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> 30 years ago in order to navigate somewhere you had to ask someone for directions and write down notes. If you missed a turn, god help you. We fundamentally m

> 30 years ago in order to navigate somewhere you had to ask someone for directions and write down notes. If you missed a turn, god help you. We fundamentally move through the world vastly differently thanks to digital maps. Many people (and in a few years, the majority) are doing so in cars that use electric motors instead of internal combustion engines. Honestly, it seems like you're just picking some incremental or marginal technological changes that happened, then promoting them to something more fundamental than they really are. Electric cars? Come on. They're barely even a change from a consumer perspective. Someone from 1950 wouldn't even notice the difference, unless you told them exactly what they were looking at. And some of those other things are debatable. For instance: I deliberately stopped using GPS for several years, because I realized it was preventing me from building up geographic/navigational knowledge, and instead was just training me to follow instructions blindly and never learn anything (e.g. by picking weird routes that were marginally faster but very difficult to systematize). [Edit: The following is about non-map online information.] The computerized "knowledge at your fingertips" is a common slogan of computer-age propaganda, but it's probably true that a greater fraction of that "knowledge" is in fact garbage and overall may just be a marginal improvement. Sufficiently advanced marketing is indistinguishable from technological progress.

lukeschlather 4y ago
Personally I try to turn GPS off as much as possible but I also frequently consult it even for routes that I know well. And come on, maps are excellent, there's no garbage there. Last weekend I was frustrated that Google was unaware of a road reroute but that is leaps and bounds ahead of the days of paper maps. Yeah, there's a lot of garbage on the Internet but it's also remarkably easy to find high-quality information. The change over even 10 years ago is also really dramatic for how I use public transit, since I not only know where I am but where the vehicles I'm planning on getting into are so I can reroute that way. It's only in the past 5 years or so that the data has gotten reliable enough that I trust it to use in that way.
- fieldcny 4y ago
  I agree that GPS and maps/directions are a magnificent improvement. I remember what it was like to get lost, and be lost for hours, late at night nothing open, no one but unsavory characters out. I remember how hard long trips could be even with maps or trip-tiks from AAA (which were awesome) GPS enables all sort logistics, it allows transport companies to ensure trucks are driven safely, to know when and where goods in transit are there is an entire world of productivity improvement right there.
  - troon-lover 4y ago
  - dvdkhlng 4y ago
    But you need to be aware of the downsides of becoming inadvertently over-reliant on GPS [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_GPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_GPS
    - fieldcny 4y ago
      No offense, but that’s not really a downside of GPS, people make bad decisions all the time tech or no tech.
  - adhesive_wombat 4y ago
    It'll also route you around major delays if it can. This saved me a three hour tailback only weeks ago (arriving at work after lunch would have been...irritating) and literally last week I didn't bother to set it on the way home and ended up in 30 minutes of standing traffic that it would have told me to avoid (there's an alternate route that's 10 minutes slower, but once you're in the wrong road you're committed and can't go back).
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Personally I try to turn GPS off as much as possible but I also frequently consult it even for routes that I know well. I'm not saying it's not useful. I'm just saying it's not as big of an advance as it's being made out to be. > And come on, maps are excellent, there's no garbage there. I've above clarified, but my "garbage" comment was not referring to maps, but other kinds of material you'd fine online. Maps are actually one of the few types of online references that tends to have very little garbage.
scarface74 4y ago
Saying you personally stopped using GPS when most people do is as akin to the old meme, “do people still watch TV? I haven’t watched TV in 10 years”.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Saying you personally stopped using GPS when most people do is as akin to the old meme, “do people still watch TV? I haven’t watched TV in 10 years”. No it isn't. I moved to a new city and realized after a couple years that I still barely knew my way around. I then correctly diagnosed that the cause was the overuse of turn-by-turn directions. You're trying to frame it as some hipster cooler-than-thou thing, when it isn't.
  - j245 4y ago
    The point is, a couple of anecdotes don’t prove the rule. You might not find GPS useful, but a lot of people find it immensely useful and revolutionary. If your use case is travelling to a new place once or twice and never again, there is no point memorising the route / area. Memorising a route doesn’t help you figure out there is an accident on the route, or unusually heavy traffic. I don’t disagree with you about memorising common routes and learning about your local area, it’s a good thing to do imo. It’s just no longer required because technology is good enough to let you get by without having to do that.
HKH2 4y ago
> Someone from 1950 wouldn't even notice the difference, unless you told them exactly what they were looking at. I was surprised the first time a Tesla went by because I had no idea a car could be that quiet.
fourseventy 4y ago
A Tesla is a fucking space ship compared to the cars people had in the 50s...
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
  So is a Jag, or Ferrari, and a Lamborghini may well actually _be_ a spaceship. The method of propulsion isn't what would make them point and go "spaceship"
