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> Idicoracy is especially amusing because as the years go on, it only seems more prescient. This is just you turning into a curmudgeon; that is, your mind oss

by derleth 14y ago

> Idicoracy is especially amusing because as the years go on, it only seems more prescient. This is just you turning into a curmudgeon; that is, your mind ossifying and you being unable to absorb new ideas as readily.

danso 14y ago
Hmm, I don't think so. We can limit our examination to the tech sector: In Idiocracy, medical care, among other decisions, are issued through simple touch-screen devices. Currently, the popular idealized interface is finger-touch, such that even a toddler can figure it out. Styluses and keyboards and other peripherals are ostracized as laughably archaic/geeky ways to do input, and are probably not far from being seen, as Idiocracy's citizens would put it, "faggy". Bret Victor has a good rant on this: http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/ http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi... In Idiocracy, despite decent progression in technology, the result has been more passive consumerism than active creation of media From the Times: Wasting Time Is New Divide in Digital Era http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/us/new-digital-divide-seen-in-wasting-time-online.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/us/new-digital-divide-seen... (To underscore that point, I think it's not a stretch to say that the iPad is geared much more towards media consumption than creation) Ow My Balls Actually, Ow My Balls was pretty good for an early iOS game. I'm thinking of the popularity of "Fart Sounds" and every freemium social game that dominates the top-grossing list. I'm not as big into the gaming scene anymore, but from my distant perspective, it seems that the future of gaming (despite Zynga's current troubles), is moving more towards Angry Birds or worse...Nintendo is floundering. It'll be nearly 7 years since the PS3 was released (the PS3 was released 6 years after the PS2) and no release date yet for the PS4...I love Angry Birds, but in terms of gaming, I'd consider it more "Idiocracy" endpoint than "non-Idiocracy"
- derleth 14y ago
  > Currently, the popular idealized interface is finger-touch, such that even a toddler can figure it out. OK. That's bad... why? How is it bad to remove accidental difficulty? 'Accidental difficulty' being difficulty imposed by a bad interface, such as how annoying it was to drop a deck of punched cards. Sorting punched cards is not an essential part of programming; it is accidental. This terminology is due to Brooks, in The Mythical Man-Month. > Styluses and keyboards and other peripherals are ostracized as laughably archaic/geeky ways to do input As long as keyboards remain available, reasonably high-quality, and not too expensive, I'll be happy. If most people don't use them, that's fine with me. > the result has been more passive consumerism than active creation of media Most people have never created most kinds of things. Most people don't want to and are not good at it. Besides, whenever we do focus on user-created media, what do we do? Laugh at blogs and GeoCities pages. There is literally no way to please the kinds of people who think Idiocracy makes good points. > Ow My Balls Bear baiting. When bear baiting makes a comeback, come talk to me.
  - williamcotton 14y ago
    > Most people have never created most kinds of things. Most people don't want to and are not good at it. Why do you say this? Almost everyone I know makes SOMETHING and they normally like doing so and are proud of their creations. It could be a batch of cookies from a personal recipe, a well crafted letter to a newspaper, a hand knit bedspread, or a nicely decorated living room. People are making things all of the time! They might not be making things professionally or for distribution, but to say that they don't want to and are not good at it is very short sighted.
    - derleth 14y ago
      > Almost everyone I know makes SOMETHING and they normally like doing so and are proud of their creations. In 2004, relatively few of the people I was listening to voted for George W. Bush.
- whatusername 14y ago
  AB: Star Wars is a more complex and fun game than AB. My iOS (au) top paid game charts: 1) AB: Star Wars. 2) GTA: Vice City. 3) Baldurs Gate. 4) The Room. 5) Bad Piggies. There is still hope. (The counterpoint to the above is the top grossing list. That's much sadder)
freshhawk 14y ago
That doesn't fit when people complain about rising anti-intellectualism. It's not one of the standard things that one generation always accuses "kids these days" of being guilty of. It's not like language choice or concepts of etiquette and politeness and changing social mores. It's something that pops up in cultures constantly and when it gains a good foothold it royally fucks that culture up for a few generations before being stamped out again ... if it's not destroyed by a culture still embracing new ideas in the interim. The whole premise of Idiocracy is as a morality tale about the dangers of anti-intellectual consumerism culture. Exactly what new ideas are being ignored if you find that a well suited criticism of contemporary culture?

