Who feels that technology is really making society better?

[Nick_Miller]

Okay, I will 100% admit that I think tech can revolutionize medicine, transportation, etc. I'm not arguing that.

I'm arguing if it makes "society," the squishier things like relationships, learning, interacting with people, basically just being a person in society a "better" experience.

We have millions of people on Twitter arguing not just about positions, but about FACTS. We don't have any universally accepted gatekeepers anymore like we did with old school encyclopedias, nightly news, big newspapers, etc). No matter WHAT I say, these days someone can go to a "source" and argue back "Your facts are wrong! Fake news!"  What kind of society is that? Photos and videos used to speak for themselves. Now everything can be easily doctored.

Is it possible we're learning too much about people in different social spheres? I mean, before you might be fine with a friendly wave to your neighbor, and an occasional favor, and everything's fine, but now you're "friends" on FB or NextDoor and you realize, "My neighbor is an ass!" Wouldn't you be better off not knowing?

In theory, my middle-school aged daughter can chat with almost anyone in the world, given enough time and desire! And it's only going to get worse! Friends and family track each other with GPS. When is it going to be to the point where we're all "on the same grid" and you can find anyone at any time? I mean, what entity is going to stop that from happening? As usual, the government and legal system are trailing waaaaaayyyyy behind the tech.

I swear, if I was Superman or someone like that, I would FREEZE social tech for like a decade. In fact, I'd probably walk it back to like 2010 or something.

Am I showing my age? Do others agree? Disagree? I just feel that the cons REALLY outweigh the pros.

[Just Joe]

I think alot about the natural world and technology. We are using a big pile of raw materials every year to create the technology which is so quickly obsolete and frequently unrepairable.

I'd prefer more sustainable choices. Rather than rush out and buy the next new big technology gadget, why not get more miles out of the old gadget first?

Is the new gadget that much better utilized than the old gadget?

[ysette9]

My husband and I have this conversation every few weeks, though by Tech we mean consumer hardware in particular as that is where we both work now. My husband has been plagued by a sense that he has spent his career so far designing and producing "landfill". More recently I have become aware that as addicted as we are to our phones and as many wonderful things they bring, it is a double-edged sword, and it also can easily make our lives less happy.

I am sort of nostalgic for the days when Facebook was open to people with .edu email addresses and your news feed was full of updates from friends and stupid online quizzes. That was more personal and meaningful than the yelling into the void and upsetting news articles that seem to be the mainstay now.

[Wrenchturner]

The problem is your argument leans toward luddite-ism very quickly.  Where do we draw the lines? 

Of course we do draw lines with tech and the line usually shows up well after the tech.

I think it's mostly impossible to stymie tech.  And I try to have faith with where we're headed but it's hard to keep.

We always have and always will strive for forward progress.  The recursion is what worries me, when we start deferring to tech for our information supply...  post human post truth is a scary idea.

[Adam Zapple]

The Unabomber was right.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski

[Just Joe]

I steer away from the social media and advertising stream. I find that my 9 year old computer is still capable of greater projects than I am capable of designing. Especially using Linux where the OS has a smaller footprint.

I don't worry about the technological march of software as much as I worry about someone discarding a still useful TV or computer b/c the new one is shinier but mostly delivers the same utility the old one did. 

[2Birds1Stone]

I'm in the camp that it's tremendously taken away from society. No arguing the power of having the internet at your finger-tips. But mostly we see mindless zombies drifting through life worrying about everyone else's highlight reel.

[GuitarStv]

Cell phone zombies, social media, free "news" sites that don't employ journalists, and insta-fuck apps . . . I'm unconvinced that any of these are good for us as socially.

[Nick_Miller]

Cell phone zombies, social media, free "news" sites that don't employ journalists, and insta-fuck apps . . . I'm unconvinced that any of these are good for us as socially.

Yeah you summed up my thoughts much more quickly and efficiently than my OP did. We miss the gatekeepers of old! It's like the wild west now.

