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> You don't need more resolution, more bandwidth, more anything.. you probably need less, or more space to reflect and live outside the networked digital realm.

> You don't need more resolution, more bandwidth, more anything.. you probably need less, or more space to reflect and live outside the networked digital realm. Better tech is how humans (all of them - rather than the few) get more space to reflect and live outside.

helmholtz 4y ago
As always, it is a question of degree. A young adult in the 70s had plenty of time to reflect and live outside. The technology of the preceding 50 years has not made this more accessible. If anything, the slot-machine nature of our computing reduces the likelihood of it.
- yazaddaruvala 4y ago
  > A young adult in the 70s had plenty of time to reflect and live outside. A young adult "in an already developed country with relatively new infrastructure that had already been built for them and they chose not to continue to invest in and improve" in the 70s had plenty of time to reflect and live outside. Meanwhile, because of those young adults lack of productivity in the 70s, people even in the US are drinking water with lead, have their homes destroyed by climate change, had the forests die and passively watched as desertification took hold. That said, I don't blame those young adults individually, they were a product of poor societal leadership. While not in aggregate (as evident in today's "crumbling" US and European infrastructure and diminished infrastructural head-start), I'm also sure many of these individuals found a healthy balance between being outdoors relaxing and improving the human condition for the long run. All I'm calling out is that in aggregate they were no bastions you should hold in any high regard, and definitely not something to try and replicate. What we need is better technology to lift up the human condition, allow each of us to continue to help improve the human condition with roughly 40 hours per year of effort, and spend the rest outdoors/gaming/enjoying/relaxing in general.
agumonkey 4y ago
That's shallow. Current tech does not help. You have to filter data, organize, manage bookmarks, fomo, notifications, slippery software. Better is subtle. Nothing is a straight line.
- yazaddaruvala 4y ago
  Bookmarks and data filtering are intermediate technologies that help make more technologies (they are necessary, but useless in and of themselves). When I say better tech, I mean: - Less human effort and overall cost to produce and store food. - Less human effort and overall cost to grow, transport, and store food. - Less human effort and overall cost to clean, transport, and store potable water. - Less human effort and overall cost to keep everyone's bodies healthy. - Less human effort and overall cost to keep everyone's minds healthy. - Less human effort and overall cost to construct net-new housing (and frankly more generally "improve everyone's safety"). - Less human effort and overall cost to keep our planet healthy i.e. appropriately and continually terraformed for our needs. - Less human effort and overall cost to travel/explore any and every inch of this planet (including the sea floor, the highest mountains, the sky, and even orbit). Fuck it, why think small, even less human effort and overall cost to travel/explore every inch of this universe. These are the technologies we need to get more people outdoors!

helmholtz 4y ago

As always, it is a question of degree. A young adult in the 70s had plenty of time to reflect and live outside. The technology of the preceding 50 years has not made this more accessible. If anything, the slot-machine nature of our computing reduces the likelihood of it.

yazaddaruvala 4y ago
> A young adult in the 70s had plenty of time to reflect and live outside. A young adult "in an already developed country with relatively new infrastructure that had already been built for them and they chose not to continue to invest in and improve" in the 70s had plenty of time to reflect and live outside. Meanwhile, because of those young adults lack of productivity in the 70s, people even in the US are drinking water with lead, have their homes destroyed by climate change, had the forests die and passively watched as desertification took hold. That said, I don't blame those young adults individually, they were a product of poor societal leadership. While not in aggregate (as evident in today's "crumbling" US and European infrastructure and diminished infrastructural head-start), I'm also sure many of these individuals found a healthy balance between being outdoors relaxing and improving the human condition for the long run. All I'm calling out is that in aggregate they were no bastions you should hold in any high regard, and definitely not something to try and replicate. What we need is better technology to lift up the human condition, allow each of us to continue to help improve the human condition with roughly 40 hours per year of effort, and spend the rest outdoors/gaming/enjoying/relaxing in general.

agumonkey 4y ago

That's shallow. Current tech does not help. You have to filter data, organize, manage bookmarks, fomo, notifications, slippery software. Better is subtle. Nothing is a straight line.

yazaddaruvala 4y ago
Bookmarks and data filtering are intermediate technologies that help make more technologies (they are necessary, but useless in and of themselves). When I say better tech, I mean: - Less human effort and overall cost to produce and store food. - Less human effort and overall cost to grow, transport, and store food. - Less human effort and overall cost to clean, transport, and store potable water. - Less human effort and overall cost to keep everyone's bodies healthy. - Less human effort and overall cost to keep everyone's minds healthy. - Less human effort and overall cost to construct net-new housing (and frankly more generally "improve everyone's safety"). - Less human effort and overall cost to keep our planet healthy i.e. appropriately and continually terraformed for our needs. - Less human effort and overall cost to travel/explore any and every inch of this planet (including the sea floor, the highest mountains, the sky, and even orbit). Fuck it, why think small, even less human effort and overall cost to travel/explore every inch of this universe. These are the technologies we need to get more people outdoors!