I've Fallen Out of Love With Technology

[Marenco]

I've Fallen Out of Love With Technology

I’ve been writing about the technology industry for much of this decade, and now I have an awkward admission: I've fallen out of love with technology.

I've never been a gadget nerd, but I also remember vividly the first time I tried the original iPod and YouTube and wondered why these magical things hadn't existed before. And when I moved to the Bay Area about six years ago as a technology journalist, I was struck by the feeling that this was the only remaining American industry not experiencing an existential crisis. Tech folks tend to be optimistic about what they do and the future in general, and that feeling was contagious.

Now, though, I'm not so sure. This has been a year of reckoning with the extreme downsides of technology. The same qualities that made the internet and tech so thrilling for a couple of decades — eliminating gatekeepers, making information instantaneous and connecting people with different points of view — now sometimes seem more threatening than alluring.

My personal habits have changed in response. Lately, I've tried to avoid going on social media in the evenings because there’s so much anger and it makes me anxious. And when I'm walking, cycling and driving, my phone stays in my pocket 100 percent of the time. There's also zero chance I'm going to buy one of those voice-activated speakers from Amazon or other tech companies. Too creepy. My loss of faith hasn't spread widely, but I fear the rethinking of technology's great promise is only beginning.

By now, the complaints about technology are familiar: The internet in 2010 seemed like an amazing place where a teenager with a rare illness, for example, might feel validated and connected to others like her thousands of miles away. That's still true, but now we are seeing those same qualities unite people with dangerous conspiracy theories and spread violent propaganda.

The downsides aren't confined to social media, which has been in the eye of the storm recently. People are talking about the pernicious effects of personal information concentrated in the hands of a few companies, about robots taking human jobs and about technology addiction.

Ten years after the release of the first iPhone, we're over the initial wonder of it all and are beginning to grapple with how smartphones affect our communities, our personal safety and basic human interaction. One example: I was gobsmacked by a recent NPR piece about schools that are teaching smartphone-addicted young people how to have loving relationships IRL (that's “in real life” to analog readers), and coaching them to ask people out on dates face-to-face. Then there's iGen, a generation of young people who have grown up with smartphones and are on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades, according to the Atlantic.

If more people begin to focus on the drawbacks of technology, it could have lasting consequences for the economy and for tech companies’ bottom lines. Emerging trends, including self-driving cars and digitizing health care, could be a boon to our country, but they require the trust of governments and citizens that these innovations will help more than they hurt. That trust might be in short supply in coming years.

It’s true that the tech industry is no stranger to skepticism about the harmful effects of their products or the irresponsibility of the people and companies behind it. Just a few years ago, leaks from Edward Snowden detailed how U.S. intelligence agencies use or abuse personal information from technology companies. I thought that would spark a sustained cri de coeur about tech companies as powerful puppet masters of personal information, but the outrage didn't last.

This time feels different. When the unlikely trio of early Facebook backer Sean Parker, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and European bureaucrats are all talking about the harmful effects of technology or big tech companies, that is a sign of the times. Think about how much hot water the big tech companies have been in this year — and that's when they are well liked by most Americans. If more people fall out of love with technology like me, it's going to get even uglier.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/artic...ith-technology

[DamianTV]

The one thing I can not stand about technology is how it is being used more than anything else.

It isnt about connecting people, it is about monitoring, surveillance, tracking, manipulating, extorting, down to flat out full on $#@!ing lying. The way it is being used isnt making life any easier, its making life a $#@!ing thousand times harder. Oh here please put this bluetooth lock on my front door where the phone drops the connection every time you try to get in and you still end up needing a goddamn key. But, it can be easily hacked and your security camera immediately disabled (Amazon Key, Im looking at you) and youre robbed blind. Thanks technology. Go $#@! yourself and go throw your own mispurposed ass in the woods since you want to do everything for me, and please, let the door hit you on the way out with the knob going right where the sun dont shine.

Technology IS SOMA. And this IS 1984.

[CaptUSA]

The one thing I can not stand about technology is how it is being used more than anything else.

