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>However, modern HN just feels so deeply cynical, angry, and negative with much less of the entrepreneurial tech optimism of the older posts. It’s also starting

by na85 5y ago

>However, modern HN just feels so deeply cynical, angry, and negative with much less of the entrepreneurial tech optimism of the older posts. It’s also starting to feel weirdly disconnected from reality in the way that the extremes of Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook have become echo chambers after consuming non-stop bad news. It’s like people read so many outrage tech stories here that they forget there is an upside to the tech industry. I dunno, I think the current atmosphere is more closely aligned with the zeitgeist of society writ large than it was previously. That famed entrepreneurial optimism was born of a belief that technology is inherently good, and that startups can change the world. The veil has been lifted and we see that most startups, internet startups in particular, exist to provide lucrative exits for the owners while abusing their users by harvesting data and selling ads. The promise of a tech-led utopia is a hollow farce. It's a facade for the surveillance dystopia that big Internet companies are creating. With every iteration, user experience takes a back seat to developer convenience, and devices are more powerful yet feel sluggish because of the mountains of shitty abstraction layers piled on. The companies that wield inordinate power are giant faceless corporations acting with impunity and whose decisions have no recourse. Being a tech user is an exercise in frustration. The world sucks and Tech is making it worse.

sillysaurusx 5y ago
The zeitgeist of society writ large sucks. This has been true in almost every society in almost every era. It's not a happy thing to align oneself with. The bubbles of optimistic outliers are the places that affect society writ large. That's where to be.
- eropple 5y ago
  And when those optimistic outliers are intended to validate and glorify the folks who are out to sell ads or your data?
  - kortilla 5y ago
    What a boring trope. electric car companies, hardware companies in general, b2b companies, eink, pinephone, etc, etc. These companies come across here every day. If you think everything is about selling user data you aren’t paying attention.
- h0l0cube 5y ago
  Optimism and pessimism are both biases. Technology is amoral, and has the potential to be wielded for both 'bad' and 'good' - in whatever moral framework you live by. I think it makes sense to at least be vigilant about emerging and present technologies so that proper attitudes/policies can be developed towards their better potentials, and maybe mitigate some negative outcomes. That's not to say you can't acknowledge the 'good' outcomes.
systemvoltage 5y ago
Zeitgeist is caused by the pandemic x social media outrage x hardships due to lost jobs. Everyone is glued to the internet and we've started to form factions. It's hard to conjecture this, let alone prove it, but a strawman take I feel like is adversarial foreign powers have influenced the social media outrage narratives to destroy the western spirit from inside out. HN is reflecting larger trends. Western spirit was about putting behind differences and doubling down on cooperation. Looking back, from post-WWII to now, I get goosebumps and feel sad that this is what we've become. Nothing has changed in terms of good vs. evil of technology. Fundamentals are still the same. Not even space exploration has escaped HN's cynicism. It's time for me to move onto some other place.
- tekknik 5y ago
  > It's hard to conjecture this, let alone prove it, but a strawman take I feel like is adversarial foreign powers have influenced the social media outrage narratives to destroy the western spirit from inside out. Bingo, and I wish more people would realize this. “soviet demoralization” or “ Yuri Bezmenov” for more info.
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  > Western spirit was about putting behind differences and doubling down on cooperation. Maybe in the movies, but certainly not in real life. When did this ever happen?
dntrkv 5y ago
There's that cynicism again. Tech has its bad apples, but overall, it's been a huge boost, not only to productivity, but quality of life for everyone. Just because people are idiots and get off on raging on social media has nothing to do with the tech. "But the algorithms!" Nonsense. People were raging on message boards well before the algorithms, we're just seeing what happens when the internet is expanded to the general public and it's not just nerds arguing over tabs vs spaces or which semiconductor company makes the best processors. UX has continued to improve year after year, just because your favorite app went to shit says nothing about the industry at large. I can't think of a single example of software that was better in the past vs now. But go ahead, disconnect from tech, and see what the world was like before it. Stop using the technological wonder that is Google Maps. Stop using Netflix with its stupendous ability to stream great quality video and audio on a connection that has no business handling it. Don't take advantage of Amazon's same day delivery on an obscure item that you would never find locally. Don't consume the billions of hours of educational videos on YouTube covering any topic you can think of. Give up the ability to connect and stay in touch with any person anywhere via the multitude of social media apps. Give up the ability to know what's happening on the other side of the world, as it's happening. Give up the ability to search for anything you can think of, and find multiple sources of information. I mean, the improvements in every single industry have been massive due to tech. Anything from ordering food to launching rockets into space has been greatly improved by tech. Tech has introduced new problems that we must address, but to complain that it hasn't brought forward some utopia you have in your mind, is just unfair.
- advael 5y ago
  The quality of the service for every one of the positive examples you mention has degraded since the largest firms involved have become effective monopolies that could get away with exploiting either their customers or their labor, or both, while also engaging in anti-competitive practices to destroy real and even potential competitors, destructively capturing large swaths of the free market in the process. The centrality and engagement-driving nature of social platforms, including youtube, have eroded the social fabric and aided the spread of conspiracy theories and political extremism, driven advances in mass-surveillance, or both. All user-generated content platforms have centralized and then adopted abusable automated moderation systems that exacerbate these problems. Big tech has created some undeniable conveniences, and it provides an endless stream of content that entertains you as it distracts you, as you describe, but if you think that's worth the major problems the consolidation of its power has caused, you're a fool. If you haven't encountered any of the myriad ways in which this, like any consolidation of unaccountable power, is harming people, then you live in a very lucky and ever-shrinking bubble. But perhaps you have, and simply decided that this was the tradeoff for the shiny toys listed. Maybe humanity will always live in a cycle of worshiping new unaccountable power bases for the scraps they feed them, until the dystopia they create becomes too horrible to bear, and some awful upheaval has to happen to upset it. Maybe this time the combination of surveillance technology and near-total capture of both retail and information sources, is too powerful and this can't be reversed. Maybe the planet will be uninhabitable by the time it can happen.

