7 ms·

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

57 points by c1sc0 8y ago

ChrisArchitect 8y ago
put a date on this old article title! [2016]
- c1sc0 8y ago
  Edited
api 8y ago
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 visible to many people, but since the system can't be directly criticized people try to pin its shortcomings on other things like "technology" (an absurdly general term) or thrash around chasing conspiracy ghosts. It's a kind of philosophical scapegoating and fantasizing as a substitute for actual directed criticism. In other words the effectively prohibited criticism of the system sublimes into other areas. Maybe state corporatist capitalism destroys people and places. Try that. I wonder if this phenomenon was common in the late USSR?
- c1sc0 8y ago
  Why not call it technology like in the article? What would anti-technology look like?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- andrenth 8y ago
  We can unquestionably say that communism has destroyed people and places.
  - api 8y ago
    We can also unquestionably say that communism is not the only alternative. For the record I am not an authoritarian communist and I don't think it's a good alternative. I was very specific. I said "state corporatist capitalism" because there are even capitalist alternatives to that such as voluntarist libertarian capitalism and communitarian/co-op oriented capitalism. Our system is one of state-backed corporate capitalism backed by a centrally managed financial system and closely tied to defense and intelligence agencies. It was accurately termed the "military-industrial complex" by Dwight Eisenhower, a communist... err... wait... Eisenhower was a conservative Christian and a Republican. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU Your comment is exactly what I mean. We can't discuss alternatives because there seems to have been some campaign to gerrymander the language and discourse such that any questioning of the official system instantly implies that you're a Leninist or alternately a Hitlerist.
    - andrenth 8y ago
      You wondered about the USSR. I was replying to that.
      - api 8y ago
        My point about the USSR was about how people will often be in denial when the dominant socioeconomic system is displaying severe problems and may be on the brink of failure.
        andrenth 8y ago
        I see, I misunderstood then.
- ShabbosGoy 8y ago
  > Maybe state corporatist capitalism destroys people and places. Try that. Hierarchies destroy people and places. The alternative is lack of a hierarchy, which is anarchy. Which are you more comfortable with, typing on your $1000 phone’s keyboard?
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Humans will always form hierarchies, but it is possible to have more equitable hierarchies where I’m still not beaten to death for my iPhone.
    - ShabbosGoy 8y ago
      What does “equitable hierarchy” mean? Equality of outcome? No thanks. Equality of opportunity? Fine, that’s what we have today.
      - colemannugent 8y ago
        >...that’s what we have today. I agree with everything you said except for this part. We certainly don't have equality of opportunity today. Maybe in small microcosms of the first world countries, but there is a lot more work that needs doing in most of the world.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
- golergka 8y ago
  > it's now very hard to even talk about any alternative to state corporatist capitalism Have you suffered persecution from the state for discussing such alternatives? Have you been arrested, beaten, your documents confiscated - all for discussing the pros and cons of "state corporatist capitalism"? Have you spent years in camps for it? Because that's what was common in the late USSR. Of course, it was much more civilized than early USSR, when you'd be executed for discussing much more minor things, so that's an improvement.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  > it's now very hard to even talk about any alternative to state corporatist capitalism I don't think this is true: Millenials and Gen-Z are increasingly supportive of socialism and sometimes outright communism. The party machinery of the traditional left has been resisting this effort, as you say, but that wall is crumbling and will not last forever; e.g. see the improbable successes of Corbyn, Sanders, etc.
- IanDrake 8y ago
  >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 Wall Street protest where they camped out in downtown NYC for a month? They broke all sorts of laws but were allowed to stay. That doesn’t sound like “extermination”. What I do see is violence from communist and anarchists against speech that they deem fascists, but are really just moderate voices. I can provide video links if you need, but it’s common knowledge at this point. We still live in a democracy and so long as we do, you’re going to have to live with consensus, which doesn’t see things your way.
  - XorNot 8y ago
