Life is Digital
SmoodCroozn
Join Date: 2003-11-04 Member: 22310Members
Join Date: 2003-11-04 Member: 22310Members
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">but what are we losing?</div>I've been hardcore gaming since 6th grade when my friend let me borrow Starcraft for 2 days for 2 packs of snacks. Well hardcore as in just sitting on the pc for long periods of time, not "training" at games for perfection.
Then once I went online, it's been going everywhere. CS, NS, um, Guild Wars, yea.
Some guy said in the future, life will be represented in the 1950s. And the more I see it, the more it's true.
I thought it was convenient, but then you lose your attention to other things.
We race each other for the latest parts on our computer...
Games are a medium built on other purposes such as subliminal messages, competitions. We can play shooters and rpgs online, but not many play the essence of the game, or a board game.
I guess I'm overwhelmed now where it's leading. I could list the obvious stuff like people getting violent, no excercise, whatever, but I don't care about that. It's just that computers and all this digital stuff is becoming so intertwined with life, computers at home, laptops wherever, ipods in your pocket, sidekicks to talk with...
It's hard to just call a friend to play some ball, when they could be blasting some terrorist online.
I was kind of going about somewhere in my offtopic thread, but this one should be serious. I have a general idea, but I can't find the exact words for it.
Then once I went online, it's been going everywhere. CS, NS, um, Guild Wars, yea.
Some guy said in the future, life will be represented in the 1950s. And the more I see it, the more it's true.
I thought it was convenient, but then you lose your attention to other things.
We race each other for the latest parts on our computer...
Games are a medium built on other purposes such as subliminal messages, competitions. We can play shooters and rpgs online, but not many play the essence of the game, or a board game.
I guess I'm overwhelmed now where it's leading. I could list the obvious stuff like people getting violent, no excercise, whatever, but I don't care about that. It's just that computers and all this digital stuff is becoming so intertwined with life, computers at home, laptops wherever, ipods in your pocket, sidekicks to talk with...
It's hard to just call a friend to play some ball, when they could be blasting some terrorist online.
I was kind of going about somewhere in my offtopic thread, but this one should be serious. I have a general idea, but I can't find the exact words for it.
Comments
It's a frigging scary era... never before was the future less unsure. Never before has any change in the world stretched the boundaries of our current systems so strongly. Economy and law are being violently twisted and squeezed. Potentially there is alot of positives to what is now happening, but I'm sure there will be some serious growing pains along the way as well.
I believe as kids we are inclined to look for fun. To learn I could say.
Then as reality hits us harder each day, the PC totally changes everything. Our imagination becomes almost real.
But as people of older generations would revert to reality, we would stay in these virtual worlds... to the point where life itself becomes... boring.
To illustrate, a lot of people in my class are bored with the teacher, myself included. I think it's because I'm on a virtual "high" on my PC that listening to a teacher talk does not captivate me. We have kids on their sidekick phones, texting others in class. We have ipods listened to...
I guess what I want are the simple days. It seems today we have a consumerist society, going after the next big product. Technology of course has it's benefits such as in the fields of medicine and science, but... I can't help but feel that we are more out of touch with others, than with our possessions. Time magazine did an article where I believe 2/3 of American do not socialize as they did in the past decades.
So... I went to my friend's house yesterday. His brother and he were on the pc playing WoW. I asked them to play some cards. They refused, but eventually said okay. But when they were playing, they were hesitant and rash. They wanted to get the game "over with", so they could get back to WoW.
Regular games just don't gather interest as they used to.
It's hard to just call a friend to play some ball, when they could be blasting some terrorist online.
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That's when you have to look at the psychological side of a person, their state of mind and lifestyle. I can happily blast some terrorists online but equally I'd love to go out and play football with mates. It's about finding a balance.
This topic also intertwines a bit with obesity as people are choosing digital games etc. over exercise. It's about how parents bring up children and how media advertises to what people will miss out on, hopefully everyone learns to stabalise a balance between a digital life and a real life.
real life is so much more rewarding than a bunch of pixels or a text-based relationship with a person thats 5000km away from you
We would and we do... <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=meatspace" target="_blank">meatspace</a> is a bothersome, dreary place for lots of internet addicts already. The more we as a society become enmeshed with "the web", the less appeal meatspace activities will offer (especially to the imaginative, technically literate, and socially inadequate). Or maybe cyberspace will forever be the domain of shy, introverted, geek types, and "normal people" will never get tangled in the web like we have?
