16 ms·

DATAcide: The Total Annihilation of Life as We Know It

333 points by DocFeind 12y ago

B5geek 12y ago
I saw TA in the title and got my hopes up for a modern Linux port or the game. I don't think I have work on the brain right now.
Alex3917 12y ago
For what it's worth, Ryder Ripps' poem Howl 2.0 explores similar themes: http://genius.com/Ryder-ripps-howl-20-for-fixoid-annotated http://genius.com/Ryder-ripps-howl-20-for-fixoid-annotated Since the author of this Adbusters piece was also clearly inspired by Ginsberg, it's pretty cool to see two different authors exploring the same ideas when they are both using the same work for inspiration.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I see your Howl 2.0 and raise you Meditations on Moloch! http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
justcommenting 12y ago
This reminded me of moxie's recent post about whether we've put the glasses from They Live on or taken them off[0]. In terms of the internet as a failed utopia, it seems to comes down to the choices we all make in deciding this for ourselves: what we participate in, what we work on, how we choose to spend our time, and especially whether or not we work to build positive alternatives. It can be a useful exercise to ask oneself whether the work they're doing helps to control others or whether it positively enables people to live in the world they want to live in, and one way to respond to these types of concerns is for people to focus on building that world. Sometimes that's the harder path, but sometimes the harder path is worth choosing. [0] https://whispersystems.org/blog/they-live/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/they-live/
ctdonath 12y ago
One word summarizes the article: "emo". It's a long angst-dripping screed lamenting the extreme data connectivity of today, failing to note three critical points: (A) the connectivity is as vital to "life as we know it" as your nervous system is to your body, (B) he lives it by choice, and (C) he can unplug if he wants to. He fails to notice that "we" is not universal. For high-tech types living in crowded cities, yes, but there are a whole lotta people much less, and even un-, connected to the Web. He fails to notice that the connectivity he laments is critical to maintaining life as he knows it. What he takes for granted, the symbiotic consequence of extreme data proliferation. Take away the interconnectedness that scares him, and he has few options beyond tilling the ground and harvesting his own food. He fails to notice the choices he has. Going only so far as locking the door & smashing the phone, he laments the data-driven world still exists just feet away. Newsflash: there is life outside the blue/red[1] border. He fails to notice that disconnection is an option, to whatever degree he is comfortable with. Log out of Facebook. Avoid HN. Stop viewing social media. Most news is irrelevant. Pay in cash. Accept that disconnection means longer waits and fewer options. Realize that most of humanity throughout history, some 40 billion people, got along to what they considered "fine" without the Web. While briefly still connected, take a look at these: http://www.zillow.com http://www.zillow.com http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com https://www.google.com/#q=library+near+me https://www.google.com/#q=library+near+me http://www.mypatriotsupply.com/Articles.asp?ID=245 http://www.mypatriotsupply.com/Articles.asp?ID=245 Quit whining. If you want to get out, you can. There is an off switch, and the disconnected life is wonderful. [1] - if you look closely at voter precinct maps and their blue/red Democrat/Republican Left/Right Progressive/Conservative boundaries, you'll see stark & consistent delineation right at the urban/rural boundary. Cities are political archipelagos, and he's lamenting the foliage & ground, longing for the oceans he doesn't realize surround him.
- ashark 12y ago
  > http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com Ouch, portability comes at a very high (~5-6x/sqft) premium.
  - ctdonath 12y ago
kasey_junk 12y ago
I quite liked this piece to read as art. But there are some pretty simple solutions to the general malaise he is expressing: 1) get out of the myopic SV culture. There are lots of actually interesting problems to solve (even in the very small world of software) and if you are tired of talking about the same old thing, go somewhere that isn't doing that. 2) if you aren't interested by the data you are consuming, don't interact with it. Don't consume facebook, twitter, HN, et. al. Or more realistically only consume the ones that add value to your life. It's harder to opt out of being collected in the massive hoovering of this data, but in nearly all instances out of sight, really is out of mind.
- api 12y ago
  "if you are tired of talking about the same old thing, go somewhere that isn't doing that." I was getting bored with music a while back, so I did an experiment: I limited the music on my phone to nothing older than five years. To do this I had to remove hundreds of albums. At first there wasn't much left, so I went looking... for nothing released more than five years ago. I found quite a bit of new stuff. Eventually I re-added old stuff I loved, but my musical repertoire had broadened quite a bit. Part of the problem today is that the amount of signal around us has increased so much that it's overwhelming, and people haven't yet learned that it's okay to tune out a significantly larger amount of chatter than what they had to tune out in previous eras. It feels like ignorance, or being "out of the loop," but it's essential. I plan on repeating the music experiment regularly. I should probably purge some of my "feeds" too.
  - Snhr 12y ago
    TLDR; I've done what you've done on a massive scale. Most things end up depressing me if I follow them, knowing people are willingly participating in such an absence of brain activity. I had to stop myself from constantly scrolling down on facebook when I was bored (I realized I don't even actually read what people post most of the time because I'm looking for something interesting, but I still subconsciously notice what people are doing somehow.) I'm not against this by any means, so don't take this as me complaining. I don't know what's popular right now, I don't know what is trending on twitter. What's left is my little bubble where I have what I need to explore what I'm interested in. I can find interesting articles, I can find new music, and I can talk to people who actually are interesting to talk to. I've completely cut off any noise and am completely left with pure signal. I'm completely out of touch with most everybody, and I've never felt better. I guess this goes hand in hand with being super introverted, I couldn't imagine actually holding a conversation with anybody around me with the information I know that wasn't super technical or completely shallow. I've lived with this obvious gap between me and other people my entire life though so it doesn't even feel lonely anymore when I can just find whatever I need to keep myself occupied when I'm bored. The beauty of the internet.
