this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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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.
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?
I think you might be misinterpreting my point.
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.
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
That's on me, I'm also having an extremely similar conversation with someone else specifically about that
What you did say was:
So what I meant to say In my last comment was:
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.
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.
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.
The irony.
So then you agree?