[MasterStache]

Technology? Ehh, sure there are some positives, but do they offset the negatives (ie. carbon footprint)?

Social media is a goddamn disaster. It's even worse for teenagers. I stay far far away for any and all social media.

[GuitarStv]

Cell phone zombies, social media, free "news" sites that don't employ journalists, and insta-fuck apps . . . I'm unconvinced that any of these are good for us as socially.

Yeah you summed up my thoughts much more quickly and efficiently than my OP did. We miss the gatekeepers of old! It's like the wild west now.

To be fair, I've been a crotchety old man since about 9 years old . . . and age does not seem to be softening this personality quirk.  :P

[MrDelane]

Like most things, it all depends on how we decide to use it.
Yes, there are plenty of downsides - but also plenty of upsides.  It's easy to see the cesspool of social media while glossing over the fact that my partner has seen more doctors than I can count in the past year, and each one had immediate access to every test, exam and diagnosis she's been given.

My parents are immigrants who left their family in another hemisphere in their 20s.  I remember receiving letters from my grandparents when I was a kid, stamped with the 'air mail' designation and written on tissue paper (because it weighed less, so it was cheaper to mail). My parents used to save up money to be able to call their relatives - we could barely hear each other and could only talk for a few of minutes.  When there was instability in their country my dad bought a shortwave radio because it was the only way he could get news.

Fast forward to today... my mom has Skype on her iPad.  She calls her sister every afternoon, sets the iPad up in front of her at the kitchen table and they have tea together and talk for at least an hour.

I don't know what my point is... I mean, yes... social media is horrible and the world is falling apart... but all I know is that when see how happy it makes my mom to be able to just sit and enjoy a cup of tea with her sister who lives on the other side of the planet, it kind of seems worth it to me.

[MasterStache]

Cell phone zombies, social media, free "news" sites that don't employ journalists, and insta-fuck apps . . . I'm unconvinced that any of these are good for us as socially.

Yeah you summed up my thoughts much more quickly and efficiently than my OP did. We miss the gatekeepers of old! It's like the wild west now.

To be fair, I've been a crotchety old man since about 9 years old . . . and age does not seem to be softening this personality quirk.  :P

I am sure you are much younger but my recently deceased 98 year old grandmother never got her driver's license, drove a car, owned/operated a computer and never had a cell phone. She did finally "upgrade" to a cordless the last few years of her life for health reasons. And I will admit she was one of the happiest, nicest ladies I've ever been around (only a little bias in that statement).

[J Boogie]

I have this feeling we are not unlike the Native Americans who had no exposure to hard liquor prior to European colonialism.

There has been little in the way of a gradual introduction by parents/elders along with guidelines for responsible use, and little genuine concern of misuse from the producers/distributors.

[Indexer]

Without the internet... we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[soccerluvof4]

My DW and I always seem to have this conversation as well. As others have said it really is a double edge sword but i feel overwhelmed with it all and hate every aspect of the whole phone thing. I feel like having 4 kids most of my arguing/problems with them revolves around phones. And no one seems to use them as phones and your paying for something that use to be basically so cheap. Technology I realize though is important but this whole social media cell phone area of it I could do without. Having the internet and being on my laptop like this is not consuming my whole day or dinging where I feel pressured to answer it and so on. I know alot of people like to say monitor this or put a time thing on that.....yea right.

[iris lily]

Eric Brende, a graduate of Yale and MIT, was one of the first to study this and write  a popular work about it.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013PRBUIK/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_bibl_vppi_i2

Fast forward a decade plus later, he is still living simply with his wife in an urban neighborhood that’s walkable. I see him around my neighborhood, he lives in my ZIP Code.I often see him at our public library using computers so I surmise he still doesn’t have Internet at home, he uses the library system. He walks a lot, he bikes a lot. I would think his kids are pretty much grown by now. I think they were homeschooled but I’m not sure.

[ncornilsen]

I beleive it's a huge net positive, overall. Social media, however, I believe is a net negative.