    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 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/phoenix-man-posts-photos-of-giving-up-his-guns-gets-death-threats/481212566 https://www.12news.com/mobile/article/news/local/valley/phoe... Even advocated for by the current President of the United States: https://newrepublic.com/minutes/128896/beat-protester-trumps-rally-hell-cover-legal-fees https://newrepublic.com/minutes/128896/beat-protester-trumps...
    - IanDrake 8y ago
      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.
    - MatrixAlgebra 8y ago
davelnewton 8y ago
> Technology destroys people. I'd disagree. Technology is a tool like any other; it may destroy you, but that's anecdotal. It is not a requirement that it destroy people or take them away from what they find important.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  “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 argument, but understandable in a time when it’s rare for long form discussion to take place where the depth of the issue can be examined collaboratively)
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    It sounds like our variant of capitalism is the system that's destroying people, not technology.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - XorNot 8y ago
      Bingo! I feel like you get this type of article from Americans as a cowardly way to avoid criticising unchecked capitalism or dealing with and engaging with their politics as a means to build a better government. Easier to blame a nebulous concept and the individual, then advocate for any sort of group cooperatism - even though as a species cooperating is what we've always done.
      - davelnewton 8y ago
        I don't think it's capitalism per se that's at issue, rather its execution: unethical capitalism is bad. Making money is not.
MatrixAlgebra 8y ago
What a sad article. I'm not sure if the author is more concerned with capitalism or technology. He may not understand the difference. Somewhere in this rant I see he complains about hearing aids. Really? He seems to have a personal problem with balance. I like to look at my phone and browse the internet, but I also enjoy walks in the park. I make time for both. What horror, such a dystopia! Nature is doing very well in capitalistic, technologically advanced societies that make protecting it a priority. Appreciation of nature is entirely compatible with capitalism and tech. Maybe during the hours of solitude he will find in his log cabin he will find some time to ruminate on this. >"My culture made a Faustian pact, on my behalf, with those devilish tyrants Speed, Numbers, Homogeneity, Efficiency and Schedules, and now I’m telling the devil I want my soul back." Ah yes, your precious soul has been so cruelly manhandled by civilization. It would be so much better served toiling in the mud and hunting for prey, suffering in the cold and burning in the hear of summer! Draught? Disease? Well, tis the will of benevolent nature for whom nothing is sacred, at least it's not evil capitalism and technology! How dare we rise above our animal destinies to create and explore, to stand on the moon and understand the nature of the universe that birthed us yet is wholly indifferent to our existence. How dare we develop cures for disease and new methods of communication and transportation? How dare we engage in the billions-strong dance of production that is the modern economy? We have as much claim to being part of nature as a tree does! And just like trees, or algae, or bacteria, we and our creations are beautiful. Maybe one day this author will come to appreciate the inherent goodness of human civilization.
pavel_lishin 8y ago
> (I’ve never found doing the work to buy and maintain them particularly convenient). They ain't called conveniences because they're convenient to purchase and maintain. They're called conveniences because they're more convenient than beating your clothes with rocks down at the river, and more convenient than skinning a rabbit and turning it over a spit. Anyway, he seems to have thought all this out. I'm glad he's doing this, and I'm glad he's not presenting it as a solution for everyone.
incadenza 8y ago
Why stop there? I don’t think Native Americans lived in log cabins. Antibiotics and modern medicine should undoubtedly be cast to the trash heap as well. I can’t help but feel like simply limiting screen time is the solution here...
- beauzero 8y ago
  ...and I think we will start seeing that happen. I relate this to the Pamphlet wars when printing became cheap. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamphlet_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamphlet_wars History repeats itself...well it's at least similar.
  - avoutthere 8y ago
    Thank you for posting this. I had not heard of the Pamphlet wars.
- jadedhacker 8y ago
  Primitivism is justly derided, but there are other solutions to the alienation caused by our modern money driven technological society. We can have a better world if we ask for one.
- ewzimm 8y ago
  That's not taking it nearly far enough. Our distant ancestors were very adept at destroying ecosystems and causing extinctions with only flint and spears. They massively disrupted every environment they explored. If we want to live non-destructively, we should ban even the use of fire and sharp sticks. In one way of looking at it, all technology, even the most primitive, is sufficient for destruction. From another point of view, the tool itself is not the real problem.