eveach 12y ago
Love this: a euphemism for a human centipede of marketers selling marketing to marketers for marketing.
- mason240 12y ago
  Also this: But what many [communes] had common was a cascading systems failure of their foundational hypothesis — that social change could be achieved through self-transformation and the problems of power could be solved simply by ignoring them. There was always a Machiavellian in the transformational mist, though, and a refusal to acknowledge outright how power creates invisible structures that undermine the potential for cooperative action ultimately led to their implosion.
ynniv 12y ago
This reads like Wired back when that was a good thing.
- webmaven 12y ago
  More like Mondo 2000.
coldcode 12y ago
"We were told to surf the web, but in the end, the web serf’d us". Funny and sad at the same time.
- politician 12y ago
  If you always do what you're told, don't complain when you're labeled a serf. ;-)
lmm 12y ago
The internet is other people, and what we get is what people, on the whole, want. It's like the olympic gold medal in Cool Runnings: if your life is meaningless without it, it's still going to be meaningless with it. > These are the most boring people on the planet. Yes, we are. That's the real revolution here: that you don't have to be "wacky" to participate, to set the agenda even. Facebook forces us to accept that most people are boring. Forces us to at least consider the possibility that terrifies the politico-artistic-humanities complex - that maybe it's ok to be boring. > if our data is the oil of the 21st century, then why aren’t we all sheikhs? Or maybe our data isn't actually that valuable. Maybe it's worth approximately what we sell it for. > There’s no sneering, no sarcasm, and no self-deprecation. Everyone is just sort of floating along in an earnest tranquility. As if each anecdote about “that cool loft I found on Airbnb” contained some deep spiritual significance beyond my grasp. Isn't this a good thing? What do we think the author would have written if everyone were being cynical and snarky? > magical cloud of squandered human potential No such thing. Data isn't destroying these things - it's just forcing us to realize that they were myths all along. I think the author kind of acknowledges this with the statement about how "those invisible power structures continue to thrive." The Internet only amplifies what's already there. It can, and does, help you do what you want with your life. But you have to decide what that is for yourself.
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  Very accurate and observant comments. Someone (person A) was once explaining to me how boring this other guy was (person B). Person A was bored with person B's conversation. Person A said "this guy was so boring, why didn't he do something exciting or talk about anything interesting? You know, I have a smart phone here and the ENTIRE INTERNET IS IN MY POCKET. But Person B didn't even care! How boring! Scoff guffaw pfah!" I thought it was pretty sad, firstly because person A was judging person B's worth through his own perception of what was interesting (everything's interesting if you take an interest!), and secondly because having the Internet in your pocket doesn't really mean anything by itself. It's like walking around with a dictionary in your pocket but never reading it. If you keep reading the blank opening page over and over again whilst proclaiming how wonderful the dictionary is, it is missing the best bits (the rest of the book and word definitions, etymology etc.) As you state, having lots of people connected together doesn't magically make it a wonderful place if they have nothing in common and the people have meaningless lives in the first place, in the same way that having a library close to you doesn't magically mean that you'll be knowledgeable on everything inside the library if you just hang around outside. Thanks for the food for thought. Now on to evaluate my use of time and frequently visited sites to see if they are actually enriching my life.
DanielBMarkham 12y ago
Not bad! I liked it. Kind of weaseled out at the end, though. I get the feeling the author got as close as he could to the truth and then just couldn't cross the chasm. I was struck by the conscious selling out that the author points out. The folks building the next generation of internet content know what they're doing. It's not like it was back in '95 when we thought that we'd all just turn on machines and share. Back then it was utopia. Now, as he points out, you don't surf the internet. The internet surfs you. But we know that. Yet to point it out is a terrible faux pas. The "correct" answer is just to sell out, grab the data, flip it, and move on. I guess the conclusion is that it's better to be rich with a slightly guilty conscience than it is to be moral and honest. It's rude to be perspicacious. If true that people are starting to wake up, interesting. It's showing a shift a shift in the conversation. Far too many techies will rant at length about some kind of social injustice in the world -- while helping to create an authoritarian state the world has never seen before. It's about time some of them looked in the mirror a bit.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Maybe techies are slowly realizing that this whole trendy web industry is 50% schlep, 49% bullshit and 1% of something actually valuable to the world. The schlep jobs are obviously boring, but the trendy 49% of bullshit seems to be actually harmful to humanity. I realized this long time ago. And yet here I am, working on a schlep. I guess that's a step up from the bullshit work I was doing before. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough and take another step, ditch this whole thing and code something actually beneficial to fellow humans. People will say (I wonder what's edw519's stance on this) - go with what your clients/employers want, and let the magic of capitalism sort it all out, turn it into real value. But we see that more and more things we do don't actually bring any (nonmonetary) value to the world. So you say, there's a shift in conversation. I'm afraid, that the shift will is towards apathy. "Sell out, grab the data, flip it, and move on". Because they don't give a shit about the world anymore, it's going down the drain, nothing we can do, so let at least have some expensive parties before the whole thing explodes.
  - porker 12y ago
    > Maybe techies are slowly realizing that this whole trendy web industry is 50% schlep, 49% bullshit and 1% of something actually valuable to the world. Couldn't put it better myself.
teirce 12y ago
