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What is it liberating you from? Your own empowerment?

by nxc18 6y ago

wholinator2 6y ago
Basically yeah, but I would rephrase it as liberation from constant reliance, or from always having the perfect answer, from a lessened use of ones mind, from necessary human interaction to ask anyone a question, or from spending any precious second not maximizing the amount of information and "productivity" you can achieve. It's about being a human, in an environment, around other humans, with time to spare for original thoughts and just to enjoy being alive. I expect many people on this forum are the "productivity" and "maximizing" type. Not that there's anything wrong with that! We need those people! But I think we might all be able to benefit from truly relying on ourselves in difficult situations, instead of just asking the answer box to help us avoid any annoyance or unnecessary difficulty. If you wish your life to be a perfectly smooth series of directions given by a silicon hivemind, feel free friend. Sometimes the bumps and the dirt are what make life worth living though. Sometimes the empathy of unnecessary difficult situations can create bonds and perspective that shiny chrome smoothness cannot. Persistent smooth perfect answers have their purpose and we wouldn't have invented it if not for its use but I find the rather strong opposition to experiencing and exploring one's humanity, whether this way or that, rather frightening. Almost sounds like it's the chrome talking and not the human.
- 1123581321 6y ago
  Think of it as rearranging your life to have those quiet moments when you want them, with the people you want to have them with. For example, I once used my phone to reroute my wife and I around an unexpectedly closed train station so we could spend a planned hour in an old cathedral. We were glad we were able to meditate and be alone with our thoughts in that cathedral instead of being alone with them trying to read unfamiliar train tables and chase down busy transit employees. After that we used the phone to update our plans to meet a friend in that city. In the 90s we probably would have just gone home and missed seeing our friend for another few years. We had a nice, long conversation with her. That doesn’t have anything to do with productivity and the only things we maximized were the most important leisure activities that day. Your motivation is certainly a good one, to be clear.
- nxc18 6y ago
  I think there’s an assumption that if you’re using your phone regularly you’re never taking the time to have human experiences. For all but perhaps the most avoidant, I don’t think that happens in practice. I walk alone for 1-3 hours a day. Usually I wear headphones and listen to podcasts or the economist audio - I have learned a lot about the world this way. You could argue it is just entertainment, but I suppose my old CS lectures were just entertainment, too. Having audio content helps make the walks more bearable, and those walks have helped me lose over 100 lbs of unwanted body fat. Sometimes I take the headphones out to enjoy the sights and sounds. Sometimes I pause and enjoy the views for a while. If I see someone I want to talk to, I stop, take the headphones out, and talk. There’s no binary choice and I find that by sparing me actual reading time, this practice gives me more time to spend on things I care about. I do enjoy the nature exposure, but I don’t need 3 hours a day of focus on it - it really just doesn’t change much day to day or year to year. I wish living in a perfectly smooth chrome existence was an option, but it isn’t. My phone and the internet fail often enough that I still regularly need to call a real human and talk. The maps are wonderful, but they still require a degree of interpretation, like when a rail line is closed and the shuttle replacement isn’t listed. Just the other day I had to bother an airport employee to figure out where that shuttle pick up was. Having had that experience I don’t think it makes me better. I have empathy for unnecessarily difficult situations, that doesn’t make me want to maximize the existence of those. It motivates me to build better software, do better work, and contribute more to public efforts to make the world a better place for humans. Again, there’s no binary choice, people should use every tool at their disposal to maximize their happiness. I’ve got a perfectly good phone, but I walked the streets of a new city for 13 miles, soaking in the sights and sounds, and making minimal use of my phone, checking every few miles to make sure I didn’t overshoot my targets (parks and botanical gardens).

What is it liberating you from? Your own empowerment?

by nxc18 6y ago

What is it liberating you from? Your own empowerment?

Basically yeah, but I would rephrase it as liberation from constant reliance, or from always having the perfect answer, from a lessened use of ones mind, from necessary human interaction to ask anyone a question, or from spending any precious second not maximizing the amount of information and "productivity" you can achieve. It's about being a human, in an environment, around other humans, with time to spare for original thoughts and just to enjoy being alive. I expect many people on this forum are the "productivity" and "maximizing" type. Not that there's anything wrong with that! We need those people! But I think we might all be able to benefit from truly relying on ourselves in difficult situations, instead of just asking the answer box to help us avoid any annoyance or unnecessary difficulty. If you wish your life to be a perfectly smooth series of directions given by a silicon hivemind, feel free friend. Sometimes the bumps and the dirt are what make life worth living though. Sometimes the empathy of unnecessary difficult situations can create bonds and perspective that shiny chrome smoothness cannot. Persistent smooth perfect answers have their purpose and we wouldn't have invented it if not for its use but I find the rather strong opposition to experiencing and exploring one's humanity, whether this way or that, rather frightening. Almost sounds like it's the chrome talking and not the human.

1123581321 6y ago
Think of it as rearranging your life to have those quiet moments when you want them, with the people you want to have them with. For example, I once used my phone to reroute my wife and I around an unexpectedly closed train station so we could spend a planned hour in an old cathedral. We were glad we were able to meditate and be alone with our thoughts in that cathedral instead of being alone with them trying to read unfamiliar train tables and chase down busy transit employees. After that we used the phone to update our plans to meet a friend in that city. In the 90s we probably would have just gone home and missed seeing our friend for another few years. We had a nice, long conversation with her. That doesn’t have anything to do with productivity and the only things we maximized were the most important leisure activities that day. Your motivation is certainly a good one, to be clear.
nxc18 6y ago
I think there’s an assumption that if you’re using your phone regularly you’re never taking the time to have human experiences. For all but perhaps the most avoidant, I don’t think that happens in practice. I walk alone for 1-3 hours a day. Usually I wear headphones and listen to podcasts or the economist audio - I have learned a lot about the world this way. You could argue it is just entertainment, but I suppose my old CS lectures were just entertainment, too. Having audio content helps make the walks more bearable, and those walks have helped me lose over 100 lbs of unwanted body fat. Sometimes I take the headphones out to enjoy the sights and sounds. Sometimes I pause and enjoy the views for a while. If I see someone I want to talk to, I stop, take the headphones out, and talk. There’s no binary choice and I find that by sparing me actual reading time, this practice gives me more time to spend on things I care about. I do enjoy the nature exposure, but I don’t need 3 hours a day of focus on it - it really just doesn’t change much day to day or year to year. I wish living in a perfectly smooth chrome existence was an option, but it isn’t. My phone and the internet fail often enough that I still regularly need to call a real human and talk. The maps are wonderful, but they still require a degree of interpretation, like when a rail line is closed and the shuttle replacement isn’t listed. Just the other day I had to bother an airport employee to figure out where that shuttle pick up was. Having had that experience I don’t think it makes me better. I have empathy for unnecessarily difficult situations, that doesn’t make me want to maximize the existence of those. It motivates me to build better software, do better work, and contribute more to public efforts to make the world a better place for humans. Again, there’s no binary choice, people should use every tool at their disposal to maximize their happiness. I’ve got a perfectly good phone, but I walked the streets of a new city for 13 miles, soaking in the sights and sounds, and making minimal use of my phone, checking every few miles to make sure I didn’t overshoot my targets (parks and botanical gardens).