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To get to your conclusion you ignore 99% of what my comment si about and concentrate on a single thing, cars. I don't like these kinds of arguments where people

To get to your conclusion you ignore 99% of what my comment si about and concentrate on a single thing, cars. I don't like these kinds of arguments where people carefully select one minor thing and pretend it's the main point. I wrote about quite ab bit more, and cars were not even close to the center of my post! > I call friends and family, enhancing connections and communicating more. I also question the validity of statements such as these. It does not seem to me to be supported by evidence that our connections between people - and lets concentrate on connections between already connected people to remove the question if new tech lets us make new ones more often - are qualitatively better than in the past. I would think such a statement very much deserves a [Citation needed] response. I think a lot of your statements are equally... creative and subjective, or worse ("I don't die as often, living is productive.").

nwienert 4y ago
Sorry, I use a phone to look up transit info and it's 100x more convenient. There's a massive and tangential discussion to be had about tech and it's influence on culture and connectivity, but that's not for this thread.
- nosianu 4y ago
  > Sorry, I use a phone to look up transit info and it's 100x more convenient. I'm a bit baffled, what does your reply have to do with either of my previous comments? I mean what I actually wrote, I'm aware I prominently mentioned such a convenience feature. It's just that there was no question that it was convenient.
  - nwienert 4y ago
    It's a direct response to this: > It was when I looked at the tram station not far form my house, which for a year or so has been upgraded to have a display with the expected arrival times of the next three trams. > It sure is very convenient! However, compared to a similar transport system of fifty years ago, which achieved the same thing, we now have a lot of additional effort to maintain such infrastructure. It got waayyyy more complex, all the electronics, and software has to be written and maintained, screens installed and maintained, computer infrastructure - all just for some slight improvement in convenience. Is it worth it? I have no conclusion, I just have to think about that when I hear yet another "we need more 'Fachkräfte'" (skilled workers). How many people do we need for mostly just minor convenience upgrades? You made up some arbitrary thing that you admit improves quality of life, and I pointed out that your example doesn't really even capture the difference. 40 years ago you had to ask around, or call to ask about the times of tram. Now you can find the exact times, delays, of any tram anywhere directly from your tiny pocket supercomputer. The difference is so stark, and yet you focused on signs at the station when the revolution was in your hand. --- Realizing you brought up like 5 different things, and now every time I refute one you're motte and bailey-ing to the next thing. I don't owe you to refute every point you put out, the thread here was a specific example of tech improving productivity, and I think it's definitive. The study is ridiculous and proves nothing, and the rest is pathos and too broad to reply to.
    - nosianu 4y ago
      > It's a direct response to this: I still don't see how the reply fits to the comments I made. You missed the point of my example by miles, is my impression still. I think I already expressed it well enough even in the original comment, so I have no idea how to re-express it for you. > 40 years ago you had to ask around, or call to ask about the times of tram No you didn't. The train or bus schedule was and still is posted at each station, and pocket watches have been a thing for a very long time. I find your style of a bit tiring to be honest. > You made up some arbitrary thing Even more misrepresentation! I did not make up anything! That happened! > Realizing you brought up like 5 different things, and now every time I refute one you're motte and bailey-ing to the next thing. Realizing you brought up like 5 different things, and now every time I refute one you're motte and bailey-ing to the next thing. You keep ignoring my point and keep talking about deliberate misrepresentations of some minor examples that merely serve as illustration! > The difference is so stark, and yet you focused on signs at the station when the revolution was in your hand. Given what the parent comment is about, the really huge difference e.g. between tech such as gas lights and electricity, or horse carriages and modern transport, your claim of a "stark" difference seems unjustified to say the least. You still get from A to B in about the same time and with at best a minor improvement in efficiency and convenience. It is certainly not a game changer to have computerized timetables compared to paper schedules plus watches and clocks, unless a transport system is so grossly broken that it barely ever runs anywhere close to the posted schedule. I see no basis for you claims of "stark difference" and "revolution", given the context of this entire discussion. The Internet and computerization are, but not replacing paper tram schedules with electronic boards. Again, unless your experience is from some place where the paper schedules were completely useless and trains and buses ran randomly and you had huge random wait times. In which case they would still be far better off fixing their broken transport system so that the schedule actually has meaning. > I don't owe you to refute every point you put out You keep "refuting" what there never was to begin with. For example, as if I had said "there is no benefit" (of changes), a point I never made. Never once did you even acknowledge (or ever even see?) my point, which is the position in a larger context. You keep attacking positions I never took. I will not repeat them here, since I already mentioned them in my original post.
      - 4y ago
hammyhavoc 4y ago
Just my perspective: I don't feel like I know my friends or family very well these days, despite being friends for almost thirty years with some. Twenty years ago we would talk on MSN or email and arrange to do something or hang out. These days you just see photos of their lunch. I also feel like a lot of folks are scared to hang out, even pre-COVID, because they have nothing to talk about that isn't already on Facebook. What they do discuss is pretty much solely consumption of "I ate x", "I bought y". I largely feel like folks have lost the art of conversation. Instead they're now content creators.
- nwienert 4y ago
  My perspective is quite the opposite, people travel to see each other way more, video chat way more, and we talk about more diverse and interesting stuff. They have more hobbies and more interesting hobbies (the internet has really exploded the ability to learn about and try things, and new tech like kite surfing is popular with my friends). My wife learned how to sew during the pandemic using just YouTube.
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    Very interesting! I've found that most people I know never really access the internet outside of Facebook. The idea of using a search engine is something academics apparently do. Seeing far fewer businesses with their own websites too, just telling people to follow them on Instagram or Facebook.

