Open-source technology absolutely is making the world better.
People forget that technology is agnostic to morals and ideals. Which is a big part of why I support FOSS. It is tech with goals that do aim for accessibility and making the world better. I am not a huge donator as I don’t make much money, nor can I code well, but I donate and contribute where I can.
technology has the potential to make life so much better, there are two problems.
Tech that makes life better, usually doesn’t create much value. Because it’s either, already been created, and if it has, it’s probably enshittified by now.
Go use open source FOSS tech, it’s great. Contribute to the improvement of society by not using terrible technology and begin using good technology, it’s free!
I had an Amazon bot lie to me. I told it some item didn’t show up and I wanted a replacement. It said it would send one and it would show up in my orders. It never did. So I requested a refund later. So tedious.
You see, it actually did still save you time from finding a local shop that sells it and interacting with your neighbor
Yeah my neighbors suck
Technology absolutely helps advance science and helps the disabled, It’s greedy fucks that destroyed good tech
Yeah I think blanket statements either way are misguided. Some tech does help the disabled, other tech makes their lives much more difficult. It’s like any other tool, when it’s used at scale by something aiming for optimizing profit it will have terrible side effects
sure, some tech makes life more difficult, but it’d be weird to require it’s use, so you’re either going to go through a bad government structure (different problem) or choose to use bad products for some reason.
I guess the secret third answer is working somewhere that requires you to use shitty tech, but like, same problem as no 1.
I find the bigger problem to be implementation and support, shit like QR codes and phone based payment taking over things like paper, and card based payment, that’s objectively worse. Though both QR codes and phone based payment are in isolation, explicitly good and beneficial things.
I think this headline is slightly misleading. Here are some better ones:
- Reclaiming Humanity in the Age of Overbearing Technology
- When Convenient Tech Becomes a Burden: A Call for Human-Centric Design
- How Modern Tech Erodes Human Interaction
Wait. Is this satire? Like these suggested versions have been generated by running through a LLM AI?
This is weird take on an op-ed. OP didn’t alter the title. The only ways I can conceive of a headline being “misleading” is when it declares a falsity (this doesn’t; it’s an opinion) or doesn’t match the content of the titled text (this doesn’t; it matches the text).
I prefer the saying “technology is a tool and a tool can be used for good or evil” or something like that
You can use a hammer to hammer nails or to injure someone
Technology can make the world better if its in the right hands for example open source hardware & software
Agreed, but things act differently at scale and it’s not like there’s 10 billion+ hammers being used at the same time, almost all of the time, for years on end
“La science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’âme”
You could say the same thing about splitting atoms.
That’s also technology. Used for good and evil.
Anytime I have to replace a device I find it incredibly frustrating. It certainly seems like technology is regressing. I’ve had the same phone since 2016 because nothing I’ve looked at has enough of it has to replace it and doesn’t offer anything better to make up for those deficiencies. My mouse recently developed an issue that had me looking at potential replacements and again almost nothing currently available matches it or was even close. I found two that were potentially not a downgrade and one of those had awful reviews. Instead I’m just buying the part to fix it and hopefully I’ll be able to keep limping it along for the foreseeable future. Same goes for my car. Nothing new that I’ve seen appeals to me. They’re all loaded down with infotainment bullshit that’s just a pain in the ass to deal with. Those were just 3 off the top of my head. At least with software you can usually find something open source that does what you want, but if it has to be manufactured by someone else you can forget about it.
My mouse recently developed an issue that had me looking at potential replacements and again almost nothing currently available matches it or was even close.
I used the exact same Logitech MX518 mouse from ~2009 until ~2020. Then I went through one every 9 months or so until they succumbed to same problems with the scrollwheel failing until I finally had to stop buying their crap.
On my small fleet of Logi M570 trackball mice, I occasionally have to crack them open and tweezer out the wreath of hair that has built up in the mouse wheel which obscures the sensor. It’ll be a mix of mine and my cats hair.
Yea, this one is actually a Logitch 602 I’ve had for years, and it’s my 3rd one after two warranty replacements so the build quality has always been questionable but I love the button layout on this mouse and the software is usually pretty good at doing what I want so I’m dreading having to replace it. There was apparently another similar one that came out a couple years ago but they don’t make them anymore and from what I was reading the quality was garbage too. I still have the one from the second time I replaced it through the warranty so I’m going to replace the problematic switches on it and see how that goes.
I understand the complaint, but the big picture of tech has a ton of upside.
Tech itself is not the issue. How it’s applied is the issue.