- lainga 8y ago
  Language and agriculture, too, were raw deals for humans (see Sapiens), and should be dismantled as soon as possible.
ryanmercer 8y ago
I wrote something like this last year https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2017/2/13/i-miss-the-20th-century https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2017/2/13/i-miss-th... I miss the face to face interactions, I miss community, I miss boredom and a considerably simpler life. At the same time though I love that I have friends all over the world, many of which I've never met, but know just as well as local friends. I love that I can go on YouTube and see all sorts of amazing and interesting things. I love that I can share and discuss ideas with strangers on BBS/forums/sites like HN and Reddit. I love that an an adapter from Automatic tells my phone data from my car that then gets pushed to various places via IFTTT so that I can create a record of all of my driving and vehicle diagnostic alerts for potential use in the future. As I said in my blog post I have my foot in both worlds, being born in the mid 80's I was there for the birth of the modern internet and still had several years of my life where I didn't even know the internet existed. Now the internet is effectively an augmentation to my own person.
- everdev 8y ago
  I totally agree. Rather than choosing, I'd like to start embracing both in their own spaces. A retreat to slow down and get in touch with nature and a home office to get out, get productive and use tech for good.
- twiceaday 8y ago
  Modern society is worse given your value structure because your value structure is a product of, and therefore tailored for, an "older" society. Yes, there are other people who feel the same way: people who were instilled with the same value structure by the same society you grew up in. No, I don't think there is anything necessarily fundamental here that will apply to future generations.
dmortin 8y ago
There should be a middle way between this and our current lifestyle. Eschewing all technology also means eschewing the positive things technology provides to us.
- eludwig 8y ago
  >>There should be a middle way between this and our current lifestyle Exactly. There are countless ways to live. There are outliers and extremes that point the way to a sane middle ground. How else would we know the middle without exploration of the fringes?
dmortin 8y ago
What if he gets sick? Will he refuse modern medicine too and turn to traditional ones? Because if he accepts modern medicine, then he does use modern technology, that is, its results, so he still relies on other people working on technology which modern science uses a lot. So he enjoys the benefits without sharing the costs.
gmiller123456 8y ago
TL;DR; By "destroys people" he means "destroys their relationship with nature" and causes a sedentary lifestyle which leads to "industrial-scale afflictions of cancer, mental illness, obesity, heart disease, auto-immune disorders and food intolerances". He should probably use technology to look up the actual causes of some of those. As well as observe the fact that lots of people are not sedentary despite their heavy use of technology.
eucitizen2 8y ago
You don’t hate technology, you hate turbocharged neoliberal capitalism.
Rainymood 8y ago
>Technology destroys people. We’re already cyborgs (pacemakers, hearing aids) of a sort, and are well on our way to the type of Big Brother dystopia of the techno-utopians This one cuts quite close to the bone and I find this comment quite shortsighted and in poor taste. My mother's life was saved by some extremely swift handling by medical professionals and (here it comes) technology. Where I'm from, if someone has a heart attack everyone in the vicinity who is trained gets a text message with the location and/or situation. By sheer luck one of these people was in the neighbourhood and got a text message. By another stupidly lucky coincidence this woman had a defibrillator at home, which was nearby. She ran to her home, got the machine, and ran to our home and tried to restore my mother's heartbeat. I don't know the details but my mother was saved by technology that day and she's been living roughly 10 years now with a little machine next to her heart. Every time her heart beats in an irregular fashion the machine gives a little zap (which hurts, a lot) and restores the beat. Luckily, this happens rarely, but still. I'm not sure where I am going with this rant, but someone very dear to me was saved by technology, and i'd take the cyborg life over being dead.
- conjectures 8y ago
  Pace-makers! Hearing aids! Dystopia! He's gone and hexed himself with reductio and doesn't even know.
- dennis_jeeves 8y ago
  >Where I'm from, if someone has a heart attack everyone in the vicinity who is trained gets a text message with the location and/or situation. Can you elaborate on the technical side of detection of the heart attack and the alerts? Also where do you live?
dingo_bat 8y ago
> Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it Read all about it on your smartphone/laptop.
