this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
1153 points (95.5% liked)

memes

10428 readers
2623 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to [email protected]

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/AdsNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.

Sister communities

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I'm not saying there should be no internet. I am only saying maybe some restraint would be advantageous for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thing is, the Internet at its core is just a vastly interconnected network. That's it. All the effects of the Internet are direct consequences of that fundamental property, and time.

The technological architecture that supports the complexity of modern civilization? The direct consequence of interconnectivity × time. QAnon? The direct consequence of interconnectivity × time.

You can't restrain the bad without crippling the good.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

the Internet at its core is just a vastly interconnected network.

Nothing about what you said invalides my point.

Not every human transaction has to be made over the internet. Other technology's are sufficient and do not cripple society.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can't restrain the bad without crippling the good

That part. "People should..." is an impotent sentiment. How do you incentivize, or force, a regression to "sufficient" technology? How do you do so without affecting beneficial network technology?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

By learning from the past. See, in your mind you've already established all technological advancement is beneficial.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think you might be misinterpreting my point.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Is your point limiting technological advancement always results in hindering the opportunity for good?

If so, no, I haven't. Unless you define good as anything that someone could find value in.

Maybe what you're missing is an example.

Tim and Susie live right next to each other and have windows facing each other. Tim and Susie are 6. They talk everyday over a tin can and string. Susie had the idea from seeing it in a comic book and Tim went home and made the tin can string telephone. The best part of their day is meeting up at the window and yelling to each other as each talk into a tin can. One day Tim's absentee father stops by for a visit and sees Tim and Susie preform their ritual. Tim's dad runs to the store and gets them a pair of walky talkies.

"Much better" Tim's dad exclaims while throwing Tim's tin cans in the trash. Tim and Susie think the walky talkies are neat and they run around for a day hiding behind bushes and seeing if they can find each other. Without the tin cans though they don't have a reason to meet at the window everyday so they quickly forget why they ever had the ritual in the first place. Eventually ones batteries dies and it doesn't even matter because they have long forgot their fun game.

Tell me. How did the tin cans cripple the chance for good?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Who does Tim's father represent? What does him throwing the tin cans in the trash represent? How does this analogy represent the topic we're discussing?

If the tin cans are old but sufficient technology, then the proper analogy would see Tim and Susie discarding the tin cans themselves voluntarily because the walkie talkies do what they do but better. Maybe there are drawbacks too, but Tim and Susie made their choice. Maybe Jack and Jill down the street like the intimacy of tin cans better and decide not to get walkie talkies, that is also their choice.

Maybe the window ritual is socially beneficial, but who enforces that, and how? Does Jack's mom get walkie talkies banned? Now what about all the emergency responders who used walkie talkies to save lives? Just banned for children? Who decides who qualifies as a child, and what about the children in the country who's houses are too far apart for tin cans?

I'm not saying there are no benefits to simpler options, and obviously every person has the freedom to use the simplest technologies they wish, but we're having a conversation about society not individual choice . I'm saying that there's no practical way to incentivize or force them at a societal scale. Unless you can think of one which isn't just Big Brother censoring the Internet, in which case I'm all ears.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Just answer the question. Did Tim's tin can stop the world from spinning? Did it have purpose? Was its replacement adequate?

Tim's dad represents Tim's dad. Not everything is an analogy. Of course we can extrapolate it but I'm trying in the most simplest terms possible to make you see my point.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If it's not an analogy then... yes, the world continues spinning if kids talk with tin cans? I don't see what any of this has to do with the topic of ~~the societal effects of widespread use of algorithm-driven social media platforms.~~ restraint with regards to the Internet?

Edit: got this conversation confused with a similar one. My bad

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

.... right, because that is what I was talking about in the first place. Societital effects of widespread use of algorithm-driven social media platforms. Pretty impossible w/ you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's on me, I'm also having an extremely similar conversation with someone else specifically about that

What you did say was:

I'm not saying there should be no internet. I am only saying maybe some restraint would be advantageous for everyone.