Once tech takes hold, there is massive pressure to monetize the asset.
That’s where this complaint lives. Amazing advance becomes ubiquitous, then two things inevitably occur. Companies are formed that apply the technology on unnecessary and unpopular ways (parking app is a perfect example) or the pressure to make more more MORE MONEY triggers the enshittification spiral, where “wow, you can print wirelessly now!?” becomes “my printer won’t take any cartridges but brand name, and I have to watch an unskippable 30-second ad every time I print now??!!!”
It follows that as tech saturates our lives, the inevitability of enshittification will also saturate our lives.
The year is 2044, you don’t feel old but the ticker is starting to skip several beats a day. Your doctor is forced to use the product at his disposal to help you, which is the PaceXMaker produced by the Tesla-Cola conglomerate. The device is a true miracle of modern science. The size of a fingernail, it pulses electricity into your heart in carefully measured bursts to support proper function of all valves, and ensures that any plaque is dissolved harmlessly away. Your iEye tracks the device status, and alerts you when it starts to run low on fuel, a proprietary enzyme designed by Tesla-Cola. When the iEye app notifies you that the enzyme is running low, simply crack open an ice cold, refreshing can of Tesla Cola Zero to refuel your device for another two hours. Need to sleep? We got you. Hook up the Tesla Cola Zero-Venous BeautyRest to your ArmDock (patent pending) for up to five hours of relaxing enzyme replenishment. You can remove the arm dock after you confirm six ad-watch minute credits on your iEye.
Tesla-Cola: We Got You
I would say Tech with a capital T includes not just physical or cloud tech, but the whole process, down to shitty Product Owners and business teams, delivery crap features to customers.
Transmetropolitan had in-dream advertising. I think you got it from breathing in some sort of gas when walking around in public.
The most unrealistic thing about the Transmetropolitan series was the fact that Spider was able to make a living as a journalist.
Tech itself is not the issue. How it’s applied is the issue.
At this point, I would argue that technology is the issue. Or, at least, the current iteration of it.
Internal Combustion Engines, always-on internet connections, and digital financial systems are generating real physical hazards that stretch beyond their benefits. This isn’t just an issue of use. There is no “proper” method of employing - for instance - cryptocurrency or single-use plastics or a statewide surveillance network that doesn’t result in a degradation of quality of life for the population at large. To take a more dramatic angle, there’s no safe application of a nuclear bomb.
When the iEye app notifies you that the enzyme is running low, simply crack open an ice cold, refreshing can of Tesla Cola Zero to refuel your device for another two hours. Need to sleep? We got you.
Except this isn’t a technological innovation, its a Science Fantasy. iEye isn’t a real thing. Tesla Cola Zero isn’t a real thing. Not needing sleep isn’t a real thing. You’re not a cyborg and you will never be a cyborg.
But the science fantasy is still having its own cost. People are making real material nationally-transformative (or de-transformative) decisions based on the fantastic promises we’ve been sold about Tomorrow. We’re underdeveloping our mass transit infrastructure and relying entirely too much on unregulated air travel to speed up travel. At the same time, we’re clinging to old bunker-fuel laden container ships and decimating the aquatic ecology, because we refuse to adapt proven nuclear powered shipping that’s over 60 years old at this point. We’re investing more and more and more money in digital surveillance and personal tracking. We’re off-loading our ability to collect and process information to unreliable digital tools (LLMs being only the latest in overhyped AI as a replacement for professionalized human labor). And then we’re trying to justify the bad decisions we make as a result by claiming secret wisdom inherent in machines.
We’re eating our seed corn after being told technologists will eliminate our need to eat ever again.
This is a direct result of technological developments we have made (or promised to make and failed to deliver) over the last twenty years. Revolutions in racial profiling, viral marketing, planned obsolescence, military expansionism, and genocide have not improved our quality of life in any material sense.
The cow has not benefited from industrial agriculture. And the prole has not benefited from de-skilling of labor.
…always with the verification cans.
I kinda agree with the article, I genuinely think humanity peaked with the computer of the PS2 era. Or maybe it had something to do with the patriot act. Just feels like after that things had gotten worse substantially
tech is not the problem, corporations are.
More specifically, it’s capitalism that is the problem, not tech.
Tech enables capitalism to take the exploitation to new lows.
We don’t blame the whip, we blame the slaver
yes, that is the core of the problem. But its also too abstract to target at the moment. Those who understand dont need pointing out that it needs to go and those who dont might be able to at least see the “boils” if they cant see the disease.
