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> Technology doesn't exist in the vacuum - it costs money, resources and labor to manufacture and support artifacts like cars or CD players or CDs themselves N
by csdvrx 3y ago
> Technology doesn't exist in the vacuum - it costs money, resources and labor to manufacture and support artifacts like cars or CD players or CDs themselves
Nobody is forcing anyone to buy vinyles or CDs, but enough people like them, so they aren't on their own: the market provides.
Everything has costs. My refusal to carry a cellphone has opportunity costs for me, but also opportunities like maybe a longer attention span?
> As a result, you have a moving island of "what's current" speeding on the vast ocean called "you're on your own, and shit out of luck".
You have the freedom to use any technology, and go to any technological island.
You don't have the freedom to force others to cater to your tastes, or to imprison them on your island if they prefer to be somewhere else.
I like sixels, but I know it's a niche preference so I don't expect other people will provide me the technology I want. Instead, I create it for my own use, but I also think it's genuinely nice tech that can grow and strive if it gains enough momentum.
If it's as good as I think it is, others will join me on this island and it will grow.
If not, then I'm wasting time and effort, and maybe it's a good thing that I'm on my own and sh*t out of luck, because eventually it'll make me stop.
What you see as negatives, I see as positives, a way to coordinate the large number of individual preferences in society: everyone can vote with their time, effort and money.
- tzs 3y ago> Everything has costs. My refusal to carry a cellphone has opportunity costs for me, but also opportunities like maybe a longer attention span? That one would be a tough for a lot of people nowadays in the US because it could be a safety issue. In the first half of the '90s there was a lot of infrastructure to support people who did not have mobile phones, such as plentiful pay phones in public places and emergency call boxes along highways. Now only a few states still have emergency call boxes on the highways, and pay phones have dwindled from a high of 2.6 million in 1995 to under 100k.
- csdvrx 3y ago> > Everything has costs (...) > That one would be a tough for a lot of people nowadays in the US because it could be a safety issue. Everything has costs, including safety. > Now only a few states still have emergency call boxes on the highways If my car stops on the highway and I stand next to it waving my arms, I think someone will eventually come or at least call for help.
- crq-yml 3y ago"Technology" isn't in the processes or inventions, it's in the societal dependencies that enable their deployment and maintenance. Some of these come "bottom-up," others "top-down". If you step into a public library you are likely to have access to a large amount of music. It does not matter that much whether the medium of that music is CD or vinyl - the primary technology is the library, the medium is just facilitative, enabling more of it to be archived and made available. Cities are known as the oldest "technology of civilization" because they operate in this context of providing something that you could not simply choose to have or not have - it has to coexist across a broad number of people. You can buy a different vehicle to drive on the road, but the road and the other people on it are part of the city, and the city is a package deal: you may be able to move to a different city, but you don't get to choose every detail.