I re-read Ender's Game a few months ago. I was struck by how the author essentially predicted something like the internet would lead to the best intellects debating issues and coming to solid conclusions... ultimately ending with Ender's siblings being world leads of some kind... and by how completely wrong he was. Social media and internet forums have done almost exactly the opposite of that!

[SpeedReader]

Eric Brende, a graduate of Yale and MIT, was one of the first to study this and write  a popular work about it.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013PRBUIK/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_bibl_vppi_i2

Fast forward a decade plus later, he is still living simply with his wife in an urban neighborhood that’s walkable. I see him around my neighborhood, he lives in my ZIP Code.I often see him at our public library using computers so I surmise he still doesn’t have Internet at home, he uses the library system. He walks a lot, he bikes a lot. I would think his kids are pretty much grown by now. I think they were homeschooled but I’m not sure.

I just read his book Better Off about a week ago.  It reinforced my impression that all our digital "connectedness" makes us a lot less connected in real life. 
Another writer who talks about appropriate technology is John Michael Greer in his book Retro Tech.  They both make the point that new technology is not always better than the old, among other things. 

[WhiteTrashCash]

Hell, yes, technology makes society better. I haven't watched a TV commercial in years. Years.

I get my phone service for $15/mo. And it includes access to the entire Library of Congress whenever I want it.

I can manufacture bread and ice cream by throwing a few ingredients in a pan, pressing start, and then watching cat videos on YouTube.

I'm going to buy a 3D printer and then manufacture my own replacement parts for stuff I own, which means I basically have a small-scale factory in my basement.

I sold a bunch of words I wrote to people on the other side of the planet. Yes, words.

I accidentally broke a Hard Rock Montreal glass I received as a gift in 2002 and I was able to locate and purchase a replacement for it within five minutes of it breaking.

I regularly argue with people from weird far-off places like Australia, England, Germany, and California.

I am able to get an Ivy League education whenever I want it by downloading the course syllabi from the professors' websites, getting e-texts of the books online, and then completing all the course work. For free.

If I want, I can start a video channel complaining about something really niche... such as the use of aluminum siding on houses... and people will make monthly donations to me to keep making videos about the topic.

I have immediate instant access to every gourmet recipe in the entire world within seconds.

Companies pay me money every year to have solar panels on my house that produce free electricity that powers my wife's automobile. Yes, they pay me to power my wife's car for free.

Technology is amazing. You just need to use it.

[BudgetSlasher]

Okay, I will 100% admit that I think tech can revolutionize medicine, transportation, etc. I'm not arguing that.

Yup

I'm arguing if it makes "society," the squishier things like relationships, learning, interacting with people, basically just being a person in society a "better" experience.

Society: (n) the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.

I suppose technology could be bad for one society (say the people who like to get all of their news at once in print format) but better for another society (say one where to people like instant news from all corners of the earth).

We have millions of people on Twitter arguing not just about positions, but about FACTS. We don't have any universally accepted gatekeepers anymore like we did with old school encyclopedias, nightly news, big newspapers, etc). No matter WHAT I say, these days someone can go to a "source" and argue back "Your facts are wrong! Fake news!" 

My opinion is that kind of person has always been around, technology has just made them visible and allowed them to find each other.

What kind of society is that?

One where we can identify the village idiot

Photos and videos used to speak for themselves. Now everything can be easily doctored.

I will admit this does concern me if/when used to intentionally mislead, harass, or other ill-willed purpose.

Is it possible we're learning too much about people in different social spheres? I mean, before you might be fine with a friendly wave to your neighbor, and an occasional favor, and everything's fine, but now you're "friends" on FB or NextDoor and you realize, "My neighbor is an ass!" Wouldn't you be better off not knowing?

You do not have to be on Facebook or Nextdoor. That is your choice. I think that is where I come down overall technology (old and new) is a bag of tools; which tool you choose to use is up to you.

I know which neighbor is an ass without technology.

In theory, my middle-school aged daughter can chat with almost anyone in the world, given enough time and desire! And it's only going to get worse!

