Life without technology

[Shum]

And yet we are all currently sitting on our laptops talking about this on an internet forum

I'd love to have a drink with you lot at a pub.

[Sheff]

yeah thats what im talking about, and with the way things are going its just gonna be a complete thing of the past.

i really cant remember the last time i called for a mate by knocking on his front door, which is actually crazy when i think about it, seeing as that used to be the only way of seeing if someone was coming out.

maybe im just looking back through rose tinted glasses at it all though.

im not denying that technology has done wonders, and it would be a big shock to the system to live without alot of the technology i have now but i think if it was never introduced in the first place, like say if i grew up in the 80's or something where they didnt rely on it so much, im sure people were much happier and more sociable

[Sheff]

just something to think about thats all

[Sheff]

And yet we are all currently sitting on our laptops talking about this on an internet forum

with an LCD TV and an xbox turned on

[noam]

yeah but i dont have a problem with that!! :laff:

[nowaysj]

I'd love to have a drink with you lot at a pub.

I feel you all on this one. Am socially ostracized a bit by my non-facebookance. I'm sorry, I think kids are generally retarded because when I see them out they're all squinting into pale blue 3 inch screens.

But, I'm in a small suburb in northern california and chat daily with people from around the world. Say what you will about smaller scale social interaction being destroyed by this technology, agreed, but on the macro, it is incredible. This truly is new for humanity.

[Genevieve]

and noam shut the fuck up, you're complaining about me complaining

its just a thought

hahaha

yeah but no.

im just sayin it aint an issue

if you aint communicatin with people or you feel isolated cos you're on the internet all day instead of seein peoples fleshy faces all the time do sumat about it man!!!

The problem is more that people around you are so used to communicating through techology that it's really, really, REALLLLY hard to find anyone to chill with face to face a lot. Or a decent group of people.

You don't choose the people you care for. I mean, you do, but you either like people or you don't. Seeing as most people rely on social media to be.. social. Chances are, the people you meet and like will be people like that.

And sadly enough, a lot of the people that tend to rely the least on social media are the people who aren't exactly social.

[noam]

i just think its a skill people have lost in a way and you just need to get it back

its not applicable to everyone

also, there's a lot fo people on here, who are just finishing school/college/uni and aren't around people 24/7 anymore, couple that with being at your comp all the time, and it SEEMS like there's no one to chill with

for me, i've had the same thoughts, but i kinda think a lot of it is panicking over a kind of issue... not a real one

[Sheff]

i can imagine growing old and my grandkids asking what i used to do as a kid

"well, i just like, went on facebook sometimes, talked to people on twitter, used to chat shit on a music forum...erm...played on the xbox, went down town on the weekends...erm....hang out in village with a group of mates ermm smoke a joint...ermm....went to the pub, DJ'd in my spare time, watched shit like jersey shore and britains got talent ermmm"




not any wars that are fought in our country or world wars, no great depression or anything like that haha

[Neptune]

I never just went round to someone's house to see if they were in, I'd always phone first. (allow a wasted journey)

I don't think facebook has really socially affected me in a bad way. In fact, if I wanna see my friends, I just write on their wall saying I'm coming over.

ALTHOUGH, saying that, my housemates are ADDICTED to facebook. Like really badly. They'll be in the same room and talk to each other on facebook. It disgusts me. Oh, and when people write statuses on nights out. Eeeeeeeeeeewwwww no no and just no. "OMG I'M HAVING SUCH A GREAT TIME" obviously not if you're on facebook.

[Sheff]

yeah that really annoys me too. you cant be having that much of a good time if you're on your phone writing status and replying to everything all night

i think when people are a bit too obsessed with it, it can become a problem..
like last week, went out with a few mates, went out shopping with them and this bird, then on the way home we drop off one of our mates at his cousins house, he invites us in for a few drinks,
and for all that time my mate just sat on his phone on facebook the whole time, and he's completely obvlivious to the fact that we've been at this random guys house, who nobody else knows, for like 2 hours whilst he just sits on his phone the whole time.
it got to the point where it was really obvious we had overstayed our welcome and the rest of us were pissed off and he just didnt have a clue. so frustrating..

but im not saying facebook is a problem, with like 99% of my friends being on it, it makes it alot easier if i need to get in touch without spending any credit, i even have free internet on my phone.
and seeing as most smartphones have push notifications its just as easy as sending a text for free

[horsefeather]

i get pissed off and go away to someone more interesting when a friend is on facebook to check in on foursquare or sitting on facebook posting stuff, technology did get abit to far in my opinion.

[cityzen]

not any wars that are fought in our country or world wars, no great depression or anything like that haha

THERE IS STILL TIME FOR THAT, SUNSHINE!

