5 ms·

This struck a chord with me. Unlike the author, I think I still like computers, but only in their essence. I like programming, the detective game of debugging,

by m_fayer 10y ago

This struck a chord with me. Unlike the author, I think I still like computers, but only in their essence. I like programming, the detective game of debugging, learning new paradigms, getting lost in abstraction, the thrill of watching powerful automation doing it's thing. But I don't like what computers and the internet have become. Without constant mindful adjustment, all my devices inevitably become attention grabbing pushers of just-so packaged bits of media. I don't let that happen, but that's clearly their essential inclination. Keeping this at bay feels like swatting away the tentacles of some persistent deep sea creature. I feel everyone's attention span eroding. I feel people packaging themselves for social media, opening their self-image and self-worth to the masses. I see a flood of undifferentiated information, the spread of hysteria and belligerence, the retreat of quietude, humility, and grace. This is all downside, but lately I'm losing the upside. While I still love the technology underneath it all, more and more I feel like I'm working in the service of something that's driving humanity collectively insane.

tgarma1234 10y ago
Yes Werner Herzog mentions the collective insanity of humanity in conjunction with text messaging in one of his documentaries. Games and text messages and social media have captured peoples brains. People are drawn into their devices mentally and emotionally in a way that barely makes them present in the actual world, even when they are walking to work or dining with friends or driving. There is something so magnetic about these devices that draws in almost every person who encounters them in a way that is not healthy. Because it's all happening in real time to humanity as a whole it's hard to see the bigger picture of how we are changing. I think of it as probably being like how people responded to the invention of fire. It just made perfect sense and took over the world and happened to everyone together. Being present in the midst of this historical change is an opportunity to know something very deep about human beings, who we are. The biggest thing about these changes from my perspective is that people are devolving into something that looks like a collective autism. Like they are obsessed with the fact that something is happening somewhere else at all times and the device has opened a window to seeing it. And yet when you look out that window into the collective digital consciousness of pictures and texts and advertising you see that there is actually nothing happening at all that isn't exactly what you would expect. People doing things. But always somewhere else. The main thing I don't like is when I am walking downtown and people are literally just wandering mindlessly as a herd texting on their phones not even looking up at traffic as they cross the street. They navigate by being aware of other people's direction and path but oblivious to their own. For example, I will be crossing the street and another person who is texting will walk just a few steps behind me texting, looking at their phone, never looking up at traffic and trusting that if they follow my path they will end up on the other side of the street. I don't even know really how to describe that experience but I am sure everyone else has it too. It's like people have been reduced to herd animals walking collectively while immersed deeply in their devices... because there isn't possibly anything at all happening in this present moment that is worth paying attention to. And I am not talking about one or two people walking around in this way. It's practically everyone. Honestly, am I the only person who notices this? I wonder.
- ensiferum 10y ago
  http://akns-images.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/201595/rs_600x600-151005162758-600.woman-no-cell-phone-black-mass.ls10515.jpg http://akns-images.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/201595... self obsessed, self absorbed, selfish-stick zombie society living through 4" screen.
  - chrstphrhrt 10y ago
    Except for the awesomely peaceful looking old lady!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- sethjgore 10y ago
  You aren't the only one noticing it. It seems to me that these devices tap into a collective unconsciousness, and this I observe to be anxiety or general human fidgety. I wonder if these devices entrance us the same way books and text entrance us. Books create realities that only exist in mind, perhaps these images, feeds, videos are the same thing, but in a modern way? our devices entrance us to a state of mind not so different from reading a book (which is more healthy nevertheless), and i think because human consciousness is merely a feedback loop, we seek for things that reflect the mind well, so hence mirrors, text, photos, videos, and these devices.
- m_fayer 10y ago