How is that (expanding communication) worse? I can learn another language by finding someone online learning english and we can tutor each other. I can ask locals about what to do when I visit their location on vacation. You can post of a forum asking about technology.

Friends and family track each other with GPS.

If a family chooses to share their GPS locations with each other what is the issue? Now if there is pressure, unequalness in relationship power, or deception involved that is a different story.

When is it going to be to the point where we're all "on the same grid" and you can find anyone at any time? I mean, what entity is going to stop that from happening? As usual, the government and legal system are trailing waaaaaayyyyy behind the tech.

Like some random person is going to force you to reveal your location? probably not going to happen that way. Companies that run the search engines and cell phone networks knowing what you are doing and where? Already there.

I swear, if I was Superman or someone like that, I would FREEZE social tech for like a decade. In fact, I'd probably walk it back to like 2010 or something.

What would a decade pause do?

Am I showing my age? Do others agree? Disagree? I just feel that the cons REALLY outweigh the pros.

[scottish]

Hell, yes, technology makes society better. I haven't watched a TV commercial in years. Years.

I get my phone service for $15/mo. And it includes access to the entire Library of Congress whenever I want it.

I can manufacture bread and ice cream by throwing a few ingredients in a pan, pressing start, and then watching cat videos on YouTube.

I'm going to buy a 3D printer and then manufacture my own replacement parts for stuff I own, which means I basically have a small-scale factory in my basement.

I sold a bunch of words I wrote to people on the other side of the planet. Yes, words.

I accidentally broke a Hard Rock Montreal glass I received as a gift in 2002 and I was able to locate and purchase a replacement for it within five minutes of it breaking.

I regularly argue with people from weird far-off places like Australia, England, Germany, and California.

I am able to get an Ivy League education whenever I want it by downloading the course syllabi from the professors' websites, getting e-texts of the books online, and then completing all the course work. For free.

If I want, I can start a video channel complaining about something really niche... such as the use of aluminum siding on houses... and people will make monthly donations to me to keep making videos about the topic.

I have immediate instant access to every gourmet recipe in the entire world within seconds.

Companies pay me money every year to have solar panels on my house that produce free electricity that powers my wife's automobile. Yes, they pay me to power my wife's car for free.

Technology is amazing. You just need to use it.

Exactly.    You use it, don't let it use you.   

[Noodle]

Honestly...I would rather live in the the now, technology-wise, than any other time. I will stick with the communications technology under discussion, and not get into things like my digital hearing aid and all the safety devices on my car... :)

I love being able to stay in contact with friends and acquaintances going all the way back to high school. I might not want to spend hours with them, but I like seeing pictures of their kids and knowing a little bit about their lives.

I love being able to manage a massive volunteer program with email and a Facebook group and calendars in the cloud, instead of seventeen million phone calls. I love the fact that the age of paper memos, which had to be copied and distributed and filed and then instantly went out of date, is over.

I love the fact that I can be hundreds of miles away from the major research centers in my field and still have access to their archives and documents. I love having access to books and movies and music that would have required either a lot of money or a really sympathetic and well-funded library to access twenty years ago.

I love the fact that current technology makes communication and participation far more accessible to people with various kinds of disabilities. Can't speak or hear? You can type. Can't see? You've got access to a whole slew of voice-activated technology. And all this is designed for the average consumer, so it's cheaper and better than what used to be made specifically for people with disabilities.

I appreciate the fact that although all the science fiction written about an era with ubiquitous video focused on a surveillance state, the actual result is that the state is being surveilled right back. It's getting harder for people to act out toward each other without getting recorded and made to be accountable for their actions.

I love that digital photography and photo-sharing makes it really easy and cheap for people to take photos and to use them in creative new ways. I just got back from a major overseas trip. Instead of paying for expensive film and developing, and dragging film back and forth, and changing film at the least convenient possible time, I had a camera in my pocket that stored as many photos as I cared to take (and did a much better job taking them than my old film camera). I always had directions and a guidebook in the palm of my hand. When a major issue came up at work back in the states, I was able to sort it out via text, and when we had a major power outage, I was able to tell when everything came back online.