jcfrei 8y ago
Interesting opinion piece. I've previously written about the rise of technoskepticism: http://jcfrei.com/technological-primacy/ http://jcfrei.com/technological-primacy/
adreamingsoul 8y ago
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 technologies that have no environmental impact. 6. Only invest in technology that is repairable and long-lasting.
- rollcat 8y ago
  Bare metal self-hosting is cost-ineffective and over-complicated, and will never happen at any non-trivial scale. Even among the competent people, most of us simply have better things to do after work. We need something like an app store for self-hosted apps, on top of a mesh/P2P network with built-in load balancing, redundancy, and sandboxing; ideally with a distributed data-store. Installing and running Wekan should be no more difficult than creating a Trello account, and should provide a similar level of service availability (say within three nines). Until then, self-hosting is completely infeasible for >99% of the global population. All of this is technically feasible, someone just has to do the hard work.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- oxw 8y ago
  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.
- mieseratte 8y ago
  > 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/ http://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/
eucitizen2x 8y ago
> You don’t hate technology, you hate turbocharged neoliberal capitalism. I’ll keep making this point HN, flag me all you want. You want to indulge in political discourse I gather (since you don’t delete this specific thread m) thus you will need to hear out voices which speak out against the status quo. US centric neoclassical economics is not truth, not science, it’s just another ideology reigning over so many people’s lives affected by an economic system that’s built on exploitation. Another world is possible.
- tlb 8y ago
  Such comments get flagged because they don't make a substantive point (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). You could add substance by, for instance, talking about some steps that could be taken to improve things.
  - eucitizen2x 8y ago
    Funnily enough, the thread got flagged now. But just to verify: Asserting a bad state of affairs and pointing out possible sources of error (ie ideology) does not merit a comment? Do I always need to somehow provide a solution? This seems reductionist to me. A way of life, a way of thinking is not an engineering problem. Trying to find a common language to tackle difficult societal problems is the first step in my view. That’s why I keep throwing in my point of view even though HN does really not like thinking about ideology inherent to disruptive™️ entrepreneurship™️ economics of 2018.
cromulent 8y ago
(2016) . He posts updates to The Guardian, e.g. this one. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/19/a-year-without-tech-debt-gadgets-reconnect-nature https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/19/a-year...
jesperlang 8y ago
> 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 accounted for is that slowness itself has value, I have time for reflection while walking, I get fresh air and move my body, I don't need to worry about a car and its costs. The same goes for food. I used to do alot of take outs when I worked full time but now I don't hesitate to prepare and cook for 2-3 hours, I get a much more intimate experience with food, I learn things and get to eat food that taste great.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- c1sc0 8y ago
  This. Indeed. Overall we spend far too much time working to afford “necessities” & “conveniences” that are neither.
agumonkey 8y ago
I have fantasies of similar lifestyle. And to an extent rebooting technology by using simple tools, simpler ways and materials. Maybe just enough to build optics and radio. I agree with him that we're at a point where technology is backfiring. 100 years ago anything was pure improvement. Food conservation, mobility, television. But I feel we're hitting a ceiling.
zoltaan 8y ago
Technology does not destroys people. People destroy people! Technology just sits there doing nothing without someone starts using it.
nbeleski 8y ago
It feels he is not really wrong on many of his points, but this ain't a solution that he is proposing. Technology is not going away, we need to learn to live with it and have it as a tool to better our lives. It feels that today technology has too much control over people lives. The effects of social media are becoming better understood by the day. Maybe it is time to separete better which technologies are really useful from those that are hardly so. Life is too short to be spent on Instagram (soon deploying it's lite version to many developing countries...)
waiquoo 8y ago
Isn't this the kind of understandable reaction that is explored in 'Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance"?
kradeelav 8y ago
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.
cleanyourroom 8y ago
He has some valid complaints, as did Ted Kaczynski. Dropping out of the world seems as unlikely to make anything better as blowing up random people.

