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In Silicon Valley where I am, everyone tells me it is impossible to live without one here too but that is just not true. I check matrix messages and emails and

by lrvick 5y ago

In Silicon Valley where I am, everyone tells me it is impossible to live without one here too but that is just not true. I check matrix messages and emails and keep up with people and make plans to meet them when I am in my office, or in a stable location on a laptop. When I am on in the car, taking a walk, at dinner with my family... I don't need to be reachable at that moment. Society teaches you you need to be reachable every moment of every day, but the people around you will adapt to your communication cadence. The few that won't are not worth your time anyway. The world will get by without being able to reach you for a few hours at a time, and the mental health wins of not being constantly anxious checking messages 100x a day can't be understated.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
em-bee 5y ago
I check matrix messages and emails and keep up with people and make plans to meet them when I am in my office, or in a stable location on a laptop. that only works because you have alternative ways to communicate with those people. those alternatives are not available here. also as a foreigner i am also expected to do as the locals do, so my argument to use something else holds no sway whatsoever. The world will get by without being able to reach you for a few hours at a time and it does. but i don't need to give up my smartphone to achieve that. my notifications are all silent (except for family) and i check messages when i feel like it, not when someone tries to reach me.
- lrvick 5y ago
  The vast majority of people I interact with only communicate with Facebook products. That has not stopped me from individually stating my ethical stance every single time it comes up, which has resulted in many moving to matrix so they can reach me. If you are fine with surveillance capitalism, then that is your choice, but if you have ethical problems with it, then you owe it to yourself to avoid living a lifestyle you find unethical. You absolutely have a choice to do something about it. No one physically forces you to hit "yes" on the Facebook license agreement. Personally, when I find someone that has ethical convincing I don't share, like a vegan, I at least take the time to understand their view, and ensure I don't create situations where they can't live their convictions. I respect people with conviction so long as it does not harm others. Maybe in order to be friends with a vegan I don't eat at BBQ restaurants as often, and they in turn use Matrix or email to communicate with me. Humans are often very accommodating of ethical preferences if you have the conviction to share them. Personally if I somehow found myself in a country where literally everyone refused to interact with me unless I accepted the Facebook terms of service, I would suspect I am in a cult and GTFO at almost all costs. If that is indeed the situation you are stuck in, I hope you find a way out of it.
  - em-bee 5y ago
    Personally if I somehow found myself in a country where literally everyone refused to interact with me unless I accepted the Facebook terms of service, I would suspect I am in a cult and GTFO at almost all costs. not everyone has the option to leave their country. in fact most people don't have that option. and for those that can leave, in most cases family means leaving is not a decision they can make by themselves. and even if they could use alternative ways to communicate, if facebook were the only way to keep in touch with some family members, then refusing that would in itself be unethical. so talking about what is an ethical choice here is really really difficult. also, leaving is fine if you only want to communicate with people that agree with you. but if you want to reach out to others, you have to meet them where they are. FOSS or the awareness about surveillance capitalism is not going to spread much further if we refuse to communicate with people who won't accommodate our preferences.
pawelmurias 5y ago
> The few that won't are not worth your time anyway. It's fine to decide this for yourself, but it's a different thing to isolate your kids. It's hard for a lot of them to connect with peers and where you dad has surveillance capitalism paranoia that won't help.

by lrvick 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

em-bee 5y ago

I check matrix messages and emails and keep up with people and make plans to meet them when I am in my office, or in a stable location on a laptop. that only works because you have alternative ways to communicate with those people. those alternatives are not available here. also as a foreigner i am also expected to do as the locals do, so my argument to use something else holds no sway whatsoever. The world will get by without being able to reach you for a few hours at a time and it does. but i don't need to give up my smartphone to achieve that. my notifications are all silent (except for family) and i check messages when i feel like it, not when someone tries to reach me.

lrvick 5y ago
The vast majority of people I interact with only communicate with Facebook products. That has not stopped me from individually stating my ethical stance every single time it comes up, which has resulted in many moving to matrix so they can reach me. If you are fine with surveillance capitalism, then that is your choice, but if you have ethical problems with it, then you owe it to yourself to avoid living a lifestyle you find unethical. You absolutely have a choice to do something about it. No one physically forces you to hit "yes" on the Facebook license agreement. Personally, when I find someone that has ethical convincing I don't share, like a vegan, I at least take the time to understand their view, and ensure I don't create situations where they can't live their convictions. I respect people with conviction so long as it does not harm others. Maybe in order to be friends with a vegan I don't eat at BBQ restaurants as often, and they in turn use Matrix or email to communicate with me. Humans are often very accommodating of ethical preferences if you have the conviction to share them. Personally if I somehow found myself in a country where literally everyone refused to interact with me unless I accepted the Facebook terms of service, I would suspect I am in a cult and GTFO at almost all costs. If that is indeed the situation you are stuck in, I hope you find a way out of it.
- em-bee 5y ago
  Personally if I somehow found myself in a country where literally everyone refused to interact with me unless I accepted the Facebook terms of service, I would suspect I am in a cult and GTFO at almost all costs. not everyone has the option to leave their country. in fact most people don't have that option. and for those that can leave, in most cases family means leaving is not a decision they can make by themselves. and even if they could use alternative ways to communicate, if facebook were the only way to keep in touch with some family members, then refusing that would in itself be unethical. so talking about what is an ethical choice here is really really difficult. also, leaving is fine if you only want to communicate with people that agree with you. but if you want to reach out to others, you have to meet them where they are. FOSS or the awareness about surveillance capitalism is not going to spread much further if we refuse to communicate with people who won't accommodate our preferences.

pawelmurias 5y ago

> The few that won't are not worth your time anyway. It's fine to decide this for yourself, but it's a different thing to isolate your kids. It's hard for a lot of them to connect with peers and where you dad has surveillance capitalism paranoia that won't help.