This. Technology is a tool. You don't blame the tool for the ways idiots will use it. Do we blame guns for the damage done, or the people wielding them?

[VIDEODROME]

It's partly the tool, designed by idiots.

I often think Facebook would be a much better tool without the Timeline Status posts where everyone broadcasts to everyone. I see posts that have nothing to do with me like one Friend who shared something to another Friend, so why am I'm notified of something between two other people?

The main problem actually comes from people being brought to close together. Yes humans are social, but also need their space. Mark Zuckerberg is either really naive about this or doesn't care, or perhaps is to convinced he needs to bring all people closer together thinking it will create a more peaceful world community. I don't think human beings quite work like that and he seems like a jackass sometimes.

[angelatc]

The one thing I can not stand about technology is how it is being used more than anything else.

It isnt about connecting people, it is about monitoring, surveillance, tracking, manipulating, extorting, down to flat out full on $#@!ing lying.

So, it's same stuff, different tools.

Not sure how old you are but it is absolutely reconnecting people.

[Anti Federalist]

This. Technology is a tool. You don't blame the tool for the ways idiots will use it. Do we blame guns for the damage done, or the people wielding them?

That analogy does not fly with me.

Apples and bowling balls.

A gun is passive, it will do nothing but rust if left to itself.

This technology surveillance grid has taken on a life of it's own, AI systems, just over the horizon, will literally have a life of their own.

These systems interact with the world, of their own volition, they work in the background at levels thousands of times greater than the smartest, fastest human mind can possibly work, to collate, sift, sort, fold, spindle and mutilate the human psyche and soul and render it up in a thousand pieces to a thousand unknown masters, all with the express purpose of monitoring, tracking and controlling us.

A gun is a shovel is a hammer is a wrench.

This, this technological nightmare we've created, is something many levels above that.

[Anti Federalist]

It's partly the tool, designed by idiots.

I often think Facebook would be a much better tool without the Timeline Status posts where everyone broadcasts to everyone. I see posts that have nothing to do with me like one Friend who shared something to another Friend, so why am I'm notified of something between two other people?

The main problem actually comes from people being brought to close together. Yes humans are social, but also need their space. Mark Zuckerberg is either really naive about this or doesn't care, or perhaps is to convinced he needs to bring all people closer together thinking it will create a more peaceful world community. I don't think human beings quite work like that and he seems like a jackass sometimes.

FedBook is only one tiny part of this nightmare.

Easy to avoid, for the time being anyway...don't ever use it, don't ever make an account, don't ever post to it.

[Anti Federalist]

The one thing I can not stand about technology is how it is being used more than anything else.

It isnt about connecting people, it is about monitoring, surveillance, tracking, manipulating, extorting, down to flat out full on $#@!ing lying. The way it is being used isnt making life any easier, its making life a $#@!ing thousand times harder. Oh here please put this bluetooth lock on my front door where the phone drops the connection every time you try to get in and you still end up needing a goddamn key. But, it can be easily hacked and your security camera immediately disabled (Amazon Key, Im looking at you) and youre robbed blind. Thanks technology. Go $#@! yourself and go throw your own mispurposed ass in the woods since you want to do everything for me, and please, let the door hit you on the way out with the knob going right where the sun dont shine.

Technology IS SOMA. And this IS 1984.

[specsaregood]

FedBook is only one tiny part of this nightmare.

Easy to avoid, for the time being anyway...don't ever use it, don't ever make an account, don't ever post to it.

Doesn't matter. If anybody you know takes a picture of you and tags your name to it, you still go in their private global facial identification database. Available for purchase no doubt. No way to opt out as far as I can tell.

[Anti Federalist]

Doesn't matter. If anybody you know takes a picture of you and tags your name to it, you still go in their private global facial identification database. Available for purchase no doubt. No way to opt out as far as I can tell.

That's why I have made it clear to friends and family that I will break their legs if they post any pictures of me or mine on FedBook.

Just kidding.

Maybe.

