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How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

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Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#261

Post by hx87 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #237
jflatow wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just begs the question though, what is the right way to tax? Assuming that you are redistributing wealth (as you describe above), taxing wealth instead of income has a profound effect. It creates an incentive for every individual to increase the total wealth in the system, no matter who creates it, or where it's created. When you tax income, it makes no difference to you whether the income was created wealth, or…

Whatever you tax becomes more expensive. Whatever is more expensive, you have less of. Your question can be restated: what's your overall economic goal? You tax to achieve that.

I'd tax rent-seeking, and the most effective way to do that is a land value tax.

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#262

Post by kbenson »

freshhawk wrote: post #223
kbenson wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that I don't think "what we are" is changed by the tools we use. So what if a tool suggests we take time out for our friend? It's still our choice. It's no different than your mother, father, significant other, or random person on the street offering a suggestion if you explained the situation to them. Ultimately it's your choice what to do. If you're unhappy with how people treat some things as worthy of…

So you don't think "what we are" is changed by the tools we use but it is changed by changes in cultural norms? Which are clearly influenced by the tools we use?

No, I think neither the tools we use nor our cultural norms really define what we are, just what we do, philosophically speaking. I think we're a a race of culture creating tool users that strive to advance. The tools we currently use and the cultures we find ourselves currently creating at most stages in a progression, and possibly not even that, but just fleeting memes in the story of our species (if we don't dead-end ourselves).

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#263

Post by rcpt »

chillacy wrote: post #253
perseusprime11 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 Smartphone is a universal addiction as opposed to cigarette smoking. If we do not do something about this, our future humans will walk around with stiff necks as this will be coded into our DNA and we will evolve accordingly.

That's not really how evolution works.. there would have to be selection pressure that would favor the smartphone addicted

Tinder

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#264

Post by EliRivers »

pzenger wrote: post #241
theseatoms wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For these reasons, I've started to log my smartphone usage. God knows everyone else is. It should be fun to look at the data after a few weeks of logging via a free app.

Which app are you using to do this? I'm interested in trying this as well.

For a moment I laughed hard at this, thinking it was ironic humour. But now I'm scared it's not.

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#266

Post by perseusprime11 »

chillacy wrote: post #253
perseusprime11 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 Smartphone is a universal addiction as opposed to cigarette smoking. If we do not do something about this, our future humans will walk around with stiff necks as this will be coded into our DNA and we will evolve accordingly.

That's not really how evolution works.. there would have to be selection pressure that would favor the smartphone addicted

I used to think like you but after reading Sapiens I now understand how these things work.

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#267

Post by Balgair »

kbenson wrote: post #246
Balgair wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> My point is that I don't think "what we are" is changed by the tools we use No way. Just look at language, a tool we use for communication. It changes us radically. Listen to the RadioLab episode on on : http://www.radiolab.org/story/91725-words/ . Another example is writing. Before widespread writing and printing, many people used the 'Mind Palace' to remember things ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci…

"What we are" is meant in the context of "To me, nothing defines humanity more than the constant improvement of our race, our reach, and our capabilities." which I outlined in my original comment. In that respect, the tools are just stepping stones to let us be us . Sure, we might have less specialized cells in the hippocampus because we aren't exercising a specific (conceptual) tool, but I don't see that as any diff…

Listen to that radiolab broadcast. I'm pretty sure that is the one that goes into detail about a man that grew up deaf (in El Salvador, I think) and without any access to sign language. The broadcast has a woman that went there as a grad student and, I think, ended up teaching the guy sign language. A translator for the guy describes when he finally 'got' language and from what I remember, it was life and soul changing for him. He mentions that his friends that were also without the tool of language would try to communicate through charades and it would take hours to 'talk'. I can't do this justice, but the tale is very powerful. I also can't verify that the linked broadcast is about what I just said fyi (in a coffee shop, no headphones, sorry)

Still, I disagree. The tools that we use shape our souls as much as our brains. It's that repetitive daily use that mostly does this. We come to see the world and then believe things in the way we experience it, and our tools heavily shape this view.

To reduce someone's humanity is an incredibly deep question and i don't have the space here, nor the access to beer, to do it justice. However, I like that you turned the question on it's head. Most of the time we ask what it would take to make something human. The way you pose this question: "what would it take to rob a person of their humanity?" is MUCH more interesting and very provocative.

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#269

Post by mc32 »

kbenson wrote: post #246
Balgair wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> My point is that I don't think "what we are" is changed by the tools we use No way. Just look at language, a tool we use for communication. It changes us radically. Listen to the RadioLab episode on on : http://www.radiolab.org/story/91725-words/ . Another example is writing. Before widespread writing and printing, many people used the 'Mind Palace' to remember things ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci…

"What we are" is meant in the context of "To me, nothing defines humanity more than the constant improvement of our race, our reach, and our capabilities." which I outlined in my original comment. In that respect, the tools are just stepping stones to let us be us . Sure, we might have less specialized cells in the hippocampus because we aren't exercising a specific (conceptual) tool, but I don't see that as any diff…

Great question, and I won't do it justice in this attempt. I think at the point where people are more or less extricated from decision-making, small they may be. When people are essentially just organs plugged into a network, like cows to a milking station.

All you have to do is be, you no longer have to think, slowly things are done for you and decided for you -- with best intentions, of course.

We're not there yet. But we're getting there.

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#270

Post by kbenson »

Balgair wrote: post #267
kbenson wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What we are" is meant in the context of "To me, nothing defines humanity more than the constant improvement of our race, our reach, and our capabilities." which I outlined in my original comment. In that respect, the tools are just stepping stones to let us be us . Sure, we might have less specialized cells in the hippocampus because we aren't exercising a specific (conceptual) tool, but I don't see that as any diff…

Listen to that radiolab broadcast. I'm pretty sure that is the one that goes into detail about a man that grew up deaf (in El Salvador, I think) and without any access to sign language. The broadcast has a woman that went there as a grad student and, I think, ended up teaching the guy sign language. A translator for the guy describes when he finally 'got' language and from what I remember, it was life and soul changi…

> Listen to that radiolab broadcast.

I'll definitely do so. I don't recall off-hand if I've heard that one, but I've heard a lot of them (I've been an on-and-off listener for a decade).

> Still, I disagree. The tools that we use shape our souls as much as our brains. It's that repetitive daily use that mostly does this. We come to see the world and then believe things in the way we experience it, and our tools heavily shape this view.

I don't disagree with your assertion, I just do't think the way "see the world and then believe things in the way we experience it" is actually humanity.

> To reduce someone's humanity is an incredibly deep question and i don't have the space here, nor the access to beer, to do it justice.

It is, but my use here is fairly simplistic. Basically, I think most people use "humanity" as a stand in for the values of the day. Obviously, if something is so affected by the current culture and attitude, it's can't be the defining trait of our race, can it? Thus, most of my comments here have been along the lines of both calling out what I see as a bogus definition, and proposing my own one, base don what I see as defining traits of our race. Innovation, advancement, etc.

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