Reading this makes my skin crawl. I'll admit -- I only got about half way through before I had to stop. The disposition of the author is entirely too sardonic for my tastes. He's locked himself into an endless spiral of hatred and self-victimization, of course none of which is his own fault. How can this be seen as normal or healthy? Maybe I'm just one of the "boring" people. I don't have a twitter or an Instagram, and barely maintain my Facebook that follows only people I have known personally. Take a walk. Go outside. Get some fresh air. Realize that you don't need to allow things to consume your free time if you don't enjoy them.
- alexbecker 12y ago
  I believe the piece is not entirely serious.
oldmanjay 12y ago
The judgmental tone turned me off long before I read enough to even understand the point of the piece. I'll assume it's a load of hyperbole that boils down to "I don't like things that are different"
brudgers 12y ago
The mention of buildings based on Walden 2 reminded me of one of my favorite buildings, Ricardo Bofill's Walden 7: http://www.walden7.com/ http://www.walden7.com/ http://www.ricardobofill.com/EN/666/PROJECTS/Walden-7-html http://www.ricardobofill.com/EN/666/PROJECTS/Walden-7-html [might be broken] http://www.mascontext.com/issues/4-living-winter-09/case-study-2-walden-7/ http://www.mascontext.com/issues/4-living-winter-09/case-stu... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_7 The links don't really do full justice to the three-dimensional interlocking of the dwelling units. It's Corbu's Marseilles Block plus peyote.
sjafri5 12y ago
This is an incredibly pertinent point. Why is the collective data, profitable for such a small percentage. Why are those that are contributing the data not being rewarded for their contributions. If we live in the information econonomy then those that are contributing that information should be accounted. How is this not digital feudalism??
- scrrr 12y ago
  Well, there's choice. I use more obscure tools, for example Unison instead of Dropbox or Tox instead of Skype. It would probably be feudalism if there were dependency, but nobody forces you to post on Facebook. I don't use it. I have friends that I see often, I enjoy life just fine without it. heh. TBH, I'm more worried about cameras that scan faces and license plates.
- humbledrone 12y ago
  > Why are those that are contributing the data not being rewarded for their contributions. Do you claim that the services that you "contribute" data to (Facebook, Google, etc.) do not provide any value to you? If that's the case, why do you keep contributing your data? If they do provide value to you, how is that not a "reward?"
Dirlewanger 12y ago
Like everything else in the world, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Yes, in a certain lens, we are digital serfs bound by companies' TOSs forced by none other than our own listless volition; people don't care where the data is going, they just want the service. Yet in exchange these services allow us to do more, live more. Using Kayak instead of a travel agent saves me precious hours for going on a trip. Next time I want to take a trip, I use the knowledge already gained through Kayak to book it even faster instead of futzing around with another person's schedule. Do you want convenience, or do you want your digital "rights" to be respected?
symlinkk 12y ago
I thought it was a great piece. Most of the "innovation" we see is total bullshit. Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, all of these things are NOT new ideas, and NOT lifechanging services, but they're valued in the millions and billions of dollars. It feels like we're in the middle of another dot-com bubble, and sooner or later it's going to pop, and we're going to realize how little we've actually contributed to society.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- dmix 12y ago
  And these apps are a small percentage of the entire tech industry but get 100% of the press on sites like Techcrunch. Most products and technology are boring. It doesn't mean the 1% fringes aren't doing exciting things. Such as robotics, automated cars, automated surgery, machine learning/NLP services, VR (ala oculus/Magic Leap), smart AI assistants are improving rapidly (Siri/Cortana). Business intelligence and data mining are new massive industries. Nor does the fact one niche (social networks/mobile apps) becoming saturated with products means that tech innovation is dead. IF most of the applications of software are boring and software is to 'eat the world' then there is at least another decade or two of purely boring stuff needing to be transferred to software. For ex: no-one is tweeting about advances in business automation.
  - normloman 12y ago
    It is a small percentage of the tech industry. But it's a good percentage of startups. A good percentage of yCombinator companies. A good percentage of what we discuss on Hacker News.
    - dmix 12y ago
      > it's a good percentage of startups Have you looked at any portfolios on VCs websites of startups they invested in? The majority of them are all boring companies, and you'd never hear about them even when they sell for a $1 billion. Many people on HN work at startups building boring software. They just dont site here discussing it because it is boring. And lots of the articles here are a reflection of the tech journalism, not industry. That being said there are tons of articles on HN discussing robotics, automated cars, magicleap, etc.
stevebot 12y ago
What is this? I read the first few paragraphs and couldn't keep track of where it was going and lost interest. Can someone explain to me why this is at the top of HN and why I should read it?
- LesZedCB 12y ago
  Because it's in interesting article about the human condition in the social technological culture we currently exist in. Though if you're genuinely curious, you could just slog through the article.
leroy_masochist 12y ago
"He’s dressed like a Stasi agent trying to blend in at a disco." Best sentence I've read in a while.
- Yhippa 12y ago
  "Textbook Zuckercore". I love the wit.
shubhamjain 12y ago
There is one thing which is completely unrelated to contents of the article that puzzles me. The article is quite long and if it wasn't for being at the top of HN, I would never dare to read it and I believe, people are as lazy as me when it comes to long posts. But, the article did came from 1 to 200+ points and the thing which I wish to know is who were the early readers when the article was at 0 - 20 points. I mean even though writing style is pretty interesting but seeing the length of the article, I would be pretty much discouraged to go through the whole of it, if it had less points. So the interesting thing to know is what makes the early readers to upvote something. Would they indeed go through whole of the text before upvoting or would they impressed just by few ideas in beginning, and may be just bookmark / pocket it.
- rjruizes 12y ago
  So the points didn't affect me so much. The article is engaging and novel; I was quoting pieces to a friend as I read it.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I saw it early, when it had low two digits score. I almost ignored it (I wasn't in the mood for too much narration), but when skimming something in the middle drew my attention, so I scrolled back and started reading. Upvoted after that, of course.
