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I think people are just bored. Compared to the 2000s and 2010s it seems like there is less innovation. Much more significant, we have smartphones and technolog

I think people are just bored. Compared to the 2000s and 2010s it seems like there is less innovation. Much more significant, we have smartphones and technology which deliver fast dopamine and make everything easy. People are getting ADHD-like symptoms and becoming desensitized to everything. They want novelty and intense stimulation. Events like the Capitol Insurrection, GME / cryptocurrency “lottery”, off-the-rails politicians - those provide novelty and intense stimulation. A global apocalypse or war, even though it would be awful, provides novelty and intense stimulation. Just the thought of a global apocalypse and imagining the consequences gives people motivation. Predicting it on the news gets the news channels attention and ratings. Even if it never happens, the idea of a global apocalypse itself is capturing people’s attention.

bmitc 5y ago
I think technology addiction is a real thing and a real concern. I'm young enough to have had a Nokia brick cell phone that stayed in my car in high school and was only used for parental conversations. I just did things, explored, played. Now, I am stuck on my computer, phone, or iPad all day. Yes, I tend to read a lot of non-fiction and interesting things there or I'm doing work, but it's an endless onslaught of surface-level material and not deep and exploratory thinking. And I don't even play phone games or watch TV. We even see a change in how people watch things. The days of something like an hour-long Letterman show is over. Everyone wants little clips and bits to gnaw on. If one goes back to old radio and TV interview programs, they had real intellectuals on there with real questions. Now we simply have drivel. I have personally become worried about my own addiction, which I would wager is pretty light relatively speaking. It's been helping for me to get out and do yard work, it's amazing how simply touching dirt grounds yourself. I've also been trying to get a work setup conducive to just sitting down and actually getting through some books I've surrounded myself with and get back to playing music and also exploring electronics.
- disqard 5y ago
  Your comment deeply resonated with me. As someone who has been writing computer code for nearly 30 years now, I hold tangible experiences dear (esp. yard work), and have been taking immense pleasure in reading physical books, with sticky notes ready for annotating and engaging with the material.
  - bmitc 5y ago
    Yea, yard work is a nice escape. I am fortunate to have recently obtained something that can be called a yard after having moved on from living in the city. I am doing my best to treat it as a conservation effort. We've started composting, I'm researching bird houses for the surrounding native birds (nesting only, no feeders), and I am looking for other ways to properly manage the place. I recently started researching how to have a lawn that's sustainable and acts as a carbon sink, and what I learned is basically the opposite of what the typical suburban yard does, which is usually to plant grass and weed out all unwanted weeds and species. Apparently that's quite bad for the soil and doesn't capture carbon well. A lot of people in my area have even cut down trees, put up fences, and made mono lawns. I found this article helpful. https://news.globallandscapesforum.org/38003/how-to-turn-your-backyard-into-a-carbon-sink/ https://news.globallandscapesforum.org/38003/how-to-turn-you... I really like the quote "We need to stop treating our soil like dirt". I'm looking forward to the spring and getting to plant locally native wildflowers. We had a bee or two in the fall when we first got here, and I'd love to see more activity.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
It's the Internet. I hold it as humanity's greatest invention. The amount of effort from all the different entities over the decades it took for it to coalesce into what it is is nothing short of extraordinary, awesome (in the original sense of the word). Civilization-changing in the span of only several years. However as each year goes by, I think its negatives are fast outweighing its positives. Society...humanity is not equipped to be a global community. We didn't evolve that way. Everyone having a voice in everything is not a good thing because nothing ever changes or gets done. We are desensitized by an endless deluge of information, and we lose track of what is physically around us.
- skulk 5y ago
  K-12 education should direct a significant portion of childrens' attention to learning how to use the internet in a healthy way, perhaps an entire class dedicated to learning how to find and evaluate information online. There are a lot of lessons learned in the last 20 years that should be immediately taught to the next generation.
  - lambdaba 5y ago
    That is a great idea, but then the challenge is to find the people to teach such a class. But really, great idea, I'll reflect on what such a class would look like. I'm amazed it doesn't exist already tbh.
  - FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
    A special room in the house. Unpleasant fluorescent lights. A timer like a sauna. Hazmat shower afterwards. I'm actually half serious. The opposite is, people set their desk up in the most comfortable way possible, with the nicest view, so they want to spend more time there and do more work.
_hypx 5y ago
For most of us here, the 2000s and 2010s were the pinnacle of innovation of our respective fields. Anything that follows would seem like a downturn. Likely, if we want to see innovation it will be in a field that we're less familar with.

