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Oh good. Another app. When will people learn that more technology is not only not always the answer, but often the problem? The biggest fallacy of the 21st ce

Oh good. Another app. When will people learn that more technology is not only not always the answer, but often the problem? The biggest fallacy of the 21st century is the idea that the shortcomings and collateral effects of the advance of technology can be addressed with more technology. I'm not against technology. I'm not a neo-Luddite. But at the same time, the conception that all of the problems we've created or exacerbated through technology can be resolved by more of it is painfully naive. It's "when all you've got is a hammer..." logic. New technology won't replace or repair the decline in social centers. New technology won't fix our increasing sense of disconnection with our localities. New technology won't help us engage with local politics (in the sense of trying to do good by collective action). Building new apps and new technologies isn't a cure-all or necessarily a solution for the problems were facing right now. It's time for us to recognize that we (the tech community) don't have all of the right answers, and it's time for us to reach out and try to learn, and try to participate in fixing the problems we helped create.

pal_9000 7y ago
You're absolutely wrong. Technology enables an avenue for easier communication, discovery. It may not be a panacea and not the only solution. But saying 'it won't fix' is defeatist.
- 1propionyl 7y ago
  > But saying 'it won't fix' is defeatist. Insisting technology _must_ be capable of fixing these problems is naive idiocy. Technology isn't our only means for addressing social issues, and it's certainly not a panacea. Why should we resort to the newest and least well proven approach to issues that humanity has faced for thousands of years? Do you have my actual justification beyond "it gives me a job?"
  - onion2k 7y ago
    I don't think someone launching an app stops people using all the other means of addressing their social issues. It's another option, not a replacement option.
    - 1propionyl 7y ago
      But is it an option that will actually help? Or is it a red herring that will drive in app purchases and ad revenue while letting the problems it purports to help with fester? Attention is a finite resource.
      - DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
        > Attention is a finite resource. and equally, so is empathy. And those people who invest in this garbage and profit of it ofc know it!
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - pal_9000 7y ago
    I don't think 'technology must' is the narrative here. Well, it's trying to solve a problem. What's wrong in having different approaches for solving a problem? I don't think they are preaching on being the only solution and "disrupt" traditional approaches.
- starfallg 7y ago
  Solitude and solitary activities are important for our psyche. If the social issues caused by too much information and communications is due to its ill effects on us mentally, then that approach is not only ignorant, but dangerous.
  - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
    It only affects you because you are trying to find truth and meaning in it. You cannot find meaning intellectually. Or in an app. You have to experience it. To discipline your mind takes years of effort.
onion2k 7y ago
It's time for us to recognize that we (the tech community) don't have all of the right answers, and it's time for us to reach out and try to learn, and try to participate in fixing the problems we helped create. Is this like when people in the past said the postal system couldn't ever replace visiting someone, and that the telephone would never replace letters, and that chat apps couldn't beat a phone call.. People in tech (all tech since the beginning of the human race) have believed their inventions will nudge people to do things they might not otherwise do. Better swords and armour encouraged more battles, better farm tools encouraged more farming, better housing encouraged bigger families, better eduction encouraged more inventiveness, and so on. That's what tech is. Today that means Google's adverts push us to click on links and buy things, Facebook's status updates push us to share more, Instagram encourages us to take more selfies and pictures of our dinners, Twitter's retweets make us show people we discovered things they might want to see. The idea that people in tech wouldn't come up with apps that try to fix the lonely people by making them sociable is ridiculous. Apps and tech are all about behaviour manipulation. And, mostly looking at all the evidence around us, it works really well.
- 1propionyl 7y ago
  > Is this like when people in the past said the postal system couldn't ever replace visiting someone, and that the telephone would never replace letters, and that chat apps couldn't beat a phone call.. This is a very dumb argument and a false analogy. > The idea that people in tech _wouldn't_ come up with apps that try to fix the lonely people ... is ridiculous. You're absolutely correct here. But that doesn't mean those apps will actually work or achieve their publicly stated goals. Also "fix" lonely people? What the fuck? And you want to pretend to criticize behavior modification?
- DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
  have you been outside recently? I mean outside without a phone for a couple of months. Give yourself a no-data diet, and just observe what is going on in others. Wait alone at a bus-stop or alone at a pub or cafe. You can see them addicted to their screens everywhere. It's the norm now to immediately reach for the phone because god forbid they might otherwise feel 2 seconds of boredom. They are no longer human as far as I'm concerned. The problem is never that AI and technology will replace us. We are becoming (actually we have already become) so much like AI/robots that it's impossible to stomach. Everyone isolated into their own little algorithmic prisons without any need to listen to others. It's much much worse than any hard drug you could be addicted to because with hard drugs you still have others who you can do them with. Just do yourselves a favor and never unplug because what you see might be so upsetting that you might wonder if it's still worth living. I won't even get started on the problem of "fixing loneliness" with an app. You don't "fix" loneliness with an external tool. The only solution to fix this is inside you (and it hurts if you do it right). Pain is part of it and anyone who claims they can take away the pain, or make it easy should be metaphorically incinerated. These things aren't increasing empathy. They're the opposite: They are empathy sinks! y'all do yourselves a favor and read Jacques Ellul "La Technique" (The Technological Society) and stop peddling and defending more Tech just for the Benjamins.
castillar76 7y ago
In his UseNIX keynote in 2018[0], James Mickens described the terrible idea he termed 'Technological Manifest Destiny': 1. Technology is value-neutral and therefore will automatically lead to good outcomes for everyone. 2. New kinds of technology should be deployed as quickly as possible, even if we lack a general idea of how the technology works or what the societal impact will be. 3. History is generally uninteresting because the past has nothing to teach us right now. He was, at the time, applying that theory to things like dumping AI and Machine Learning into the American justice system, but it could easily be applied here as well. It's the same misapprehension that throwing more technology at a problem will always solve that problem. And as he later observed, everyone who's played Oregon Trail knows that Manifest Destiny often ends in dysentery. [0] "Q: Why Do Keynote Speakers Keep Suggesting That Improving Security Is Possible? A: Because Keynote Speakers Make Bad Life Decisions and Are Poor Role Models", UseNIX 2018 (https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity18/presentation/mickens); https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity18/presentat... Transcript: https://www.zachpfeffer.com/single-post/2018/11/27/Transcript-of-James-Mickens-USENIX-Speech https://www.zachpfeffer.com/single-post/2018/11/27/Transcrip...
blablabla123 7y ago
I think "traditional" social media (Usenet, IRC...) was a nice complement to everything. However the new social media like Facebook etc. is not a complement but a replacement for texts, phone calls, keeping in touch by more offline means. As a matter of fact the new services were pushed and advocated mostly from outside the tech community. So I don't see any obligation. The founders already sum it up pretty nicely: “It’s like eating McDonald’s to get healthy. It’s not the right source of nutrition for our social well-being...” Recent development in that area rather stemmed from opportunistic goal-seeking...
agumonkey 7y ago
Let's have a game, what or when in history had so much negative side effects as today (mass networked) computing ? I miss the peace of mind of buying a box with a CD and use it in my bedroom carelessly. But beside me, landline phone, kitchen appliances, they were mostly zero worries (beside their own isolated quality). Maybe car safety was a social struggle at one point. Maybe gas powered lightning was too ?

