Eco Cycles or How I Feel About Technology

https://maksimizmaylov.com/writing/eco-cycles/

by Kvakes • 1 year ago

62 58 1 year ago

Kvakes7• 1 year ago

It's a personal essay about how not all—probably most—technology is destined to liberate us.

Well, when all is said in done, people like to own things and other people. The form will differ, sure, but the concept stays.

cess113• 1 year ago

How do you explain the saying 'sharing is caring'? If you're correct and people inherently enjoy the exploitation of others, how could such a saying spontaneously develop and resonate with rather large groups?

And how did the feasts of large religions develop? Things like iftar, where you communally share lots of food with both people you know and strangers, including the impoverished and disadvantaged? There ought to be quite a bit of violence involved to make such practices palatable if you're correct about this.

Kvakes7• 1 year ago

I wouldn't say we "like" to do it, but in a certain sense it's an existential necessity to do so.

Miraltar2• 1 year ago

In What Technology Wants, he argued that technology evolves like a living system.

Such an interesting take

CalRobert4• 1 year ago

If, like me, you read comments before links, this refers to Umberto Eco, not low water usage cycles on washing machines

CalRobert4• 1 year ago

I disagree with his take on traffic jams though. Public transportation, bikes, and well designed cities really do solve traffic

deltarholamda• 1 year ago

True enough, but those are technological solutions to a social problem. E.g., if the public transportation is terrible because it's dangerous or you get hassled on it, people don't use it.

The guy sitting in a 4 hour commute every day is doing it for a reason. It's a cost he's willing to pay for some benefit.

CalRobert4• 1 year ago

Sure, and sometimes it’s the reasons you cite and sometimes the lack of an alternative. I always was surprised at people tolerating I-80 even when capital corridor would work for them.

lozenge• 1 year ago

None of those are as good as being able to drive a car around somewhere which is traffic free and has ample parking. Of course, it's inherently not possible for that experience to be open to everyone.

CalRobert4• 1 year ago

True, though when I had a buddy (a poor man’s Vespa) it was close enough to that to feel like a cheat code.

dontlaugh• 1 year ago

Not having to drive is usually much nicer, though. You can do something else while travelling, you don’t have to plan around where you leave your valuable vehicle, you can drink alcohol, etc.

Either way, for occasional driving to be pleasant it’s necessary for most travel to happen by public transport, so it has to be the most convenient option for most journeys.

A_Duck3• 1 year ago

Why is the iPad so addictive that children have to be kept away from it?

Because every single person designing apps and websites is incentivised to try and win 100% of your attention. Reed Hoffmann put it nicely — "We're competing with sleep, on the margin."

The default apps, browser excluded, are pretty harmless - their incentive is to create a device you decide to welcome into your home. I don't see children spending 4 hours doomscrolling the calculator.

The challenge is to think of another model for creating apps and content — one that retains most of the innovation without the harm

Kvakes7• 1 year ago

Absolutely, 100%. Not all tech is the same. A chair is a form of technology, but it doesn't try to make you sit all the time. Although some technologies (like books) are replaced with e-readers through which we handle over a certain degree of freedom to whomever the platform we use belongs to.

A_Duck3• 1 year ago

The challenge is the system of incentives around the technology

If chair designers were paid based on the number of hours you sat in the chair, I expect we'd see some very different chairs. Probably not better ones for anyone whose life ambitions involve getting up out of a chair.

yapyap2• 1 year ago

a chair is a form of technology?

FollowingTheDao4• 1 year ago

The challenge is to think of another model for creating apps and content — one that retains most of the innovation without the harm

This is impossible! You missed the whole point of the article! Like sugar is addictive because it is extracted from the fruit that carries all the nutrients, the apps are addictive because they are extracted from the challenge of imagination and boredom.

The last line of that essay: "You don’t win by keeping up. You win by stepping out."

A_Duck3• 1 year ago

I disagree with the conclusion of the article

An invention comes as the solution to a problem. The qualities of the solution depend on the parameters of the problem.

Many/most technologies have not scaled to the point where their negative externalities outgrow their benefits: GPS, Cordless power tools, OLED TVs, Contactless payments. Of course all have some negatives.

We're learning that if the problem is 'make as much ad revenue as possible for the inventor', the solution is going scale harmfully

keybored5• 1 year ago

You read what you wanted from the article. Think about what the article is saying. A technologist saying that the technology that they ostensibly co-created is so toxic that it has to be opted out of, the whole game and all. That is rank shirking of responsibility, a self-centered and anti-social non-remedy.

Miraltar2• 1 year ago

The default apps, browser excluded, are pretty harmless - their incentive is to create a device you decide to welcome into your home. I don't see children spending 4 hours doomscrolling the calculator.

At least Facebook and Youtube are default apps nowadays

freeone30002• 1 year ago

Not on Apple devices.

reaanb2• 1 year ago

If you don't pay for the product, you are the product.

the_snooze• 1 year ago

A very outdated saying. Cars and IoT are very much things people pay for, but tech enables companies to double-dip and turn them into billboards for the highest ad bidder.

dartos• 1 year ago

The challenge is to think of another model for creating apps and content

The original content model was sustainable for centuries.