[Anti Federalist]

Doesn't matter. If anybody you know takes a picture of you and tags your name to it, you still go in their private global facial identification database. Available for purchase no doubt. No way to opt out as far as I can tell.

This makes my point though.

If I aimed my gun at you once, for whatever reason, my gun is not then going to link up with every other gun in the world, and using "smart" technologies, seek you, personally, out and shoot you.

[angelatc]

Doesn't matter. If anybody you know takes a picture of you and tags your name to it, you still go in their private global facial identification database. Available for purchase no doubt. No way to opt out as far as I can tell.

You can go into your settings and turn off the ability to tag you in photos. http://techotv.com/how-to-turn-off-p...s-on-facebook/

The same link also shows instructions about how to remove tags.

[specsaregood]

You can go into your settings and turn off the ability to tag you in photos. http://techotv.com/how-to-turn-off-p...s-on-facebook/

but you have to have an account there linked to your real identity in order to do so. Also just because they can't "tag" you doesn't mean the name identifier isn't going into their global private database for facial recognition.

[angelatc]

but you have to have an account there linked to your real identity in order to do so. Also just because they can't "tag" you doesn't mean the name identifier isn't going into their global private database for facial recognition.

Drivers license photos would be easier to index.

[specsaregood]

Drivers license photos would be easier to index.

But do private companies have access to those? As it is, anybody that knows you could be uploading photos of you and your family, tagging them with names for their facial identification software and selling access to that to anybody that wants it.

I'm sorry if I don't want my kid walking through the mall and every shop greeting him by name and tailoring ads to him.

[angelatc]

But do private companies have access to those? As it is, anybody that knows you could be uploading photos of you and your family, tagging them with names for their facial identification software and selling access to that to anybody that wants it.

I'm sorry if I don't want my kid walking through the mall and every shop greeting him by name and tailoring ads to him.

I'm more concerned with the government tracking than I am being tracked for commercial purposes.

[specsaregood]

I'm more concerned with the government tracking than I am being tracked for commercial purposes.

One doesn't have to like either one. And facebook is free to sell their info to governments too.

[DamianTV]

So, it's same stuff, different tools.

Not sure how old you are but it is absolutely reconnecting people.

I cant deny that it does connect people, but it does connect people within its Panopticon and Walled Garden.

---

I'm more concerned with the government tracking than I am being tracked for commercial purposes.

Consequences for both are different, but there are still consequences.

- Govt Surveillance: Violation of 4th Amendment Rights. Get a warrant or probable cause.
- Corporate Surveillance: Manipulation and Extortion.

The difference between right and wrong is subjective.

For govt surveillance, and blatant violations of the 4th, an average citizen can be condemned and turned into a criminal by the flip of a pen. Remember, the average person unknowingly commits 3 felonies per day. Consequences start off with fines. Then imprisonment. Truly tho, the purpose of surveillance is to crush organized public dissent against the status quo.

For corporate surveillance, their goals are profits by any possible means. Now, there are honest ways to make money as a business, and dishonest ways to make money. Honest way would be to sell a legit product or service. Dishonest is to charge an individual more without providing additional product or service. Companies now have a financial incentive to subjectively find "things that are wrong". What? Youre a Libertarian? (or Republican / Democrat / Socialist / Buddhist / whatever) We're sorry but our policy clearly states that if you are a known <insert divisional term here> so we need to charge you five times as much for that apple / banana / iPhone / car / toilet paper. That is where surveillance comes into play. They use the data they get from surveillance (even if it is not them doing the surveillance *cough* google) to raise prices for as many people as possible.

I think a good example is those Spy Devices from Auto Insurance. They claim they will save you money. But that money has to come from somewhere. What those spy devices are doing is nothing short of enabling excuses to drive up everyones prices. They are NOT there to lower your costs, but to validate excuses to charge you more without providing any additional coverage.

Those are two major ways that a person can be directly harmed by surveillance. Basically, one is direct and devastating. The other is far more subtle but far more pervasive as those consequences are cumulative. Chinese call it "death by a thousand paper cuts".