Animats 12y ago
Oh, the banality of life! Whining about that goes back to at least Socrates. The new thing is that everyone in even the semi-developed world now has access to more banal entertainment than they can possibly consume. Prior to TV, most people were limited in entertainment consumption by money and location. With broadcast TV, something was on all the time, but choice was limited. Now, there's a wide range of banal content, more than any person can consume, available at all times at low, low cost. Smartphones and legal pot now keep the serfs quiet and passive.
normloman 12y ago
> There’s no sneering, no sarcasm, and no self-deprecation. Everyone is just sort of floating along in an earnest tranquility. As if each anecdote about “that cool loft I found on Airbnb” contained some deep spiritual significance beyond my grasp. This is what I hate the most! Everyone here is so positive. It's like a cult. Any post containing an ounce of negativity is downvoted. Anything that strays from the party line of "technology will solve everything, and we are changing the world" is shunned. And whether this attitude comes from techno-utopians or from eager beaver entrepreneurs, it's toxic to our industry. It makes us ignore the social impact of our inventions. It keeps us narrowly focused on technological solutions when the problem isn't technological. And worst of all, it gives everyone a huge ego. Learn to laugh at yourself, accept that your crappy web app isn't changing the world, and remember that the homeless guy you passed on your way to work is a person like you (who just lacked the opportunities you did).
- AngrySkillzz 12y ago
  Most of the comments on this post seem to have that exact attitude.
- rjruizes 12y ago
  Remember that this is in an interview context-- everyone is on their best behavior and it's a little fake.
  - normloman 12y ago
    You're right--interviewers act fake. And besides, this article generalizes, hyperbolizes. But I'm not using this lone anecdote as evidence. My experience on HN is the evidence. My experience working for tech companies is the evidence. And the smug attitude in the article, even if fictional, captures reality perfectly in the same way that a comedian's impression reveals more about the subject than a faithful depiction.
- bpchaps 12y ago
  My biggest annoyance to way-too-much-positivism is at Chicago's Open Gov Hacknight (http://opengovhacknight.org/ http://opengovhacknight.org/). The whole point of it is to use data from FOIAs or 'data portals' to either fix, or raise awareness on issues. Very few people seem to have any genuine interest in making the world a better place, with a constant happy-outlook. The major focus seems to be about making websites with the latest frameworks, using the latest nosql databases, using AWS. That probably accounts for about 60% of the crowd. 30% of the crowd doesn't know how to code, and 10% of the projects will have a genuinely strong impact. That's not to say that their work doesn't have a net positive effect on the city. However, considering the kinds of minds that go to these events, I feel that their time could be better spent in working on larger projects to make this a better place to live.
rjruizes 12y ago
This essay raises a lot of good points-- mass conformity, data ownership, overstimulated brains. If you work in this field, you're rich, richer than many, many generations before. If we don't ever pause and consider these things, we'll take them for granted.
blisterpeanuts 12y ago
This is a very well written essay, but I find it rather Valley-centric. There are other worlds out there, non-internet worlds. There are people in west Texas and North Dakota working on oil and gas drilling rigs. There are painters and carpenters, dentists and nurses and oncologists. There are Marines and Navy pilots and infantrymen and -women. Many of these professions are largely the same as they were prior to the advent of the 1970s microcomputer revolution. Of course, there are plenty of professions that are in trouble if not ceased to exist. Shoe stores, book stores, and clothing stores are all in big trouble these days, as are small hardware stores and small grocery stores and non-chain coffee shops. Someone who's feeling the level of angst and confusion and directionless of this author should probably consider changing fields, or maybe disconnect more often and wander barefoot in a garden (watch out for deer ticks and yellow jacket wasps, though; nature is not necessarily all fun and games). The internet is a tool, a means to an end. It's been a way for many of us to reconnect with long lost classmates, stay in touch with distant loved ones like never before. It's enabled severely handicapped people to have jobs and lead more productive lives. It's a miracle, really. When I was a college student spending a couple of years abroad in Asia in 1980, there was no email, no Skype, and no cell phones. I'd write long letters to the family on international airmail paper, fold it and put an airmail stamp on it, and drop it in the mailbox. A couple of weeks later, it would get to my family in the U.S. If I wanted to make an international call, it was a big and expensive project. I took hundreds of photographs and they had to be developed, and copies made, and physically mailed out to people. Now, kids doing a junior year abroad are light seconds away from their loved ones. They can text their significant other 50 times a day, send them selfies, post a running travelogue on Facebook or Pinterest, and virtually speaking they are right next door. It's an incredible shift. Take a video of where they are and post it to Youtube the same day. Unbelievable, to those of us who grew up before this was all taken for granted. And, probably there will be equally vast technological shifts in the future that will have the current 20-something generation, who are so tech-savvy, saying in 25 years -- Wow, we used to have this thing called "email" and we had to use Google to discover interesting facts! We had to carry around these devices called tablets in order to access the world's knowledge -- and even then, we couldn't access all of it all the time! We needed these little devices called cell phones in order to communicate. Etc. Huge paradigm shifts await us. Perhaps they will not be so benign, e.g. vast AI entities that wrest control of our world away from us. Perhaps we'll be slaves of a future superior race of cyborgs, or wiped out as an inferior competitor. The future is exciting, and challenging, and even though one can point to the dark corners and seediness of things at any given point, in the long run it's an amazing ride, an endless roller coaster. We have amazing power today to shape our future, if only we can understand and direct this power without destroying ourselves. Just my 2 cents' ;-)
wmnwmn 12y ago
AdBusters. Enough said.

