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(2016) Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it

theguardian.com

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Re: (2016) Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it

#51

Post by kradeelav »

Without technology I'd be 100% deaf and effectively locked out of the cutting edge of the working world given the added friction of communicating.

Without technology, I'd be paralyzed or dead as I required 15 major surgeries in my childhood to stabilize a [unnamed condition]. (It bears saying - worth it. It was hell, but it was worth it.)

Without technology, I'd be blind, and again - have a much higher chance of being locked out of the ability to sustain myself financially, not to mention be robbed of my love of design / illustration.

Without technology, there would be a great deal less souls on this earth - (more than I think most would realize since we don't typically care to flaunt our reliance on technology.)

---

Ironically, I'm also as "minimal technology" as they come - still use a dumb phone out of privacy and notification concerns, will never buy a voice assistant, am only on the social networks that my job demands, et cetera. Acknowledging that tech does wonders certainly does not mean you have to be blind to the horrors that it's equally capable of, or that you're defenseless against it.

I am ... very tired of having to defend a part of my existence from statements like these, where more compassionate thinking could illuminate a thousand more examples like the above.

Very tired.

Re: (2016) Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it

#52

Post by [deleted] »

jesperlang wrote: post #43

> but slowness only became a bad thing when time became money. This. After downscaling my expenses and started working at 25-50% it's amazing how much time I got now compared to working full time. We really under value time and have a weird perspective on it and what we can use it for. Walking to the shop can take 45 minutes for me now which seem ridiculous for some when a car ride takes 5-10 minutes. But what is not…

[deleted]

Re: (2016) Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it

#53

Post by c1sc0 »

jesperlang wrote: post #43

> but slowness only became a bad thing when time became money. This. After downscaling my expenses and started working at 25-50% it's amazing how much time I got now compared to working full time. We really under value time and have a weird perspective on it and what we can use it for. Walking to the shop can take 45 minutes for me now which seem ridiculous for some when a car ride takes 5-10 minutes. But what is not…

This. Indeed. Overall we spend far too much time working to afford “necessities” & “conveniences” that are neither.

Re: (2016) Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it

#54

Post by Abekkus »

toupeira wrote: post #15
toomuchtodo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The current regulatory framework in place in the majority of jurisdictions is allowing technology to become a net negative for both people and society as a whole”. I make a distinction between science and technology for the sake of this comment. Science brings us biomedical breakthroughs, space probes, and renewables; technology brings us Black Mirror dystopian futures. (“Technology destroys people” is a lazy argume…

Hmm... isn't science itself a form of technology? :)

language is a technology

Re: (2016) Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it

#55

Post by tlb »

eucitizen2x wrote: post #35

[flagged]

Such comments get flagged because they don't make a substantive point (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). You could add substance by, for instance, talking about some steps that could be taken to improve things.

Re: (2016) Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it

#56

Post by oxw »

adreamingsoul wrote: post #34

I think his heart is in the right place, but the execution is over-reactive. Here are my ideas that I want to implement for myself: 1. Move back to dumb phones, landlines, or a wifi phone. 2. Limit movie/video consumption to a fixed time limit per day. For example, 1 hour a day. 3. Re-use old technology/re-cycle technology waste before buying new. 4. Move back to bare metal servers, and self-host. 5. Use simpler tech…

Agreed. The steps that he's taking are too drastic.

I really like the steps that you're taking. I feel like the issue that the author fell into is that he... cares too much about too many things? I know that sounds selfish, but by focusing on improving ourselves I feel like we can all help build a better society.

Re: (2016) Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it

#57

Post by mieseratte »

adreamingsoul wrote: post #34

I think his heart is in the right place, but the execution is over-reactive. Here are my ideas that I want to implement for myself: 1. Move back to dumb phones, landlines, or a wifi phone. 2. Limit movie/video consumption to a fixed time limit per day. For example, 1 hour a day. 3. Re-use old technology/re-cycle technology waste before buying new. 4. Move back to bare metal servers, and self-host. 5. Use simpler tech…

> I think his heart is in the right place, but the execution is over-reactive.

