Algorithms are permeating human existence, expanding into domains that used to be wholly presided over by human choice and judgment. They are rapidly fusing with the means by which human culture is made. So in the end we'll be asking: to whom does the culture belong? Is it going to be human culture or algorithmic culture? At what point can you separate them, and when does the scale tip? In other words, when does culture stop being primarily human-authored and become system-shaped? And let's not forget that this new system has human proprietors.
Perhaps this is the only way. Our intellect is wasted if we are eternally entertained by massive and irrelevant programs, cat videos, and news about things which have no bearing on our lives. And just to fairly warn; AI will make us completely ill informed....and stupid.
Maybe I'm lucky. Or just old! I never fell for any of the social media. My phone is a smartphone, but I don't access the internet. It's a text, talk and photo machine. And about 5 yrs old. Not an iphone
Your piece is very well thought and written. You're on the right path, it seems.
As for navigation, never use GPS. It makes you stupid. Look at a map before you leave, put it in your head. Maybe take a couple notes. Then go. You may struggle the first time you go somewhere, but you'll know where it is forever. Use the GPS and you'll never know where anything is.
I think the most impactful aspect of this piece is the joint experience of detachment, age and the self discovery of things very "known" the reader.
It has a Ligotti-like tension for anybody who possesses the memory or simply the time without this technology and as a result was able to build in boundaries and reinforcements as a result of the lived experience -- and that experience being so out of reach to those who simply could not.
I come to this with the perspective of somebody from the pre-smartphone era. These days I frequently leave my phone at home. Go for a walk. Get a coffee. Sometimes people get angry at me because I'm unavailable. They look at me in absolute astonishment when I say I left my phone at home.
I have stopped taking photos, no matter where I go, including overseas on vacation in beautiful places. I found that the obsessive focus on taking pictures was stealing the experience from me. I take one or two selfie snaps of me and my partner, and the rest of the time I use my "eyeCamera" to make memories.
Great article. There’s a considerable swirl of irony for me in how I just read this one…
Saw online when the post first hit Substack. I saved it when I remembered I could wait to read in the mag when it comes. Saw a restack this morning and hesitated, should I wait for the mag? Nah, I’ll check it out now. But, maybe I’ll go print it… good idea.
I go to print and the pages come out mostly illegible. Printer out of toner. Take the cartridge out and shake it, a bit better but not good enough. So I go back to my phone, order more toner from my Amazon app and read this post on my phone. 😆🤦♂️
Grateful I read this one sooner v later. Also grateful I found out about the toner today instead of later this week when I’m printing out two big parts of my manuscript to edit. Ultimately glad I didn’t wait to hear the message in this one. I’ve been spending more time on my phone than I’d like as of late. This post was a good reminder. The efforts I made to try and read this other ways beside my phone will serve as a better reminder, in line with the message of this post: too much easy makes good things hard, the extra effort makes us better, and sometimes, the dumb (analog) way is the smartest thing you can do.
I love this story, lots of Kafka in here. This makes me want to focus more and more on print, too. Of course that's the core of the magazine, but I could see print-only as a possibility at some point
In one very real sense, the choice regarding carrying a personal computer everywhere one goes, was obvious from the beginning.
Between office and personal screen time, one's "attention budget" was already sequestered before the advent of the "smart" phone.
The velocity of change had obviously accelerated, and accelerated adaptation already an existential matter, one of survival.
Now, the choice to use a "dumb" phone is on the cusp of disappearing, with the urgent need for multi-factor identification. For the moment, text codes are still offered, but not by all applications.
Consider the incentive structures, which are accurately portrayed in the above essay. If and when enough individuals attempt to "unplug," the choice architecture simply "rearranges itself."
"Maps?" The demise of non-digital cartographic tools such as the "Thomas Guide," has not been the result of individualized personal preference, it has been a function of compulsion. Anyone studying the tech industry business model, will come to understand how this is so.
It's not too far a stretch to consider the Thomas Guide an avatar, a symbol of how behavioral science has been deployed in Machiavellian fashion.
The remodelling of choice architecture that we have experienced, is not bound to any economic system, and thinking of it as reserved to capitalist predation, is to elide the central tendency. Pointing this out is not an apologia for capitalism, merely an admonition against category error.
That's on you, man. Some of us use technology responsibly. I read science and political articles online- the same ones that I used to have to buy a newspaper or magazine to read. I spend a few minutes on DuoLingo learning Mandarin or brushing up on my Spanish. Maybe play a game or two. Loosing yourself down an algorithm on Facebook, Twitter, or anything else, is your lack of self control- like eating ice cream until it's gone. You can even read books online- the classics are all free.
Exactly, the smartphone is a tool, just like anything else. Fundamentally, there isn't a difference, to me at least, between reading novels on an e-book or on physical paper. The same is true for maps or anything else. Remember how we claimed that people were addicted to the "boob-tube", that they were "couch potatoes"? Spending too much time on the princess phone, or chewing up gasoline cruising around town on the weekend looking for trouble?
preach it and amen
Algorithms are permeating human existence, expanding into domains that used to be wholly presided over by human choice and judgment. They are rapidly fusing with the means by which human culture is made. So in the end we'll be asking: to whom does the culture belong? Is it going to be human culture or algorithmic culture? At what point can you separate them, and when does the scale tip? In other words, when does culture stop being primarily human-authored and become system-shaped? And let's not forget that this new system has human proprietors.
