Technology here was a very poor word choice when they really only have a point about information technology and even that the claim is mainly that there's abundance and yet people want less. Which...
Technology here was a very poor word choice when they really only have a point about information technology and even that the claim is mainly that there's abundance and yet people want less. Which IMO means that people aren't satisfied and it isn't 'over'. People just want social media and information in a different better form.
But the post really does talk about Technology as a whole. Which to say it is anywhere near 'over' is really too absurd to even spend time thinking about. You'd have to be pretty sheltered to only see the world through the lens of consumer tech to think anything like that. We're on the cusp of incredible medical breakthroughs, robotics is continuously marching forward, and of course AI is becoming increasingly better and cheaper.
I really feel they must have some other point. That we've maximized 'convenience' maybe? Which I might be able to agree to. I think there's also a crucial crushing effect on American's who are experiencing the profit motive crush quality from everything as our capitalist system strains under incredible amounts of mismanagement and inequality.
I think their larger point is that the "Popular Science" style optimism once afforded to technology is dead. Which I'd agree with. I'm a millennial parent, I shelter my kids from a lot of (but...
I really feel they must have some other point.
I think their larger point is that the "Popular Science" style optimism once afforded to technology is dead. Which I'd agree with. I'm a millennial parent, I shelter my kids from a lot of (but certainly not all) new tech as well. But I think a lot of that is more on the social, political and economical side of things rather than technology itself. There was a core of optimism embedded into a lot of technology that was seeking out a better world. "America First", COVID dynamics, the loss of purchasing power for a large swath of people, and the erosion of a more cooperative world order kind of hollows a lot of that out. To me, that's not really proof of people being over technological progress. That's just people dealing with a lot of things are just worse than they used to be.
I think the author is all over the place though. He's conflating a lot of loosely related ideas under a single techno-optimist banner, and then trying to paint them all as asocial weirdos. Hello, author, you have heard of Scott Alexander, you're probably an "asocial weirdo*" yourself!
I found this kind of funny:
Now, again, I can’t accurately predict the future. Any attempt at doing so will certainly be wrong, probably in an interesting way. Still, it seems to me that AI in particular, as the self-proclaimed culmination of Moore’s law, is a threshold we can’t come back from. As it becomes more and more clear that these machines are nothing like conscious people, that they don’t do runaway self-improvement, and that they won’t foment the apocalypse, there will be a great disappointment among the builders and a permanent disillusionment in the rest of us.
And what if you're wrong?
The thing about reality is that you can’t beat it for long.
Quite. I will say I 100% agree with their closing argument:
Just like all the people who were worried about the nuclear bomb earlier in this age: the thing to do is to get on with living. Building a house, having a family, and being useful to people, and making things beautiful: making a garden, making a little hut where you can write your essays, cutting the grass and weed-eating.
That is wonderful advice, whatever happens next.
* Or maybe those people are more normal than you think?
Food for thought: I'm pretty sympathetic to the point of view offered in this article - that I'm feeling saturated by the amount of technology out there (similar to views expressed in this...
Food for thought: I'm pretty sympathetic to the point of view offered in this article - that I'm feeling saturated by the amount of technology out there (similar to views expressed in this thread). This also coincides with a decrease in wanting to stay on top of media, gaming, and so on. I don't know if this is purely saturation - as I've gotten older I've seen that I want for less new, shiny things too. Having said that, I really do feel like there's just...too much out there for me to be interested in. More and more, I find myself wanting to step away from digital technology and spend more time outside.
Some snippets from the article, but I encourage you to read the whole thing and reflect on it before commenting.
Some snippets from the article, but I encourage you to read the whole thing and reflect on it before commenting.
There is some saturation happening, we must notice. We’re bored by promises of better technology and now looking elsewhere. We’ve gotten pretty much all we can consume. We’re informationally obese and looking to go on a diet. Millennial parents are more likely to restrict their kids’ access to technology. The more they understand the technology, the more likely they are to restrict it. They’re understandably horrified by the now clearly negative effects of it, how it’s making kids depressed and anxious and unable to be in the world. Kids today aren’t like we were, forced to spend time away from already limited technology, out in the woods, seeing the real thing while fantasizing about the fake thing. Now it’s all fake things, all the time. Parents can hardly help it, because they are also caught up in being entertained by all the fake things they are now too afraid of the real world to send their kids off into it. But the important change is that now at least we want to want it to stop.
...
This is not to say I hate technology. In fact, I am in my backyard as we speak. It’s a beautiful day, the sun is shining. It’s largely thanks to technology that I can be out here comfortably while I write down these thoughts. There’s a distinction I want to make between Technology Is Over and being Against the Machine. I find myself very much feeling that Technology Is Over, but definitely not in the camp of Against the Machine.
...
The reality is that at some point, we got enough hot water. However many gallons the tank was twenty years ago is the same number of gallons the tank is today. We’ve thought up all the reasons we would need hot water. It plateaued, and now hot water is “over.” We still use hot water. We still appreciate hot water, when we even think about it. But the exponential gain of more and more hot water is no longer. There’s no gold rush. It’s just a steady part of our lives.
I'm only a little bit into this but I'm very distracted by this part: There was a blank compartment which could be replaced with an ethernet adaptor, but no ethernet ports built into the GameCube....
