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I don't DISAGREE with anything he said, particularly. But personally, I don't feel as upset over all this as he does. It seems that all my tech curmudgeonlines
by safety1st 1y ago
I don't DISAGREE with anything he said, particularly.
But personally, I don't feel as upset over all this as he does. It seems that all my tech curmudgeonliness over the years is paying off these days, in spades.
Humbly, I suggest that he and many others simply need to disconnect more from The Current Thing or The Popular Thing.
Let's look at what he complains about:
* Bitcoin. Massive hype, never went anywhere. He's totally right. That's why I never used it and barely even read about it. I have no complaints because I don't care. I told myself I'd care if someone ever built something useful with Bitcoin. 10 years later they haven't. I'm going back to bed.
* Windows. Man I'm glad I dodged that bullet and became a Linux user almost 15 years ago. Just do it. Stuff will irk you either way but Linux irks don't make you feel like your dignity as a human being is being violated. Again, he's right that Windows sucks; I just don't have to care, because I walked away.
* Bluesky, Twitter, various dumb things being said on social media. Those bother him too. Fortunately, these products are optional. I haven't logged into my Twitter account for three years. I'll certainly never create a Bluesky one. On some of my devices I straight up block many of these crapo social sites like Reddit etc. in /etc/hosts. I follow some RSS feeds of a few blogs, one of the local timeline for a Mastodon instance. Takes ten minutes and then I go READ BOOKS in my spare time. That's it. He is yet again right, social media sucks, it's the place where you hear about all this dumb stuff like Bitcoin; I just am not reading it.
I'm not trying to toot my own horn here it's just that when you disconnect from all the trash, you never look back, and the frustrations of people who haven't seem a little silly. You can just turn all of this stuff off. Why don't you? Is it an addiction? Treat it like one if so. I used to spend 6 hours a day on my phone and now it's 1 hour, mainly at lunch, because the rest of the time it's on silent, in a bag, or turned off, just like a meth addict trying to quit shouldn't leave meth lying around.
Listen to Stallman. Listen to Doctorow. These guys are right. They were always right. The free alternatives that respect you exist. Just make the leap and use them.