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> What's wrong with consumption? Human beings are more than vessels for SV douches to make billions they don’t need. Or in the case of Peter Thiel (hello HN),

> What's wrong with consumption? Human beings are more than vessels for SV douches to make billions they don’t need. Or in the case of Peter Thiel (hello HN), to make billions to use to go out of their way to make the world a more miserable place. Computers should empower people. They made them more than they were. The likes of the iPad go out of their way to take a device that someone, nearly everyone on this site, can learn from and grow from, and replace it with one that works hard to prevent you from exercising any brain cells. It says pleasure comes from being a potato, when the people who created it know that the pleasure in their lives can from being active creators.

gurkendoktor 5y ago
> Human beings are more than vessels for SV douches to make billions they don’t need. If I buy an iPad to read PDFs or books, many of which are free, I am hardly making SV douches more money than when I buy a "Pro" device for productivity. Ironically, the idea that people shouldn't read or listen (consume), and instead just build build build, also strikes me as a very Silicon Valley idea. I really don't know what it is about the iPad that makes it the target of this discussion. I have never heard anyone say the same things about e-book readers, or headphones that don't come with a mic for content creation.
- thawaya3113 5y ago
  It’s about being more than …. A consumption device is nothing more than something designed to extract money out of a person. And no, being productive is not a SV idea. In fact, it’s only recently (in the past 50 or so years) that buying something that doesn’t have a productive purpose is even considered. But I’m not surprised that SV douches have convinced themselves that they’ve created the concept of being productive.
  - gurkendoktor 5y ago
    > It’s about being more than …. I would understand that objection if people could only own a single computing device. But us who want the iPad to be a dumb consumption device probably own a proper computer for creation. In fact, having an iPad that is supported by all the big companies (native apps, DRM, ...) makes it easier to use a main operating system that runs none of the SV junk. From my POV, it is really the opposite. People who want the iPad to be a universal computing device are the problem, because they'd be willing to move to a locked-down platform if only it had Xcode or whatever.

gurkendoktor 5y ago

> Human beings are more than vessels for SV douches to make billions they don’t need. If I buy an iPad to read PDFs or books, many of which are free, I am hardly making SV douches more money than when I buy a "Pro" device for productivity. Ironically, the idea that people shouldn't read or listen (consume), and instead just build build build, also strikes me as a very Silicon Valley idea. I really don't know what it is about the iPad that makes it the target of this discussion. I have never heard anyone say the same things about e-book readers, or headphones that don't come with a mic for content creation.

thawaya3113 5y ago
It’s about being more than …. A consumption device is nothing more than something designed to extract money out of a person. And no, being productive is not a SV idea. In fact, it’s only recently (in the past 50 or so years) that buying something that doesn’t have a productive purpose is even considered. But I’m not surprised that SV douches have convinced themselves that they’ve created the concept of being productive.
- gurkendoktor 5y ago
  > It’s about being more than …. I would understand that objection if people could only own a single computing device. But us who want the iPad to be a dumb consumption device probably own a proper computer for creation. In fact, having an iPad that is supported by all the big companies (native apps, DRM, ...) makes it easier to use a main operating system that runs none of the SV junk. From my POV, it is really the opposite. People who want the iPad to be a universal computing device are the problem, because they'd be willing to move to a locked-down platform if only it had Xcode or whatever.