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This is an interesting idea: Voting on the norms of society even if not strictly enforceable. I would love a referendum on tipping in my American state. The pr

by wand3r 3y ago

This is an interesting idea: Voting on the norms of society even if not strictly enforceable. I would love a referendum on tipping in my American state. The proposed solution that at least 54% of this village have recognized is that the internet has really eroded societal bonds. The optimization of everything, coupled with the easy on-demand connection provided by phones is a big problem for society. It's like eating cake all the time, its easy and feels good in the moment but it will likely have negative societal impacts. I'll speak for America, but I am sure it isn't unique here. The optimization of everything to short term profit & loss coupled with phones has made society pretty unpleasant. - Grocery stores have removed handles from bags and most tellers. - Extremely uniform big box stores are primarily all that are left - Shopping is fully online - Workers have been reduced as much as possible to automata in low status jobs. - Due to the quality and quantity of data, of all goods are priced to the absolute max society can bear and wages are suppressed to the extent possible as well. - Connection with society is primarily done through a screen and id ephemeral I could go on. The point is that in concert, this has seriously changed our society even if any single change alone would be positive. Phones are simply a symptom of a society that is lonely and disconnected and a biological psychology that makes adaptation to this change hard/impossible. It's not neccesarily negative, but we will see how this shapes society when gen-z and gen alpha are in their 40s.