As a single woman, I love having a dynamic map so I can always get home from wherever I am, a phone to call for help, and the ability for my parents and siblings to know where I am if I suddenly drop out of touch.

I love having a curated blog feed (yes, people still have those) so that I get news from places I care about and a steady stream of positive and interesting voices to dip into through the day.

I love being able to read the local newspaper without dragging out pounds of newsprint every week.

Are there dark sides to all this technology? Absolutely. We have to manage ourselves and our kids and the government and business authorities that have power over us carefully. But, you know, catfishing goes back to the telegraph days. Fake news and slanted coverage showed up almost as quickly as daily newspapers did (Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst managed to cook up a whole war, for heaven's sake.) People who are jerks are jerks with whatever technology is available to them.

[PDXTabs]

Okay, I will 100% admit that I think tech can revolutionize medicine, transportation, etc. I'm not arguing that.

I'm arguing if it makes "society," the squishier things like relationships, learning, interacting with people, basically just being a person in society a "better" experience.
...
Am I showing my age? Do others agree? Disagree? I just feel that the cons REALLY outweigh the pros.

Not only do I agree, I'm sad about it. I feel like the internet should be a forum to enhance democracy but that sure isn't what I see. In particular, all of the walled gardens of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc are designed to be addictive, not useful. Furthermore, we could be using technology to drive down the price of higher education and transportation but that is he opposite of what I see.

EDITed to add this link to an awesome zine about our obsession with new technology: LOW-TECH MAGAZINE

[PDXTabs]

I love that digital photography and photo-sharing makes it really easy and cheap for people to take photos and to use them in creative new ways. I just got back from a major overseas trip. Instead of paying for expensive film and developing, and dragging film back and forth, and changing film at the least convenient possible time, I had a camera in my pocket that stored as many photos as I cared to take (and did a much better job taking them than my old film camera). I always had directions and a guidebook in the palm of my hand. When a major issue came up at work back in the states, I was able to sort it out via text, and when we had a major power outage, I was able to tell when everything came back online.

As a single woman, I love having a dynamic map so I can always get home from wherever I am, a phone to call for help, and the ability for my parents and siblings to know where I am if I suddenly drop out of touch.

I love having a curated blog feed (yes, people still have those) so that I get news from places I care about and a steady stream of positive and interesting voices to dip into through the day.

I love being able to read the local newspaper without dragging out pounds of newsprint every week.

I agree with everything you wrote, but google maps has been out since 2005. Put another way: what substantial progress have we made in the past 10 years? Then compare it to how much we have spent as a society? We've had some incremental improvements here and there, better digital cameras, faster processors, better batteries, bigger cheaper RAMs, etc.

But look at FAANG and the FAANG R&D budget, and then ask what they have really accomplished in the last decade. As a software professional I have a hard time justifying to myself that we've done much other that write hookup apps for the last decade.

EDITed to add - and in regard to social media, I'm not sure that the shareholders' values and the values of society are well aligned. The shareholders want eyeballs on adds, and society wants something else.

[BicycleB]

The bad parts of tech are being noticed, the good ones quietly used.

The body politic is suffering a sugar rush from the increase in social media and hasn't yet developed insulin for that particular development, but I think the fundamental drivers on the political side are human, not technological. In daily life, similarly it's early days in learning to handle the new tools. Obviously since some of them are essentially manipulative, abstaining or reforming or using with extreme care will be needed. Hopefully over time we'll get better at using these tools for mutual benefit.

Great post by @WhiteTrashCash.

PS. I don't think the economic stats that show more income per capita and in total for the human species than ever before are completely bogus. I once calculated that since 1970, more income was generated than in the entire history of the human species prior to that. Thanks, technology.

https://singularityhub.com/2018/07/01/new-evidence-that-the-world-really-is-getting-better/

[RetiredAt63]

I recently spent a day at Upper Canada Village and had a lovely chat with the typesetter of the local newspaper.  One 4 sheet newspaper once a week, local news and whatever the editor chose to print from outside.  Industrialization was getting going, spinning mills and automated looms (water power) replacing spinning wheels and home looms, imported (from Montreal factories) iron ware (like cook stoves!)replacing the local blacksmith, factory made shoes replacing the shoemaker, etc.  Society adapted to this.