by na85 5y ago

sillysaurusx 5y ago

The zeitgeist of society writ large sucks. This has been true in almost every society in almost every era. It's not a happy thing to align oneself with. The bubbles of optimistic outliers are the places that affect society writ large. That's where to be.

eropple 5y ago
And when those optimistic outliers are intended to validate and glorify the folks who are out to sell ads or your data?
- kortilla 5y ago
  What a boring trope. electric car companies, hardware companies in general, b2b companies, eink, pinephone, etc, etc. These companies come across here every day. If you think everything is about selling user data you aren’t paying attention.
h0l0cube 5y ago
Optimism and pessimism are both biases. Technology is amoral, and has the potential to be wielded for both 'bad' and 'good' - in whatever moral framework you live by. I think it makes sense to at least be vigilant about emerging and present technologies so that proper attitudes/policies can be developed towards their better potentials, and maybe mitigate some negative outcomes. That's not to say you can't acknowledge the 'good' outcomes.

systemvoltage 5y ago

Zeitgeist is caused by the pandemic x social media outrage x hardships due to lost jobs. Everyone is glued to the internet and we've started to form factions. It's hard to conjecture this, let alone prove it, but a strawman take I feel like is adversarial foreign powers have influenced the social media outrage narratives to destroy the western spirit from inside out. HN is reflecting larger trends. Western spirit was about putting behind differences and doubling down on cooperation. Looking back, from post-WWII to now, I get goosebumps and feel sad that this is what we've become. Nothing has changed in terms of good vs. evil of technology. Fundamentals are still the same. Not even space exploration has escaped HN's cynicism. It's time for me to move onto some other place.

tekknik 5y ago
> It's hard to conjecture this, let alone prove it, but a strawman take I feel like is adversarial foreign powers have influenced the social media outrage narratives to destroy the western spirit from inside out. Bingo, and I wish more people would realize this. “soviet demoralization” or “ Yuri Bezmenov” for more info.
bigbillheck 5y ago
> Western spirit was about putting behind differences and doubling down on cooperation. Maybe in the movies, but certainly not in real life. When did this ever happen?

dntrkv 5y ago

There's that cynicism again. Tech has its bad apples, but overall, it's been a huge boost, not only to productivity, but quality of life for everyone. Just because people are idiots and get off on raging on social media has nothing to do with the tech. "But the algorithms!" Nonsense. People were raging on message boards well before the algorithms, we're just seeing what happens when the internet is expanded to the general public and it's not just nerds arguing over tabs vs spaces or which semiconductor company makes the best processors. UX has continued to improve year after year, just because your favorite app went to shit says nothing about the industry at large. I can't think of a single example of software that was better in the past vs now. But go ahead, disconnect from tech, and see what the world was like before it. Stop using the technological wonder that is Google Maps. Stop using Netflix with its stupendous ability to stream great quality video and audio on a connection that has no business handling it. Don't take advantage of Amazon's same day delivery on an obscure item that you would never find locally. Don't consume the billions of hours of educational videos on YouTube covering any topic you can think of. Give up the ability to connect and stay in touch with any person anywhere via the multitude of social media apps. Give up the ability to know what's happening on the other side of the world, as it's happening. Give up the ability to search for anything you can think of, and find multiple sources of information. I mean, the improvements in every single industry have been massive due to tech. Anything from ordering food to launching rockets into space has been greatly improved by tech. Tech has introduced new problems that we must address, but to complain that it hasn't brought forward some utopia you have in your mind, is just unfair.

advael 5y ago
The quality of the service for every one of the positive examples you mention has degraded since the largest firms involved have become effective monopolies that could get away with exploiting either their customers or their labor, or both, while also engaging in anti-competitive practices to destroy real and even potential competitors, destructively capturing large swaths of the free market in the process. The centrality and engagement-driving nature of social platforms, including youtube, have eroded the social fabric and aided the spread of conspiracy theories and political extremism, driven advances in mass-surveillance, or both. All user-generated content platforms have centralized and then adopted abusable automated moderation systems that exacerbate these problems. Big tech has created some undeniable conveniences, and it provides an endless stream of content that entertains you as it distracts you, as you describe, but if you think that's worth the major problems the consolidation of its power has caused, you're a fool. If you haven't encountered any of the myriad ways in which this, like any consolidation of unaccountable power, is harming people, then you live in a very lucky and ever-shrinking bubble. But perhaps you have, and simply decided that this was the tradeoff for the shiny toys listed. Maybe humanity will always live in a cycle of worshiping new unaccountable power bases for the scraps they feed them, until the dystopia they create becomes too horrible to bear, and some awful upheaval has to happen to upset it. Maybe this time the combination of surveillance technology and near-total capture of both retail and information sources, is too powerful and this can't be reversed. Maybe the planet will be uninhabitable by the time it can happen.