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One question that recently came to me regarding technology is: "What happened to all the hope and optimism?". Growing up as a kid in the 80s, I remember the de

One question that recently came to me regarding technology is: "What happened to all the hope and optimism?". Growing up as a kid in the 80s, I remember the development of personal computing as exciting, and especially with the explosion of the Internet in the 90s, the possibilities being envisaged by everyone were utterly intoxicating. Finally we would have world that connected disparate cultures, a bridge of communication that would help us understand each other and appreciate different points of view. A true global community. For those of us coming of age during this period, "surfing the web" was exciting because every week you'd learn about or discover something new, and there was a highly experimental, creative, and fun tone to the whole thing. Instead now we have social media that is largely just a venue for people to yell without listening, political entities to peddle misinformation that serves only their own interests, an entire industry sector dedicated to exploiting personal information to target ads, a culture of consumption rather than creation, and the centralisation of online life into the hands of a small corporate oligarchy. This isn't what most people were hoping for in the 90s, though a few were warning of potential risks. Like the author, I recently read Edward Snowden's book, and in one of the early chapters he talks about the experience of growing up with the Internet in the 90s in a way that resonated closely with me. Fast forward to the end of the book, which is absolutely chilling, and it feels like you're reading a dystopian science fiction novel, except it's real. The Internet of today is almost unrecognisable from the early days. Stepping back I just throw my hands up and wonder what the fuck happened? Is there any hope that it can become better, or is it just going to be a further descent into cynicism? And what, if anything, can we do about it?

dr_dshiv 7y ago
What we need is to quantify the negative impact that negative storytelling has on our wellbeing and direction. That will help us understand the importance of positive heuristics for the future, as in the 60s-90's. We should avoid a negative vision of the future. But we also need a positive vision of future to attract us and guide us. Stewart Brand had one. Many techno utopians did. But now so few intelligent people believe it is morally acceptable to be optimistic. After all, climate, race, capitalism...
- tjr225 7y ago
  > But now so few intelligent people believe it is morally acceptable to be optimistic. After all, climate, race, capitalism... We have to consider the moral implications of our social and economic structures as well as our impacts on the only place we have in the universe to live if we are going to have a positive vision of the future. The greatest challenge here is not being silenced by those who have a vested interest - logical or otherwise - in preserving the status quo with regards to these things.
  - dr_dshiv 7y ago
    Well, my argument is that we need a positive vision without considering how exactly we will fix our social, economic and environmental issues. That's my point. We can't wait till we figure that out to have a guiding optimistic vision of the future. We simply have to assume we will figure it out. Second, and with respect, I would suggest that your rhetoric, which is quite common (and, by the way, represents vested interests in status quo intelligensia), is doing a lot of silencing. It's quite pervasive. I'd argue that contemporary liberal group norms are much more silencing than, say, the oil industry.
    - tjr225 7y ago
      > Second, and with respect, I would suggest that your rhetoric, which is quite common (and, by the way, represents vested interests in status quo intelligensia), is doing a lot of silencing. It's quite pervasive. > I'd argue that contemporary liberal group norms are much more silencing than, say, the oil industry. Do you not see the hypocrisy in this statement? You're attempting to discredit my entire viewpoint by painting it as "liberal intelligensia rhetoric" - whatever that means. And as to your second point, the oil industry has a long record of covering up evidence of climate change, silencing victims of pollution/fracking, manipulating political process in order to continue destroying the planet, and so on. I'm not saying Harvey Weinstein should have lost his job, but the oil industry is certainly responsible for more silencing than "liberal norms" by an order of some magnitude.
      - 7y ago
cousin_it 7y ago
Early adopters are always a more fun crowd, because "being a fun person" and "being an early adopter of stuff" are related personality traits. So don't give up! Become an early adopter of something new, or if there's nothing worthy, invent it :-)
gumby 7y ago
> One question that recently came to me regarding technology is: "What happened to all the hope and optimism?". Growing up as a kid in the 80s, I remember the development of personal computing as exciting... Back then nobody (that is, O(0)) people cared about those things so the tech could expand in peace. Nowadays, computing is ubiquitous and in the front page of the paper so the people who feel threatened by it attack even the smallest green shoots of progress.
pjc50 7y ago
Three things, I think: - "Eternal September". If you treat it as a cultural movement, like say "punk" or "hippies", then it was always at its best slightly before you joined and ruined by the larger number of people who joined after you and didn't get it. - End of "end of history". The period after the fall of the Soviet Union was hugely optimistic. "Progress" had won, and was going to continue to win, forever. This was brought abruptly to an end on the 11th of September 2001, and much of the evils of the modern world stem from the subsequent war. The internet was a propaganda battleground for the first time. - "Selling out". The great achievement of the internet was building a telecoms system without a billing system. There was outcry when the first ad spam happened on USENET. Ultimately it kind of destroyed the service. Since then so many of the other problems of the internet are caused by people doing things that are inconvenient or harmful to others not out of internal malice or carelessness but because it's profitable to do so.
ASalazarMX 7y ago
Megacorporations took control. Just as it happened with the telephone, once a big company has enough control, it starts to dictate the rules of the game, startups have to play by that rules, and everything becomes boring. Now whenever someone announces an exciting product, you can be sure it connects to the cloud, requires a login, mines your information and will be obsolete in less than a year... alright, maybe we just become more cynical with age.