I feel similarly.

Over the past year or so I've had a set of changes in personal lifestyle and philosophy. I've become very anti-possessions and very anti-technology. At first, getting rid of all social media, cell-phones, TVs, and such. Being a software engineer, I have to have a computer, and I kept my old iPod Touch, stuck on iOS 6, for music and reading a few eBooks (shout-out to the Kindle folks, the old versions still work!).

I'm slowly forming a sort-of Amish Hackers[0] rubric for evaluation. Does something help or hurt personal physical and mental well-being, does it help social unit cohesion, or is it purely consumptive and or narcissistic? As a result, I've slowly brought some things back.

Do I need smartphone to take selfies so I can become "Instagram famous?" No. But communicating on-the-go is necessary, so a feature phone it is. Do I need a TV? Do I need a fancy Fight Club Ikea apartment? No. But I do need a place where I can reasonably entertain guests.

Like most things, it's about finding a healthy balance between "consumer zombie" and "Richard Stallman Impersonator of the Year."

[0] - http://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/

Re: (2016) Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it

#58

Post by IanDrake »

XorNot wrote: post #39
IanDrake wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The campaign to exterminate any alternative political discourse in the West has been so successful that it's now very hard to even talk about any alternative I’ve seen no evidence of that and with the severity of your claim should you should include a source or two. Perhaps you’re confusing people disagreeing with your view with people attempting to silence you. Those are two very different things. Recall the Occupy…

Yes I guess a literal neo-nazi terrorist attack didn't happen on American soil. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally Oh wait it did. And so have numerous ongoing campaigns of harassment and death threats against any dissenting voices. Like this guy: https://www.12news.com/mobile/article/news/local/valley/phoe... Even advocated for by the current President of the United States: https://newrepublic.com…

I don’t think an organized group like Antifa promoting “by any means necessary” and getting tacit approval from the main stream left is comparable to one (universally condemned) deranged lunatic, a bunch of keyboard warriors, and something stupid Trump said once.

There aren’t right leaning groups out there organizing violent protests at college campuses trying to prevent left leaning speakers from being heard.

Re: (2016) Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it

#60

Post by wccrawford »

IanDrake wrote: post #25
api wrote: post #2

I have a new hypothesis I'm terming "sublimation of criticism." This is likely not original since this isn't my field, but here goes. The campaign to exterminate any alternative political discourse in the West has been so successful that it's now very hard to even talk about any alternative to state corporatist capitalism. This system has many downsides and generates many negative externalities and these are clearly…

>The campaign to exterminate any alternative political discourse in the West has been so successful that it's now very hard to even talk about any alternative I’ve seen no evidence of that and with the severity of your claim should you should include a source or two. Perhaps you’re confusing people disagreeing with your view with people attempting to silence you. Those are two very different things. Recall the Occupy…

>Perhaps you’re confusing people disagreeing with your view with people attempting to silence you. Those are two very different things.

Actually, if they're talking to random people around them, those people probably are trying to silence them.

It's just about impossible to have rational discourse about politics with a random group of people these days. Far too many of them don't understand how to have a rational conversation about something and quickly fall to just trying to get their way and make the other person shut up. There's no scenario in their minds where they end up parting ways amicably with someone who doesn't believe as they do.

I know some people who seem perfectly rational until you find out that they believe all cops are corrupt, all white people are racist, or everyone who voted for Trump condones racism. (Among other touchy subjects.) They get so mad about these issues that you can't even provide them proof of how wrong they are because they'll just flat call you a liar and ignore everything you say.

If you are racist, sexist, or whatever they have a hot button about, they'll ignore everything you say on every topic as well. To them, it's impossible for someone who is wrong about something they care about to be wise about something else.

Capitalism is one of those hot-button topics for many, many Americans. Decades of propaganda have had a lot of influence and it no longer matters if capitalism is actually the best system. They believe it is, and you can't get them to think about it.

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