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> Electric cars? Come on. They're barely even a change from a consumer perspective. Someone from 1950 wouldn't even notice the difference, unless you told them exactly what they were looking at. Wut? I call major bullshit on this. Yes, obviously electric cars generally do the same thing as ICE cars, but the consumer experience is so much better for me is that after owning an electric car I will never, ever even consider owning an ICE car. I mean, by your analogy, an ICE car is just an "incremental or marginal improvement" over a horse and buggy. Heck, I've got to feed my horse grass and clean up after its poop, and I've got to "feed" my ICE car gas and clean up after its oil leaks. What's the difference, right?
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
  You know electric cars aren't a new invention, right? First ones came about in the 1880s, and they were quite common in the early 20th century. Sure, not common in 1950, but the user experience difference between an ICE car and electric is, to a 1950s or 1910s person, basically noise. The ICE car is noisy, electric not. The acceleration, ride comfort, features - all are similar enough to be interchangeable to someone far removed from this time.
  - watwut 4y ago
    > The acceleration, ride comfort, features This is not true at all. Ride comfort and features is massively improved in todays cars compared to 1950. Or to 1980. That goes for both the driver and passenger.
    - cudgy 4y ago
      Depends on what you want in a car and what you mean by ride comfort. Very few cars made today ride as smoothly as a 1970-80 land yachts made by Cadillac and Lincoln for example. Also, many newer cars are unrepairable without special equipment and some don’t even provide service manuals to owners. Good luck getting your Tesla fixed quickly while traveling in remote locations versus a traditional car. Good luck finding a new battery for it if China supply lines are hampered by a pandemic or some other issue. Electric cars aren’t a panacea. Bottom line is that cars have been available to get us from point A to point B at high speeds for over 100 years and that is why we buy them.
tshaddox 4y ago
> And some of those other things are debatable. For instance: I deliberately stopped using GPS for several years, because I realized it was preventing me from building up geographic/navigational knowledge, and instead was just training me to follow instructions blindly and never learn anything That’s a fine personal choice to make if you value building up geographic knowledge for its own sake, but I don’t really get your point. You could say the same thing about giving up your dishwasher because you value hand washing dishes for its own sake.
- cft 4y ago
  I drove from California to Panama 3 years ago. In Central America Google navigation was not only useless, but sometimes dangerous so we turned it off. We were only asking locals for directions. After a few days we did not experience any inconvenience.
watwut 4y ago
> Someone from 1950 wouldn't even notice the difference You really should go to some museum or google how cars in 1950 looked like, functioned and sounded. > I deliberately stopped using GPS for several years, because I realized it was preventing me from building up geographic/navigational knowledge, and instead was just training me to follow instructions blindly and never learn anything You are in minority there from pretty much all aspects. People are not ditching GPS. They are not looking into GPS constantly either, generally people don't go to places they don't know that often. And if you are refusing "weird shortcuts" then you are lessening your geographical knowledge even more - you are opting out for routes with easy to memorize milestones instead of learning how streets are really connected.
passivate 4y ago
>The computerized "knowledge at your fingertips" is a common slogan of computer-age propaganda, but it's probably true that a greater fraction of that "knowledge" is in fact garbage and overall may just be a marginal improvement. I don't agree at all. Especially in the sciences, the collaboration across countries over the internet has been tremendous. The ability to instantly know what papers are being published in your field and use their results to further your own research can't be overstated. We rely on that to do our work at our company. But going back to tech, the ability to do open source projects _at all_ wouldn't have been possible before. The interconnected nature reduces 'local maximas' of knowledge, skill and expertise. I have learnt so many things from watching youtube DIY channels that I otherwise would never have in my own local community. And so I ask - What makes your claim "probably true"?
corrral 4y ago
> The computerized "knowledge at your fingertips" is a common slogan of computer-age propaganda, but it's probably true that a greater fraction of that "knowledge" is in fact garbage and overall may just be a marginal improvement. IMO the Web has done a terrible job of realizing all the wonderful knowledge-spreading and educational purposes it was supposed to. What it has done is make it so idle, trivial thoughts that would hardly have reached the level of consciousness before, become an itch until I find out the answer—because now I can find out the answer ("who was that one actor in that one show"). And it's great at answering those kinds of questions. It's 2022 and in tons of fields you'll still run out of material on the Web as soon as you go past the barest surface of a topic, and have to go track down some books (which may have no digitized version, so I mean actual books). I have niche reference books from decades ago that are exactly the kind of thing that an online catalog-of-knowledge ought to be good at, but what's on the web is far less complete than them. That kind of thing. All that, plus it's so crammed full of spammy shit that using it is like trying to track down a poorly-marked Little Free Library box on the Vegas strip. Physical libraries with inter-library loan remain much more valuable overall—and university libraries, especially—which is kind of pathetic. The most valuable sites on the Web are probably piracy websites like Library Genesis, and they still can't deliver everything you can get on dead trees. But they come the closest.