57 points by c1sc0 8y ago

ChrisArchitect 8y ago

put a date on this old article title! [2016]

c1sc0 8y ago
Edited

api 8y ago

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 visible to many people, but since the system can't be directly criticized people try to pin its shortcomings on other things like "technology" (an absurdly general term) or thrash around chasing conspiracy ghosts. It's a kind of philosophical scapegoating and fantasizing as a substitute for actual directed criticism. In other words the effectively prohibited criticism of the system sublimes into other areas. Maybe state corporatist capitalism destroys people and places. Try that. I wonder if this phenomenon was common in the late USSR?

c1sc0 8y ago
Why not call it technology like in the article? What would anti-technology look like?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
andrenth 8y ago
We can unquestionably say that communism has destroyed people and places.
- api 8y ago
  We can also unquestionably say that communism is not the only alternative. For the record I am not an authoritarian communist and I don't think it's a good alternative. I was very specific. I said "state corporatist capitalism" because there are even capitalist alternatives to that such as voluntarist libertarian capitalism and communitarian/co-op oriented capitalism. Our system is one of state-backed corporate capitalism backed by a centrally managed financial system and closely tied to defense and intelligence agencies. It was accurately termed the "military-industrial complex" by Dwight Eisenhower, a communist... err... wait... Eisenhower was a conservative Christian and a Republican. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU Your comment is exactly what I mean. We can't discuss alternatives because there seems to have been some campaign to gerrymander the language and discourse such that any questioning of the official system instantly implies that you're a Leninist or alternately a Hitlerist.
  - andrenth 8y ago
    You wondered about the USSR. I was replying to that.
    - api 8y ago
      My point about the USSR was about how people will often be in denial when the dominant socioeconomic system is displaying severe problems and may be on the brink of failure.
      - andrenth 8y ago
        I see, I misunderstood then.
ShabbosGoy 8y ago
> Maybe state corporatist capitalism destroys people and places. Try that. Hierarchies destroy people and places. The alternative is lack of a hierarchy, which is anarchy. Which are you more comfortable with, typing on your $1000 phone’s keyboard?
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Humans will always form hierarchies, but it is possible to have more equitable hierarchies where I’m still not beaten to death for my iPhone.
  - ShabbosGoy 8y ago
    What does “equitable hierarchy” mean? Equality of outcome? No thanks. Equality of opportunity? Fine, that’s what we have today.
    - colemannugent 8y ago
      >...that’s what we have today. I agree with everything you said except for this part. We certainly don't have equality of opportunity today. Maybe in small microcosms of the first world countries, but there is a lot more work that needs doing in most of the world.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
golergka 8y ago
> it's now very hard to even talk about any alternative to state corporatist capitalism Have you suffered persecution from the state for discussing such alternatives? Have you been arrested, beaten, your documents confiscated - all for discussing the pros and cons of "state corporatist capitalism"? Have you spent years in camps for it? Because that's what was common in the late USSR. Of course, it was much more civilized than early USSR, when you'd be executed for discussing much more minor things, so that's an improvement.
Analemma_ 8y ago
> it's now very hard to even talk about any alternative to state corporatist capitalism I don't think this is true: Millenials and Gen-Z are increasingly supportive of socialism and sometimes outright communism. The party machinery of the traditional left has been resisting this effort, as you say, but that wall is crumbling and will not last forever; e.g. see the improbable successes of Corbyn, Sanders, etc.
IanDrake 8y ago
>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 Wall Street protest where they camped out in downtown NYC for a month? They broke all sorts of laws but were allowed to stay. That doesn’t sound like “extermination”. What I do see is violence from communist and anarchists against speech that they deem fascists, but are really just moderate voices. I can provide video links if you need, but it’s common knowledge at this point. We still live in a democracy and so long as we do, you’re going to have to live with consensus, which doesn’t see things your way.
- XorNot 8y ago
  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 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/phoenix-man-posts-photos-of-giving-up-his-guns-gets-death-threats/481212566 https://www.12news.com/mobile/article/news/local/valley/phoe... Even advocated for by the current President of the United States: https://newrepublic.com/minutes/128896/beat-protester-trumps-rally-hell-cover-legal-fees https://newrepublic.com/minutes/128896/beat-protester-trumps...
  - IanDrake 8y ago
    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.
  - MatrixAlgebra 8y ago

