The offline life
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- Horp0
" Is it just me, or is there a (weak, but noticeable) movement towards less technology being the next big all the rage trendy hip indie cool young people thing?"
Its not a replacement movement heading towards anything, its just the end of the fascination zone for this particular phenomenon. Its not the first and it will be replaced by something else. In the midst of it, it feels like its fundamental, that it will go on for ever. It feels like its the absolute future. We often fail to conceive of a real viable future-future that will exist beyond it. This is because on the whole, most people can only envisage an idea of the future that is merely a tweaked or evolved version of the present. We can imagine a future where the internet is more sophisticated than now, where smart phones are even smarter, maybe more discreet, sub-dermal maybe... but essentially we're just taking the dominant paradigm and wrapping it up in some emergent science/fiction from just on the horizon.
We can do that really well, and what that does is enforces the idea that everything now is foundational, here to stay, omnipotent and so firmly embedded into the infrastructure that it has to be here to stay, and the future will merely be built upon it as a sequence of improvements.
Thats not the case though. We are easily fascinated as a species, and the global economy largely relies on that trait, but eventually we get bored as consumers, and we discover something new and exciting as experimenters, and without being able to see the trajectory we're creating/following, we regularly engineer total shifts that have nothing to do with the past.
In the midst of CB Radio phenomenon of the 70's, it felt like CB was here to stay. It threatened the establishment of telecommunications, it threatened to bring power to ordinary people through unregulated dialogue and open expression of ideas. It was serious enough as a threat that emergency legislation was brought in, and people were arrested and imprisoned for ten years and more, simply for having the wrong kind of hardware that was deemed dangerously powerful. The danger was not that it was so powerful that it could cause airwave disruption as was claimed, the danger was that it could reach too many people, spread ideas too virulently. The fear was of revolution, not of frequency clogging.
In the late 70's early 80's CB Radio was here to stay. Everyone had one. It was the internet. It was in almost every home or car, it was liberating, a tool for some kind of social revolution.
Hands up if you have a CB Radio.
Or a maid.
Or a powdered wig.
- jagara0
@Horp True, everything is a cyclical action/reaction from one extreme to the other.
Right now some people (myself included) may be at the end of one cycle, and feel the need or desire to move in the opposite direction, towards a more lowtech lifestyle. Until we get enough of that, and go back again.
Thanks for the reminder :)
- pango0
there was a power outage one night. i started playing with fire... me+fire not a good idea... almost took out my eyebrow...
i'll stick with online stuff. thx!
- stoplying0
When you're out to eat with a group of people and everyone puts their phones on the table so they can see when they get a message. This bothers me.
I just try to make a true effort to actually listen and engage with people when I speak with them, and I hate when I'm sharing a story with someone and they suddenly look down and become engrossed in their phone.
*note to self - work on story telling ability.
- bjladams0
we were without power for a couple weeks last summer. was good. cooked out every evening. bathed in the kiddie pool. went to bed when it got dark. neighbors (and wife) thought we were crazy when the kids and i kept it up for an extra week.
myself, my business partner, and a few friends spend a week in the woods or on the river every couple months. it's needed.
- teh0
Qigong, aikido biking, running, wing chun etc its all there + so much food to try :)
If I could get up to this every morning Id be happier