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I used to love computing as a hobby, but now it feels like it's a source of evil in the world, how have you dealt with this? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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It feels like all the joy I used to feel from being an enthusiast has been completely voided as computing has become the modern vector for fascism and surveillance. I find myself recoiling from all online spaces, even independent and open source ones that I'd loved and supported in the past.

It's been an exceptionally strange impulse to go from having an elaborate online presence to now feeling like the only acceptable way to engage with the network is to have as minimal of an online footprint as possible.

This especially hurts when it feels like an issue of skilling, where I know how to do certain tasks with computers, but have to teach myself for the first time the analogue alternatives that my parents and their parents likely already knew well.

How have you chosen to deal with it? Do you find yourself moving away from computing and the internet, despite formerly loving it as a hobby? Have you replaced things that computers used to do for you with analogue replacements?

I'm curious how other people are experiencing this.

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[–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

Right there with you! The "attention economy" has absolutely wreaked havoc on humankind. They're at the core of all of this.

I suppose the reason I put so much blame on the devices is because of all these little design choices with both the hardware and the OS.

For example: Not having access to the file system, the radios always being on, being very anti-repairable, and like you said, apps not being sandboxed by default.

kids grow up with 'digital babysitter' ipads, and if you see any of the kids ipad and video programming it might as well be brain-frying crack for kids

THIS so much! We're gonna be an iPadless household, and I'm telling everyone: If they gift anything cocomelon or equivalent, it's gonna go right back, thanks but no thanks.

Yeah, education has also been seriously screwed up, I could write entire paragraphs about that too. From "no child left behind" to "whole-word reading" dropping phonics (someone shared an excellent podcast series called "Sold a Story" about that disaster. Basically it taught kids to read like your phone keyboard predicts words. Exactly as insane as it sounds.)

A lot of education has to happen in the home, and we're several generations into practically unparented kids, whether just plain negligent and broken households or mom and/or dad both slaving their lives away at careers, unable to do any actual parenting and expecting the abused employees of the sabotaged barely-limping school system to do it for them.

But I know it requires some serious societal-level rethinking, including accepting that it's okay to be bored.

I know we often don't see it, but there are a lot of bright young people out there, and they inspire others to be bright. I remain optimistic.

And I agree...I think people need to learn to sit with boredom and channel that, without a thousand expensive keys jangling in their faces the whole time. :)

I appreciate the thoughtful reply!

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    I also appreciate the thoughtful conversation. It's sadly rare these days. I was on Reddit since before the Digg migration, I fell in love with the place becuase there was always good conversations happening. Sadly now it's mostly just noise. Lemmy seems a little better.

    I disagree about your analysis of hardware though. Some of that applies to Apple perhaps, but not Android. I have filesystem access on my phone. Radios can be turned off if I want. There's full service manuals available, as well as spare parts and tools/jigs so I can fix it myself if I want. And apps ARE sandboxed, although I wish there was more control on the sandboxing (IE firewall for internet disable).

    Problem with that last one is it largely kills ad supported apps as a business model. If the app doesn't inherently need Internet to work, user will shut it off and then it can't serve ads. I'm not sure that'd be a bad thing, but it'd require some rethinks.

    THIS so much! We’re gonna be an iPadless household, and I’m telling everyone: If they gift anything cocomelon or equivalent, it’s gonna go right back, thanks but no thanks.

    Hope your kids know how lucky they are.

    A lot of education has to happen in the home

    That's true, but it's largely not happening. I know some people who work in education. It's now official policy to rubber stamp kids into the next grade if they aren't passing- someone decided that it's more socially damaging to hold a kid back than it's worth. So kids get behind and never catch up but they keep getting rubber stamped through the system.

    I think people need to learn to sit with boredom and channel that

    Quite true. I struggle with this. It's so easy to just fire up instagram or something. But you're right, bordem leads to creativity.

    This reminds me of a book I read many many years ago, it was a scifi book of some kind. The story as I recall- this dude gets kidnapped by aliens for some reason, they explain that they were debating blowing up the Earth because we were making too much tech progress too fast and civilizations that do that usually become a threat to their neighbors once they have weapons and stellar travel without the maturity that should go with it. But they found a different solution- they sent someone to Earth in disguise to invent television and slow down the rate of our advancement. Only then we created computers and people started getting smarter and progress accelerated again so they were worried they'd have to blow up the planet.
    I think of that story and wonder, 'if that were a true story, I bet their second solution was to invent social media'.

    Back in the early days of Reddit there was a thread, what would be the hardest part of modern tech to explain to someone 100+ years ago?. Highest voted answer was something like 'everybody carries in their pocket a device that cost hundreds of billions of dollars to develop. It can quickly access and display any piece of knowledge or art or music known to man, it can communicate in real time with anyone else on the planet, and it contains the equivalent of a full photography studio, movie editing room, and can publish to the entire world. We all use them to argue with strangers, publish photographs of our food, and look at pictures of cats.'

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