It fucking sucks. I used to be excited about tech too, but now I just dread what they will come up with next. Because it's all about spying on everyone now, and taking away freedoms. Literally 1984.
this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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I found it healthy to find humour in companies collecting boatloads of telemetry data to sell to brokers who then manage to make the data worse while they curate it, then sell it to advertisers who manage to fail to properly utilize the data they pay boatloads to access, and you end up with "targeted" ads that are no better targeted than advertisements placed on broadcast television. It's a cycle of money that somehow creates wealth and cash flow out of nothing and provides no value in the end. Its the bullshittiest of bullshit jobs. And by simply blocking and avoiding ads you make that money cycle even more pointless!
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I think you'd appreciate The Prisoner. One of the core themes of that show is the misuse of technology by the ruling class
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If i could freeze technology at a particular era it wouldn't be the 80s. I think i would pick some time after social media existed but before it was weaponized. So like maybe early 2010's. Up through about the early 2010s it seemed like tech was constantly making life better, but since then it seems like tech is increasingly making life worse
I had that feeling at some point, and then I just stopped reading news about technology. No more news about the fancy new storage device, no news about exotic mobile displays etc. I just read about science stuff in general. It’s more delightful to read what astronomers have found on the moons on Saturn or what microbiologists have found at the bottom of the Mariana trench. I felt much better after adjusting my news diet.
You’re probably reading stuff that makes you tired. Try to identify what that is, and avoid that sort of material. For me, it was tech news.
BTW, if you have a tendency to get tired of this stuff, try to avoid conflict news. That would just make you sad, angry and anxious.
Yeah it is totally valid. Actually just came across someone that was talking about something similar to this.
Edit: The main idea was that we as humans tend to get trapped in something called progress traps where as we advance technology we use that advance to over exploit our environment leading us to more problems down the line.
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The future is tied to big companies and subscribing to thier services. I would love to get a smart watch for my health checks. I love the circle to search from anywhere on your phone screen (samasung phones). I would love to try those ray bans AR glasses. But I will almost never get to use them because that means signing my data away to make big companies bigger.
Just as a random side note, circle to search is an aosp/Google feature, rolling out to more and more devices :)
The bicycle might have been a good place for us to stop.
Agreed, I have a Thinkpad T440p and I love it. Consider that your problem though may not be about technology but perhaps consumerism and the underlying economic reasons that makes us tired and depressed despite everything being "better".
I don't know about how "normal" that might be but you're feelings are valid. You also can't stop progress. People are hardwired to make crazy new stuff and we're really good at it.
But just because it exists doesn't mean you have to use it. You can live a rich, full life even living like the Amish or other in low tech environments. The Mininites (like the amish but with phones and cars and computers) only adopt technology that benefits them and thier community. They live more primitively than most of the global north mostly for religious reasons, but there is wisdom in focusing on gizmos, gadgets, and software that improve your life in some way and ignoring what doesn't.
My issue with technological progress is that at this point most of it seems like it is no longer of benefit to the average person. Rather it is more about ways for corporations and governments to control us or extract more (e.g. money, data) from us. Most consumer tech is trending towards enshittification.
The exception to this is medical advancements.
What's important is individual choice. You should keep systems that exhaust you at arms length, & integrate systems that benefit you into your life. Everyone should have options for structuring their life to suit their idiosyncratic needs.
Edit: Also, keep in mind that news orgs make money by showing you technological failures.
Change is hard, but necessary.
I would agree change is hard. And I believe change is inevitable. But is all of it really necessary?
We are self-aware beings that can evaluate what technology has done and is going to do to individuals and society at large. Metrics for attention span, reading comprehension, social connection, and many more things are trending in damgerous directions already. Some change is not necessary and is objectively doing more harm than good.
Isnt this the premise of the matrix? Tech plateaued in 1999 and went downhill from there
The irony is the use of technology to ask the question. Your level of tech use and engagement is a personal choice. You can minimise or stop anytime. Most choose to minimise, I'd suspect because some innovations are quite useful.
Also, in an existence where the only constant is change, where every moment and conscious perspective is uniquely different and where novel complexity only increases, it would be wise to cultivate patience and a neutral perspective on change.