by derleth 14y ago

danso 14y ago

Hmm, I don't think so. We can limit our examination to the tech sector: In Idiocracy, medical care, among other decisions, are issued through simple touch-screen devices. Currently, the popular idealized interface is finger-touch, such that even a toddler can figure it out. Styluses and keyboards and other peripherals are ostracized as laughably archaic/geeky ways to do input, and are probably not far from being seen, as Idiocracy's citizens would put it, "faggy". Bret Victor has a good rant on this: http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/ http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi... In Idiocracy, despite decent progression in technology, the result has been more passive consumerism than active creation of media From the Times: Wasting Time Is New Divide in Digital Era http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/us/new-digital-divide-seen-in-wasting-time-online.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/us/new-digital-divide-seen... (To underscore that point, I think it's not a stretch to say that the iPad is geared much more towards media consumption than creation) Ow My Balls Actually, Ow My Balls was pretty good for an early iOS game. I'm thinking of the popularity of "Fart Sounds" and every freemium social game that dominates the top-grossing list. I'm not as big into the gaming scene anymore, but from my distant perspective, it seems that the future of gaming (despite Zynga's current troubles), is moving more towards Angry Birds or worse...Nintendo is floundering. It'll be nearly 7 years since the PS3 was released (the PS3 was released 6 years after the PS2) and no release date yet for the PS4...I love Angry Birds, but in terms of gaming, I'd consider it more "Idiocracy" endpoint than "non-Idiocracy"

derleth 14y ago
> Currently, the popular idealized interface is finger-touch, such that even a toddler can figure it out. OK. That's bad... why? How is it bad to remove accidental difficulty? 'Accidental difficulty' being difficulty imposed by a bad interface, such as how annoying it was to drop a deck of punched cards. Sorting punched cards is not an essential part of programming; it is accidental. This terminology is due to Brooks, in The Mythical Man-Month. > Styluses and keyboards and other peripherals are ostracized as laughably archaic/geeky ways to do input As long as keyboards remain available, reasonably high-quality, and not too expensive, I'll be happy. If most people don't use them, that's fine with me. > the result has been more passive consumerism than active creation of media Most people have never created most kinds of things. Most people don't want to and are not good at it. Besides, whenever we do focus on user-created media, what do we do? Laugh at blogs and GeoCities pages. There is literally no way to please the kinds of people who think Idiocracy makes good points. > Ow My Balls Bear baiting. When bear baiting makes a comeback, come talk to me.
- williamcotton 14y ago
  > Most people have never created most kinds of things. Most people don't want to and are not good at it. Why do you say this? Almost everyone I know makes SOMETHING and they normally like doing so and are proud of their creations. It could be a batch of cookies from a personal recipe, a well crafted letter to a newspaper, a hand knit bedspread, or a nicely decorated living room. People are making things all of the time! They might not be making things professionally or for distribution, but to say that they don't want to and are not good at it is very short sighted.
  - derleth 14y ago
    > Almost everyone I know makes SOMETHING and they normally like doing so and are proud of their creations. In 2004, relatively few of the people I was listening to voted for George W. Bush.
whatusername 14y ago
AB: Star Wars is a more complex and fun game than AB. My iOS (au) top paid game charts: 1) AB: Star Wars. 2) GTA: Vice City. 3) Baldurs Gate. 4) The Room. 5) Bad Piggies. There is still hope. (The counterpoint to the above is the top grossing list. That's much sadder)

freshhawk 14y ago

That doesn't fit when people complain about rising anti-intellectualism. It's not one of the standard things that one generation always accuses "kids these days" of being guilty of. It's not like language choice or concepts of etiquette and politeness and changing social mores. It's something that pops up in cultures constantly and when it gains a good foothold it royally fucks that culture up for a few generations before being stamped out again ... if it's not destroyed by a culture still embracing new ideas in the interim. The whole premise of Idiocracy is as a morality tale about the dangers of anti-intellectual consumerism culture. Exactly what new ideas are being ignored if you find that a well suited criticism of contemporary culture?