pal_9000 7y ago

You're absolutely wrong. Technology enables an avenue for easier communication, discovery. It may not be a panacea and not the only solution. But saying 'it won't fix' is defeatist.

1propionyl 7y ago
> But saying 'it won't fix' is defeatist. Insisting technology _must_ be capable of fixing these problems is naive idiocy. Technology isn't our only means for addressing social issues, and it's certainly not a panacea. Why should we resort to the newest and least well proven approach to issues that humanity has faced for thousands of years? Do you have my actual justification beyond "it gives me a job?"
- onion2k 7y ago
  I don't think someone launching an app stops people using all the other means of addressing their social issues. It's another option, not a replacement option.
  - 1propionyl 7y ago
    But is it an option that will actually help? Or is it a red herring that will drive in app purchases and ad revenue while letting the problems it purports to help with fester? Attention is a finite resource.
    - DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
      > Attention is a finite resource. and equally, so is empathy. And those people who invest in this garbage and profit of it ofc know it!
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- pal_9000 7y ago
  I don't think 'technology must' is the narrative here. Well, it's trying to solve a problem. What's wrong in having different approaches for solving a problem? I don't think they are preaching on being the only solution and "disrupt" traditional approaches.
starfallg 7y ago
Solitude and solitary activities are important for our psyche. If the social issues caused by too much information and communications is due to its ill effects on us mentally, then that approach is not only ignorant, but dangerous.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
  It only affects you because you are trying to find truth and meaning in it. You cannot find meaning intellectually. Or in an app. You have to experience it. To discipline your mind takes years of effort.