333 points by DocFeind 12y ago

I saw TA in the title and got my hopes up for a modern Linux port or the game. I don't think I have work on the brain right now.

Alex3917 12y ago

For what it's worth, Ryder Ripps' poem Howl 2.0 explores similar themes: http://genius.com/Ryder-ripps-howl-20-for-fixoid-annotated http://genius.com/Ryder-ripps-howl-20-for-fixoid-annotated Since the author of this Adbusters piece was also clearly inspired by Ginsberg, it's pretty cool to see two different authors exploring the same ideas when they are both using the same work for inspiration.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
I see your Howl 2.0 and raise you Meditations on Moloch! http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

justcommenting 12y ago

This reminded me of moxie's recent post about whether we've put the glasses from They Live on or taken them off[0]. In terms of the internet as a failed utopia, it seems to comes down to the choices we all make in deciding this for ourselves: what we participate in, what we work on, how we choose to spend our time, and especially whether or not we work to build positive alternatives. It can be a useful exercise to ask oneself whether the work they're doing helps to control others or whether it positively enables people to live in the world they want to live in, and one way to respond to these types of concerns is for people to focus on building that world. Sometimes that's the harder path, but sometimes the harder path is worth choosing. [0] https://whispersystems.org/blog/they-live/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/they-live/

ctdonath 12y ago

One word summarizes the article: "emo". It's a long angst-dripping screed lamenting the extreme data connectivity of today, failing to note three critical points: (A) the connectivity is as vital to "life as we know it" as your nervous system is to your body, (B) he lives it by choice, and (C) he can unplug if he wants to. He fails to notice that "we" is not universal. For high-tech types living in crowded cities, yes, but there are a whole lotta people much less, and even un-, connected to the Web. He fails to notice that the connectivity he laments is critical to maintaining life as he knows it. What he takes for granted, the symbiotic consequence of extreme data proliferation. Take away the interconnectedness that scares him, and he has few options beyond tilling the ground and harvesting his own food. He fails to notice the choices he has. Going only so far as locking the door & smashing the phone, he laments the data-driven world still exists just feet away. Newsflash: there is life outside the blue/red[1] border. He fails to notice that disconnection is an option, to whatever degree he is comfortable with. Log out of Facebook. Avoid HN. Stop viewing social media. Most news is irrelevant. Pay in cash. Accept that disconnection means longer waits and fewer options. Realize that most of humanity throughout history, some 40 billion people, got along to what they considered "fine" without the Web. While briefly still connected, take a look at these: http://www.zillow.com http://www.zillow.com http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com https://www.google.com/#q=library+near+me https://www.google.com/#q=library+near+me http://www.mypatriotsupply.com/Articles.asp?ID=245 http://www.mypatriotsupply.com/Articles.asp?ID=245 Quit whining. If you want to get out, you can. There is an off switch, and the disconnected life is wonderful. [1] - if you look closely at voter precinct maps and their blue/red Democrat/Republican Left/Right Progressive/Conservative boundaries, you'll see stark & consistent delineation right at the urban/rural boundary. Cities are political archipelagos, and he's lamenting the foliage & ground, longing for the oceans he doesn't realize surround him.

ashark 12y ago
> http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com Ouch, portability comes at a very high (~5-6x/sqft) premium.
- ctdonath 12y ago

kasey_junk 12y ago

I quite liked this piece to read as art. But there are some pretty simple solutions to the general malaise he is expressing: 1) get out of the myopic SV culture. There are lots of actually interesting problems to solve (even in the very small world of software) and if you are tired of talking about the same old thing, go somewhere that isn't doing that. 2) if you aren't interested by the data you are consuming, don't interact with it. Don't consume facebook, twitter, HN, et. al. Or more realistically only consume the ones that add value to your life. It's harder to opt out of being collected in the massive hoovering of this data, but in nearly all instances out of sight, really is out of mind.

api 12y ago
"if you are tired of talking about the same old thing, go somewhere that isn't doing that." I was getting bored with music a while back, so I did an experiment: I limited the music on my phone to nothing older than five years. To do this I had to remove hundreds of albums. At first there wasn't much left, so I went looking... for nothing released more than five years ago. I found quite a bit of new stuff. Eventually I re-added old stuff I loved, but my musical repertoire had broadened quite a bit. Part of the problem today is that the amount of signal around us has increased so much that it's overwhelming, and people haven't yet learned that it's okay to tune out a significantly larger amount of chatter than what they had to tune out in previous eras. It feels like ignorance, or being "out of the loop," but it's essential. I plan on repeating the music experiment regularly. I should probably purge some of my "feeds" too.
- Snhr 12y ago
  TLDR; I've done what you've done on a massive scale. Most things end up depressing me if I follow them, knowing people are willingly participating in such an absence of brain activity. I had to stop myself from constantly scrolling down on facebook when I was bored (I realized I don't even actually read what people post most of the time because I'm looking for something interesting, but I still subconsciously notice what people are doing somehow.) I'm not against this by any means, so don't take this as me complaining. I don't know what's popular right now, I don't know what is trending on twitter. What's left is my little bubble where I have what I need to explore what I'm interested in. I can find interesting articles, I can find new music, and I can talk to people who actually are interesting to talk to. I've completely cut off any noise and am completely left with pure signal. I'm completely out of touch with most everybody, and I've never felt better. I guess this goes hand in hand with being super introverted, I couldn't imagine actually holding a conversation with anybody around me with the information I know that wasn't super technical or completely shallow. I've lived with this obvious gap between me and other people my entire life though so it doesn't even feel lonely anymore when I can just find whatever I need to keep myself occupied when I'm bored. The beauty of the internet.