<!--quoteo(post=1638724:date=Jul 13 2007, 01:10 AM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swiftspear @ Jul 13 2007, 01:10 AM) [snapback]1638724[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Potentially there is alot of positives to what is now happening, but I'm sure there will be some serious growing pains along the way as well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm glad about what is happening but not because of the "progress" being made; I'm glad because as our technological system becomes more intricate it also becomes more prone to disastrous and irreparable collapse.
I'm privately hoping that "the system" becomes so thoroughly convoluted that it becomes unstable.
I'm hoping our dependence on it becomes such that as new generations are born into it, they <i>know</i> only it, and in the event of its malfunction, civilization will have no option but to descend to barbarism; anarchy; peasant agriculture and hunthing and gathering. I'm crossing my fingers that this happens in my lifetime.
<!--quoteo(post=1638932:date=Jul 14 2007, 05:57 PM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Jul 14 2007, 05:57 PM) [snapback]1638932[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I guess what I want are the simple days. . . . I can't help but feel that we are more out of touch with others, than with our possessions. Time magazine did an article where I believe 2/3 of American do not socialize as they did in the past decades.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is a nasty taboo, but I don't wish this out of malice.. If "the terrorists" manage to destroy a part of the system that achieves a critical-mass ignition and resulting domino effect of complete technological disintegration, and the downfall of modern technological society into anarchism and primitivism, I could not be happier.
I want this to happen because I, like you, secretly yearn for "the simple days." I believe humans evolved in the natural world and our temperaments are best suited to that environment, not the increasingly fabricated and unnatural one that the technological society has placed us in. The ever increasing rates of crime and psychiatric health issues are the result of confining the human animal in modern society; they are a symptom of technological society's failures. They are not man's fault but the fault of man's attempt to control the circumstances of his existence, to create his natural environment instead of letting nature do it for him.
I'll never forget what I felt when I got news of the 9/11 attacks: at first a reactionary anger over innocent deaths, but this subsided soon. Immediately after this I felt excitement, a rush. I felt like something truly interesting was happening for the first time in my life, that the monotonous doldrums of the day-to-day had truly given way to a time of change. As the day progressed I grew upset over how little chaos had actually resulted and hoped more destruction would occur. I don't support Islamicism or any religion, but I don't care how the change comes, only that it does.
I predicted this response and it is my fault for not clarifying. I may have some abject latent revolutionary urge that is stimulated by mindless chaos, but it's not the actual action, excitement, destruction and so on and so forth that I crave. It is freedom and autonomy as only non-civilization can offer.
I do not want life-threatening action and adventure for thrill, I do not want it at all. It is a means to an end, and if a dissolution of the technological system and a return to primitive humanity is to occur such destruction is a necessary component.
My ideal existence is identical to that of Peter Gibbons'
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Peter Gibbons: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Lawrence: I'll tell you what I'd do, man: two chicks at the same time, man.
Peter Gibbons: That's it? If you had a million dollars, you'd do two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I were a millionaire I could hook that up, too; 'cause chicks dig dudes with money.
Peter Gibbons: Well, not all chicks.
Lawrence: Well, the type of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do.
Peter Gibbons: Good point.
Lawrence: Well, what about you now? what would you do?
Peter Gibbons: Besides two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Well, yeah.
Peter Gibbons: Nothing.
Lawrence: Nothing, huh?
Peter Gibbons: I would relax... I would sit on my ass all day... I would do nothing. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Destruction, by it's very nature, is not constructive. I loved Fight Club, but you can't make things better by destroying them.
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Necessity is the mother of invention, and humanity throughout history has only shown true unification through adversity. There are several schools of thought that would debate the view that destruction cannot result in betterment, lolf. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
For better or worse, it's certainly one the current US administration understands.
Can you name some of those schools of thought so I could look into them myself, perhaps? There are the Amish, but they don't advocate destruction. The Luddites, though, destroyed textile machines. But I'm not sure destruction of textile machines would improve anything.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and humanity throughout history has only shown true unification through adversity. There are several schools of thought that would debate the view that destruction cannot result in betterment, lolf. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
For better or worse, it's certainly one the current US administration understands.
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Meh, the problem with use of force is that you need to constantly apply it or it will not have any effect on certain people. Or you could just used a huge amount of force, but this is usually not seen in a positive light by other people. Especially by those you dont know the full picture and just see the application of force.
