A reminder to take our face out of our screens occasionally.

[Green Baron]

I browsed through the opinions here and would like to add something about my view:

I wasn't generalizing the behaviour of a generation (though i see more younger folks adhering to the screens than elder) but i do question the quality of information in the social networks. And i do not know whether all that "information" is actually improving our personal knowledge or narrowing it because we like to see things we already know. It's easier to nod than to think, which might lead to generalized views and ready made opinions, as an automatic outcome. The ability to reflect might get suppressed.

As an example i put alien megatsructures, faster than light particles, most probably the reactionless drive.

When searching information on subjects i know of i because i have studied them or they are a hobby of mine i am mainly presented with really silly and stupid things that call themselves scientific, mainly from magazines and news pages, and in the past 10 years this has become a real nuisance, wikipedia as well.

It gets ever more difficult to separate the useless stuff from the real information. Might be a generation problem, though :-)

 

[Talavar]

15 hours ago, Green Baron said:

 "Might be a generation problem, though"

 The average article today is generally an opinion piece passed off as fact. At least that's what it seems to me. You definitely are looking in the right direction.. as far as I'm concerned anyway.

[Camacha]

On 29/11/2016 at 1:43 AM, Bill Phil said:

 Quite comparable.

Sorry, they are not comparable at all. Maybe the fear was somewhat similar, but the actual effect is completely different.

Edited November 30, 2016 by Camacha

[Bill Phil]

47 minutes ago, Camacha said:

Sorry, they are not comparable at all. Maybe the fear was somewhat similar, but the actual effect is completely different.

The effect is irrelevant. What matters is people's fear. Things change. Sometimes they change in very similar ways. History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

On 11/28/2016 at 7:43 PM, Bill Phil said:

Yes. That's why I used the past tense. People were just as terrified of books in the past, when they started to show up more often around the industrial revolution. Many people just read books instead of trying to spend quality time. Quite comparable. Heck, some would get absorbed for days.

Or, to put it in another way: The more that things change, the more they stay the same.

This is a pretty poor comparison. People don't read books while driving, while at restaurants with other people, while walking/crossing streets, while taking a dump, when they are on the job, when hanging out with friends/other people. You can't harass/stalk/bully someone with a book. A book doesn't track you. It's a seriously invasive technology. 

[Camacha]

21 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

The effect is irrelevant. What matters is people's fear. Things change. Sometimes they change in very similar ways. History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

People feared one thing, and it turned out to be not a real issue. People fear another, and it has a pretty big impact across society. If it is comparable at all, it is only superficially so and in a rather small area.

[razark]

2 hours ago, Waxing_Kibbous said:

People don't read books... while at restaurants with other people...

My ex-wife and I used to do that all the time.  Go to the bookstore, pick up some books, and then go eat and read.

 

2 hours ago, Waxing_Kibbous said:

You can't harass/stalk/bully someone with a book.

Tell that to the kid I was smacking on the head with Fellowship of the Ring earlier this evening.

[Rath]

5 hours ago, Waxing_Kibbous said:

This is a pretty poor comparison. People don't read books while driving, while at restaurants with other people, while walking/crossing streets, while taking a dump, when they are on the job, when hanging out with friends/other people. You can't harass/stalk/bully someone with a book. A book doesn't track you. It's a seriously invasive technology. 

I might read books while driving if I was able too and was dumb enough to do it.  The problem is that people who enjoy reading books tend to be smart enough to not read them in traffic.  I can totally bully someone with a book: Gimmie your lunch money! *Hefts textbook*.  Not jesting, but many authors have admitted to basing evil characters in their books off of people they hate.  I have read books while crossing the street.  I have read books under the table at school, I bet I would do the same if at work.  The only thing a book doesn't do is track you.  I agree that smartphones can be invasive, but it's what's between the chair and the phone.

On 11/30/2016 at 10:38 AM, Talavar said:

 The average article today is generally an opinion piece passed off as fact. At least that's what it seems to me. You definitely are looking in the right direction.. as far as I'm concerned anyway.

That's not an article, it's an opinion piece.  or propoganda

On 11/29/2016 at 7:15 PM, Green Baron said:

I browsed through the opinions here and would like to add something about my view:

I wasn't generalizing the behaviour of a generation (though i see more younger folks adhering to the screens than elder) but i do question the quality of information in the social networks. And i do not know whether all that "information" is actually improving our personal knowledge or narrowing it because we like to see things we already know. It's easier to nod than to think, which might lead to generalized views and ready made opinions, as an automatic outcome. The ability to reflect might get suppressed.