Agree. It’s not the tech it’s how it’s used and how business owners drive the product development and timelines.
I saw the writing on the wall when we started getting itunes updates that no one wanted.
I disagree about such a generalization.
There are very few instances where people decide to be dumb and use technology for it but in general my life is much better thanks to technology.
My job exists due to technology, the Internet allows me to work from home, a washing machine washes my clothes, I can order food in the middle of a meeting and have it delivered on my lunch pause, I can speak to my family half a world away everyday, with video, for free, I can have the answer to any question in seconds from my a tiny device in my pocket, my car brakes automatically if I’m distracted (and heats up before I sit down in the morning)… you get the deal.
lunch pause
car brakes automatically if I’m distracted
These two lines paint a very sad picture.
I think you hit the head on the nail.
What’s sad about a lunch pause? Do I need to keep working 8 hours straight?
Or about a car braking automatically? I has saved me twice in four years, I was looking to see if someone was coming from one direction while the guy in front of me braked suddenly. Car stopped before I rear ended the other guy.
I must be missing something…
Yeah, idk what the other guy was talking about. But, I’ve ridden with someone that apparently got dependent on that automatic braking feature. He “used” something like 5 times during a 1.5 hour trip.
That sounds super uncomfortable, the emergency braking is quite brutal…
I hear you, but the writer isn’t concerned with “can”: If you replaced “can have the answer to any question in seconds from my a tiny device in my pocket” with “must” then you can see their dissatisfaction.
if I went to a restaurant and was told that I had to install and use their app to order their food, I would fucking leave. If it was the only restaurant left in town then I’d have much less choice in the matter. The insidious nature of technology is that it changes “can” with “must”.
if I went to a restaurant and was told that I had to install and use their app to order their food, I would fucking leave. If it was the only restaurant left in town then I’d have much less choice in the matter. The insidious nature of technology is that it changes “can” with “must”.
That’s not really the fault of technology though, that’s the fault of how companies are implementing technology through their policies and procedures.
Companies can have stupid, arbitrary rules and requirements and policies and do stupid or harmful actions regardless of technology or not.
I don’t think it’s fair to blame tech for company policies.
…but just like you chided the person you replied to, none of that is true or real. The restaurant that forces you to use their app doesn’t exist, and it’s not the only restaurant in town. None of that is even because of technology, it’s because of capitalism.
The restaurant that forces you to use their app doesn’t exist
Here is one such restaurant (have to use their website via QR code, but same idea) near where I live: https://maps.app.goo.gl/6LhBMo5duVzSB9HE9
That said, it’s clearly not the only restaurant in town, and nobody is forcing a gun to your head to eat there.
I agree, and good for you for leaving the restaurant. You could open a competing restaurant that doesn’t use apps and let people vote with their wallets. It’s not the nature of technology, its the decision of some people who are bad at knowing their customers. I don’t “have to” wash my clothes in the washing machine, but you bet I won’t even think about doing it manually. Forcing the use of an app is like only offering a vegan selection. If your customer didn’t ask for it you are going to have a bad time. If you are the only place in town is a monopoly problem, and a different discussion.
Having to use an app to order food might be slightly annoying, but it beats working 12h a day in the field to feed my familiy. It’s the firstest of first world problems.
In fantasy land you can open a competing restaurant. Back here on earth not only is that not an option for 99% of the population, most people are stuck with the couple choices they have in town and when tech comes in and forces the enshitificstion of services in order to pump stock price you’re stuck just eating this shit forever. That’s the problem. You seem to believe in “the invisible hand of the free market” when that simply doesn’t exist. Consumers aren’t rational. Investors aren’t rational. And the market is anything but free. Big tech is working really hard to make sure they have a stranglehold on every industry to make it worse and trap people into using their platforms.
most people are stuck with the couple choices they have in town and when tech comes in and forces the enshitificstion of services in order to pump stock price you’re stuck just eating this shit forever.
Is that the fault of the technology, though, or is that the fault of the companies?
Companies can have stupid, arbitrary rules and requirements and policies and do stupid or harmful actions regardless of technology or not.
I don’t think it’s fair to blame tech for company policies.