  My pet theory: the digital world is just real enough for us to inhabit without feeling alone, while removing a few crucially difficult elements of in-person interaction. Because we can't escape the reality of being social animals, we gravitate toward the easier social world - the digital one, and thus we end up checked out of the physical world way too much. I've been disturbed, above all, by the following dynamics that are missing from the digital world: Social awkwardness is alleviated by asynchronicity, there's no such thing as awkward silence online, and you can carefully craft everything you put out there. One can avoid various flavors of vulnerability and ennui. Hiding your face from others means no one can see your exhaustion, dissatisfaction, denial, boredom, etc. - and because you see yourself more clearly when reflected through the eyes of others, a lack of that reflection makes self-deception that much easier. And on the flip side, avoiding seeing these things on the faces of others allows us to escape the difficulty and obligation that empathy imposes on us. This would all be great if we didn't need these and other hardships of the analog world to truly flourish, but we do. So existence in the digital-social world becomes akin to slow carbon monoxide poisoning. It fools your system just enough that you don't realise that you're actually suffocating - the ill effects pile up while the alarm systems (loneliness, need for intimacy) stay mum.
drunkpotato 10y ago
I've been feeling this too, but mostly this reply is to save your beautifully worded comment so I can find it again.
- arm 10y ago
  Hacker News recently added a feature that would help you out there. You can 'favorite' a comment now by clicking on its timestamp and then clicking the 'favorite' link. You can easily check all your favorited comments on your user page.
  - drunkpotato 10y ago
    Very cool, thank you for the info!
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
rayiner 10y ago
I don't like what the internet has become. I always get wistful watching 1990s movies, seeing people logging in and getting articles from the NYT website: http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/10/martin-nisenholtz-on-bringing-the-new-york-times-online http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/10/martin-nisenho.... Now, there was a lot of crap on the web back then, but it was still text maybe with some blinky graphics. On today's rich media sites you sometimes can't even select the text. E.g. try copying the address out of a location that Google shows in response to a search (on mobile at least). Text is the basis of civilization--surely deemphasizing text represents the downfall of it.
- powerset 10y ago
  Neal Stephenson wrote a pretty interesting essay on the societal implications of deemphasizing text. In the beginning was the command line: http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html
- bitwize 10y ago
  I think I'm beginning to understand why vaporwave is a thing. It harks back to a simpler time when we all looked forward to jacking into cyberspace with our Ono-Sendai decks, but the Mac (or Windows 3.x/9x PC for true pedestrians) on our desk with NCSA Mosaic and a 28.8kbps modem brought us close enough. Before trolls (unless you hung out on USENET), before 4chan, before everyone tried to sell you an app, and sell your data to some advertiser.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    And before drive by infections of all kinds...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - rayiner 10y ago
    For me computing peaked in the late 1990s. NT4 and Word Perfect 7, surfing the internet on a 256 Kbps SDSL modem.
jackarg 10y ago
This is literally what I'm trying to convey in my personal statement for university. I'm thinking of studying computer science at uni (I'm in my last year of high school) and this is precisely my dilemma: how to keep my interest alive by focusing on the beauty of programming itself, automation, the abstract creative nature of it, while ignoring the overwhelming downsides: drowning in this virtual world that is out of touch with reality, in this mass of useless information, useless innovations, profit-driven apps, addiction to smartphones, etc. Consumerism as it was in the 60's, applied to everything digital. I'd be more than happy to discuss this further with anyone as it's something that's preoccupying me a lot right now as I try to decide what to pursue in my studies. Another thing that helps me cope with this tech world: hoping to be able to contribute to or work along standards such as those of Calm Computing (https://www.calmtech.com/ https://www.calmtech.com/), or TimeWellSpent (http://timewellspent.io/ http://timewellspent.io/). Through things like these, and through the pessimistic view I have right now of the tech world, do my best to contribute to it in a beneficial way, more "ethical way." Basically, I'm motivated to work in tech to try to "shift" it a tiny bit, to fight the enemy from inside.
- pault 10y ago
  > how to keep my interest alive by focusing on the beauty of programming itself, automation, the abstract creative nature of it, while ignoring the overwhelming downsides Focusing on the thrill of programming while ignoring the downsides is how we got here. Maybe you meant "focusing on the beauty... while ameliorating the downsides". Anyway, you seem much more self aware than I was at your age, so I'm sure you'll do fine. :)
  - jackarg 10y ago
    > focusing on the beauty... while ameliorating the downsides That's a great way to put it, thanks. The second thing that worries me about doing compsci is the fact that I'll have to dedicate a huge portion of my life to staying in front of a screen. It bothers me a bit but for now it is outweighed by the advantages.
    - 10y ago