nwienert 4y ago

Sorry, I use a phone to look up transit info and it's 100x more convenient. There's a massive and tangential discussion to be had about tech and it's influence on culture and connectivity, but that's not for this thread.

nosianu 4y ago
> Sorry, I use a phone to look up transit info and it's 100x more convenient. I'm a bit baffled, what does your reply have to do with either of my previous comments? I mean what I actually wrote, I'm aware I prominently mentioned such a convenience feature. It's just that there was no question that it was convenient.
- nwienert 4y ago
  It's a direct response to this: > It was when I looked at the tram station not far form my house, which for a year or so has been upgraded to have a display with the expected arrival times of the next three trams. > It sure is very convenient! However, compared to a similar transport system of fifty years ago, which achieved the same thing, we now have a lot of additional effort to maintain such infrastructure. It got waayyyy more complex, all the electronics, and software has to be written and maintained, screens installed and maintained, computer infrastructure - all just for some slight improvement in convenience. Is it worth it? I have no conclusion, I just have to think about that when I hear yet another "we need more 'Fachkräfte'" (skilled workers). How many people do we need for mostly just minor convenience upgrades? You made up some arbitrary thing that you admit improves quality of life, and I pointed out that your example doesn't really even capture the difference. 40 years ago you had to ask around, or call to ask about the times of tram. Now you can find the exact times, delays, of any tram anywhere directly from your tiny pocket supercomputer. The difference is so stark, and yet you focused on signs at the station when the revolution was in your hand. --- Realizing you brought up like 5 different things, and now every time I refute one you're motte and bailey-ing to the next thing. I don't owe you to refute every point you put out, the thread here was a specific example of tech improving productivity, and I think it's definitive. The study is ridiculous and proves nothing, and the rest is pathos and too broad to reply to.
  - nosianu 4y ago
    > It's a direct response to this: I still don't see how the reply fits to the comments I made. You missed the point of my example by miles, is my impression still. I think I already expressed it well enough even in the original comment, so I have no idea how to re-express it for you. > 40 years ago you had to ask around, or call to ask about the times of tram No you didn't. The train or bus schedule was and still is posted at each station, and pocket watches have been a thing for a very long time. I find your style of a bit tiring to be honest. > You made up some arbitrary thing Even more misrepresentation! I did not make up anything! That happened! > Realizing you brought up like 5 different things, and now every time I refute one you're motte and bailey-ing to the next thing. Realizing you brought up like 5 different things, and now every time I refute one you're motte and bailey-ing to the next thing. You keep ignoring my point and keep talking about deliberate misrepresentations of some minor examples that merely serve as illustration! > The difference is so stark, and yet you focused on signs at the station when the revolution was in your hand. Given what the parent comment is about, the really huge difference e.g. between tech such as gas lights and electricity, or horse carriages and modern transport, your claim of a "stark" difference seems unjustified to say the least. You still get from A to B in about the same time and with at best a minor improvement in efficiency and convenience. It is certainly not a game changer to have computerized timetables compared to paper schedules plus watches and clocks, unless a transport system is so grossly broken that it barely ever runs anywhere close to the posted schedule. I see no basis for you claims of "stark difference" and "revolution", given the context of this entire discussion. The Internet and computerization are, but not replacing paper tram schedules with electronic boards. Again, unless your experience is from some place where the paper schedules were completely useless and trains and buses ran randomly and you had huge random wait times. In which case they would still be far better off fixing their broken transport system so that the schedule actually has meaning. > I don't owe you to refute every point you put out You keep "refuting" what there never was to begin with. For example, as if I had said "there is no benefit" (of changes), a point I never made. Never once did you even acknowledge (or ever even see?) my point, which is the position in a larger context. You keep attacking positions I never took. I will not repeat them here, since I already mentioned them in my original post.
    - 4y ago

hammyhavoc 4y ago

Just my perspective: I don't feel like I know my friends or family very well these days, despite being friends for almost thirty years with some. Twenty years ago we would talk on MSN or email and arrange to do something or hang out. These days you just see photos of their lunch. I also feel like a lot of folks are scared to hang out, even pre-COVID, because they have nothing to talk about that isn't already on Facebook. What they do discuss is pretty much solely consumption of "I ate x", "I bought y". I largely feel like folks have lost the art of conversation. Instead they're now content creators.

nwienert 4y ago
My perspective is quite the opposite, people travel to see each other way more, video chat way more, and we talk about more diverse and interesting stuff. They have more hobbies and more interesting hobbies (the internet has really exploded the ability to learn about and try things, and new tech like kite surfing is popular with my friends). My wife learned how to sew during the pandemic using just YouTube.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  Very interesting! I've found that most people I know never really access the internet outside of Facebook. The idea of using a search engine is something academics apparently do. Seeing far fewer businesses with their own websites too, just telling people to follow them on Instagram or Facebook.