I'm only a little bit into this but I'm very distracted by this part:
I remember also that I had a GameCube, and I tore open all the little flaps at the bottom and saw ethernet ports, plug-ins they had included for potential online games in the future.
There was a blank compartment which could be replaced with an ethernet adaptor, but no ethernet ports built into the GameCube. It was pretty dang rare, having only 4 US region games supporting it, and I can't recall ever seeing it in person before.
Oddly enough I think this little oversight is actually a pretty good little metaphor for the, uh, meta, of the author's arguements. The part I think where the author is most salient is when he talks about Jobs' idea of not just using the best technology, but using technology to feed human desire. I think the problem we have with technology is often the way we think about it and how it gets marketed to us. Things get sold to us as "look what this can do!" rather than "Look at how this improves your life!" The Gameboy was an easy sell - you could play Mario on the go. It's pretty self-evident how it's an improvement in one's quality of life. How do you make that same kind of argument about, say, raytracing?
The thing about this is that there is actually great tech being developed all the time, but we just don't tend to hear about them all that much because it's happening in the industrial level or otherwise behind the scenes. We have EVs that can power your home during a power outage now. That's pretty innovative tech that is life changing. We are on the brink of some very innovative battery chemistries as well. We've developed new, more efficient types of solar panels and new ways to install them that make them more effective in real-world scenarios.
I wonder how today’s young people will look back on the AI bubble that we’re living through? Are there subcultures with the sort of techno-enthusiasm we had during the early days of the Internet?
I wonder how today’s young people will look back on the AI bubble that we’re living through? Are there subcultures with the sort of techno-enthusiasm we had during the early days of the Internet?
Technology here was a very poor word choice when they really only have a point about information technology and even that the claim is mainly that there's abundance and yet people want less. Which IMO means that people aren't satisfied and it isn't 'over'. People just want social media and information in a different better form.
But the post really does talk about Technology as a whole. Which to say it is anywhere near 'over' is really too absurd to even spend time thinking about. You'd have to be pretty sheltered to only see the world through the lens of consumer tech to think anything like that. We're on the cusp of incredible medical breakthroughs, robotics is continuously marching forward, and of course AI is becoming increasingly better and cheaper.
I really feel they must have some other point. That we've maximized 'convenience' maybe? Which I might be able to agree to. I think there's also a crucial crushing effect on American's who are experiencing the profit motive crush quality from everything as our capitalist system strains under incredible amounts of mismanagement and inequality.
I think their larger point is that the "Popular Science" style optimism once afforded to technology is dead. Which I'd agree with. I'm a millennial parent, I shelter my kids from a lot of (but certainly not all) new tech as well. But I think a lot of that is more on the social, political and economical side of things rather than technology itself. There was a core of optimism embedded into a lot of technology that was seeking out a better world. "America First", COVID dynamics, the loss of purchasing power for a large swath of people, and the erosion of a more cooperative world order kind of hollows a lot of that out. To me, that's not really proof of people being over technological progress. That's just people dealing with a lot of things are just worse than they used to be.
I think the author is all over the place though. He's conflating a lot of loosely related ideas under a single techno-optimist banner, and then trying to paint them all as asocial weirdos. Hello, author, you have heard of Scott Alexander, you're probably an "asocial weirdo*" yourself!
I found this kind of funny:
And what if you're wrong?
Quite. I will say I 100% agree with their closing argument:
That is wonderful advice, whatever happens next.
* Or maybe those people are more normal than you think?
Food for thought: I'm pretty sympathetic to the point of view offered in this article - that I'm feeling saturated by the amount of technology out there (similar to views expressed in this thread). This also coincides with a decrease in wanting to stay on top of media, gaming, and so on. I don't know if this is purely saturation - as I've gotten older I've seen that I want for less new, shiny things too. Having said that, I really do feel like there's just...too much out there for me to be interested in. More and more, I find myself wanting to step away from digital technology and spend more time outside.
Some snippets from the article, but I encourage you to read the whole thing and reflect on it before commenting.
I'm only a little bit into this but I'm very distracted by this part:
There was a blank compartment which could be replaced with an ethernet adaptor, but no ethernet ports built into the GameCube. It was pretty dang rare, having only 4 US region games supporting it, and I can't recall ever seeing it in person before.
Oddly enough I think this little oversight is actually a pretty good little metaphor for the, uh, meta, of the author's arguements. The part I think where the author is most salient is when he talks about Jobs' idea of not just using the best technology, but using technology to feed human desire. I think the problem we have with technology is often the way we think about it and how it gets marketed to us. Things get sold to us as "look what this can do!" rather than "Look at how this improves your life!" The Gameboy was an easy sell - you could play Mario on the go. It's pretty self-evident how it's an improvement in one's quality of life. How do you make that same kind of argument about, say, raytracing?
The thing about this is that there is actually great tech being developed all the time, but we just don't tend to hear about them all that much because it's happening in the industrial level or otherwise behind the scenes. We have EVs that can power your home during a power outage now. That's pretty innovative tech that is life changing. We are on the brink of some very innovative battery chemistries as well. We've developed new, more efficient types of solar panels and new ways to install them that make them more effective in real-world scenarios.
Down with Tech! Long live Technology!
I wonder how today’s young people will look back on the AI bubble that we’re living through? Are there subcultures with the sort of techno-enthusiasm we had during the early days of the Internet?