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The funny thing is, smartphones are all but useless for many tasks the minute you go into airplane mode. There are exceptions, but you're basically holding a cl

The funny thing is, smartphones are all but useless for many tasks the minute you go into airplane mode. There are exceptions, but you're basically holding a client to a distributed operating system which has appropriated many of the promises of wearable personal computing for corporate profit. So yes, if you've already ceded your right to not be inturupted by running apps like Twitter and Facebook in the background, then I can see the appeal of cord cutting. Of course there also exists the possibility of at least trying to use these devices without ceding this autonomy in the first place, but that requires admitting just how little today's social media offerings will have to do with this approach. And no, a smartphone is not the right place to do research anyway. In fact, neither is the WWW using off-the-shelf browsers, but it's the version of Hypertext we're stuck with for now.

etplayer 9y ago
Although I would prefer to be very strongly critical of the corporate model of the distributed operating system, (and particularly I'd like to relate it to Marx's concept of alienation, commodity fetishism and the tighter control of the 'free market of ideas' which turns out to be a 'free market' dominated by monopoly of Google in particular as they freqently turn out to be), I'm not sure what else I would do with a computer. Say I want to program on a laptop - I can't program without access to the relevant documentation, access to download the libraries I need, and I'm often completely lost trying to debug a problem without access to SO or finding what triggers a particular error. Is this beacuse I have become over-dependent on the Internet for help, or even because I never learned how to program sans Internet? Probably, and it's a shame. I honestly have no idea what I'd do with a phone without an Internet connection, other than the obvious phone calls and text messages. Take notes? Add stuff to the calendar? I could do that with pen and paper anyway, and not have to give that up during takeoff. Social networking is weird, I feel like I'm supposed to be chasing something, looking for it, and when I find it then I'll latch onto it. It's like me with computer games. But I have found myself becoming bored with Mastodon and Facebook doesn't keep me for more than five minutes. Other peoples' lives, or at least to the extent displayed on FB, just isn't that interesting to me. Twitter is a different matter, I always want to track the discussions, create witty replies, etc. (partly due to my political stance), but I don't think I'm obsessive yet. And where does it leave me? Less time to pursue my hobbies that take time to tease out their enjoyment; language learning, getting round to learning music theory, hobby programming, reading Marx, etc. I suppose that seeing that this is happening is a good start.
- nicklaf 9y ago
  Richard Stallman was largely motivated to start project GNU because he took issue with the appropriation of source code by corporations and other proprietors, which he saw as replacing the communal way of writing and consuming software at the MIT A.I. lab. My feeling is that we are seeing today a similar appropriation, not of source code (most people who use computers at this point now see them as appliances, and wouldn't have any use for source code), but of the ability to embed externally imposed media within (and subservient to) our own private scheme of organization. Let me explain: in the old days, when you subscribed to a magazine, you admittedly would be forced to navigate it so long as you read it, but you would be free to place it and store it anywhere you like in your house, and even cut clippings out from it and rearrange them as you may. But computers are not just appliances when used as such, but instead become giant magazines which overtake the role of your entire house and mind. We really don't have the equivalent capability to organize things as we please in smartphones, and people are using such capability less and less in desktops (and not at all so long as they only use the PC as a glorified web browser). Ted Nelson thought about the kind of organizational tools the user would need to have at his/her hands, and John McCarthy wrote about it a bit too (e.g., look for discussion here on HN in other threads about his paper, "The Home Information Terminal: A 1970 View", in which he points out that because people will control what they see, online advertising, for example, wouldn't even be possible). As with other systems of control, my feeling is that you're not going to peacefully overthrow it so long as a large enough segment of the population is in fact perfectly happy with it, or at least unaware of any reason not to be. John McCarthy admitted this much when he conceded that most Americans are TV watchers anyway and won't need a home information terminal to do research, and Neil Postman wrote about the negative effects of television in his 1984 book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death".
  - s_kilk 9y ago
    > John McCarthy admitted this much when he conceded that most Americans are TV watchers anyway and won't need a home information terminal to do research, and Neil Postman wrote about the negative effects of television in his 1984 book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death". Zooming out just a little, Guy Debord's "Society Of The Spectacle" talks about this same stuff on a higher level.

etplayer 9y ago

Although I would prefer to be very strongly critical of the corporate model of the distributed operating system, (and particularly I'd like to relate it to Marx's concept of alienation, commodity fetishism and the tighter control of the 'free market of ideas' which turns out to be a 'free market' dominated by monopoly of Google in particular as they freqently turn out to be), I'm not sure what else I would do with a computer. Say I want to program on a laptop - I can't program without access to the relevant documentation, access to download the libraries I need, and I'm often completely lost trying to debug a problem without access to SO or finding what triggers a particular error. Is this beacuse I have become over-dependent on the Internet for help, or even because I never learned how to program sans Internet? Probably, and it's a shame. I honestly have no idea what I'd do with a phone without an Internet connection, other than the obvious phone calls and text messages. Take notes? Add stuff to the calendar? I could do that with pen and paper anyway, and not have to give that up during takeoff. Social networking is weird, I feel like I'm supposed to be chasing something, looking for it, and when I find it then I'll latch onto it. It's like me with computer games. But I have found myself becoming bored with Mastodon and Facebook doesn't keep me for more than five minutes. Other peoples' lives, or at least to the extent displayed on FB, just isn't that interesting to me. Twitter is a different matter, I always want to track the discussions, create witty replies, etc. (partly due to my political stance), but I don't think I'm obsessive yet. And where does it leave me? Less time to pursue my hobbies that take time to tease out their enjoyment; language learning, getting round to learning music theory, hobby programming, reading Marx, etc. I suppose that seeing that this is happening is a good start.

nicklaf 9y ago
Richard Stallman was largely motivated to start project GNU because he took issue with the appropriation of source code by corporations and other proprietors, which he saw as replacing the communal way of writing and consuming software at the MIT A.I. lab. My feeling is that we are seeing today a similar appropriation, not of source code (most people who use computers at this point now see them as appliances, and wouldn't have any use for source code), but of the ability to embed externally imposed media within (and subservient to) our own private scheme of organization. Let me explain: in the old days, when you subscribed to a magazine, you admittedly would be forced to navigate it so long as you read it, but you would be free to place it and store it anywhere you like in your house, and even cut clippings out from it and rearrange them as you may. But computers are not just appliances when used as such, but instead become giant magazines which overtake the role of your entire house and mind. We really don't have the equivalent capability to organize things as we please in smartphones, and people are using such capability less and less in desktops (and not at all so long as they only use the PC as a glorified web browser). Ted Nelson thought about the kind of organizational tools the user would need to have at his/her hands, and John McCarthy wrote about it a bit too (e.g., look for discussion here on HN in other threads about his paper, "The Home Information Terminal: A 1970 View", in which he points out that because people will control what they see, online advertising, for example, wouldn't even be possible). As with other systems of control, my feeling is that you're not going to peacefully overthrow it so long as a large enough segment of the population is in fact perfectly happy with it, or at least unaware of any reason not to be. John McCarthy admitted this much when he conceded that most Americans are TV watchers anyway and won't need a home information terminal to do research, and Neil Postman wrote about the negative effects of television in his 1984 book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death".
- s_kilk 9y ago
  > John McCarthy admitted this much when he conceded that most Americans are TV watchers anyway and won't need a home information terminal to do research, and Neil Postman wrote about the negative effects of television in his 1984 book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death". Zooming out just a little, Guy Debord's "Society Of The Spectacle" talks about this same stuff on a higher level.