Jump to 2001 - I just saw Come From Away, and the biggest need the people off the planes had was a telephone to find out what was happening at home and let families know where they were.  Almost no one had a cell phone (and these were passengers flying the Atlantic, so not poor and low tech), Gander had to set up phone banks.

It's up to society (and in some areas society's wishes as expressed through who they vote for and what government policies are in place) to decide how to use technology.

[Metalcat]

I'm curious about a time that society was "better"???

Doesn't each generation feel like society has just gone to hell "these days"?

I don't know, I just don't buy the all too familiar refrain. Society is always a mess, people are fucked up and use whatever they've got in fucked up ways.

Oh no...young people are vain. Wait, young people have always been vain, they just used to do a lot more drugs and now they take a lot more selfies.

[PDXTabs]

I'm curious about a time that society was "better"???

Well, the topic was "Who feels that technology is really making society better." I read this to mean, "is society better today than it was yesterday because of technology?"

As an example, during the start of the industrial revolution (~1780-1840) middle and working class incomes went down and life expediencies in industrial cities (eg, Glasgow) were lower than in other parts of Britain. At the time you would have been hard pressed to argue that technology was making society better, it wasn't for generations that society as a whole saw the benefits. However, during the Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914) this was not the case. A broad swath of the population saw a great increase in their standard of living and if you would have asked the average person on the street they almost certainly would have said that their life was being improved by technology.

Something analogous happened moving from hunter-gatherers to a pure agricultural society. For a long time nutrition was worse than in hunter gatherer societies. So much so that historians and archaeologists have a hard time understanding why anyone ever made the switch.

[Metalcat]

I'm curious about a time that society was "better"???

Well, the topic was "Who feels that technology is really making society better." I read this to mean, "is society better today than it was yesterday because of technology?"

As an example, during the start of the industrial revolution (~1780-1840) middle and working class incomes went down and life expediencies in industrial cities (eg, Glasgow) were lower than in other parts of Britain. At the time you would have been hard pressed to argue that technology was making society better, it wasn't for generations that society as a whole saw the benefits. However, during the Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914) this was not the case. A broad swath of the population saw a great increase in their standard of living and if you would have asked the average person on the street they almost certainly would have said that their life was being improved by technology.

Something analogous happened moving from hunter-gatherers to a pure agricultural society. For a long time nutrition was worse than in hunter gatherer societies. So much so that historians and archaeologists have a hard time understanding why anyone ever made the switch.

OP seems to be arguing that society was better 10 years ago

[PDXTabs]

OP seems to be arguing that society was better 10 years ago

Off the top of my head, that would have been before:

• Cambridge Analytica
• Russia annexing Crimea
• Foreign interference in a US presidential election
• Foreign interference in the UK Brexit election
• The ability to cheaply interfere in foreign elections without anyone noticing until after the fact
• Recent Chinese meddling with Hong Kong
• The US trade war
• Twitter based presidential politics
• War in Syria with an abysmal international response to the refugee crisis
• Turkey going down hill and arresting a bunch of journalists

So, I might have to agree. What great thing have we accomplished in the last 10 years? The watered down Paris Climate Agreement that the USA then pulled out of?

[2sk22]

I have a PhD in machine learning and have been working in the AI field now for over twenty years (long before it was a hot area).

My argument is that most of the problems that we are seeing with technology is that it has not really advanced far enough but there is enough of it to really cause problems. I work in the field so I know first hand that even the very latest AI is still completely inadequate for our needs.

Consider a straightforward sentence like this:

I told Emma that if she had given me the documents last week as she promised, I would have been able to give it to her next week before the deadline

No modern natural language processing system can properly handle counterfactuals like this, let alone handle sarcasm and humor. The technology to handle this is still in the very early stages.