lukeschlather 4y ago

Personally I try to turn GPS off as much as possible but I also frequently consult it even for routes that I know well. And come on, maps are excellent, there's no garbage there. Last weekend I was frustrated that Google was unaware of a road reroute but that is leaps and bounds ahead of the days of paper maps. Yeah, there's a lot of garbage on the Internet but it's also remarkably easy to find high-quality information. The change over even 10 years ago is also really dramatic for how I use public transit, since I not only know where I am but where the vehicles I'm planning on getting into are so I can reroute that way. It's only in the past 5 years or so that the data has gotten reliable enough that I trust it to use in that way.

fieldcny 4y ago
I agree that GPS and maps/directions are a magnificent improvement. I remember what it was like to get lost, and be lost for hours, late at night nothing open, no one but unsavory characters out. I remember how hard long trips could be even with maps or trip-tiks from AAA (which were awesome) GPS enables all sort logistics, it allows transport companies to ensure trucks are driven safely, to know when and where goods in transit are there is an entire world of productivity improvement right there.
- troon-lover 4y ago
- dvdkhlng 4y ago
  But you need to be aware of the downsides of becoming inadvertently over-reliant on GPS [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_GPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_GPS
  - fieldcny 4y ago
    No offense, but that’s not really a downside of GPS, people make bad decisions all the time tech or no tech.
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago
  It'll also route you around major delays if it can. This saved me a three hour tailback only weeks ago (arriving at work after lunch would have been...irritating) and literally last week I didn't bother to set it on the way home and ended up in 30 minutes of standing traffic that it would have told me to avoid (there's an alternate route that's 10 minutes slower, but once you're in the wrong road you're committed and can't go back).
tablespoon 4y ago
> Personally I try to turn GPS off as much as possible but I also frequently consult it even for routes that I know well. I'm not saying it's not useful. I'm just saying it's not as big of an advance as it's being made out to be. > And come on, maps are excellent, there's no garbage there. I've above clarified, but my "garbage" comment was not referring to maps, but other kinds of material you'd fine online. Maps are actually one of the few types of online references that tends to have very little garbage.

scarface74 4y ago

Saying you personally stopped using GPS when most people do is as akin to the old meme, “do people still watch TV? I haven’t watched TV in 10 years”.

tablespoon 4y ago
> Saying you personally stopped using GPS when most people do is as akin to the old meme, “do people still watch TV? I haven’t watched TV in 10 years”. No it isn't. I moved to a new city and realized after a couple years that I still barely knew my way around. I then correctly diagnosed that the cause was the overuse of turn-by-turn directions. You're trying to frame it as some hipster cooler-than-thou thing, when it isn't.
- j245 4y ago
  The point is, a couple of anecdotes don’t prove the rule. You might not find GPS useful, but a lot of people find it immensely useful and revolutionary. If your use case is travelling to a new place once or twice and never again, there is no point memorising the route / area. Memorising a route doesn’t help you figure out there is an accident on the route, or unusually heavy traffic. I don’t disagree with you about memorising common routes and learning about your local area, it’s a good thing to do imo. It’s just no longer required because technology is good enough to let you get by without having to do that.

HKH2 4y ago

> Someone from 1950 wouldn't even notice the difference, unless you told them exactly what they were looking at. I was surprised the first time a Tesla went by because I had no idea a car could be that quiet.

fourseventy 4y ago

A Tesla is a fucking space ship compared to the cars people had in the 50s...

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
So is a Jag, or Ferrari, and a Lamborghini may well actually _be_ a spaceship. The method of propulsion isn't what would make them point and go "spaceship"
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

> Electric cars? Come on. They're barely even a change from a consumer perspective. Someone from 1950 wouldn't even notice the difference, unless you told them exactly what they were looking at. Wut? I call major bullshit on this. Yes, obviously electric cars generally do the same thing as ICE cars, but the consumer experience is so much better for me is that after owning an electric car I will never, ever even consider owning an ICE car. I mean, by your analogy, an ICE car is just an "incremental or marginal improvement" over a horse and buggy. Heck, I've got to feed my horse grass and clean up after its poop, and I've got to "feed" my ICE car gas and clean up after its oil leaks. What's the difference, right?