by m_fayer 10y ago

tgarma1234 10y ago

Yes Werner Herzog mentions the collective insanity of humanity in conjunction with text messaging in one of his documentaries. Games and text messages and social media have captured peoples brains. People are drawn into their devices mentally and emotionally in a way that barely makes them present in the actual world, even when they are walking to work or dining with friends or driving. There is something so magnetic about these devices that draws in almost every person who encounters them in a way that is not healthy. Because it's all happening in real time to humanity as a whole it's hard to see the bigger picture of how we are changing. I think of it as probably being like how people responded to the invention of fire. It just made perfect sense and took over the world and happened to everyone together. Being present in the midst of this historical change is an opportunity to know something very deep about human beings, who we are. The biggest thing about these changes from my perspective is that people are devolving into something that looks like a collective autism. Like they are obsessed with the fact that something is happening somewhere else at all times and the device has opened a window to seeing it. And yet when you look out that window into the collective digital consciousness of pictures and texts and advertising you see that there is actually nothing happening at all that isn't exactly what you would expect. People doing things. But always somewhere else. The main thing I don't like is when I am walking downtown and people are literally just wandering mindlessly as a herd texting on their phones not even looking up at traffic as they cross the street. They navigate by being aware of other people's direction and path but oblivious to their own. For example, I will be crossing the street and another person who is texting will walk just a few steps behind me texting, looking at their phone, never looking up at traffic and trusting that if they follow my path they will end up on the other side of the street. I don't even know really how to describe that experience but I am sure everyone else has it too. It's like people have been reduced to herd animals walking collectively while immersed deeply in their devices... because there isn't possibly anything at all happening in this present moment that is worth paying attention to. And I am not talking about one or two people walking around in this way. It's practically everyone. Honestly, am I the only person who notices this? I wonder.

ensiferum 10y ago
http://akns-images.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/201595/rs_600x600-151005162758-600.woman-no-cell-phone-black-mass.ls10515.jpg http://akns-images.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/201595... self obsessed, self absorbed, selfish-stick zombie society living through 4" screen.
- chrstphrhrt 10y ago
  Except for the awesomely peaceful looking old lady!
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sethjgore 10y ago
You aren't the only one noticing it. It seems to me that these devices tap into a collective unconsciousness, and this I observe to be anxiety or general human fidgety. I wonder if these devices entrance us the same way books and text entrance us. Books create realities that only exist in mind, perhaps these images, feeds, videos are the same thing, but in a modern way? our devices entrance us to a state of mind not so different from reading a book (which is more healthy nevertheless), and i think because human consciousness is merely a feedback loop, we seek for things that reflect the mind well, so hence mirrors, text, photos, videos, and these devices.
m_fayer 10y ago
My pet theory: the digital world is just real enough for us to inhabit without feeling alone, while removing a few crucially difficult elements of in-person interaction. Because we can't escape the reality of being social animals, we gravitate toward the easier social world - the digital one, and thus we end up checked out of the physical world way too much. I've been disturbed, above all, by the following dynamics that are missing from the digital world: Social awkwardness is alleviated by asynchronicity, there's no such thing as awkward silence online, and you can carefully craft everything you put out there. One can avoid various flavors of vulnerability and ennui. Hiding your face from others means no one can see your exhaustion, dissatisfaction, denial, boredom, etc. - and because you see yourself more clearly when reflected through the eyes of others, a lack of that reflection makes self-deception that much easier. And on the flip side, avoiding seeing these things on the faces of others allows us to escape the difficulty and obligation that empathy imposes on us. This would all be great if we didn't need these and other hardships of the analog world to truly flourish, but we do. So existence in the digital-social world becomes akin to slow carbon monoxide poisoning. It fools your system just enough that you don't realise that you're actually suffocating - the ill effects pile up while the alarm systems (loneliness, need for intimacy) stay mum.