We have unleashed a vast torrent of information on people without giving them the tools to deal effectively with it - I think this is the source of the problem.

[FINate]

Exactly.    You use it, don't let it use you.

I agree. However, that's not the question OP is asking. To restate it in your terms: On average, is society using technology well, or is it being used by technology? A huge amount of effort and design goes into making consumer tech products addictive, and then leveraging this to sell people shit they don't need.

I resonate with the post up-thread about a career that seems dedicated to producing landfill. In my case it was a software career dedicated to selling ads for stuff that ends up in landfill.

It's naive to assume, as is rather common (and self serving) in the tech industry, that tech is necessarily a force for good. Tech has great potential...for good and for bad. The Neo-libertarians in Silicon Valley will always argue for unfettered advancement in tech - I understand this well, was of this mindset at one time. We need very strict regulations on advertising, collection of data, and privacy. Tech companies will claim this is an existential threat. I say, if you can't make it without tracking people's every move and manipulating people's emotions then society doesn't really need your product.

[FINate]

...

• Foreign interference in a US presidential election

...

I don't disagree with you in general, but have a little quibble with this. I suppose we long for the days when the US could interfere with elections in foreign countries and they didn't return the favor.

[PDXTabs]

...

• Foreign interference in a US presidential election

...

I don't disagree with you in general, but have a little quibble with this. I suppose we long for the days when the US could interfere with elections in foreign countries and they didn't return the favor.

That's fair. How about I rephrase it to: the ability to cheaply interfere in foreign elections without anyone noticing until after the fact?

[FINate]

...

• Foreign interference in a US presidential election

...

I don't disagree with you in general, but have a little quibble with this. I suppose we long for the days when the US could interfere with elections in foreign countries and they didn't return the favor.

That's fair. How about I rephrase it to: the ability to cheaply interfere in foreign elections without anyone noticing until after the fact?

+1

[WhiteTrashCash]

Exactly.    You use it, don't let it use you.

I agree. However, that's not the question OP is asking. To restate it in your terms: On average, is society using technology well, or is it being used by technology? A huge amount of effort and design goes into making consumer tech products addictive, and then leveraging this to sell people shit they don't need.

I resonate with the post up-thread about a career that seems dedicated to producing landfill. In my case it was a software career dedicated to selling ads for stuff that ends up in landfill.

It's naive to assume, as is rather common (and self serving) in the tech industry, that tech is necessarily a force for good. Tech has great potential...for good and for bad. The Neo-libertarians in Silicon Valley will always argue for unfettered advancement in tech - I understand this well, was of this mindset at one time. What's needed is very strict regulations on advertising, collection of data, and privacy. Tech companies will claim this is an existential threat. I say, if you can't make it without tracking people's every move and manipulating people's emotions then society doesn't really need your product.

Well, to be honest, this is a great world to live in -- if you are smart and have good literacy. If you don't have those things -- and you succumb to manipulation easily -- then this world is difficult to navigate.

[FINate]

Exactly.    You use it, don't let it use you.

I agree. However, that's not the question OP is asking. To restate it in your terms: On average, is society using technology well, or is it being used by technology? A huge amount of effort and design goes into making consumer tech products addictive, and then leveraging this to sell people shit they don't need.

I resonate with the post up-thread about a career that seems dedicated to producing landfill. In my case it was a software career dedicated to selling ads for stuff that ends up in landfill.

It's naive to assume, as is rather common (and self serving) in the tech industry, that tech is necessarily a force for good. Tech has great potential...for good and for bad. The Neo-libertarians in Silicon Valley will always argue for unfettered advancement in tech - I understand this well, was of this mindset at one time. What's needed is very strict regulations on advertising, collection of data, and privacy. Tech companies will claim this is an existential threat. I say, if you can't make it without tracking people's every move and manipulating people's emotions then society doesn't really need your product.