nonrandomstring 3y ago
Interestingly the article mentioned that some young people raised an objection that they had "nothing else to do" without their phones. In response the mayor promised new investment into sports, recreation, libraries and book sharing... In other words, there's more going on here than just the "phone ban", but a broader attempt to reconnect and rehumanise the village life. My concern is that even with the social and financial will to restore a more convivial lifestyle, those young people won't be able to engage. Having been raised by screens they are already so psychologically altered (damaged?) as to be lost. The assumption that life can "go back" may be misguided, and that makes this an experiment worth watching.
- rapind 3y ago
  I’m pretty sure (like 99%) that you can unlearn social media and phone bad habits if forced to with minimal fuss. Just go on a month long camping retreat (sans screens) and you’ll see how quickly we adapt.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    Go to jail. I read over 800 books that way. Still installed TikTok the day I got out, though.
    - glitchcrab 3y ago
      How long were you in for to read that many books?
      - bigstrat2003 3y ago
        I used to read 500 books in a single summer as a teenager. I don't know how much free time you have in prison, but I can totally see doing 800 books in just a year or two.
        glitchcrab 3y ago
        I would have classed myself as a bookworm when I was younger, but there's no way I could have read anywhere near that many books in that timespan. I would say that whilst I believe you, you're also an extreme outlier with that figure.
        defrost 3y ago
        Five and a half books a day, every day, all summer seems high. What counts as "a book" here (the seven volume À la recherche du temps perdu seems a bit of challenge to rip through in a day) ?
        qingcharles 3y ago
blackshaw 3y ago
You forgot "restaurants that no longer provide printed menus and expect you to view the menu on your phone instead". Dear fucking God I will go to my grave complaining about how much I hate this trend.
- russellbeattie 3y ago
  Either it will negatively affect the bottom line and stop, or diners will get used to it and it'll continue. Or it'll actually boost profits from people having the menu on their phone for dine-out ordering, allow the restaurant to update pricing more easily matching their costs, and of course the savings from not having to print physical menus. Time will tell. I'd bet on the latter.
- callalex 3y ago
  It’s not like the restraints we’re ever cleaning the menus everyone touches before…I like having control over my own hand hygiene just before eating.
  - np- 3y ago
    As a counterpoint, most people use their phones daily while sitting on the toilet and very rarely sanitize it. You may be diligent in keeping it sanitary but the past 50 people who kept their phones on the table while reading the menu probably didn’t (and the wet rag the bus person wipes the table down with probably doesn’t do much either).
    - bigstrat2003 3y ago
      I do not believe that most people use their phones on the toilet at all, much less daily. It would be incredibly stupid to risk dropping your phone in the toilet just so you have something to look at for the <1 min it takes to do your business.
      - dotnet00 3y ago
        He's referring to when taking a dump. Of course urinating is too quick to involve using a phone.
qingcharles 3y ago
I love how if you pay for your whole grocery order on Amazon with food stamps (because you are below the poverty line) Amazon still recommends you pay a minimum $10 tip from a debit card on your order.
- virtue3 3y ago
  Nothing is more American than taking government money and then not paying your workers enough on top of it requiring your customers to determine if your workers receive a fair wage or not. It's like how CA taxes you on your unemployment insurance income.
  - killingtime74 3y ago
    Australia taxes your unemployment insurance income. Many/most welfare payments in fact.
sfRattan 3y ago
> The proposed solution that at least 54% of this village have recognized is that the internet has really eroded societal bonds. Just under 11% of the village support the measure strongly enough to vote for it. Not 54%. Only 20% of the local electorate voted at all. On that basis, it's probably a good thing the measure is unenforceable.
- downut 3y ago
  I think that as long as a) the effects of the measure were well communicated and b) there were no significant impediments to actually voting, then the percent that vote is immaterial and the result of the vote should stand for everyone. After all this is the way the US conducts its elections. Many elections have very low turnout, yet the results are binding.
  - sfRattan 3y ago
    People have their own reasons for silence, even when a referendum is nonbinding. Interpreting that silence as consent or approval is the moral equivalent of a bulldozer.
  - powersnail 3y ago
    I think there's a difference between the result being binding, and that the vote stands for everyone. Abstaining leads to your opinion not being represented, which is to be expected. It doesn't follow that therefore other people's vote hence represent you. For the vote mentioned in the article, which is non-binding, non-enforceable, and ridiculous in its scope, I'd guess that most abstainers' real opinion on the matter, is that it's a waste of their time to participate.
  - justin66 3y ago
    > After all this is the way the US conducts its elections. Democracy is working great here and everybody is really happy about it.
fasterik 3y ago
Most of this is just "things were better when I was young". It's nostalgia for a past that might have had some advantages for some people, but was also worse in a lot of ways. 40 years ago if you lived in a small town and had nerdy or niche interests, you were mocked, bullied, and socially isolated from your peers. Now you can find thousands of other people who share your exact passions and interests and connect with them through the internet. The status quo is always defended by people who are well adapted to it. But the status quo doesn't work for everyone. The internet age is making life a lot better for a lot of people who were previously marginalized. I'm sure that when Gen Z gets old, they'll be nostalgic for the good old days of TikTok and Instagram. They won't understand whatever new VR metaverse their children live in, just like Boomers and Gen Xers don't understand the current situation. It's a story as old as time, but the world will move on and continue improving.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  This is also what comes to mind with all of the "just go out and socialize like the good old days" suggestions. Being an introvert I'd still rather just stay indoors and enjoy my niche hobbies, if anything I'd be less social due to not being able to meet people with similar sets of interests to share spur of the moment thoughts with. Hell, the way I got even more into tech (in the very early smartphone days) in the first place was because my friend group - which isn't easily changed when you're not an adult - was not very accepting of my hobbies/interests. I still remember the mocking I got for not being able to match the quality of a AAA game or mocked for tinkering with electronics by people who were 100% confident in their opinion that cheap earbuds would spontaneously explode. There's also the mention of asking for directions instead of using map apps, have we already forgotten how frustrating an experience it used to be, trying to find a place, getting vague and often wrong directions, circling around the same place until finally getting the right directions?
derekp7 3y ago
I'd like to see some expansion of some of the points. I'll take a stab at a couple of them related to shopping. First, in a physical store, if I wasn't familiar with that location I'd often have to pester a store employee for information of where a product is located. Now I pull up the store's app and it tells me the aisle and often bin location. Saves me time, lets the staff do their regular job (stocking shelves, etc), and it works out good for people who have a difficult time navigating social interactions with strangers. Now the negative of this -- stores can have less staff (as they aren't getting pestered as much), and the staff they have doesn't really have to know the products that much (so you lose out on a 15 minute talk with a retired plumber working the plumbing aisle at the hardware store, getting sage advice). Flip side of that is sometimes you can get better advice by looking it up on your phone, but quick internet research isn't something that everyone is really good at. Online ordering -- yes, I can now get access to things that were never available to me before (unless I happened to be in a very high population density area that could support certain specialty stores). Years ago I had always wanted to try something like Vegemite, and finally ran across a very small jar in a World Market store in the city. Now I can order multiple jars of the stuff on Amazon for a reasonable price. The negative of this is once I needed an air filter for my lawn mower (about 10 years ago or so?). Craftsman mower, so I went to Sears. Couldn't find it on the shelf, grabbed an employee, they looked it up on their computer and basically ordered it for me on sears.com and had it shipped to my house. Had to wait a few days instead of fixing my lawn mower right then (like my Dad would do back in the day, by grabbing a needed part from the local small town Ace Hardware or similar). Heck, I couldn't even get a headlight switch for my (at the time) 10-year old truck from Autozone without ordering it. (But today I'd just model it and 3D print the thing).

