according to pre-set preferences.

But of course that's not the real experience. You have to download a new app for any given place, set it up with an account, another password you're almost certainly going to forget, give yet another nameless corporation your personal details and payment information and fuck knows how they're going to store them, and repeat this process wholesale the next time you have to park somewhere else. That's maddeningly stupid.

> eating at a restaurant requires a QR code

Perhaps controversial, I think this is okay. Especially if it's the type of restaurant where the menu frequently changes, I think this is honestly a good move. It saves a bunch of paper from being thrown out constantly and gives the staff one less thing to need to juggle as they seat patrons. And QR scanning and opening a web-link is essentially built-in functionality to any smart phone made in the last 5 years or so.

Now, if you scan a link and you need to download a fucking app... fuck that. Hard fuck that.

Re: Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life?

#24

Post by mrweasel »

aeblyve wrote: post #14

I feel that this is a basically reactionary perspective, despite the author's assertion that it is not. Doomscrolling, like drug addiction, is largely the product of the holistic social-biological environment of the actor. People generally do not intentionally throw away stimulating, happy, healthy lives to become destitute drug addicts, and a comparison of opening a parking payment application to being offered alcoh…

> The ability to hide behind aliases to publish whatever you want without any "skin in the game" seems to have decreased the level of coherence overall and permitted for neurotic anti-reality perspectives to proliferate.

While I do agree with the need for regulation, I don't agree that anonymity is the issue. Today many/most people post under their real name on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and X, and still that doesn't stop people from posting the most vile stuff that you'll ever read. In some sense I feel like that's worse, because if they did so under a synonym there would be some sense that they know that they comments are unacceptable. I honestly think we need more anonymity online.

Re: Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life?

#25

Post by bdcravens »

bell-cot wrote: post #16
yoyohello13 wrote: post #8

I recently won a water bottle in a raffle. It looked nice, stainless steel, big (probably 2 liters). When I unwrapped it, I saw a QR code that said "Instructions." Weird, why would I need instructions for a water bottle? Then I saw a large rubber plug in the bottom. I realized with horror, it's a bluetooth enabled heating/cooling element controlled by an app I'm supposed to download. The heating element is huge, take…

Reminds me of the first time I had a car with a slow-motion-open glove box. Maybe that's cool, if you're showing off how Old Money fills the hours of their do-nothing lives? Vs. if you have a job, a family, and often too-few hours in your busy days? NO. I don't travel in a horse-drawn coach paced by footmen, either.

When I wash my car, I push the seat forward and backward to vacuum. I like having electrically adjustable seats, but that's one time I'd prefer the older-style lever. Similarly, I saw a self-defense video where if someone hides in your back seat and puts something around your neck, you can lean the seat back QUICKLY in an escape maneuver; impossible with electric seats.

Re: Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life?

#26

Post by AlexandrB »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #2

I don't have a problem with technology. I have a problem with technology trends that are irrational. For example the smart phone. A physical button or even alexa is easier to turn off the lights. A smart phone menu is just stupid. I want to decouple stupidity away from technology. That's not possible though. Most places where I worked... just a exploring the code for a couple minutes I encounter something stupid. So…

Strong disagree on Alexa. Maybe it's the way I talk, but I find voice assistants wildly inconsistent. There's nothing more frustrating than having to repeat yourself to a robot.

Maybe AI will improve the situation in the next few years, but I'm not convinced.

Re: Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life?

#27

Post by xg15 »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #8

I recently won a water bottle in a raffle. It looked nice, stainless steel, big (probably 2 liters). When I unwrapped it, I saw a QR code that said "Instructions." Weird, why would I need instructions for a water bottle? Then I saw a large rubber plug in the bottom. I realized with horror, it's a bluetooth enabled heating/cooling element controlled by an app I'm supposed to download. The heating element is huge, take…

It's a horrible product, but it also sounds like a fun thing to reverse engineer and possibly use in some maker project (without the app, of course).

Re: Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life?

#28

Post by mrweasel »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #23
ryandrake wrote: post #3

Maybe this is a privileged outlook, but I've decided that each piece of technology needs to earn its place in my life, and I'm going to use it deliberately for a specific purpose, if I deem it to be worthy. The smartphone has not earned it yet. Im not going to live in an apartment that requires a smartphone to get into the door. That may involve me making sacrifices, I don't care. You have to draw a line somewhere. I…

The big differentiator for me is "Does this use of technology solve a problem?" I do have a smartphone, FWIW, but it's a tool. And granted, one of it's uses is to kill spare minutes while I'm waiting for someone in a car, or riding public transport somewhere, but that is a choice. I am consciously choosing to partake in social media as a distraction because I have nothing else going on. In response to your examples h…

The issue with the QR codes at restaurants, for me, is that they force you to pull out your phone in a setting where you'd want people to put it away. Even been to dinner with people who are on their phone most of the time? Don't give people an excuse to pull out their phone, many are addicted and won't be able to put it away again and enjoy their meal and their company.

The parking I agree with, that solves a problem and genuinely makes our lives easier, but it should never be the only option for paying for parking.

Re: Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life?

#29

Post by bdcravens »

Being old enough to straddle the manual and the automated world (48 this year), but absolutely loving technology (so I feel I haven't entered my "get off my lawn" era yet), I find myself looking for ways to augment, not replace. Of course, that's as much working in technology for 20+ years (and knowing how it's not magic and how things can fail) as much as it's good sense lol.

Re: Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life?

#30

Post by getnormality »

aeblyve wrote: post #21
getnormality wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doomscrolling, like drug addiction, is largely the product of the holistic social-biological environment of the actor. Drug addiction is also a product of the availability of drugs. China has much less problems with opioid overdose than America because they learned their lesson in the 19th century.

Opium use in China was largely ended because of the Communist revolution there in the 20th century, and its policies on the matter. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/347925/

That was what I had heard too, but apparently it's gotten a bit complicated in recent decades [1][2].

Still, I get the impression that drugs are not a part of public life in China the way they are in America.

[1] http://us.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/zggs/202406/t20240620_114...

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16669899

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