I remember one incident in school quite well. A random kid came towards me and started pushing and shouting at me out of nowhere. So I simply grabbed his arm, threw him on the ground put my knee in his back and gave him a minute to think about why he did that. After that I asked him if he has cooled and then I let him go. He got up and was 10 seconds later back on the ground because he started pushing again. It was so strange. This whole procedure repeated about 4-5 times until I just hit him.
He never had a chance, yet he came again for more and more because I tried to solve this with the least amount of force possible but failed. Only a more violent force application stopped him. Sure, I could have kept him down as long as I wanted, but it did not help me. So in this case destruction or violence was indeed the best possible solution for me.
And uh... where are we going with this anyway? What are we arguing about? Whether you can argue with people or whether force is the only language they understand? Whether we should tear it all down in the hopes of building some sort of utopian "back to nature" society? What direction is this discussion going in?
lol.. I think all of us are branching off in our own direction, going nowhere (yay internet).
My hope is to abandon the "building" of society entirely. There is no elaborate scheme, no envisioned utopia; central to this idea is that there are no hopes or goals at all. Only the re embodiment of the <b>noble savage</b> in the wake of modern society's demise.
<!--quoteo(post=1639164:date=Jul 16 2007, 09:40 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lolfighter @ Jul 16 2007, 09:40 AM) [snapback]1639164[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Destruction, by it's very nature, is not constructive. I loved Fight Club, but you can't make things better by destroying them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Fight Club was cute, but I can't cite it as an actual inspiration or motivation for the things I said above.
For those who've seen the movie, you may remember an important scene towards the latter half. You may also not have never noticed it, as it is a scene unto itself, unconnected to the context directly before and after it. In it Tyler says what is in effect the mission statement he never explicitly gave anywhere else in the movie (a similar quote can be found in the book)<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In the world I see -- you're stalking elk through
the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center.
You will wear leather clothes that last you the rest of your
life. You will climb the wrist- thick kudzu vines that wrap
the Sears Tower. You will see tiny figures pounding corn and
laying-strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of the
ruins of a superhighway. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is what I want.
What is 'constructive' and 'better' is subjective. The obvious disadvantages of surrendering technological society, like the lack of medical care, are acknowledged and accepted stoically.
<!--quoteo(post=1639171:date=Jul 16 2007, 10:35 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lolfighter @ Jul 16 2007, 10:35 AM) [snapback]1639171[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Can you name some of those schools of thought so I could look into them myself, perhaps? There are the Amish, but they don't advocate destruction. The Luddites, though, destroyed textile machines. But I'm not sure destruction of textile machines would improve anything.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To understand my viewpoint you're really going to have to shift your conception of what constitutes an improvement. I could rehash the trite complaints: dehumanizing commutes, working in an 8x10 cubicle, dreary overcrowded urban slums, and so on. All of these things are implicated, and when the industrial/technologic society which depends on them is destroyed, our lives will take on their original character and that is an improvement. That is better. That is constructive.
Anarcho-primitivism is one label, though I would never proclaim myself to be an "Anarcho-primitivist," the term does embody all of the motivations and beliefs that I discussed above.
Jacques Ellul, a French sociologist and philosopher of the 60s, is one of the most recognized and original thinkers in this area. His book "The Technological Society" (1967), which I will not summarize here, is essential reading.
And there is my personal favorite, and this is where you're going to find some serious advocation of destruction:
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Unabomber-sketch.png" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
"Industrial Society and its Future"
Anyway, I see you caught my intentions perfectly when I mentioned Fight Club. I was indeed referring to THAT specific scene, and of course what comes after that. But erasing centuries of industrialism through violence won't wean mankind off technology. We would immediately turn to rebuilding the comfortable life that we lost. Anarcho-primitivism (which I think is an excellent term) is a pipe dream. Destroying modern society would not change our path, only set us back. If you want real change, it needs to be accomplished through gentler means.
The noble savage is a pleasant dream. There needs to be room for dreams, and with sufficient desire and motivation they can be acted out. This weekend, I went back in time. My old hometown, Flensburg, had their steam fair (they do this every other year). I spent friday, saturday, sunday on a small boat with a steam engine sailing back and forth on the fjord, just talking and enjoying life. Our boat was driven by a simple yet intricate machine, the people of this <i>milieu</i> are outgoing and friendly (and don't call you "omg n00b" if you don't happen to intuitively know everything there is to know about their chosen field - quite to the contrary, they love answering questions about their machines), the sky was blue and the sea was green and the smoke was black as were our hands and faces. It was a vacation, really.