davelnewton 8y ago

> Technology destroys people. I'd disagree. Technology is a tool like any other; it may destroy you, but that's anecdotal. It is not a requirement that it destroy people or take them away from what they find important.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
“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 argument, but understandable in a time when it’s rare for long form discussion to take place where the depth of the issue can be examined collaboratively)
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  It sounds like our variant of capitalism is the system that's destroying people, not technology.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - XorNot 8y ago
    Bingo! I feel like you get this type of article from Americans as a cowardly way to avoid criticising unchecked capitalism or dealing with and engaging with their politics as a means to build a better government. Easier to blame a nebulous concept and the individual, then advocate for any sort of group cooperatism - even though as a species cooperating is what we've always done.
    - davelnewton 8y ago
      I don't think it's capitalism per se that's at issue, rather its execution: unethical capitalism is bad. Making money is not.

MatrixAlgebra 8y ago

What a sad article. I'm not sure if the author is more concerned with capitalism or technology. He may not understand the difference. Somewhere in this rant I see he complains about hearing aids. Really? He seems to have a personal problem with balance. I like to look at my phone and browse the internet, but I also enjoy walks in the park. I make time for both. What horror, such a dystopia! Nature is doing very well in capitalistic, technologically advanced societies that make protecting it a priority. Appreciation of nature is entirely compatible with capitalism and tech. Maybe during the hours of solitude he will find in his log cabin he will find some time to ruminate on this. >"My culture made a Faustian pact, on my behalf, with those devilish tyrants Speed, Numbers, Homogeneity, Efficiency and Schedules, and now I’m telling the devil I want my soul back." Ah yes, your precious soul has been so cruelly manhandled by civilization. It would be so much better served toiling in the mud and hunting for prey, suffering in the cold and burning in the hear of summer! Draught? Disease? Well, tis the will of benevolent nature for whom nothing is sacred, at least it's not evil capitalism and technology! How dare we rise above our animal destinies to create and explore, to stand on the moon and understand the nature of the universe that birthed us yet is wholly indifferent to our existence. How dare we develop cures for disease and new methods of communication and transportation? How dare we engage in the billions-strong dance of production that is the modern economy? We have as much claim to being part of nature as a tree does! And just like trees, or algae, or bacteria, we and our creations are beautiful. Maybe one day this author will come to appreciate the inherent goodness of human civilization.

pavel_lishin 8y ago

> (I’ve never found doing the work to buy and maintain them particularly convenient). They ain't called conveniences because they're convenient to purchase and maintain. They're called conveniences because they're more convenient than beating your clothes with rocks down at the river, and more convenient than skinning a rabbit and turning it over a spit. Anyway, he seems to have thought all this out. I'm glad he's doing this, and I'm glad he's not presenting it as a solution for everyone.

incadenza 8y ago

Why stop there? I don’t think Native Americans lived in log cabins. Antibiotics and modern medicine should undoubtedly be cast to the trash heap as well. I can’t help but feel like simply limiting screen time is the solution here...

beauzero 8y ago
...and I think we will start seeing that happen. I relate this to the Pamphlet wars when printing became cheap. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamphlet_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamphlet_wars History repeats itself...well it's at least similar.
- avoutthere 8y ago
  Thank you for posting this. I had not heard of the Pamphlet wars.
jadedhacker 8y ago
Primitivism is justly derided, but there are other solutions to the alienation caused by our modern money driven technological society. We can have a better world if we ask for one.
ewzimm 8y ago
That's not taking it nearly far enough. Our distant ancestors were very adept at destroying ecosystems and causing extinctions with only flint and spears. They massively disrupted every environment they explored. If we want to live non-destructively, we should ban even the use of fire and sharp sticks. In one way of looking at it, all technology, even the most primitive, is sufficient for destruction. From another point of view, the tool itself is not the real problem.
lainga 8y ago
Language and agriculture, too, were raw deals for humans (see Sapiens), and should be dismantled as soon as possible.