Perhaps this is the only way. Our intellect is wasted if we are eternally entertained by massive and irrelevant programs, cat videos, and news about things which have no bearing on our lives. And just to fairly warn; AI will make us completely ill informed....and stupid.
Maybe I'm lucky. Or just old! I never fell for any of the social media. My phone is a smartphone, but I don't access the internet. It's a text, talk and photo machine. And about 5 yrs old. Not an iphone
Your piece is very well thought and written. You're on the right path, it seems.
As for navigation, never use GPS. It makes you stupid. Look at a map before you leave, put it in your head. Maybe take a couple notes. Then go. You may struggle the first time you go somewhere, but you'll know where it is forever. Use the GPS and you'll never know where anything is.
I think the most impactful aspect of this piece is the joint experience of detachment, age and the self discovery of things very "known" the reader.
It has a Ligotti-like tension for anybody who possesses the memory or simply the time without this technology and as a result was able to build in boundaries and reinforcements as a result of the lived experience -- and that experience being so out of reach to those who simply could not.
lovely writing, lovely decision
I come to this with the perspective of somebody from the pre-smartphone era. These days I frequently leave my phone at home. Go for a walk. Get a coffee. Sometimes people get angry at me because I'm unavailable. They look at me in absolute astonishment when I say I left my phone at home.
I have stopped taking photos, no matter where I go, including overseas on vacation in beautiful places. I found that the obsessive focus on taking pictures was stealing the experience from me. I take one or two selfie snaps of me and my partner, and the rest of the time I use my "eyeCamera" to make memories.
Great article. There’s a considerable swirl of irony for me in how I just read this one…
Saw online when the post first hit Substack. I saved it when I remembered I could wait to read in the mag when it comes. Saw a restack this morning and hesitated, should I wait for the mag? Nah, I’ll check it out now. But, maybe I’ll go print it… good idea.
I go to print and the pages come out mostly illegible. Printer out of toner. Take the cartridge out and shake it, a bit better but not good enough. So I go back to my phone, order more toner from my Amazon app and read this post on my phone. 😆🤦♂️
Grateful I read this one sooner v later. Also grateful I found out about the toner today instead of later this week when I’m printing out two big parts of my manuscript to edit. Ultimately glad I didn’t wait to hear the message in this one. I’ve been spending more time on my phone than I’d like as of late. This post was a good reminder. The efforts I made to try and read this other ways beside my phone will serve as a better reminder, in line with the message of this post: too much easy makes good things hard, the extra effort makes us better, and sometimes, the dumb (analog) way is the smartest thing you can do.
I love this story, lots of Kafka in here. This makes me want to focus more and more on print, too. Of course that's the core of the magazine, but I could see print-only as a possibility at some point
Ha! Yeah, those kinda mini-adventures cement the memory.
I dig that print idea, maybe a special print edition (1-2x year) where the stories only appear in print?
Love what you’re doing with MNG. Looking forward to the next edition.
In one very real sense, the choice regarding carrying a personal computer everywhere one goes, was obvious from the beginning.
Between office and personal screen time, one's "attention budget" was already sequestered before the advent of the "smart" phone.
The velocity of change had obviously accelerated, and accelerated adaptation already an existential matter, one of survival.
Now, the choice to use a "dumb" phone is on the cusp of disappearing, with the urgent need for multi-factor identification. For the moment, text codes are still offered, but not by all applications.
Consider the incentive structures, which are accurately portrayed in the above essay. If and when enough individuals attempt to "unplug," the choice architecture simply "rearranges itself."
"Maps?" The demise of non-digital cartographic tools such as the "Thomas Guide," has not been the result of individualized personal preference, it has been a function of compulsion. Anyone studying the tech industry business model, will come to understand how this is so.
It's not too far a stretch to consider the Thomas Guide an avatar, a symbol of how behavioral science has been deployed in Machiavellian fashion.
The remodelling of choice architecture that we have experienced, is not bound to any economic system, and thinking of it as reserved to capitalist predation, is to elide the central tendency. Pointing this out is not an apologia for capitalism, merely an admonition against category error.
That's on you, man. Some of us use technology responsibly. I read science and political articles online- the same ones that I used to have to buy a newspaper or magazine to read. I spend a few minutes on DuoLingo learning Mandarin or brushing up on my Spanish. Maybe play a game or two. Loosing yourself down an algorithm on Facebook, Twitter, or anything else, is your lack of self control- like eating ice cream until it's gone. You can even read books online- the classics are all free.
Exactly, the smartphone is a tool, just like anything else. Fundamentally, there isn't a difference, to me at least, between reading novels on an e-book or on physical paper. The same is true for maps or anything else. Remember how we claimed that people were addicted to the "boob-tube", that they were "couch potatoes"? Spending too much time on the princess phone, or chewing up gasoline cruising around town on the weekend looking for trouble?