Customer pays per viewing, and experiences entertainment for an hour or so.

Then another model emerged after the printing press and record player.

Customer pays once and experiences the same thing as many times as they want.

Now we have a model where a customer pays constantly for no specific entertainment in particular and has no control over when they lose access to some entertainment.

Maybe we just go back to people paying for just what they want…

The issue is the addiction to growth and VC money tech has. We can’t have simple transactions in tech. It needs to be recurring or predatory.

wil421• 1 year ago

YouTube kids was banned quickly in my house. My kids can select a movie and sometimes a kids show. They can also play this playground app, 2 iPads can connect and they can play together.

They also don’t have free rein over iPads and maybe they get access to once a week in the car or something. They are 6 and under so I’ll probably tweak rules as needed.

FollowingTheDao4• 1 year ago

This is something the Daoists have talked about for 3000 years.

The "easier and faster" is only facilitated by an unseen debt. You cannot have "easier" without a "harder". The harder will always follow, as sure as the night follows the day. The simplicity of technology is a facade.

So yes, I agree; "You don’t win by keeping up. You win by stepping out."

I am happy to see the Dao making itself visible again.

Kvakes7• 1 year ago

A lot of old wisdom seems to be coming back. It's as funny as it's sad that we have to wait for "scientists" to confirm to us that fasting, extreme hot/cold, are evidently good to us. Also I've recently seen an ad for a company that builds houses out of carbon-negative materials (wood!).

yapyap2• 1 year ago

I feel like the jump from what the comment u were replying to was saying, I.E. something ‘easier’ might be harder in the long run to saying it’s sad scientists need to collect empirical evidence to prove things like fasting and ”extreme hot/cold” (I assume temperatures?) are good is a big one and not necessarily a good one.

What good would fasting or these extreme temps do and how would we prove it if not for evidence.

Scientists are NOT the problem here.

keybored5• 1 year ago

Silicon Valley or SC-ideological technologists have this ideological short-circuit for social problems. Let’s call it the Law of SC since every short-circuit needs an authoritative-sounding name, I mean law.

- The premise is that there is a social problem

- There are some examples of this repeating through history

- It always plays out this way

- Therefore we will conclude that it is technological determinism

- Bonus: Argue that this is fundamentally human nature-determinism by evoking Darwin, Buddhism or Stoicism

- Since this is Determinism (tech. or human) it can’t be solved

- You have now achieved the end-goal: “Explaining” the problem, which gives you smartness cred

- Bonus: Argue that technologists were already in the know. (Steve Jobs once admitted that his kids weren’t allowed to use the iPad.)

That this is a hopeless attitude is revealed in the conclusion:

You don’t win by keeping up. You win by stepping out.

Because you cannot step out. You can’t rewind the clock. This is reactionary in the political sense since it aspires to go back to the past—but you can’t.[1]

We have made these technological dependencies for ourselves, or fetters. Now we need to deal with them. We need to make them work for us. What we don’t need is to stick our heads in the snad and proclaim that the best we can do is to take timeouts from technology, to create smartphone-free zones or whatever. Really? You advance these gadgets to the point where you need them (or a laptop/desktop) to minimally function in society... and then you become scared of them? No.[2]

What’s the incentive for technology companies? To prey on your attention, your time, and erode your self-worth. This is already known. Where’s the technological determinism here? Just look at the Wizard, pulling the strings—is this your technological determinism?

You (or we) are just complicit in making shitty technology. Don’t blame technological determinism or human nature. Blame yourself.

Commutes don’t expand. Home prices go up into stratosphere near any place people have to work. And the car industry lobbies against public transport. These are all human-made problems. There is nothing deterministic about them.

Your Dilbert-style laws are a crutch. Try to expand your focus beyond your narrow expertise. Then you’ll see that something better is possible.

[1] Try to become a hermit. Civilization (modernity) will eventually encroach on your little hermitland.

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43510559

Kvakes7• 1 year ago

I think you're right on most accounts. What do we do?

keybored5• 1 year ago

Tech. companies left to their own devices will push technology that benefits them. People (the majority of society) have to take control over society so that we can find the proper balance: technology that makes our lives better/easier/simpler/more enjoyable and that doesn’t infringe on our attention and so on.

I’m already happy with a lot of software that I use that interfaces with the governmnet. The government wants to do less work. I want to do less work. The software ends up being less work than the prior technology was.

Why are you supposed to rely on Facebook for communicating with your local volunteer group? Why isn’t there a viable option (according to network effects)? Nothing says that we need predatory social media companies that sell people’s data in order to operate local volunteer groups. That’s absurd and and a falsehood that Bit Tech simply wants to convince people of.

c22• 1 year ago

The old school name for this is "tragedy of the commons" and it's not just a tech thing.

keybored5• 1 year ago

No. Tragedy of the Commons is a bogus thought experiment where the contradictions of mixing private property with the commons was blamed on The Commons.

Eco Cycles or How I Feel About Technology

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