4 ms·

I agree about overoptimism, and I hope we sort of don't have a renaissance of the open, human internet, and instead we have a renaissance of meatspace.

Syonyk 2y ago
Indeed. We've tried the "digitally intermediated life" thing, and Covid was a solid stress test of it. The "We can do all this digitally with computers and tablets!" sorts got everything they ever wanted. David Sax, who wrote The Future is Analog back in 2016, has another book from 2022: The Revenge of Analog. It looks at the data from at least the first year or two of Covid and concludes, "Wow, this is awful for humans." We need to get back to in person meeting with people, and find ways to expand that out again - it's been the default for most of human history, except about the past decade and change. We've tried it, and found it wanting. So let's go back to things we know work. I'm hopeful about the next generation of teenagers coming up - they've seen the digital destruction caused by smartphones everywhere, and at least some of them are opting to carry flip phones instead of smartphones. We're seeing schools starting to simply ban phones entirely during the day, with massively positive results. So I think the changes are happening!
- christhecaribou 2y ago
  I want my remote work back from that period.
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    it never left mon ami. i've been remote since 2015 and nothing has really changed. niche orgs and niche skillsets, usually highly in demand and qualified, will make it work.
- iforgotpassword 2y ago
  What I really liked were small-ish online communities focused on a specific topic. Reddit is (was?) great for finding answers to weird issues and questions much faster due to its size, but I never really felt like I was part of a community in any subreddit. Still, with all that social media focused on self-promotion it was close enough to the old days of bulletin boards with aliases and not caring so much about who's behind them.
- eikenberry 2y ago
  While Covid may have been bad for people on the whole, for myself and other introverts I know it was great. More remote work, less pressure for socializing in person, just chilling out with people I care about. Personally I'd love more variety of digital spaces to interact with other people, particularly alternatives for smaller communities, like HN, but with more variety. What I mean to say by saying this is that while I understand your use of the royal "we", I don't think you are speaking for everyone. The "things we know work" don't work for everyone and Covid was a welcome break for some of us. And while I wouldn't inflict Covid conditions on everyone just so I could be happier, unfortunately, the inverse doesn't seem to be true. Tyranny of the majority, as usual.

Syonyk 2y ago

Indeed. We've tried the "digitally intermediated life" thing, and Covid was a solid stress test of it. The "We can do all this digitally with computers and tablets!" sorts got everything they ever wanted. David Sax, who wrote The Future is Analog back in 2016, has another book from 2022: The Revenge of Analog. It looks at the data from at least the first year or two of Covid and concludes, "Wow, this is awful for humans." We need to get back to in person meeting with people, and find ways to expand that out again - it's been the default for most of human history, except about the past decade and change. We've tried it, and found it wanting. So let's go back to things we know work. I'm hopeful about the next generation of teenagers coming up - they've seen the digital destruction caused by smartphones everywhere, and at least some of them are opting to carry flip phones instead of smartphones. We're seeing schools starting to simply ban phones entirely during the day, with massively positive results. So I think the changes are happening!

christhecaribou 2y ago
I want my remote work back from that period.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  it never left mon ami. i've been remote since 2015 and nothing has really changed. niche orgs and niche skillsets, usually highly in demand and qualified, will make it work.
iforgotpassword 2y ago
What I really liked were small-ish online communities focused on a specific topic. Reddit is (was?) great for finding answers to weird issues and questions much faster due to its size, but I never really felt like I was part of a community in any subreddit. Still, with all that social media focused on self-promotion it was close enough to the old days of bulletin boards with aliases and not caring so much about who's behind them.
eikenberry 2y ago
While Covid may have been bad for people on the whole, for myself and other introverts I know it was great. More remote work, less pressure for socializing in person, just chilling out with people I care about. Personally I'd love more variety of digital spaces to interact with other people, particularly alternatives for smaller communities, like HN, but with more variety. What I mean to say by saying this is that while I understand your use of the royal "we", I don't think you are speaking for everyone. The "things we know work" don't work for everyone and Covid was a welcome break for some of us. And while I wouldn't inflict Covid conditions on everyone just so I could be happier, unfortunately, the inverse doesn't seem to be true. Tyranny of the majority, as usual.