Act out your dreams. You don't need to destroy modern society, you just need to get away from it. Go hiking, go canoeing, go sailing (you'll never sleep better than after a day of riding the wind), do what you fancy. Just get away from it all for a while and it doesn't seem so oppressive anymore.
And if you can't take it anymore, what is to stop you from leaving? You don't need society's permission to leave. You don't need to take everything and everyone with you. The Amish set the example: They choose to live a different life, and no-one prevents them from doing so.
But destruction is no solution. If you tear down the walls, you just force us to rebuild them. If you don't like the road we're taking, you have to coax us off it. A broken driveshaft will only delay us.
For each piece of technology, we evaluate it carefully before bringing it into our lives. If it brings us closer together, we incorporate it. If it drives us further apart, we do without.
One of the examples given was this:
By having a phone in your home you are giving anyone in the world the right to interrupt you and your family at any time they please.
I'm never going to be as conservative in that way. I earn my living programming for a company that exists only because of the internet, but I try to apply it to a lot of things in my life.
I don't watch TV because I don't think it is enriching enough to warrant how much it would keep me by myself. I don't have an Ipod because when I'm out and about I'd rather hear the world, and when I'm on a plane I'd rather my neighbor feel free to talk to me. I'm very selective in what games I play and I try to avoid "killing time" as much as possible. I try to spend a lot of time outdoors and seize every opportunity I get to be social and physical (frisbee and the like.)
The internet is addictive, and it is hard to avoid spending a lot of time on it. I have trouble remembering what other things I have available to do, because there's always more to look at online. One thing that helps I think is having somewhere else to regularly sit other than at your computer. That helps me to have some time alone with my thoughts, and to pick up other things I want to read or do.
Act out your dreams. You don't need to destroy modern society, you just need to get away from it. Go hiking, go canoeing, go sailing (you'll never sleep better than after a day of riding the wind), do what you fancy. Just get away from it all for a while and it doesn't seem so oppressive anymore.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A thoughtful response that displays more wisdom and maturity than I can attest to having. When I consider these thoughts rationally and at length I usually come to a similar conclusion. But I cling to what I admit is a pipe dream as an amulet to allay my malcontented disgust with modern life; I cling to this pipe dream of a world worth living in, one that lies <!--coloro:#66FFFF--><span style="color:#66FFFF"><!--/coloro-->over the<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> smog-clouded <!--coloro:#66FFFF--><span style="color:#66FFFF"><!--/coloro-->rainbow <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->of the real, industrial world.
Realistically I have no idea what 'Storming of the Bastille' event could precipitate a return to the primitive, anarchic, natural lifestyle of our distant ancestors, but it's very clear that destruction is the only hope that can bring this change, not gentle nudges or a slight change in the road we're taking.
Other thinkers have given answers to the obvious questions. "Why not create this life for yourself and not drag the unwilling with you?" Firstly because they will inevitably be negatively affected by modern society, whether directly (usurping land, building nearby) or indirectly (weather impacts, environmental pollution and tampering, genetically altered plant and animal intrusion). Secondly because, while no one is stopping individuals or groups from living this way, this lofty ideal is contingent on destroying any institution that may at any time exert authority over an individual.
"Humanity will continue to progress its technology and this would be but a bump in the road." Consider two types of technology, organization-dependent and small-scale. Most all modern technology is organization-dependent: it requires obscure raw materials to be refined and shipped to various processing facilities, constant maintenance by esoterically-trained personnel, and its progress depends on the combined efforts of separate, insular research fields. Small-scale technology, that which a man or small group can produce themselves, even given infinite time, cannot progress to modern equivalents. (The reason we don't want "modern technological progress" is not because of any abstract, philosophic disagreement with the many benefits and conveniences it procures. It is because "modern technological progress" requires human beings to sustain the many organizations it needs to survive, and our humanity is entirely lost in this process: "living for the machine instead of vice-versa".)
There are a lot of problems that follow new technology, and we have to go through a lot of trial and error with everything new. The worst part is when this affects parts of nature we can't change back, like species going extinct, ecosystems broken and larger changes. The knowledge and technological advances are usually ok, except for we can't control how consumer, businesses and governments worldwide will apply and overuse them.
