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Eco Cycles or How I Feel About Technology
- Kvakes 2y agoIt's a personal essay about how not all—probably most—technology is destined to liberate us.
- WesolyKubeczek 2y agoWell, when all is said in done, people like to own things and other people. The form will differ, sure, but the concept stays.
- cess11 2y agoHow do you explain the saying 'sharing is caring'? If you're correct and people inherently enjoy the exploitation of others, how could such a saying spontaneously develop and resonate with rather large groups? And how did the feasts of large religions develop? Things like iftar, where you communally share lots of food with both people you know and strangers, including the impoverished and disadvantaged? There ought to be quite a bit of violence involved to make such practices palatable if you're correct about this.
- paganel 2y agoBecause that saying originated as a US bourgeois thing, people willing to liberate themselves from really caring for the other (much poorer) people living just besides them in exchange for writing some code. Just look at the streets of San Francisco, for example, not much sharing there. And before someone mentioning that people like Torvalds and such other open-source luminaries are not technically Americans, they’re Americans in spirit, and by this point they’ve already got either US citizenship or a US green card, not to mention the hefty comps coming via US tech colossuses (either directly or indirectly). As the original article mentions, the secret to all this tech non-sense is to log out and experience life, while always remembering that Uncle Ted was right.
- keybored 2y ago> As the original article mentions, the secret to all this tech non-sense is to log out and experience life, while always remembering that Uncle Ted was right. That you evoke Uncle Ted shows that this is a half-measure at best.
- Kvakes 2y agoThere is a great book called The Dawn of Everything (Graeber and Wengrow) that talks about how cultures like that existed, and we (the Western civilization) decimated them.
- cess11 2y agoGraeber's Debt has similar themes in some places too.
- _Algernon_ 2y agoDon't look at what people say, look at what they do. People like feeling virtuous, but rarely act that way unless they stand to gain from it.
- i80and 2y agoMy experience is that if people are in an environment where helping others is socially encouraged rather than punished, most people want to help even strangers providing no benefit to themselves other than the healthy little dopamine hit. There's exceptions of course, but not enough to actually cause a problem. Unfortunately I find there's a lot of social pressure (at least in the US) telling people that if they help others they're a rube and a mark, or worse, so help isn't normalized.
- _Algernon_ 2y ago>My experience is that if people are in an environment where helping others is socially encouraged rather than punished, most people want to help even strangers providing no benefit to themselves other than the healthy little dopamine hit. There's exceptions of course, but not enough to actually cause a problem. What they stand to gain in that situation is good standing in their peer group which is a personal gain. It's basically personal public relations management. How often do people truly do something good without standing anything to gain? That is the true measure of innate human tendency to doing good. I'm sure there is some of that, but very little.
- Cycl0ps 1y agoIf I do something good because it makes me feel good, is that a selfish action or is it feedback from my 'innate human tendency'? We are social creatures. Seeing our social group benefit is a hardwired desire, and it makes us feel good. Being recognized as a valuable member of the group also feels good, and double-dipping on the dopamine hit is what motivates people towards contributing.
- cess11 2y agoWhy does some states in the US punish generosity towards e.g. unhoused people if that's the case? It's common for modern states to act violently to suppress empathy and generosity, and it's common to use the school system for the same purpose.
- Kvakes 2y agoI wouldn't say we "like" to do it, but in a certain sense it's an existential necessity to do so.
- mattgreenrocks 2y agoDisagree: the DiSC personality assessment codifies dominance as a key motivator of behavior. As much as I think the DiSC assessment is just business horoscopes, I still see canonizing dominance as a response to a real impulse, along with a way to easily sell decision makers on the fact that they are, in fact, just wired differently from all those other people below them.
- WesolyKubeczek 1y agoNow that is an acronym I haven’t seen in decades, is it still a thing?
- mattgreenrocks 1y agoYup. There's probably an infinite appetite for business horoscopes that tell people what they want to hear. Just have to dress it up with a veneer of authority.
- Miraltar 2y ago> In What Technology Wants, he argued that technology evolves like a living system. Such an interesting take
- CalRobert 2y agoI disagree with his take on traffic jams though. Public transportation, bikes, and well designed cities really do solve traffic
- deltarholamda 2y agoTrue enough, but those are technological solutions to a social problem. E.g., if the public transportation is terrible because it's dangerous or you get hassled on it, people don't use it. The guy sitting in a 4 hour commute every day is doing it for a reason. It's a cost he's willing to pay for some benefit.
- CalRobert 2y agoSure, and sometimes it’s the reasons you cite and sometimes the lack of an alternative. I always was surprised at people tolerating I-80 even when capital corridor would work for them.
- lozenge 2y agoNone of those are as good as being able to drive a car around somewhere which is traffic free and has ample parking. Of course, it's inherently not possible for that experience to be open to everyone.
- CalRobert 1y agoTrue, though when I had a buddy (a poor man’s Vespa) it was close enough to that to feel like a cheat code.
- dontlaugh 1y agoNot having to drive is usually much nicer, though. You can do something else while travelling, you don’t have to plan around where you leave your valuable vehicle, you can drink alcohol, etc. Either way, for occasional driving to be pleasant it’s necessary for most travel to happen by public transport, so it has to be the most convenient option for most journeys.