ryanmercer 8y ago

I wrote something like this last year https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2017/2/13/i-miss-the-20th-century https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2017/2/13/i-miss-th... I miss the face to face interactions, I miss community, I miss boredom and a considerably simpler life. At the same time though I love that I have friends all over the world, many of which I've never met, but know just as well as local friends. I love that I can go on YouTube and see all sorts of amazing and interesting things. I love that I can share and discuss ideas with strangers on BBS/forums/sites like HN and Reddit. I love that an an adapter from Automatic tells my phone data from my car that then gets pushed to various places via IFTTT so that I can create a record of all of my driving and vehicle diagnostic alerts for potential use in the future. As I said in my blog post I have my foot in both worlds, being born in the mid 80's I was there for the birth of the modern internet and still had several years of my life where I didn't even know the internet existed. Now the internet is effectively an augmentation to my own person.

everdev 8y ago
I totally agree. Rather than choosing, I'd like to start embracing both in their own spaces. A retreat to slow down and get in touch with nature and a home office to get out, get productive and use tech for good.
twiceaday 8y ago
Modern society is worse given your value structure because your value structure is a product of, and therefore tailored for, an "older" society. Yes, there are other people who feel the same way: people who were instilled with the same value structure by the same society you grew up in. No, I don't think there is anything necessarily fundamental here that will apply to future generations.

dmortin 8y ago

There should be a middle way between this and our current lifestyle. Eschewing all technology also means eschewing the positive things technology provides to us.

eludwig 8y ago
>>There should be a middle way between this and our current lifestyle Exactly. There are countless ways to live. There are outliers and extremes that point the way to a sane middle ground. How else would we know the middle without exploration of the fringes?

dmortin 8y ago

What if he gets sick? Will he refuse modern medicine too and turn to traditional ones? Because if he accepts modern medicine, then he does use modern technology, that is, its results, so he still relies on other people working on technology which modern science uses a lot. So he enjoys the benefits without sharing the costs.

gmiller123456 8y ago

TL;DR; By "destroys people" he means "destroys their relationship with nature" and causes a sedentary lifestyle which leads to "industrial-scale afflictions of cancer, mental illness, obesity, heart disease, auto-immune disorders and food intolerances". He should probably use technology to look up the actual causes of some of those. As well as observe the fact that lots of people are not sedentary despite their heavy use of technology.

eucitizen2 8y ago

You don’t hate technology, you hate turbocharged neoliberal capitalism.

Rainymood 8y ago

>Technology destroys people. We’re already cyborgs (pacemakers, hearing aids) of a sort, and are well on our way to the type of Big Brother dystopia of the techno-utopians This one cuts quite close to the bone and I find this comment quite shortsighted and in poor taste. My mother's life was saved by some extremely swift handling by medical professionals and (here it comes) technology. Where I'm from, if someone has a heart attack everyone in the vicinity who is trained gets a text message with the location and/or situation. By sheer luck one of these people was in the neighbourhood and got a text message. By another stupidly lucky coincidence this woman had a defibrillator at home, which was nearby. She ran to her home, got the machine, and ran to our home and tried to restore my mother's heartbeat. I don't know the details but my mother was saved by technology that day and she's been living roughly 10 years now with a little machine next to her heart. Every time her heart beats in an irregular fashion the machine gives a little zap (which hurts, a lot) and restores the beat. Luckily, this happens rarely, but still. I'm not sure where I am going with this rant, but someone very dear to me was saved by technology, and i'd take the cyborg life over being dead.

conjectures 8y ago
Pace-makers! Hearing aids! Dystopia! He's gone and hexed himself with reductio and doesn't even know.
dennis_jeeves 8y ago
>Where I'm from, if someone has a heart attack everyone in the vicinity who is trained gets a text message with the location and/or situation. Can you elaborate on the technical side of detection of the heart attack and the alerts? Also where do you live?

