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>Wendell Berry's writings about technology are harder to tolerate once you learn that he made his wife type up his manuscripts for him to be sent on to publishe

>Wendell Berry's writings about technology are harder to tolerate once you learn that he made his wife type up his manuscripts for him to be sent on to publishers. Why is that? In his essay (that's linked above) him writing with his wife is one of the reasons he explicitly names as to why he didn't use a computer. As he says, it would have not just replaced something, but someone. He valued working his wife, and she in all likelihood did too. There's no hypocrisy, dependence on other people was why he shunned technology. It's very telling that we now have a generation of people grown up on machines who think having to rely on another person, in other words community, is some offense to what he argued for.

ChickeNES 1mo ago
Therein lies the friction, I embrace technology because it reduces my reliance on other people, and I don't value local community over global community (in fact, just the opposite). And I want to end human labor, so you can see why I have profound dislike for his philosophy.
- Barrin92 1mo ago
  that's a friction between your philosophy and his philosophy, not between his philosophy and his practice. He lived exactly what he preached and so I don't understand in what sense he is a "hypocritical curmudgeon". He didn't doordash his food or hate his neighbors, he spent 60 years of his life on a small homestead farming in Kentucky, as far as I know engaged with his community.
  - ChickeNES 1mo ago
    > He lived exactly what he preached “He lived exactly what he preached” is an empirical claim, not an interpretation. Can you substantiate “exactly”?
    - Barrin92 1mo ago
      [dead]
    - Erem 1mo ago
      The point is that there's no evidence Berry was a hypocrite
      - ChickeNES 1mo ago
        That's a different and much weaker claim than “he lived exactly what he preached.” I challenged the latter.
- mikemarsh 1mo ago
  There's no reducing reliance on "other people", especially when embracing digital technology; in every realistic scenario you become tethered to the people in charge of Big Tech and all that entails, in Stallman-esque fantasy-land you're still relying on other open source maintainers. In both cases you're reliant on other people's supply chains to get the hardware all of this stuff relies on. As far as valuing some abstract ideal (global community) over the people actually in your life right now (local community), I guess all I can say is I can't see that working out well long-term, and hope you can find at least a few people to connect with now.

ChickeNES 1mo ago

Therein lies the friction, I embrace technology because it reduces my reliance on other people, and I don't value local community over global community (in fact, just the opposite). And I want to end human labor, so you can see why I have profound dislike for his philosophy.

Barrin92 1mo ago
that's a friction between your philosophy and his philosophy, not between his philosophy and his practice. He lived exactly what he preached and so I don't understand in what sense he is a "hypocritical curmudgeon". He didn't doordash his food or hate his neighbors, he spent 60 years of his life on a small homestead farming in Kentucky, as far as I know engaged with his community.
- ChickeNES 1mo ago
  > He lived exactly what he preached “He lived exactly what he preached” is an empirical claim, not an interpretation. Can you substantiate “exactly”?
  - Barrin92 1mo ago
    [dead]
  - Erem 1mo ago
    The point is that there's no evidence Berry was a hypocrite
    - ChickeNES 1mo ago
      That's a different and much weaker claim than “he lived exactly what he preached.” I challenged the latter.
mikemarsh 1mo ago
There's no reducing reliance on "other people", especially when embracing digital technology; in every realistic scenario you become tethered to the people in charge of Big Tech and all that entails, in Stallman-esque fantasy-land you're still relying on other open source maintainers. In both cases you're reliant on other people's supply chains to get the hardware all of this stuff relies on. As far as valuing some abstract ideal (global community) over the people actually in your life right now (local community), I guess all I can say is I can't see that working out well long-term, and hope you can find at least a few people to connect with now.