I keep hearing about it’s just “fault of companies” as if companies weren’t lead by the tech bros. By that logic all the pollution BP and other oil companies cause is just company decisions ! It’s not the fault of oil that greedy oil barons exist… yet it’s the burning oil causing the pollution (admittedly not best example but sort of holds)
Often times the tech companies try to “disrupt” a particular industry by providing a tech based approach and then lobbying the legacy business out of existence thus limiting your choices. This is why the tech enshitification works, because there is no real competition. The uber wealthy simply force feed you what they want. Uber, Netflix, and Amazon all operated at a loss specifically to be able to starve out legitimate businesses and limit your choice to only what they provide. Now we don’t have much of independent book stores, taxis outside of big metro hubs, and god only knows what’s going on with streaming service prices.
The ultimate fuck you from modern tech is the “if you don’t like it, don’t use it” while at the same time they work tirelessly for their tech “solution” to be the only choice.
So yea a ton of tech sucks and exists only to extract value out of its users and not solve any concrete issue
Again, tech doesn’t FORCE anything, people choose to fuck customers (and workers) and sometimes happen to use tech as an excuse. You don’t need any tech to raise prices or lower wages, and those are some of the biggest problem we have. Whether I use an app or coins to pay for my parking is not the issue.
In a world with lobbyists, monopolies, big corporations donating billions to politicians, a QR code is nowhere near the top of the problem list.
And consumers are quite rational, the go consistently for the cheapest option that fulfills their need. You see it in online services, electronics, flights, etc.
If consumers were rational Tesla stock wouldn’t be where it is, meme coins wouldn’t exist, nft craze wouldn’t have happened (btw all examples of tech spending money to trick dumb people). Consumers routinely DO NOT go for the cheapest possible option but frequently get tricked by stupid gimmicks and smoke and mirrors. For example - Colgate started wrapping their toothpaste boxes in a clear plastic that sparkles under grocery store lights. Despite raising prices, introducing wasteful plastic, and increased packaging costs they increased market share and profits - that’s not rational. You seem to have been sold on libertarian delusions.
I never mentioned salaries and I very distinctly did mention that majority of the people in the world live in smaller communities with limited choices. If a tech overlord buys out their businesses (e.g buying all local newspaper and replacing them with mostly ai slop and agenda articles) there are not many alternatives. Insisting that because you have some choice in some matters it means everyone does is naive … and also another example of an irrational consumer lol
Consumers don’t buy stock, and deifnieltely not enough to influence trillion dollar company valuation, let’s begin with that.
I never said they go for “the cheapest option, period”. They are willing to spend extra if they get perceived, or real, value, like aestelhetics (your example) , social status (cars for instance) or functionality (iPhone).
I’m very far from libertarian, so let’s abstain about speculating about each other’s beliefs and let’s talk about ideas.
Majaority of people in the world do NOT live in smaller communities, first, and tech only increases choices, second, so even if the first was true it’s still an argument in favor of tech. I can get the new York times (or the helsingin sanomat) in the smallest village of Germany, again thanks to technology.
So you’re just gonna make stuff up as you feel it’s true?
“Consumers do not buy stock” lol yes they do “iPhone can be the cheapest option” (as long as you don’t care how much you spend and it has perceived value” “Tech only increases choices” (biggest laugh I had in a while) “Most people in the world do not live in smaller communities”
Fucking lol my dude. Sounds like you’re really projecting your life into facts of the world which is a common disease among programmers.
You know that places outside of US exist right? You know that the tech created in US cities disproportionately adversely affects 3rd world countries. If you ignore all that and go full bootlick mode on tech oligarchs then yes all you say is true, but back in the real world you couldn’t be further off base
Surely you can have your cake and eat it too, right?
I don’t understand the question…
This is the problem with capitalism. What a sick world view.
The solution is… more monopolies? Please enlighten me.
How was that your takeaway from this thread
You attack capitalism in an article about tech, so let’s ask how is that your takeaway, then I’ll answer.
First of all, follow the thread brother, I’m not the same person you originally replied to.
Second of all, this article is just as much about capitalism as it is about “tech”. If you actually read the article and just thought “this is just about tech” and not “this is about tech and how it has leaked unnecessarily into nearly every transaction”, then IDK what to tell you
I agree. Tech is like fire, handle it responsibly.
Imagine VR so real that someone severely allergic to cats can know what it’s like to give one scritches and feel it purr. Imagine someone who is paraplegic knowing what it’s like to swim or climb a mountain. Now imagine how much money Mark Zuckerberg will make when it’s $22.95/month with ads and requires you to put in your Social Security Number.
I watched a documentary about the Unabomber and had the same thought
Tech =/= megacorps
That’s like saying food doesn’t make the world better where you mean food industry megacorps producing hunger & poverty.