As an example i put alien megatsructures, faster than light particles, most probably the reactionless drive.

When searching information on subjects i know of i because i have studied them or they are a hobby of mine i am mainly presented with really silly and stupid things that call themselves scientific, mainly from magazines and news pages, and in the past 10 years this has become a real nuisance, wikipedia as well.

It gets ever more difficult to separate the useless stuff from the real information. Might be a generation problem, though :-)

 

The useless stuff is easily separable from the useful stuff, unless you are dumb.  Does it seem really sensational?  if yes: It's borscht.  If a person is dumb then they they are are going to do something stupid anyways.

Edited December 1, 2016 by Rath

[Dman979]

15 hours ago, Rath said:

The useless stuff is easily separable from the useful stuff, unless you are dumb.  Does it seem really sensational?  if yes: It's borscht.  If a person is dumb then they they are are going to do something stupid anyways.

Two things.

First: "Lindy Child Kidnapped!" is a pretty sensational headline, but it was true. Who would have believed that the son of one of the most famous people in America would be kidnapped? But it happened.

Second: I like borscht. With sour cream. On a cold winter night, it's great.

[Green Baron]

Isn't it called Borschtsch ?

... i suppose both is correct. Hmmm, good idea for the next evening with the neighbours to taste their new red wine. It's winter, just 18°C, and i am sure they have never heard of it. But where do i get beetroot here in the canaries ?

:-)

 

Edited December 1, 2016 by Green Baron

[Bill Phil]

23 hours ago, Waxing_Kibbous said:

This is a pretty poor comparison. People don't read books while driving, while at restaurants with other people, while walking/crossing streets, while taking a dump, when they are on the job, when hanging out with friends/other people. You can't harass/stalk/bully someone with a book. A book doesn't track you. It's a seriously invasive technology. 

Wow. Everyone is literally misinterpreting everything about this.

I'm not talking about TODAY. Or even the previous century, unless we count the first decade or so. Many people back then did a lot of stuff that you describe with books (and magazines). Except track you. But even then, if you know what you're doing, you can turn that off. But it is helpful.

And it's not really a comparison of the technology, it's a comparison of how people reacted to its invasiveness. Books were a very invasive technology. Plenty of people couldn't stop reading them (that is, those who could afford them and had the time to read them). Society's reactions were pretty similar to the reactions people have with phone usage.

I'm not saying it isn't invasive, or that it isn't bad in some ways. However, it's very important for many people to have phones nowadays, for a variety of reasons. Phone tracking could save your life one day, for example.

23 hours ago, Camacha said:

People feared one thing, and it turned out to be not a real issue. People fear another, and it has a pretty big impact across society. If it is comparable at all, it is only superficially so and in a rather small area.

Who's to say that phones won't turn out to be "not a real issue"?

Edited December 2, 2016 by Bill Phil

[Camacha]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

Who's to say that phones won't turn out to be "not a real issue"?

That will not be the case, because they already are. In case you missed it: various counties have started campaigns to ask people to please stop using their phones in traffic, because it is killing people. There do not seem to have been many campaigns against reading books on horses

[Nuke]

me im strictly a desktop pc user. theres a time for sitting at a screen and a time for getting out. i seldom do both at the same time.

[James Kerman]

Sometimes I have lunch in a park.

[Guest]

So, basically, reaching the point where being able to hold a supercomputer in your hands is a problem to some people. Huh.

 

But I have to agree a bit. Previously dumb people get even dumber depending on what they do on such computers, such as using Facebook and believing things like "NASA confirms asteroid will hit the earth as predicted by X religion!", "Trump says the moon landing was a hoax!" or "One weird trick to Y!".

If you actually think, or have been exposed to the tech world at a young age (I've been messing around with computers since I was 3. Not that I knew what I was doing, though.), you get used to such things and learn how to differentiate truth from lies more easily. At least that's my experience.

Edited December 3, 2016 by Guest

[Talavar]

13 hours ago, Nuke said:

me im strictly a desktop pc user. theres a time for sitting at a screen and a time for getting out. i seldom do both at the same time.

 Same here.

[Camacha]

On 03/12/2016 at 2:01 PM, Aperture Science said:

So, basically, reaching the point where being able to hold a supercomputer in your hands is a problem to some people. Huh.

Considering people get themselves and others killed because of just that, it transcends the point where it is just a problem to some people.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Camacha