dr_dshiv 7y ago

What we need is to quantify the negative impact that negative storytelling has on our wellbeing and direction. That will help us understand the importance of positive heuristics for the future, as in the 60s-90's. We should avoid a negative vision of the future. But we also need a positive vision of future to attract us and guide us. Stewart Brand had one. Many techno utopians did. But now so few intelligent people believe it is morally acceptable to be optimistic. After all, climate, race, capitalism...

tjr225 7y ago
> But now so few intelligent people believe it is morally acceptable to be optimistic. After all, climate, race, capitalism... We have to consider the moral implications of our social and economic structures as well as our impacts on the only place we have in the universe to live if we are going to have a positive vision of the future. The greatest challenge here is not being silenced by those who have a vested interest - logical or otherwise - in preserving the status quo with regards to these things.
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  Well, my argument is that we need a positive vision without considering how exactly we will fix our social, economic and environmental issues. That's my point. We can't wait till we figure that out to have a guiding optimistic vision of the future. We simply have to assume we will figure it out. Second, and with respect, I would suggest that your rhetoric, which is quite common (and, by the way, represents vested interests in status quo intelligensia), is doing a lot of silencing. It's quite pervasive. I'd argue that contemporary liberal group norms are much more silencing than, say, the oil industry.
  - tjr225 7y ago
    > Second, and with respect, I would suggest that your rhetoric, which is quite common (and, by the way, represents vested interests in status quo intelligensia), is doing a lot of silencing. It's quite pervasive. > I'd argue that contemporary liberal group norms are much more silencing than, say, the oil industry. Do you not see the hypocrisy in this statement? You're attempting to discredit my entire viewpoint by painting it as "liberal intelligensia rhetoric" - whatever that means. And as to your second point, the oil industry has a long record of covering up evidence of climate change, silencing victims of pollution/fracking, manipulating political process in order to continue destroying the planet, and so on. I'm not saying Harvey Weinstein should have lost his job, but the oil industry is certainly responsible for more silencing than "liberal norms" by an order of some magnitude.
    - 7y ago

cousin_it 7y ago

Early adopters are always a more fun crowd, because "being a fun person" and "being an early adopter of stuff" are related personality traits. So don't give up! Become an early adopter of something new, or if there's nothing worthy, invent it :-)

gumby 7y ago

> One question that recently came to me regarding technology is: "What happened to all the hope and optimism?". Growing up as a kid in the 80s, I remember the development of personal computing as exciting... Back then nobody (that is, O(0)) people cared about those things so the tech could expand in peace. Nowadays, computing is ubiquitous and in the front page of the paper so the people who feel threatened by it attack even the smallest green shoots of progress.

pjc50 7y ago

Three things, I think: - "Eternal September". If you treat it as a cultural movement, like say "punk" or "hippies", then it was always at its best slightly before you joined and ruined by the larger number of people who joined after you and didn't get it. - End of "end of history". The period after the fall of the Soviet Union was hugely optimistic. "Progress" had won, and was going to continue to win, forever. This was brought abruptly to an end on the 11th of September 2001, and much of the evils of the modern world stem from the subsequent war. The internet was a propaganda battleground for the first time. - "Selling out". The great achievement of the internet was building a telecoms system without a billing system. There was outcry when the first ad spam happened on USENET. Ultimately it kind of destroyed the service. Since then so many of the other problems of the internet are caused by people doing things that are inconvenient or harmful to others not out of internal malice or carelessness but because it's profitable to do so.

ASalazarMX 7y ago

Megacorporations took control. Just as it happened with the telephone, once a big company has enough control, it starts to dictate the rules of the game, startups have to play by that rules, and everything becomes boring. Now whenever someone announces an exciting product, you can be sure it connects to the cloud, requires a login, mines your information and will be obsolete in less than a year... alright, maybe we just become more cynical with age.