by wand3r 3y ago

nonrandomstring 3y ago

Interestingly the article mentioned that some young people raised an objection that they had "nothing else to do" without their phones. In response the mayor promised new investment into sports, recreation, libraries and book sharing... In other words, there's more going on here than just the "phone ban", but a broader attempt to reconnect and rehumanise the village life. My concern is that even with the social and financial will to restore a more convivial lifestyle, those young people won't be able to engage. Having been raised by screens they are already so psychologically altered (damaged?) as to be lost. The assumption that life can "go back" may be misguided, and that makes this an experiment worth watching.

rapind 3y ago
I’m pretty sure (like 99%) that you can unlearn social media and phone bad habits if forced to with minimal fuss. Just go on a month long camping retreat (sans screens) and you’ll see how quickly we adapt.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Go to jail. I read over 800 books that way. Still installed TikTok the day I got out, though.
  - glitchcrab 3y ago
    How long were you in for to read that many books?
    - bigstrat2003 3y ago
      I used to read 500 books in a single summer as a teenager. I don't know how much free time you have in prison, but I can totally see doing 800 books in just a year or two.
      - glitchcrab 3y ago
        I would have classed myself as a bookworm when I was younger, but there's no way I could have read anywhere near that many books in that timespan. I would say that whilst I believe you, you're also an extreme outlier with that figure.
      - defrost 3y ago
        Five and a half books a day, every day, all summer seems high. What counts as "a book" here (the seven volume À la recherche du temps perdu seems a bit of challenge to rip through in a day) ?
        qingcharles 3y ago

blackshaw 3y ago

You forgot "restaurants that no longer provide printed menus and expect you to view the menu on your phone instead". Dear fucking God I will go to my grave complaining about how much I hate this trend.

russellbeattie 3y ago
Either it will negatively affect the bottom line and stop, or diners will get used to it and it'll continue. Or it'll actually boost profits from people having the menu on their phone for dine-out ordering, allow the restaurant to update pricing more easily matching their costs, and of course the savings from not having to print physical menus. Time will tell. I'd bet on the latter.
callalex 3y ago
It’s not like the restraints we’re ever cleaning the menus everyone touches before…I like having control over my own hand hygiene just before eating.
- np- 3y ago
  As a counterpoint, most people use their phones daily while sitting on the toilet and very rarely sanitize it. You may be diligent in keeping it sanitary but the past 50 people who kept their phones on the table while reading the menu probably didn’t (and the wet rag the bus person wipes the table down with probably doesn’t do much either).
  - bigstrat2003 3y ago
    I do not believe that most people use their phones on the toilet at all, much less daily. It would be incredibly stupid to risk dropping your phone in the toilet just so you have something to look at for the <1 min it takes to do your business.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      He's referring to when taking a dump. Of course urinating is too quick to involve using a phone.

qingcharles 3y ago

I love how if you pay for your whole grocery order on Amazon with food stamps (because you are below the poverty line) Amazon still recommends you pay a minimum $10 tip from a debit card on your order.

virtue3 3y ago
Nothing is more American than taking government money and then not paying your workers enough on top of it requiring your customers to determine if your workers receive a fair wage or not. It's like how CA taxes you on your unemployment insurance income.
- killingtime74 3y ago
  Australia taxes your unemployment insurance income. Many/most welfare payments in fact.

sfRattan 3y ago

> The proposed solution that at least 54% of this village have recognized is that the internet has really eroded societal bonds. Just under 11% of the village support the measure strongly enough to vote for it. Not 54%. Only 20% of the local electorate voted at all. On that basis, it's probably a good thing the measure is unenforceable.

