That's one tough to parse headline.
Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA
141–150 of 161 posts
Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA
#142it points to a big shift in society and the economy. software is now a cornerstone of the world economy. modern life runs through the internet. even if you personally avoid the internet, you depend on it. but the baby boomer generation, represented by these politicians has not understood it. they know engineers as the guys building houses, bridges, aeroplanes, rockets. but software? it is an invisible world to them.…
Understanding the basic ramifications of SOPA / PIPA requires relatively little technical competence.
The opinions expressed by our lawmakers are a reflection of mentality, not age.
It was sickening to watch the legislators praise their own ignorance. It's totally cool not to be a subject matter expert in everything - nobody expects them to be. However, it's maddening that they had not already consulted any "nerds".
It really begs the question : does this apply to all other aspects of our government? Do we draft legislation on energy, defense and immigration without consulting subject matter experts at the outset?
Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
you're seriously too young to understand. i am 32 years old. the first time i went online was in 1999. before that i had personal computers, yes. but no internet whatsoever. can you even imagine a world without google and wikipedia? i got my first mobile phone in that time frame. my parents were born after ww2. your time as a youth shapes you, forms your understanding of the world. you translate everything you see in…
I don't believe that for a second. I'm 45 years old. My parents were born during ww2. I grew up with black and white tv (okay, partly because we couldn't afford color yet...). But my dad, an unskilled immigrant, ran IT companies for most of his life, and my mother, well into her 60's, got an iPad before I did. Hell, she was on Skype when I still had a landline... She even owns a friggin' Wii. If there are people who…
Your parents spent their time learning technology.
The people in congress spent their time learning to be politicians. It wasn't until the last 15 years that you had to use a computer to do everything, so if you learned how to do what you do now more than 15 years ago, you didn't need a computer, so you probably don't know how they operate.
Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
For last couple of centuries or so, each generation grows up with unprecedented change in their lifetime. I'd argue that this generation's changes aren't just unprecedented, but in an entirely different category. Not just in size, but in speed and extent. The cell phone alone is the most fundamental change in society in human history; suddenly, every person on earth can communicate instantly with almost any other per…
I'd argue that this generation is seeing a larger change than any before. So long as we continue on our trend of exponential technological growth, this will be tautologically true.
Despite what Ray Kurzweil thinks, I don't believe that the rate of growth is maintainable until strong AI is developed, and when that happens, we'll be irrelevant. Prior to strong AI, I think we'll level out a bit.
That's presuming strong AI is possible, of course, which I think it is.
Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
For last couple of centuries or so, each generation grows up with unprecedented change in their lifetime. I'd argue that this generation's changes aren't just unprecedented, but in an entirely different category. Not just in size, but in speed and extent. The cell phone alone is the most fundamental change in society in human history; suddenly, every person on earth can communicate instantly with almost any other per…
I'd argue that this generation is seeing a larger change than any before. So long as we continue on our trend of exponential technological growth, this will be tautologically true.
Despite what Ray Kurzweil thinks, I don't believe that the rate of growth is maintainable until strong AI is developed, and when that happens, we'll be irrelevant. Prior to strong AI, I think we'll level out a bit.
That's presuming strong AI is possible, of course, which I think it is.
Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA
#146Everyone here (besides `jerfelix` apparently) is missing something crucial: Jon Stewart showed 4 people using the word 'nerd'. Three of them were anti-SOPA! These were the congress(wo)men that were trying to bring in experts/techies/geeks/nerds/whatever. So, I'm sorry that the techies here were insulted by that word (I wasn't!) but most of the people using the word were actually fighting for your side! And if you lis…
Jon Stewart showed 4 people using the word 'nerd'. Three of them were anti-SOPA!
so?
I don't care that they were calling us nerds, but if someone does care do you really think the congressperson's interests temporarily lining up with theirs really makes any difference?
Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
you're seriously too young to understand. i am 32 years old. the first time i went online was in 1999. before that i had personal computers, yes. but no internet whatsoever. can you even imagine a world without google and wikipedia? i got my first mobile phone in that time frame. my parents were born after ww2. your time as a youth shapes you, forms your understanding of the world. you translate everything you see in…
I don't believe that for a second. I'm 45 years old. My parents were born during ww2. I grew up with black and white tv (okay, partly because we couldn't afford color yet...). But my dad, an unskilled immigrant, ran IT companies for most of his life, and my mother, well into her 60's, got an iPad before I did. Hell, she was on Skype when I still had a landline... She even owns a friggin' Wii. If there are people who…
my folks, older than yours, also have their tech..... that doesnt mean they get how every detail works. there is no blanket statement here, but it is largely true that those who grew up with black and white tvs will not see things the same way. they may like the internet, but those of us a bit younger watched it hatch and explode globally. those even younger wont remember a tome without it and will have an even different perspective.
Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consider someone who died in 1955 at the age of 70. In their life they saw the introduction of: home electric providers, telephones, radio, movies, automobile, air travel (from nothing to the jet age!), nuclear energy, the polio vaccine, penicillin, color photography, frozen food, and more. There are also less known changes with deep impact: the introduction of municipal garbage service cleaned up our cities and impr…
You have a very valid point. I can't think of the enormous change the introduction of the home electric providers must have been. I mean, from candles to bulbs! But then again, I think that the main difference now is the current rate of adoption of the new technologies. How many years took to build the electric system? How many years took the use of the mobile phone to become widespread? Everything moves faster and f…
The complaint that people "just can't adapt fast enough" has been a near constant refrain for over a century. Read even the Wikipedia page about the "Roaring Twenties" and then tell me that the amount of change in that decade was slower than now.
Let's take some examples. Your baseline is the cell phone. The first commercial mobile phone was in 1983, so you're suggesting a time span of about 25 years. (Before 1983 it was possible to connect a two-way radio through to the phone system, but that's not the point you're trying to make.) By 1988, friends of mine had car phones. The StarTac phone came out in 1996 and marks the start of "widespread consumer adoption." But I would say that it took until 2005 where it started to supplant having a land line.
The first commercial (pre-built and for consumer use) radio receiver was in 1920. That marks the start of the "golden age of radio", which ended when TVs became more popular in the late 1950s. Surely that was as fast as the uptake of cell phones.
Semiconductor transistors were invented in 1947. "Transisterization" was so fast that crew of the Minnow had a transistor radio (in 1964) and no one was surprised by it. Transitors made entirely new categories of technology possible, so that we had a transistor-based game console (Pong-style "tennis" and "racquet-ball") in ~1975.
The first commercial (synthetic) detergents were introduced in 1933 (that's when Dreft was introduced) and "by the 1950s, soap had almost been completely replaced by branched alkylbenzenesulfonates." Not bad for 20 years! Actually it was bad, because we then found out it wasn't that biodegradable and had to find a replacement.
The neon light was first presented in 1910 and "became very popular for signage and displays in the period 1920-1940."
Prohibition lasted for 13 years in the US, and had a huge impact on daily life. That surely counts as an enormous change.
Cosmetics didn't become popular in the US until the 1910s, and the flappers of the 1920 used it with a vengeance. (WP says that previously it was too closely associated with prostitution, but the post-war trend was a reaction to the previously popular demure look, and that "[a] skewed postwar sex ratio created a new emphasis on sexual beauty, and because of the influence of Hollywood.)
All these big changes took place on the same time scale as the cell phone. How then do you measure the amount of change now, and compare it to (say) the amount of change in the 1920s? When was the last time that most people were not "tired of learning how to use new stuff"?
Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA
#149Everyone here (besides `jerfelix` apparently) is missing something crucial: Jon Stewart showed 4 people using the word 'nerd'. Three of them were anti-SOPA! These were the congress(wo)men that were trying to bring in experts/techies/geeks/nerds/whatever. So, I'm sorry that the techies here were insulted by that word (I wasn't!) but most of the people using the word were actually fighting for your side! And if you lis…
>Jon Stewart showed 4 people using the word 'nerd'. Three of them were anti-SOPA! So what? Were they anti-SOPA from the beginning, or just when we started getting serious pressure applied... Even if they were instinctively anti-SOPA, would it be fine if they refer to you as something similar to carnival show (okay, that's a geek), as opposed to a concerned expert in the field? That was at least my take-away from the…
You're currently attacking some of the representatives who actually tried to prevent/mitigate the damage of SOPA (yes, before the PR storm) over some quotes you've heard out of context. The term "experts" actually was used as well, it's just not good comedy fodder.
You shouldn't comment if you aren't at all informed on the subject.
Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA
#150This is where it's all heading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
I really wish I had the karma to downvote this. Idiocracy was a funny story, but it's hardly a documentary. Every time someone brings it up seriously, I die a little bit inside.
You've seen the clips of the hearings and the movie and were not honestly reminded of it?
So you have no sense of humor?
That makes me die a little on the inside...