[firky]

God bless the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011rbws



Episode 2 - The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts

The story of how our modern scientific idea of nature, the self-regulating ecosystem, is actually a machine fantasy. It has little to do with the real complexity of nature. It is based on cybernetic ideas that were projected on to nature in the 1950s by ambitious scientists. A static machine theory of order that sees humans, and everything else on the planet, as components - cogs - in a system.

A series of films exploring the idea that we have been colonised by the machines we have built. Although we don't realise it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers.

This is the story of how our modern scientific idea of nature, the self-regulating ecosystem, is actually a machine fantasy. It has little to do with the real complexity of nature. It is based on cybernetic ideas that were projected on to nature in the 1950s by ambitious scientists. A static machine theory of order that sees humans, and everything else on the planet, as components - cogs - in a system.

But in an age disillusioned with politics, the self-regulating ecosystem has become the model for utopian ideas of human 'self-organizing networks' - dreams of new ways of organising societies without leaders, as in the Facebook and Twitter revolutions, and in global visions of connectivity like the Gaia theory.

This powerful idea emerged out of the hippie communes in America in the 1960s, and from counterculture computer scientists who believed that global webs of computers could liberate the world.

But, at the very moment this was happening, the science of ecology discovered that the theory of the self-regulating ecosystem wasn't true. Instead they found that nature was really dynamic and constantly changing in unpredictable ways. But the dream of the self-organizing network had by now captured our imaginations - because it offered an alternative to the dangerous and discredited ideas of politics.

[esfandyar]

Good interview with John Zerzan here with an anti-technology/primitivist perspective:

http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/inter ... 325459-all

[budsteq]

And yet we are all currently sitting on our laptops talking about this on an internet forum

I'd love to have a drink with you lot at a pub.

This. Some intelligent people on this forum.

It'd be fun to sit and watch you guys all argue irl ahahaha. Especially after a few.

I use the computer alot but that's party 'cause I'm too broke to go out and have a decent time at the moment lol.

[kay]

I hate it when people rock on to my house unannounced. I might be doing something (and probably am, even it it might be having a wank) and I'd have to feel obliged to let them in and interrupt whatever I'm doing.

Few (none?) of my mates are on Facebook constantly. Most hardly even use it. Doesn't really stop us from not communicating So lets turn the question on its head: With so much technology to communicate around us, why do so few of us actually use it to communicate and converse? Bearing in mind that:
- Constant Facebook updates don't count as communication. At best they're attention-seeking signs. Communications has to be 2-way at the very least.
- Issueing edicts, judgements and proclamations aren't communications or conversations. That's just opinionated loudmouths shouting things at you.

[test_recordings]

Good interview with John Zerzan here with an anti-technology/primitivist perspective:

http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/inter ... 325459-all

That guy's got the whole thing on lock, as he mentions there's not often sensible debates to alternatives to the current 'technology will save the world' paradigm even though technology caused it in the first place...

To take feeding populations:
- 'Wild' ecosystems support more life than controlled ones. E.g. North American prairies pre-European colonisation supported more calories and nutrients in organic matter per acre than now with modern 'efficient farming'
- The first animals to be domesticated were dogs and other non-game animals since domestication of game was actually inefficient because it costs less to hunt an animal when you need it compared to maintaining stock yourself

So why not just disband segregated agriculture? Uncontrolled ecosystems are far more enriched with life than ones controlled by humans so it'd be actually more efficient not to manage agriculture. Though we'd have less controlled choice we'd have better quality food and more of it?

[Neptune]

At first I resisted getting Facebook because I thought it was for old people. The only reason I got Facebook was for facebook chat. I use it all the time. Chatting away...

[say_whut]

I never just went round to someone's house to see if they were in, I'd always phone first. (allow a wasted journey)

I don't think facebook has really socially affected me in a bad way. In fact, if I wanna see my friends, I just write on their wall saying I'm coming over.

ALTHOUGH, saying that, my housemates are ADDICTED to facebook. Like really badly. They'll be in the same room and talk to each other on facebook. It disgusts me. Oh, and when people write statuses on nights out. Eeeeeeeeeeewwwww no no and just no. "OMG I'M HAVING SUCH A GREAT TIME" obviously not if you're on facebook.

I don't know about all you guys, but the "night after" news feed is filled with this tripe:

omgg dyingggg!! MaccyDz should def do deliveriess!<3xx
Never again. Never. I am going to stay in bed all day.
I'm on it tonight BOOM.
Can't wait till work is over, so I can get ON IT AGAIN

fuck it is THE SAME SHIT. ALL. THE. DAMN. TIME.

Facebook, I find, is only good for reading statuses about novel situations with a humorous slant. People either bitch, make some grandiose yet hollow statement or just post menial random shit.