eveach 12y ago

Love this: a euphemism for a human centipede of marketers selling marketing to marketers for marketing.

mason240 12y ago
Also this: But what many [communes] had common was a cascading systems failure of their foundational hypothesis — that social change could be achieved through self-transformation and the problems of power could be solved simply by ignoring them. There was always a Machiavellian in the transformational mist, though, and a refusal to acknowledge outright how power creates invisible structures that undermine the potential for cooperative action ultimately led to their implosion.

ynniv 12y ago

This reads like Wired back when that was a good thing.

webmaven 12y ago
More like Mondo 2000.

coldcode 12y ago

"We were told to surf the web, but in the end, the web serf’d us". Funny and sad at the same time.

politician 12y ago
If you always do what you're told, don't complain when you're labeled a serf. ;-)

lmm 12y ago

The internet is other people, and what we get is what people, on the whole, want. It's like the olympic gold medal in Cool Runnings: if your life is meaningless without it, it's still going to be meaningless with it. > These are the most boring people on the planet. Yes, we are. That's the real revolution here: that you don't have to be "wacky" to participate, to set the agenda even. Facebook forces us to accept that most people are boring. Forces us to at least consider the possibility that terrifies the politico-artistic-humanities complex - that maybe it's ok to be boring. > if our data is the oil of the 21st century, then why aren’t we all sheikhs? Or maybe our data isn't actually that valuable. Maybe it's worth approximately what we sell it for. > There’s no sneering, no sarcasm, and no self-deprecation. Everyone is just sort of floating along in an earnest tranquility. As if each anecdote about “that cool loft I found on Airbnb” contained some deep spiritual significance beyond my grasp. Isn't this a good thing? What do we think the author would have written if everyone were being cynical and snarky? > magical cloud of squandered human potential No such thing. Data isn't destroying these things - it's just forcing us to realize that they were myths all along. I think the author kind of acknowledges this with the statement about how "those invisible power structures continue to thrive." The Internet only amplifies what's already there. It can, and does, help you do what you want with your life. But you have to decide what that is for yourself.

72deluxe 12y ago
Very accurate and observant comments. Someone (person A) was once explaining to me how boring this other guy was (person B). Person A was bored with person B's conversation. Person A said "this guy was so boring, why didn't he do something exciting or talk about anything interesting? You know, I have a smart phone here and the ENTIRE INTERNET IS IN MY POCKET. But Person B didn't even care! How boring! Scoff guffaw pfah!" I thought it was pretty sad, firstly because person A was judging person B's worth through his own perception of what was interesting (everything's interesting if you take an interest!), and secondly because having the Internet in your pocket doesn't really mean anything by itself. It's like walking around with a dictionary in your pocket but never reading it. If you keep reading the blank opening page over and over again whilst proclaiming how wonderful the dictionary is, it is missing the best bits (the rest of the book and word definitions, etymology etc.) As you state, having lots of people connected together doesn't magically make it a wonderful place if they have nothing in common and the people have meaningless lives in the first place, in the same way that having a library close to you doesn't magically mean that you'll be knowledgeable on everything inside the library if you just hang around outside. Thanks for the food for thought. Now on to evaluate my use of time and frequently visited sites to see if they are actually enriching my life.

DanielBMarkham 12y ago

Not bad! I liked it. Kind of weaseled out at the end, though. I get the feeling the author got as close as he could to the truth and then just couldn't cross the chasm. I was struck by the conscious selling out that the author points out. The folks building the next generation of internet content know what they're doing. It's not like it was back in '95 when we thought that we'd all just turn on machines and share. Back then it was utopia. Now, as he points out, you don't surf the internet. The internet surfs you. But we know that. Yet to point it out is a terrible faux pas. The "correct" answer is just to sell out, grab the data, flip it, and move on. I guess the conclusion is that it's better to be rich with a slightly guilty conscience than it is to be moral and honest. It's rude to be perspicacious. If true that people are starting to wake up, interesting. It's showing a shift a shift in the conversation. Far too many techies will rant at length about some kind of social injustice in the world -- while helping to create an authoritarian state the world has never seen before. It's about time some of them looked in the mirror a bit.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
Maybe techies are slowly realizing that this whole trendy web industry is 50% schlep, 49% bullshit and 1% of something actually valuable to the world. The schlep jobs are obviously boring, but the trendy 49% of bullshit seems to be actually harmful to humanity. I realized this long time ago. And yet here I am, working on a schlep. I guess that's a step up from the bullshit work I was doing before. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough and take another step, ditch this whole thing and code something actually beneficial to fellow humans. People will say (I wonder what's edw519's stance on this) - go with what your clients/employers want, and let the magic of capitalism sort it all out, turn it into real value. But we see that more and more things we do don't actually bring any (nonmonetary) value to the world. So you say, there's a shift in conversation. I'm afraid, that the shift will is towards apathy. "Sell out, grab the data, flip it, and move on". Because they don't give a shit about the world anymore, it's going down the drain, nothing we can do, so let at least have some expensive parties before the whole thing explodes.
- porker 12y ago
  > Maybe techies are slowly realizing that this whole trendy web industry is 50% schlep, 49% bullshit and 1% of something actually valuable to the world. Couldn't put it better myself.

teirce 12y ago

Reading this makes my skin crawl. I'll admit -- I only got about half way through before I had to stop. The disposition of the author is entirely too sardonic for my tastes. He's locked himself into an endless spiral of hatred and self-victimization, of course none of which is his own fault. How can this be seen as normal or healthy? Maybe I'm just one of the "boring" people. I don't have a twitter or an Instagram, and barely maintain my Facebook that follows only people I have known personally. Take a walk. Go outside. Get some fresh air. Realize that you don't need to allow things to consume your free time if you don't enjoy them.