onion2k 7y ago

It's time for us to recognize that we (the tech community) don't have all of the right answers, and it's time for us to reach out and try to learn, and try to participate in fixing the problems we helped create. Is this like when people in the past said the postal system couldn't ever replace visiting someone, and that the telephone would never replace letters, and that chat apps couldn't beat a phone call.. People in tech (all tech since the beginning of the human race) have believed their inventions will nudge people to do things they might not otherwise do. Better swords and armour encouraged more battles, better farm tools encouraged more farming, better housing encouraged bigger families, better eduction encouraged more inventiveness, and so on. That's what tech is. Today that means Google's adverts push us to click on links and buy things, Facebook's status updates push us to share more, Instagram encourages us to take more selfies and pictures of our dinners, Twitter's retweets make us show people we discovered things they might want to see. The idea that people in tech wouldn't come up with apps that try to fix the lonely people by making them sociable is ridiculous. Apps and tech are all about behaviour manipulation. And, mostly looking at all the evidence around us, it works really well.

1propionyl 7y ago
> Is this like when people in the past said the postal system couldn't ever replace visiting someone, and that the telephone would never replace letters, and that chat apps couldn't beat a phone call.. This is a very dumb argument and a false analogy. > The idea that people in tech _wouldn't_ come up with apps that try to fix the lonely people ... is ridiculous. You're absolutely correct here. But that doesn't mean those apps will actually work or achieve their publicly stated goals. Also "fix" lonely people? What the fuck? And you want to pretend to criticize behavior modification?
DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
have you been outside recently? I mean outside without a phone for a couple of months. Give yourself a no-data diet, and just observe what is going on in others. Wait alone at a bus-stop or alone at a pub or cafe. You can see them addicted to their screens everywhere. It's the norm now to immediately reach for the phone because god forbid they might otherwise feel 2 seconds of boredom. They are no longer human as far as I'm concerned. The problem is never that AI and technology will replace us. We are becoming (actually we have already become) so much like AI/robots that it's impossible to stomach. Everyone isolated into their own little algorithmic prisons without any need to listen to others. It's much much worse than any hard drug you could be addicted to because with hard drugs you still have others who you can do them with. Just do yourselves a favor and never unplug because what you see might be so upsetting that you might wonder if it's still worth living. I won't even get started on the problem of "fixing loneliness" with an app. You don't "fix" loneliness with an external tool. The only solution to fix this is inside you (and it hurts if you do it right). Pain is part of it and anyone who claims they can take away the pain, or make it easy should be metaphorically incinerated. These things aren't increasing empathy. They're the opposite: They are empathy sinks! y'all do yourselves a favor and read Jacques Ellul "La Technique" (The Technological Society) and stop peddling and defending more Tech just for the Benjamins.

castillar76 7y ago

In his UseNIX keynote in 2018[0], James Mickens described the terrible idea he termed 'Technological Manifest Destiny': 1. Technology is value-neutral and therefore will automatically lead to good outcomes for everyone. 2. New kinds of technology should be deployed as quickly as possible, even if we lack a general idea of how the technology works or what the societal impact will be. 3. History is generally uninteresting because the past has nothing to teach us right now. He was, at the time, applying that theory to things like dumping AI and Machine Learning into the American justice system, but it could easily be applied here as well. It's the same misapprehension that throwing more technology at a problem will always solve that problem. And as he later observed, everyone who's played Oregon Trail knows that Manifest Destiny often ends in dysentery. [0] "Q: Why Do Keynote Speakers Keep Suggesting That Improving Security Is Possible? A: Because Keynote Speakers Make Bad Life Decisions and Are Poor Role Models", UseNIX 2018 (https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity18/presentation/mickens); https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity18/presentat... Transcript: https://www.zachpfeffer.com/single-post/2018/11/27/Transcript-of-James-Mickens-USENIX-Speech https://www.zachpfeffer.com/single-post/2018/11/27/Transcrip...

blablabla123 7y ago

I think "traditional" social media (Usenet, IRC...) was a nice complement to everything. However the new social media like Facebook etc. is not a complement but a replacement for texts, phone calls, keeping in touch by more offline means. As a matter of fact the new services were pushed and advocated mostly from outside the tech community. So I don't see any obligation. The founders already sum it up pretty nicely: “It’s like eating McDonald’s to get healthy. It’s not the right source of nutrition for our social well-being...” Recent development in that area rather stemmed from opportunistic goal-seeking...

agumonkey 7y ago

Let's have a game, what or when in history had so much negative side effects as today (mass networked) computing ? I miss the peace of mind of buying a box with a CD and use it in my bedroom carelessly. But beside me, landline phone, kitchen appliances, they were mostly zero worries (beside their own isolated quality). Maybe car safety was a social struggle at one point. Maybe gas powered lightning was too ?