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We involved into a technological environment. Fire and rock tools were both used to create us. No tech, no humans. Modern tech is what saved us from the dour

We involved into a technological environment. Fire and rock tools were both used to create us. No tech, no humans. Modern tech is what saved us from the dour prophecies of the Malthusians. A little bit of screentime sure does beat infant mortality, polio, hunger, and the global wars we used to have.

swalsh 3y ago
"A little" That's the key
- FredPret 3y ago
  > Technology has been quite detrimental to humanity if those of us in tech want to be honest with ourselves. It could have been amazing. We told ourselves it was going to connect us, and we were all going to be smarter.. Tech has been amazing for the past 100-150 millennia and couldn’t possibly be seen as detrimental in aggregate. We are in fact smarter and more connected too. The side effects are barely worth mentioning.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
galdosdi 3y ago
Fire is the only significant technology we've had long enough to evolve with it. (I think I read somewhere there is a theory that fire is why we evolved smaller, weaker digestive systems, since we were able to rely on fire to predigest and sterilize food, freeing up energy for other purposes) Agriculture and urbandwelling are only 10,000 years old. The railroad, telegraph, and electricity all are less than 200 years old. Not enough time to evolve adaptation to it. Maybe in a million years if we're still around we'll be well adapted to long distance instant communications, to travel faster than 10 mph, etc. But those of us who are fated to live now are stuck with dangerous technologies with scary tradeoffs. > A little bit of screentime sure does beat infant mortality, polio, hunger, and the global wars we used to have. Bizarre take. Don't you remember the 1990s? The technology to bring those boons was unrelated to, and preceded, the screentime boom. TV was popular of course, but it was the beer to the smartphone's gin. Quantity has a quality all its own. It was, from my own memory, far easier to be TV-less or nearly TV-less than it is to be offline today. In fact, we've regressed a little in terms of war and disease lately, and I wonder if the cultural regression caused by addictive feeds on smartphones, which prioritize controversy above all else, has at least a little to do with it. I really don't think responding to covid in the USA would have been such a disaster if it had happened in say, 2005.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Are you assuming the gene sequencing and custom vaccine development tech of 2020 or 2005 in that conclusion?
atduskgreg 3y ago
People who make addictive social media apps and bureaucratic enterprise software love to glorify their work by lumping it in with vaccines, clean drinking water, and global food distribution in order to claim some of the halo of those obviously beneficial technologies (though claiming “fire and rock tools” is taking that to a hilarious new extreme). I hate to break it to you but you don’t work on any of those things. You work on selling people ads and making it easier for their boss to fire them. That tech is neutral at best relative to these problems you’re claiming and often destructive — ask people in Myanmar about how social media has affected war and violence, for example. Digital technology hasn’t had a demonstrably positive impact on worker productivity let alone mortality, hunger, or war. Start being honest with yourself that working in tech is a lot more like selling carbonated sugar water or making reality TV shows than it is like saving the world.
- ssnri 3y ago
  God damn! Threat neutralized. And all without starting a new paragraph. I agree with all this and yet it’s the sheer force of your prose that I can’t let go of

swalsh 3y ago

"A little" That's the key

FredPret 3y ago
> Technology has been quite detrimental to humanity if those of us in tech want to be honest with ourselves. It could have been amazing. We told ourselves it was going to connect us, and we were all going to be smarter.. Tech has been amazing for the past 100-150 millennia and couldn’t possibly be seen as detrimental in aggregate. We are in fact smarter and more connected too. The side effects are barely worth mentioning.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

galdosdi 3y ago

Fire is the only significant technology we've had long enough to evolve with it. (I think I read somewhere there is a theory that fire is why we evolved smaller, weaker digestive systems, since we were able to rely on fire to predigest and sterilize food, freeing up energy for other purposes) Agriculture and urbandwelling are only 10,000 years old. The railroad, telegraph, and electricity all are less than 200 years old. Not enough time to evolve adaptation to it. Maybe in a million years if we're still around we'll be well adapted to long distance instant communications, to travel faster than 10 mph, etc. But those of us who are fated to live now are stuck with dangerous technologies with scary tradeoffs. > A little bit of screentime sure does beat infant mortality, polio, hunger, and the global wars we used to have. Bizarre take. Don't you remember the 1990s? The technology to bring those boons was unrelated to, and preceded, the screentime boom. TV was popular of course, but it was the beer to the smartphone's gin. Quantity has a quality all its own. It was, from my own memory, far easier to be TV-less or nearly TV-less than it is to be offline today. In fact, we've regressed a little in terms of war and disease lately, and I wonder if the cultural regression caused by addictive feeds on smartphones, which prioritize controversy above all else, has at least a little to do with it. I really don't think responding to covid in the USA would have been such a disaster if it had happened in say, 2005.

sokoloff 3y ago
Are you assuming the gene sequencing and custom vaccine development tech of 2020 or 2005 in that conclusion?

atduskgreg 3y ago

People who make addictive social media apps and bureaucratic enterprise software love to glorify their work by lumping it in with vaccines, clean drinking water, and global food distribution in order to claim some of the halo of those obviously beneficial technologies (though claiming “fire and rock tools” is taking that to a hilarious new extreme). I hate to break it to you but you don’t work on any of those things. You work on selling people ads and making it easier for their boss to fire them. That tech is neutral at best relative to these problems you’re claiming and often destructive — ask people in Myanmar about how social media has affected war and violence, for example. Digital technology hasn’t had a demonstrably positive impact on worker productivity let alone mortality, hunger, or war. Start being honest with yourself that working in tech is a lot more like selling carbonated sugar water or making reality TV shows than it is like saving the world.

ssnri 3y ago
God damn! Threat neutralized. And all without starting a new paragraph. I agree with all this and yet it’s the sheer force of your prose that I can’t let go of