alexbecker 12y ago
I believe the piece is not entirely serious.

oldmanjay 12y ago

The judgmental tone turned me off long before I read enough to even understand the point of the piece. I'll assume it's a load of hyperbole that boils down to "I don't like things that are different"

brudgers 12y ago

The mention of buildings based on Walden 2 reminded me of one of my favorite buildings, Ricardo Bofill's Walden 7: http://www.walden7.com/ http://www.walden7.com/ http://www.ricardobofill.com/EN/666/PROJECTS/Walden-7-html http://www.ricardobofill.com/EN/666/PROJECTS/Walden-7-html [might be broken] http://www.mascontext.com/issues/4-living-winter-09/case-study-2-walden-7/ http://www.mascontext.com/issues/4-living-winter-09/case-stu... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_7 The links don't really do full justice to the three-dimensional interlocking of the dwelling units. It's Corbu's Marseilles Block plus peyote.

sjafri5 12y ago

This is an incredibly pertinent point. Why is the collective data, profitable for such a small percentage. Why are those that are contributing the data not being rewarded for their contributions. If we live in the information econonomy then those that are contributing that information should be accounted. How is this not digital feudalism??

scrrr 12y ago
Well, there's choice. I use more obscure tools, for example Unison instead of Dropbox or Tox instead of Skype. It would probably be feudalism if there were dependency, but nobody forces you to post on Facebook. I don't use it. I have friends that I see often, I enjoy life just fine without it. heh. TBH, I'm more worried about cameras that scan faces and license plates.
humbledrone 12y ago
> Why are those that are contributing the data not being rewarded for their contributions. Do you claim that the services that you "contribute" data to (Facebook, Google, etc.) do not provide any value to you? If that's the case, why do you keep contributing your data? If they do provide value to you, how is that not a "reward?"

Dirlewanger 12y ago

Like everything else in the world, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Yes, in a certain lens, we are digital serfs bound by companies' TOSs forced by none other than our own listless volition; people don't care where the data is going, they just want the service. Yet in exchange these services allow us to do more, live more. Using Kayak instead of a travel agent saves me precious hours for going on a trip. Next time I want to take a trip, I use the knowledge already gained through Kayak to book it even faster instead of futzing around with another person's schedule. Do you want convenience, or do you want your digital "rights" to be respected?

symlinkk 12y ago

I thought it was a great piece. Most of the "innovation" we see is total bullshit. Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, all of these things are NOT new ideas, and NOT lifechanging services, but they're valued in the millions and billions of dollars. It feels like we're in the middle of another dot-com bubble, and sooner or later it's going to pop, and we're going to realize how little we've actually contributed to society.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
dmix 12y ago
And these apps are a small percentage of the entire tech industry but get 100% of the press on sites like Techcrunch. Most products and technology are boring. It doesn't mean the 1% fringes aren't doing exciting things. Such as robotics, automated cars, automated surgery, machine learning/NLP services, VR (ala oculus/Magic Leap), smart AI assistants are improving rapidly (Siri/Cortana). Business intelligence and data mining are new massive industries. Nor does the fact one niche (social networks/mobile apps) becoming saturated with products means that tech innovation is dead. IF most of the applications of software are boring and software is to 'eat the world' then there is at least another decade or two of purely boring stuff needing to be transferred to software. For ex: no-one is tweeting about advances in business automation.
- normloman 12y ago
  It is a small percentage of the tech industry. But it's a good percentage of startups. A good percentage of yCombinator companies. A good percentage of what we discuss on Hacker News.
  - dmix 12y ago
    > it's a good percentage of startups Have you looked at any portfolios on VCs websites of startups they invested in? The majority of them are all boring companies, and you'd never hear about them even when they sell for a $1 billion. Many people on HN work at startups building boring software. They just dont site here discussing it because it is boring. And lots of the articles here are a reflection of the tech journalism, not industry. That being said there are tons of articles on HN discussing robotics, automated cars, magicleap, etc.

stevebot 12y ago

What is this? I read the first few paragraphs and couldn't keep track of where it was going and lost interest. Can someone explain to me why this is at the top of HN and why I should read it?

LesZedCB 12y ago
Because it's in interesting article about the human condition in the social technological culture we currently exist in. Though if you're genuinely curious, you could just slog through the article.

leroy_masochist 12y ago

"He’s dressed like a Stasi agent trying to blend in at a disco." Best sentence I've read in a while.

Yhippa 12y ago
"Textbook Zuckercore". I love the wit.

shubhamjain 12y ago

There is one thing which is completely unrelated to contents of the article that puzzles me. The article is quite long and if it wasn't for being at the top of HN, I would never dare to read it and I believe, people are as lazy as me when it comes to long posts. But, the article did came from 1 to 200+ points and the thing which I wish to know is who were the early readers when the article was at 0 - 20 points. I mean even though writing style is pretty interesting but seeing the length of the article, I would be pretty much discouraged to go through the whole of it, if it had less points. So the interesting thing to know is what makes the early readers to upvote something. Would they indeed go through whole of the text before upvoting or would they impressed just by few ideas in beginning, and may be just bookmark / pocket it.

rjruizes 12y ago
So the points didn't affect me so much. The article is engaging and novel; I was quoting pieces to a friend as I read it.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
I saw it early, when it had low two digits score. I almost ignored it (I wasn't in the mood for too much narration), but when skimming something in the middle drew my attention, so I scrolled back and started reading. Upvoted after that, of course.