So what I meant to say In my last comment was:

What does any of that have to do with the restraint with regards to the Internet?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

To spell it out again, not everything has to be done on the internet. Many people go on thinking 'out with the old in with the new' without ever considering scope and practicality. If you suddenly became manager of an office building with a complete pneumatic tube system your first instinct might be to gut the pneumatic tubes and do everything over email. That's an OK thought but should that really be your first instinct? Most people wouldn't even understand how pneumatic tubes work in the first place. Wouldn't it be more prudent to to understand what the tubes are there for. Why they've lasted 60+ years. If the building is already wired with ethernet and has internet connection what should it matter if you use both keeping the tubes in place to continue their purpose?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Okay, sure? That was always allowed. Again, "People should behave differently than they do" without any proposed method of bringing about whatever "differently" is, is just impotent platitude. That's why I keep reiterating "incentivize or force". Without one of those two pressures, people will continue to make individual decisions about their behavior, including which things they choose to do on the Internet, like they have been doing the whole time. Some will choose to do things on the Internet which can be done sufficiently other ways, others will choose to use simpler technologies.

When you start talking about how restraint would be advantageous, without any concept of how to incentivize or force said restraint, you're just becoming old-man-yells-at-cloud.jpg.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

When you start talking about how restraint would be advantageous, without any concept of how to incentivize or force said restraint, you’re just becoming old-man-yells-at-cloud.jpg.

I would challenge that. Say tomorrow I invented the eat-o-matic 5000 a top of the line eating utensil. Built in wifi, self cleaning, tracks how much food your eat, easy to manufacture, biodegradable, comes with a native streaming service that allows you to stream your eating experience to friends and family, affordable, etc.

Do you think in everyone would throw away their forks and knifes immediately and start using the eat-o-matic 5000? How about in 10 years? 20 years? 30 years?

Maybe the eat-o-matic is that good. I tend to believe forks and knives wouldn't go anywhere, though. I also know forks and knives are already not the only technology that exists and the fact that one utensil isn't ubiquitous proves that incentives and force are not the only factors at play.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like a broken record:

Yes, obviously, people are allowed to make their own choices. Not using the flashiest new toys and services is allowed. Acknowledging that fact is not useful. You telling people what they should and shouldn't do is not going to have a societal effect.

If you would like to propose some regulatory or incentive policy to nudge people toward simpler technologies, then that is a useful conversation. But just stating your opinion? Old man yells at cloud.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So, all this just to say I shouldn't have an opinion?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm not saying that your opinion shouldn't exist, but some restraint would be advantageous.

Unless you think that statement is overly reductive, simplifying a nuanced subject to a flippant, self-indulgent remark that accomplishes nothing but ego-stroking

Some opinions provide valuable hypotheses which can promote thoughtful discussion regardless of their validity, like "A value-added tax would benefit the working class". Some opinions are hollow and useless, and serve only to make the commenter feel smugly clever for stating the obvious, like "Israelis and Palestinians should just get along".

Endless promotion of the latter is probably one of the most unnecessary uses of the Internet, muttering to oneself alone at home is a sufficient technology for that purpose.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Sounds like an opinion to me. Of course your opinion is more valid because you said it. Since you would never be a hypocrit incapable of self reflection. Certainly, at the very least, would be able to detect sarcasm. If by chance you came across it.

Let me know if you need me to explain it because I know how hard it is for you to comprehend simple ideas.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Certainly, at the very least, would be able to detect sarcasm. If by chance you came across it.

The irony.

Unless you think that statement is overly reductive, simplifying a nuanced subject to a flippant, self-indulgent remark that accomplishes nothing but ego-stroking

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Two can play

Some opinions are hollow and useless, and serve only to make the commenter feel smugly clever for stating the obvious

Flinch much?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

So then you agree?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Everything evolves as a wave of extremes and eventually finds some sort of equilibrium, trying to contain that is a fool's errand.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Sounds like your own personal philosophy

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Or a new normal... paved roads and cars in the US was once pretty extreme, until it became normal. Did you be it's grownup and tell it to go to bed on time, did you make a futile effort to stunt its growth or did you roll over. Story of the frog in boiling water.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Ever notice how some roads aren't paved?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why are you responding to me on the internet?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

.... why don't you have reading comprehension?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe it's the Internet. You should show some "restraint".

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Wtf are you even on about now? Go head explain.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

because Reductio ad absurdum is easier than confronting hard truths they don't want to accept and possibly risk firing off a dreadful thing called a "thought" in that inert mass of jello they call a brain.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

You can say it directly next time.