I very much admire the idea going primitive, but it also means the loss of modern medicine and nutrition, which means a lot of hard work to stay alive just to reach the potential age of 30.
What we could gain a lot from would be to minimize consumption of unneeded goods and luxuries, living as simply as possible but with modern tools and knowledge at our disposal. If we all tried to live simple, the populace world-wide could share a common standard of life. So nice it will never happen.
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/" target="_blank">Logan's Run</a> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> If you take up all the time of your life you spend sitting in a classroom you don't want to be in, so that you may get a job you don't really want to work at, and the time driving in traffic to get to and from these places, and the time spent swimming through red tape so that you may have moments of "rest", you probably have less than 30 years of living <b>real life</b> anyway. I would rather die at 22 than live to 80 in these circumstances. I know this all sounds banal but,,
<!--quoteo(post=1639932:date=Jul 20 2007, 08:37 PM:name=Kassinger)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Kassinger @ Jul 20 2007, 08:37 PM) [snapback]1639932[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If we all tried to live simple, the populace world-wide could share a common standard of life. So nice it will never happen.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I lust for destruction because I fully realize that this dream is not compatible with human nature. Someone else, who is much smarter than me, realized the same thing, and put it down on paper <a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Future#Technology_Is_A_More_Powerful_Social_Force_Than_The_Aspiration_For_Freedom" target="_blank">quite well</a>.
Except those 22 years will be spent scavenging for food and clothes and finding a place to stay warm in winter. Instead of 80 years of chores interspersed with free time you'll have 22 years of chores interspersed with free time. Life was never sugary-sweet.
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Remember at the end of Brave New World when the savage had gathered what rudimentary tools he needed to sustain himself and then left society? I'll never forget reading the paragraphs that explained him crafting an arrow.
The fulfillment and joy of full autonomy is something none of us can even comprehend, save slight tastes of it on camping trips or hikes (that are bogged down by the reality of the work week right around the corner, pre-made guide trails, the sound of airplanes overhead, and on and on and on). Working for oneself, freely, for one's own chosen goals, are really not comparable in any fashion to the way we work for ourselves in our modern world.
Lets compare:
Job opportunities: Scavange for food and water, chase and kill things with primitive tools vs. Almost anything if you're persistent, but even the lowliest job gives lots of spare time and pretty good security.
Food: Small assortment of local plants, fish, creepy crawly things, mushrooms and meat, easier to contract intestinal parasites vs. Almost anything from all over the world, though not always terribly fresh, better cooking methods.
Life span: couple of decades at most vs. unknown upper bound, take care of yourself and 80+ with good health is likely.
Entertainment: Constructing things out of primitive materials? Eating psychoactive mushrooms and painting cave walls? vs. abillity to earn spare cash that can be used to pull on the expertise and labour of others to try and make any invention of your own within limits of cost and currently available expertise. Abillity to experience what is generally reconned to be the finest art, music, humour, stories and experiences of mankind. Abillity to find a group of people sharing any of your interests no matter how creepy or uncommon. Abillity to create and share ideas with countless others who provide useful feedback. Etc.
<!--quoteo(post=1640030:date=Jul 21 2007, 12:03 PM:name=ubermensch)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ubermensch @ Jul 21 2007, 12:03 PM) [snapback]1640030[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Working for oneself, freely, for one's own chosen goals, are really not comparable in any fashion to the way we work for ourselves in our modern world.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Neo-caveman-ism vastly underestimates the degree to which you would be a slave to your digestive system living as a hunter-gatherer. What goals could you possibly have as a caveman that you cannot accomplish with the enormous free flow of information, abillity to pull on the expertise and help of others and extraordinary abillity to find likeminded groups of people, no matter how creepy or uncommon the shared interest?
As far as destruction vs construction, I tend to find great comfort in all the natural contradictions we see out there. So, yes, destruction is by definition the opposite of construction, the anti-matter to construction's matter. But in combination, these two can improve a situation as far as those involved are concerned. The same as hot water and cold water can be applied to create a better shower.
But, I'd have to agree with lolfighter otherwise. Short of the whole world blowing up, humanity will continue its climb to master of this world. It's in our physical nature, and what I tend to believe is that our will to survive, provided by nature, will conquer what it can't control. We can no more deny the path that lay before us than deny the sacrifices of our past. We will continue until this world finds us unfit to do so, and then we'll finally see an end to our evils.
It's one of the reasons that I hope to God that heaven is oblivion. When I'm done, I don't even want to think anymore.