- CalRobert 2y agoIf, like me, you read comments before links, this refers to Umberto Eco, not low water usage cycles on washing machines
- A_Duck 2y agoWhy is the iPad so addictive that children have to be kept away from it? Because every single person designing apps and websites is incentivised to try and win 100% of your attention. Reed Hoffmann put it nicely — "We're competing with sleep, on the margin." The default apps, browser excluded, are pretty harmless - their incentive is to create a device you decide to welcome into your home. I don't see children spending 4 hours doomscrolling the calculator. The challenge is to think of another model for creating apps and content — one that retains most of the innovation without the harm
- Kvakes 2y agoAbsolutely, 100%. Not all tech is the same. A chair is a form of technology, but it doesn't try to make you sit all the time. Although some technologies (like books) are replaced with e-readers through which we handle over a certain degree of freedom to whomever the platform we use belongs to.
- A_Duck 2y agoThe challenge is the system of incentives around the technology If chair designers were paid based on the number of hours you sat in the chair, I expect we'd see some very different chairs. Probably not better ones for anyone whose life ambitions involve getting up out of a chair.
- Kvakes 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcXMhwF4EtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcXMhwF4EtQ
- _Algernon_ 2y ago>The challenge is the system of incentives around the technology The solution is simple: Outlaw advertising. It should have been done decades ago, considering the negative externalities it puts on society (in terms of visual pollution, and harmful incentives it creates). There is no real reason for it existing. The original argument was that it provides customers with information based on which to make purchasing decisions. It hasn't done this since at least Edward Bernays'[1] time. And there is no argument to be made that customers with internet existing lack information based on which to make purchasing decisions. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
- FollowingTheDao 2y agoThis is something the Daoists have talked about for 3000 years. The "easier and faster" is only facilitated by an unseen debt. You cannot have "easier" without a "harder". The harder will always follow, as sure as the night follows the day. The simplicity of technology is a facade. So yes, I agree; "You don’t win by keeping up. You win by stepping out." I am happy to see the Dao making itself visible again.
- Kvakes 2y agoA lot of old wisdom seems to be coming back. It's as funny as it's sad that we have to wait for "scientists" to confirm to us that fasting, extreme hot/cold, are evidently good to us. Also I've recently seen an ad for a company that builds houses out of carbon-negative materials (wood!).
- yapyap 2y agoI feel like the jump from what the comment u were replying to was saying, I.E. something ‘easier’ might be harder in the long run to saying it’s sad scientists need to collect empirical evidence to prove things like fasting and ”extreme hot/cold” (I assume temperatures?) are good is a big one and not necessarily a good one. What good would fasting or these extreme temps do and how would we prove it if not for evidence. Scientists are NOT the problem here.
- keybored 2y agoSilicon Valley or SC-ideological technologists have this ideological short-circuit for social problems. Let’s call it the Law of SC since every short-circuit needs an authoritative-sounding name, I mean law. - The premise is that there is a social problem - There are some examples of this repeating through history - It always plays out this way - Therefore we will conclude that it is technological determinism - Bonus: Argue that this is fundamentally human nature-determinism by evoking Darwin, Buddhism or Stoicism - Since this is Determinism (tech. or human) it can’t be solved - You have now achieved the end-goal: “Explaining” the problem, which gives you smartness cred - Bonus: Argue that technologists were already in the know. (Steve Jobs once admitted that his kids weren’t allowed to use the iPad.) That this is a hopeless attitude is revealed in the conclusion: > You don’t win by keeping up. You win by stepping out. Because you cannot step out. You can’t rewind the clock. This is reactionary in the political sense since it aspires to go back to the past—but you can’t.[1] We have made these technological dependencies for ourselves, or fetters. Now we need to deal with them. We need to make them work for us. What we don’t need is to stick our heads in the snad and proclaim that the best we can do is to take timeouts from technology, to create smartphone-free zones or whatever. Really? You advance these gadgets to the point where you need them (or a laptop/desktop) to minimally function in society... and then you become scared of them? No.[2] What’s the incentive for technology companies? To prey on your attention, your time, and erode your self-worth. This is already known. Where’s the technological determinism here? Just look at the Wizard, pulling the strings—is this your technological determinism? You (or we) are just complicit in making shitty technology. Don’t blame technological determinism or human nature. Blame yourself. Commutes don’t expand. Home prices go up into stratosphere near any place people have to work. And the car industry lobbies against public transport. These are all human-made problems. There is nothing deterministic about them. Your Dilbert-style laws are a crutch. Try to expand your focus beyond your narrow expertise. Then you’ll see that something better is possible. [1] Try to become a hermit. Civilization (modernity) will eventually encroach on your little hermitland. [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43510559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43510559
- Kvakes 2y agoI think you're right on most accounts. What do we do?
- c22 2y agoThe old school name for this is "tragedy of the commons" and it's not just a tech thing.
- keybored 1y agoNo. Tragedy of the Commons is a bogus thought experiment where the contradictions of mixing private property with the commons was blamed on The Commons.