Animats 12y ago

Oh, the banality of life! Whining about that goes back to at least Socrates. The new thing is that everyone in even the semi-developed world now has access to more banal entertainment than they can possibly consume. Prior to TV, most people were limited in entertainment consumption by money and location. With broadcast TV, something was on all the time, but choice was limited. Now, there's a wide range of banal content, more than any person can consume, available at all times at low, low cost. Smartphones and legal pot now keep the serfs quiet and passive.

normloman 12y ago

> There’s no sneering, no sarcasm, and no self-deprecation. Everyone is just sort of floating along in an earnest tranquility. As if each anecdote about “that cool loft I found on Airbnb” contained some deep spiritual significance beyond my grasp. This is what I hate the most! Everyone here is so positive. It's like a cult. Any post containing an ounce of negativity is downvoted. Anything that strays from the party line of "technology will solve everything, and we are changing the world" is shunned. And whether this attitude comes from techno-utopians or from eager beaver entrepreneurs, it's toxic to our industry. It makes us ignore the social impact of our inventions. It keeps us narrowly focused on technological solutions when the problem isn't technological. And worst of all, it gives everyone a huge ego. Learn to laugh at yourself, accept that your crappy web app isn't changing the world, and remember that the homeless guy you passed on your way to work is a person like you (who just lacked the opportunities you did).

AngrySkillzz 12y ago
Most of the comments on this post seem to have that exact attitude.
rjruizes 12y ago
Remember that this is in an interview context-- everyone is on their best behavior and it's a little fake.
- normloman 12y ago
  You're right--interviewers act fake. And besides, this article generalizes, hyperbolizes. But I'm not using this lone anecdote as evidence. My experience on HN is the evidence. My experience working for tech companies is the evidence. And the smug attitude in the article, even if fictional, captures reality perfectly in the same way that a comedian's impression reveals more about the subject than a faithful depiction.
bpchaps 12y ago
My biggest annoyance to way-too-much-positivism is at Chicago's Open Gov Hacknight (http://opengovhacknight.org/ http://opengovhacknight.org/). The whole point of it is to use data from FOIAs or 'data portals' to either fix, or raise awareness on issues. Very few people seem to have any genuine interest in making the world a better place, with a constant happy-outlook. The major focus seems to be about making websites with the latest frameworks, using the latest nosql databases, using AWS. That probably accounts for about 60% of the crowd. 30% of the crowd doesn't know how to code, and 10% of the projects will have a genuinely strong impact. That's not to say that their work doesn't have a net positive effect on the city. However, considering the kinds of minds that go to these events, I feel that their time could be better spent in working on larger projects to make this a better place to live.

rjruizes 12y ago

This essay raises a lot of good points-- mass conformity, data ownership, overstimulated brains. If you work in this field, you're rich, richer than many, many generations before. If we don't ever pause and consider these things, we'll take them for granted.

blisterpeanuts 12y ago

This is a very well written essay, but I find it rather Valley-centric. There are other worlds out there, non-internet worlds. There are people in west Texas and North Dakota working on oil and gas drilling rigs. There are painters and carpenters, dentists and nurses and oncologists. There are Marines and Navy pilots and infantrymen and -women. Many of these professions are largely the same as they were prior to the advent of the 1970s microcomputer revolution. Of course, there are plenty of professions that are in trouble if not ceased to exist. Shoe stores, book stores, and clothing stores are all in big trouble these days, as are small hardware stores and small grocery stores and non-chain coffee shops. Someone who's feeling the level of angst and confusion and directionless of this author should probably consider changing fields, or maybe disconnect more often and wander barefoot in a garden (watch out for deer ticks and yellow jacket wasps, though; nature is not necessarily all fun and games). The internet is a tool, a means to an end. It's been a way for many of us to reconnect with long lost classmates, stay in touch with distant loved ones like never before. It's enabled severely handicapped people to have jobs and lead more productive lives. It's a miracle, really. When I was a college student spending a couple of years abroad in Asia in 1980, there was no email, no Skype, and no cell phones. I'd write long letters to the family on international airmail paper, fold it and put an airmail stamp on it, and drop it in the mailbox. A couple of weeks later, it would get to my family in the U.S. If I wanted to make an international call, it was a big and expensive project. I took hundreds of photographs and they had to be developed, and copies made, and physically mailed out to people. Now, kids doing a junior year abroad are light seconds away from their loved ones. They can text their significant other 50 times a day, send them selfies, post a running travelogue on Facebook or Pinterest, and virtually speaking they are right next door. It's an incredible shift. Take a video of where they are and post it to Youtube the same day. Unbelievable, to those of us who grew up before this was all taken for granted. And, probably there will be equally vast technological shifts in the future that will have the current 20-something generation, who are so tech-savvy, saying in 25 years -- Wow, we used to have this thing called "email" and we had to use Google to discover interesting facts! We had to carry around these devices called tablets in order to access the world's knowledge -- and even then, we couldn't access all of it all the time! We needed these little devices called cell phones in order to communicate. Etc. Huge paradigm shifts await us. Perhaps they will not be so benign, e.g. vast AI entities that wrest control of our world away from us. Perhaps we'll be slaves of a future superior race of cyborgs, or wiped out as an inferior competitor. The future is exciting, and challenging, and even though one can point to the dark corners and seediness of things at any given point, in the long run it's an amazing ride, an endless roller coaster. We have amazing power today to shape our future, if only we can understand and direct this power without destroying ourselves. Just my 2 cents' ;-)

wmnwmn 12y ago

AdBusters. Enough said.