bmitc 5y ago

I think technology addiction is a real thing and a real concern. I'm young enough to have had a Nokia brick cell phone that stayed in my car in high school and was only used for parental conversations. I just did things, explored, played. Now, I am stuck on my computer, phone, or iPad all day. Yes, I tend to read a lot of non-fiction and interesting things there or I'm doing work, but it's an endless onslaught of surface-level material and not deep and exploratory thinking. And I don't even play phone games or watch TV. We even see a change in how people watch things. The days of something like an hour-long Letterman show is over. Everyone wants little clips and bits to gnaw on. If one goes back to old radio and TV interview programs, they had real intellectuals on there with real questions. Now we simply have drivel. I have personally become worried about my own addiction, which I would wager is pretty light relatively speaking. It's been helping for me to get out and do yard work, it's amazing how simply touching dirt grounds yourself. I've also been trying to get a work setup conducive to just sitting down and actually getting through some books I've surrounded myself with and get back to playing music and also exploring electronics.

disqard 5y ago
Your comment deeply resonated with me. As someone who has been writing computer code for nearly 30 years now, I hold tangible experiences dear (esp. yard work), and have been taking immense pleasure in reading physical books, with sticky notes ready for annotating and engaging with the material.
- bmitc 5y ago
  Yea, yard work is a nice escape. I am fortunate to have recently obtained something that can be called a yard after having moved on from living in the city. I am doing my best to treat it as a conservation effort. We've started composting, I'm researching bird houses for the surrounding native birds (nesting only, no feeders), and I am looking for other ways to properly manage the place. I recently started researching how to have a lawn that's sustainable and acts as a carbon sink, and what I learned is basically the opposite of what the typical suburban yard does, which is usually to plant grass and weed out all unwanted weeds and species. Apparently that's quite bad for the soil and doesn't capture carbon well. A lot of people in my area have even cut down trees, put up fences, and made mono lawns. I found this article helpful. https://news.globallandscapesforum.org/38003/how-to-turn-your-backyard-into-a-carbon-sink/ https://news.globallandscapesforum.org/38003/how-to-turn-you... I really like the quote "We need to stop treating our soil like dirt". I'm looking forward to the spring and getting to plant locally native wildflowers. We had a bee or two in the fall when we first got here, and I'd love to see more activity.

JohnWhigham 5y ago

It's the Internet. I hold it as humanity's greatest invention. The amount of effort from all the different entities over the decades it took for it to coalesce into what it is is nothing short of extraordinary, awesome (in the original sense of the word). Civilization-changing in the span of only several years. However as each year goes by, I think its negatives are fast outweighing its positives. Society...humanity is not equipped to be a global community. We didn't evolve that way. Everyone having a voice in everything is not a good thing because nothing ever changes or gets done. We are desensitized by an endless deluge of information, and we lose track of what is physically around us.

skulk 5y ago
K-12 education should direct a significant portion of childrens' attention to learning how to use the internet in a healthy way, perhaps an entire class dedicated to learning how to find and evaluate information online. There are a lot of lessons learned in the last 20 years that should be immediately taught to the next generation.
- lambdaba 5y ago
  That is a great idea, but then the challenge is to find the people to teach such a class. But really, great idea, I'll reflect on what such a class would look like. I'm amazed it doesn't exist already tbh.
- FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
  A special room in the house. Unpleasant fluorescent lights. A timer like a sauna. Hazmat shower afterwards. I'm actually half serious. The opposite is, people set their desk up in the most comfortable way possible, with the nicest view, so they want to spend more time there and do more work.

_hypx 5y ago

For most of us here, the 2000s and 2010s were the pinnacle of innovation of our respective fields. Anything that follows would seem like a downturn. Likely, if we want to see innovation it will be in a field that we're less familar with.