A lot of institutions, even crucial ones that we all depend on to manage important aspects of society, have barely started adapting to this newfangled fad called the internet. Maybe they’ll figure out what to do about generative AI somewhere around 2060.
In that episode a bored Mr. Burns hires Homer as his „prank monkey”, paying him with loose cash to play cruel pranks on others and humiliate himself. Homer eventually regains his dignity after refusing to ruin the Thanksgiving day parade, even for a million dollars.
> Urges of all kinds (never wanted to slap someone and didn’t?) can be overcome with an only a little discipline.
Okay, but where do you think that discipline comes from? Is it an inherent quality that a person is born with? I’d argue that it’s not, and it’s something that needs to be learned and exercised. Many people didn’t get the opportunity to learn it (yet?), and I don’t believe it makes them somehow inferior.
I don’t think it’s in inherent quality either. Why do some people decide to put the cake down and hit the weights and others don’t? I don’t know, all i’m saying is the option existed for both and in the end it’s a choice.
> Sure, maybe some people really do have thyroid problems; but this idea that overweight people are somehow not responsible for their own condition is ridiculous and dangerous.
You’re not wrong, but I think you’re missing the bigger picture. These are systemic issues, and solving them on an individual level can only go so far.
People are responsible for their own health, but we also live in a world where billions of dollars are spent on marketing and lobbying to get them addicted to junk food and make it the easiest choice. It’s still a choice, but the game is rigged.
“Just decide to stop” may have worked for you - it worked for me, too! - but on a societal level you need societal change. A lot fewer people smoke today than just a couple decades ago - not because everyone has individually somehow built up stronger willpower, but because of legislation that made tobacco harder to market, more expensive, and forbidden in many public spaces.
Smoking used to be an unavoidably pushed part of life, too. It was linked to strength, manliness (or femininity actually, depending on the target market), independence, etc. Tobacco company mascots loomed over us from billboards, and told us on TV that cigarettes make a person cool. Untold billions of dollars were spent on marketing literal poison, using every trick in the book, and it worked. People smoked all the time, everywhere - at the dinner table, on planes, at their desk at work. People burned their houses down because they went to sleep with a cigarette still in their mouth.
Just because something feels like an unavoidable part of life, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true - it could just mean that that giant advertising companies convinced you that it is. I wonder if in a couple decades we’ll look back at screen addiction the same way we look at tobacco now.
I understand how cigarettes were advertised and pushed, and seemingly unavoidable.
Is technology the same? Yes and no...we can totally abstain from tech and live that lifestyle. But then we wouldn't be here discussing this issue at all, or ever.
So while they are both pushed: if you cut out smoking today you can still live a 'normal' life. Cutting out tech is a drastically different life.
I'd rather not discuss what is meant by 'normal' -- I hope you get where I'm coming from.
I think “using technology” is just too broad, and a distinction needs to be made. Screen addiction doesn’t just mean using a screen.
You’re right that it’d be pretty much impossible to refuse to engage with any modern technology these days (unless you lived in an Amish community or something similar); but obviously there’s a huge difference between responsible use of tech where useful or necessary (and for fun, too, in moderation!), and lying in bed mindlessly scrolling through Tiktok and/or watching cable tv for hours every day - which I see a lot more people doing in the past couple years.
It definitely does, but in my experience a standalone camera is usually better received than a phone.
I think it’s got to do with the implication of easy shareability. Pointing a phone at someone always brings to mind the idea that the photo can be sent anywhere within seconds. Are they going to post you on their instagram story? Are they going to send it to their friends and laugh about you?
The friction to sharing photos is so much higher with a standalone camera that I think a lot of people feel much more comfortable with one pointed at them.
Then again, that same friction quickly becomes a problem for the user - I know I’ve lost a lot of my photos just because I couldn’t be bothered to connect the camera, transfer the photos, organize them, back them up etc.
For me it’s not really the risk that it will be well received, but rather that cameras trigger a more artificial response.
Selfies or phone pictures are quick and people mostly don’t react, but cameras make us pose, subconsciously. At least I feel a phone gets me more natural photos, that work better as memories of the moment.
The lack of instant online backup is also a good point, I don’t know if that’s on the table on newer models.
The definition of a luxury is “Something that is not essential but provides pleasure and comfort.”
I’d actually argue that you can only get addicted to luxuries. You wouldn’t say you’re addicted to food, water, or shelter because you need to have them every day.
This is probably what people in the 18th century thought when they saw that digesting duck automaton [1]. Technological progress isn’t a magical linear thing that always leads to things getting better over time.
There’s some very hard problems to solve before the promises made here can be made true, and it’s not a given that they will or even can be solved. Building the robot was never the hard part.
We aren't in the 18th century and we know a lot more about the topic. But I can't see anything that parallels physical limitations of mechanical contraptions. Sensors can be improved, stimuli processing can be improved.
Do you know something about the brain that makes it impossible to replicate its functionality technologically?