dingo_bat 8y ago

> Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it Read all about it on your smartphone/laptop.

jcfrei 8y ago

Interesting opinion piece. I've previously written about the rise of technoskepticism: http://jcfrei.com/technological-primacy/ http://jcfrei.com/technological-primacy/

adreamingsoul 8y ago

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 technologies that have no environmental impact. 6. Only invest in technology that is repairable and long-lasting.

rollcat 8y ago
Bare metal self-hosting is cost-ineffective and over-complicated, and will never happen at any non-trivial scale. Even among the competent people, most of us simply have better things to do after work. We need something like an app store for self-hosted apps, on top of a mesh/P2P network with built-in load balancing, redundancy, and sandboxing; ideally with a distributed data-store. Installing and running Wekan should be no more difficult than creating a Trello account, and should provide a similar level of service availability (say within three nines). Until then, self-hosting is completely infeasible for >99% of the global population. All of this is technically feasible, someone just has to do the hard work.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
oxw 8y ago
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.
mieseratte 8y ago
> 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/ http://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/

eucitizen2x 8y ago

> You don’t hate technology, you hate turbocharged neoliberal capitalism. I’ll keep making this point HN, flag me all you want. You want to indulge in political discourse I gather (since you don’t delete this specific thread m) thus you will need to hear out voices which speak out against the status quo. US centric neoclassical economics is not truth, not science, it’s just another ideology reigning over so many people’s lives affected by an economic system that’s built on exploitation. Another world is possible.

tlb 8y ago
Such comments get flagged because they don't make a substantive point (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). You could add substance by, for instance, talking about some steps that could be taken to improve things.
- eucitizen2x 8y ago
  Funnily enough, the thread got flagged now. But just to verify: Asserting a bad state of affairs and pointing out possible sources of error (ie ideology) does not merit a comment? Do I always need to somehow provide a solution? This seems reductionist to me. A way of life, a way of thinking is not an engineering problem. Trying to find a common language to tackle difficult societal problems is the first step in my view. That’s why I keep throwing in my point of view even though HN does really not like thinking about ideology inherent to disruptive™️ entrepreneurship™️ economics of 2018.

cromulent 8y ago

(2016) . He posts updates to The Guardian, e.g. this one. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/19/a-year-without-tech-debt-gadgets-reconnect-nature https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/19/a-year...

jesperlang 8y ago

> 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 accounted for is that slowness itself has value, I have time for reflection while walking, I get fresh air and move my body, I don't need to worry about a car and its costs. The same goes for food. I used to do alot of take outs when I worked full time but now I don't hesitate to prepare and cook for 2-3 hours, I get a much more intimate experience with food, I learn things and get to eat food that taste great.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
c1sc0 8y ago
This. Indeed. Overall we spend far too much time working to afford “necessities” & “conveniences” that are neither.

agumonkey 8y ago

I have fantasies of similar lifestyle. And to an extent rebooting technology by using simple tools, simpler ways and materials. Maybe just enough to build optics and radio. I agree with him that we're at a point where technology is backfiring. 100 years ago anything was pure improvement. Food conservation, mobility, television. But I feel we're hitting a ceiling.

zoltaan 8y ago

Technology does not destroys people. People destroy people! Technology just sits there doing nothing without someone starts using it.

nbeleski 8y ago

It feels he is not really wrong on many of his points, but this ain't a solution that he is proposing. Technology is not going away, we need to learn to live with it and have it as a tool to better our lives. It feels that today technology has too much control over people lives. The effects of social media are becoming better understood by the day. Maybe it is time to separete better which technologies are really useful from those that are hardly so. Life is too short to be spent on Instagram (soon deploying it's lite version to many developing countries...)

waiquoo 8y ago

Isn't this the kind of understandable reaction that is explored in 'Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance"?

kradeelav 8y ago

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.

cleanyourroom 8y ago

He has some valid complaints, as did Ted Kaczynski. Dropping out of the world seems as unlikely to make anything better as blowing up random people.