downut 3y ago
I think that as long as a) the effects of the measure were well communicated and b) there were no significant impediments to actually voting, then the percent that vote is immaterial and the result of the vote should stand for everyone. After all this is the way the US conducts its elections. Many elections have very low turnout, yet the results are binding.
- sfRattan 3y ago
  People have their own reasons for silence, even when a referendum is nonbinding. Interpreting that silence as consent or approval is the moral equivalent of a bulldozer.
- powersnail 3y ago
  I think there's a difference between the result being binding, and that the vote stands for everyone. Abstaining leads to your opinion not being represented, which is to be expected. It doesn't follow that therefore other people's vote hence represent you. For the vote mentioned in the article, which is non-binding, non-enforceable, and ridiculous in its scope, I'd guess that most abstainers' real opinion on the matter, is that it's a waste of their time to participate.
- justin66 3y ago
  > After all this is the way the US conducts its elections. Democracy is working great here and everybody is really happy about it.

fasterik 3y ago

Most of this is just "things were better when I was young". It's nostalgia for a past that might have had some advantages for some people, but was also worse in a lot of ways. 40 years ago if you lived in a small town and had nerdy or niche interests, you were mocked, bullied, and socially isolated from your peers. Now you can find thousands of other people who share your exact passions and interests and connect with them through the internet. The status quo is always defended by people who are well adapted to it. But the status quo doesn't work for everyone. The internet age is making life a lot better for a lot of people who were previously marginalized. I'm sure that when Gen Z gets old, they'll be nostalgic for the good old days of TikTok and Instagram. They won't understand whatever new VR metaverse their children live in, just like Boomers and Gen Xers don't understand the current situation. It's a story as old as time, but the world will move on and continue improving.

dotnet00 3y ago
This is also what comes to mind with all of the "just go out and socialize like the good old days" suggestions. Being an introvert I'd still rather just stay indoors and enjoy my niche hobbies, if anything I'd be less social due to not being able to meet people with similar sets of interests to share spur of the moment thoughts with. Hell, the way I got even more into tech (in the very early smartphone days) in the first place was because my friend group - which isn't easily changed when you're not an adult - was not very accepting of my hobbies/interests. I still remember the mocking I got for not being able to match the quality of a AAA game or mocked for tinkering with electronics by people who were 100% confident in their opinion that cheap earbuds would spontaneously explode. There's also the mention of asking for directions instead of using map apps, have we already forgotten how frustrating an experience it used to be, trying to find a place, getting vague and often wrong directions, circling around the same place until finally getting the right directions?

derekp7 3y ago

I'd like to see some expansion of some of the points. I'll take a stab at a couple of them related to shopping. First, in a physical store, if I wasn't familiar with that location I'd often have to pester a store employee for information of where a product is located. Now I pull up the store's app and it tells me the aisle and often bin location. Saves me time, lets the staff do their regular job (stocking shelves, etc), and it works out good for people who have a difficult time navigating social interactions with strangers. Now the negative of this -- stores can have less staff (as they aren't getting pestered as much), and the staff they have doesn't really have to know the products that much (so you lose out on a 15 minute talk with a retired plumber working the plumbing aisle at the hardware store, getting sage advice). Flip side of that is sometimes you can get better advice by looking it up on your phone, but quick internet research isn't something that everyone is really good at. Online ordering -- yes, I can now get access to things that were never available to me before (unless I happened to be in a very high population density area that could support certain specialty stores). Years ago I had always wanted to try something like Vegemite, and finally ran across a very small jar in a World Market store in the city. Now I can order multiple jars of the stuff on Amazon for a reasonable price. The negative of this is once I needed an air filter for my lawn mower (about 10 years ago or so?). Craftsman mower, so I went to Sears. Couldn't find it on the shelf, grabbed an employee, they looked it up on their computer and basically ordered it for me on sears.com and had it shipped to my house. Had to wait a few days instead of fixing my lawn mower right then (like my Dad would do back in the day, by grabbing a needed part from the local small town Ace Hardware or similar). Heck, I couldn't even get a headlight switch for my (at the time) 10-year old truck from Autozone without ordering it. (But today I'd just model it and 3D print the thing).