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
You know electric cars aren't a new invention, right? First ones came about in the 1880s, and they were quite common in the early 20th century. Sure, not common in 1950, but the user experience difference between an ICE car and electric is, to a 1950s or 1910s person, basically noise. The ICE car is noisy, electric not. The acceleration, ride comfort, features - all are similar enough to be interchangeable to someone far removed from this time.
- watwut 4y ago
  > The acceleration, ride comfort, features This is not true at all. Ride comfort and features is massively improved in todays cars compared to 1950. Or to 1980. That goes for both the driver and passenger.
  - cudgy 4y ago
    Depends on what you want in a car and what you mean by ride comfort. Very few cars made today ride as smoothly as a 1970-80 land yachts made by Cadillac and Lincoln for example. Also, many newer cars are unrepairable without special equipment and some don’t even provide service manuals to owners. Good luck getting your Tesla fixed quickly while traveling in remote locations versus a traditional car. Good luck finding a new battery for it if China supply lines are hampered by a pandemic or some other issue. Electric cars aren’t a panacea. Bottom line is that cars have been available to get us from point A to point B at high speeds for over 100 years and that is why we buy them.

tshaddox 4y ago

> And some of those other things are debatable. For instance: I deliberately stopped using GPS for several years, because I realized it was preventing me from building up geographic/navigational knowledge, and instead was just training me to follow instructions blindly and never learn anything That’s a fine personal choice to make if you value building up geographic knowledge for its own sake, but I don’t really get your point. You could say the same thing about giving up your dishwasher because you value hand washing dishes for its own sake.

cft 4y ago
I drove from California to Panama 3 years ago. In Central America Google navigation was not only useless, but sometimes dangerous so we turned it off. We were only asking locals for directions. After a few days we did not experience any inconvenience.

watwut 4y ago

> Someone from 1950 wouldn't even notice the difference You really should go to some museum or google how cars in 1950 looked like, functioned and sounded. > I deliberately stopped using GPS for several years, because I realized it was preventing me from building up geographic/navigational knowledge, and instead was just training me to follow instructions blindly and never learn anything You are in minority there from pretty much all aspects. People are not ditching GPS. They are not looking into GPS constantly either, generally people don't go to places they don't know that often. And if you are refusing "weird shortcuts" then you are lessening your geographical knowledge even more - you are opting out for routes with easy to memorize milestones instead of learning how streets are really connected.

passivate 4y ago

>The computerized "knowledge at your fingertips" is a common slogan of computer-age propaganda, but it's probably true that a greater fraction of that "knowledge" is in fact garbage and overall may just be a marginal improvement. I don't agree at all. Especially in the sciences, the collaboration across countries over the internet has been tremendous. The ability to instantly know what papers are being published in your field and use their results to further your own research can't be overstated. We rely on that to do our work at our company. But going back to tech, the ability to do open source projects _at all_ wouldn't have been possible before. The interconnected nature reduces 'local maximas' of knowledge, skill and expertise. I have learnt so many things from watching youtube DIY channels that I otherwise would never have in my own local community. And so I ask - What makes your claim "probably true"?

corrral 4y ago

> The computerized "knowledge at your fingertips" is a common slogan of computer-age propaganda, but it's probably true that a greater fraction of that "knowledge" is in fact garbage and overall may just be a marginal improvement. IMO the Web has done a terrible job of realizing all the wonderful knowledge-spreading and educational purposes it was supposed to. What it has done is make it so idle, trivial thoughts that would hardly have reached the level of consciousness before, become an itch until I find out the answer—because now I can find out the answer ("who was that one actor in that one show"). And it's great at answering those kinds of questions. It's 2022 and in tons of fields you'll still run out of material on the Web as soon as you go past the barest surface of a topic, and have to go track down some books (which may have no digitized version, so I mean actual books). I have niche reference books from decades ago that are exactly the kind of thing that an online catalog-of-knowledge ought to be good at, but what's on the web is far less complete than them. That kind of thing. All that, plus it's so crammed full of spammy shit that using it is like trying to track down a poorly-marked Little Free Library box on the Vegas strip. Physical libraries with inter-library loan remain much more valuable overall—and university libraries, especially—which is kind of pathetic. The most valuable sites on the Web are probably piracy websites like Library Genesis, and they still can't deliver everything you can get on dead trees. But they come the closest.