drunkpotato 10y ago

I've been feeling this too, but mostly this reply is to save your beautifully worded comment so I can find it again.

arm 10y ago
Hacker News recently added a feature that would help you out there. You can 'favorite' a comment now by clicking on its timestamp and then clicking the 'favorite' link. You can easily check all your favorited comments on your user page.
- drunkpotato 10y ago
  Very cool, thank you for the info!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

rayiner 10y ago

I don't like what the internet has become. I always get wistful watching 1990s movies, seeing people logging in and getting articles from the NYT website: http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/10/martin-nisenholtz-on-bringing-the-new-york-times-online http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/10/martin-nisenho.... Now, there was a lot of crap on the web back then, but it was still text maybe with some blinky graphics. On today's rich media sites you sometimes can't even select the text. E.g. try copying the address out of a location that Google shows in response to a search (on mobile at least). Text is the basis of civilization--surely deemphasizing text represents the downfall of it.

powerset 10y ago
Neal Stephenson wrote a pretty interesting essay on the societal implications of deemphasizing text. In the beginning was the command line: http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html
bitwize 10y ago
I think I'm beginning to understand why vaporwave is a thing. It harks back to a simpler time when we all looked forward to jacking into cyberspace with our Ono-Sendai decks, but the Mac (or Windows 3.x/9x PC for true pedestrians) on our desk with NCSA Mosaic and a 28.8kbps modem brought us close enough. Before trolls (unless you hung out on USENET), before 4chan, before everyone tried to sell you an app, and sell your data to some advertiser.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  And before drive by infections of all kinds...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 10y ago
  For me computing peaked in the late 1990s. NT4 and Word Perfect 7, surfing the internet on a 256 Kbps SDSL modem.

jackarg 10y ago

This is literally what I'm trying to convey in my personal statement for university. I'm thinking of studying computer science at uni (I'm in my last year of high school) and this is precisely my dilemma: how to keep my interest alive by focusing on the beauty of programming itself, automation, the abstract creative nature of it, while ignoring the overwhelming downsides: drowning in this virtual world that is out of touch with reality, in this mass of useless information, useless innovations, profit-driven apps, addiction to smartphones, etc. Consumerism as it was in the 60's, applied to everything digital. I'd be more than happy to discuss this further with anyone as it's something that's preoccupying me a lot right now as I try to decide what to pursue in my studies. Another thing that helps me cope with this tech world: hoping to be able to contribute to or work along standards such as those of Calm Computing (https://www.calmtech.com/ https://www.calmtech.com/), or TimeWellSpent (http://timewellspent.io/ http://timewellspent.io/). Through things like these, and through the pessimistic view I have right now of the tech world, do my best to contribute to it in a beneficial way, more "ethical way." Basically, I'm motivated to work in tech to try to "shift" it a tiny bit, to fight the enemy from inside.

pault 10y ago
> how to keep my interest alive by focusing on the beauty of programming itself, automation, the abstract creative nature of it, while ignoring the overwhelming downsides Focusing on the thrill of programming while ignoring the downsides is how we got here. Maybe you meant "focusing on the beauty... while ameliorating the downsides". Anyway, you seem much more self aware than I was at your age, so I'm sure you'll do fine. :)
- jackarg 10y ago
  > focusing on the beauty... while ameliorating the downsides That's a great way to put it, thanks. The second thing that worries me about doing compsci is the fact that I'll have to dedicate a huge portion of my life to staying in front of a screen. It bothers me a bit but for now it is outweighed by the advantages.
  - 10y ago