Well, to be honest, this is a great world to live in -- if you are smart and have good literacy. If you don't have those things -- and you succumb to manipulation easily -- then this world is difficult to navigate.

I'm not convinced that it's a matter of smarts and literacy. Many of the biggest consumer suckas are smart and highly literate. I will also suggest that everyone thinks they are better than average when it comes to things like resisting manipulation, and this has the opposite effect because it breeds complacency, which is exactly what advertisers want.

I have a CS degree and a MBA and have seen the underbelly of the tech world from the inside. There's a reason I don't have cable, run ad blockers and Pi Hole on my home network, and severely limit my kid's screen time. Companies don't spend billions of dollars every year on advertising because it doesn't work.

[BudgetSlasher]

Okay, I will 100% admit that I think tech can revolutionize medicine, transportation, etc. I'm not arguing that.

I'm arguing if it makes "society," the squishier things like relationships, learning, interacting with people, basically just being a person in society a "better" experience.
...
Am I showing my age? Do others agree? Disagree? I just feel that the cons REALLY outweigh the pros.

Not only do I agree, I'm sad about it. I feel like the internet should be a forum to enhance democracy but that sure isn't what I see. In particular, all of the walled gardens of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc are designed to be addictive, not useful. Furthermore, we could be using technology to drive down the price of higher education and transportation but that is he opposite of what I see.

EDITed to add this link to an awesome zine about our obsession with new technology: LOW-TECH MAGAZINE

Could you explain how you view places like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram a walled garden?

From what I can tell, Facebook has a low barrier to join, a low barrier to post, and lax enforcement of policies and content restrictions.

Other platforms seems to be similar.

I do not disagree that many of these sites seem to be designed to encourage users to spend more time than necessary (to accomplish the same result) on the website "addicting".

[BudgetSlasher]

Exactly.    You use it, don't let it use you.

I agree. However, that's not the question OP is asking. To restate it in your terms: On average, is society using technology well, or is it being used by technology? A huge amount of effort and design goes into making consumer tech products addictive, and then leveraging this to sell people shit they don't need.

That is not really an "or" question.

Society, made up of human, can use technology. They can use is for human progress, to waste time, for entertainment, or to further interests that are contrary to the interests of the society as a whole (even if they are in the individuals interest). 

But, as far as I am aware, technology is not sentient (nor is it made of sentient beings, like society). It does not have objectives and goals for which to use people/society.

Nor the members of society that invent/control/own/direct/deploy/use that technology can use it to further their own goals (that could benefit society, harm society, or have no impact on society).

Now is society, through various means (legal/social/political/purchasing decisions), doing a good job of controlling and placing appropriate limits on the use of technology? In my opinion, no.

[WhiteTrashCash]

Exactly.    You use it, don't let it use you.

I agree. However, that's not the question OP is asking. To restate it in your terms: On average, is society using technology well, or is it being used by technology? A huge amount of effort and design goes into making consumer tech products addictive, and then leveraging this to sell people shit they don't need.

I resonate with the post up-thread about a career that seems dedicated to producing landfill. In my case it was a software career dedicated to selling ads for stuff that ends up in landfill.

It's naive to assume, as is rather common (and self serving) in the tech industry, that tech is necessarily a force for good. Tech has great potential...for good and for bad. The Neo-libertarians in Silicon Valley will always argue for unfettered advancement in tech - I understand this well, was of this mindset at one time. What's needed is very strict regulations on advertising, collection of data, and privacy. Tech companies will claim this is an existential threat. I say, if you can't make it without tracking people's every move and manipulating people's emotions then society doesn't really need your product.

Well, to be honest, this is a great world to live in -- if you are smart and have good literacy. If you don't have those things -- and you succumb to manipulation easily -- then this world is difficult to navigate.

I'm not convinced that it's a matter of smarts and literacy. Many of the biggest consumer suckas are smart and highly literate. I will also suggest that everyone thinks they are better than average when it comes to things like resisting manipulation, and this has the opposite effect because it breeds complacency, which is exactly what advertisers want.

I have a CS degree and a MBA and have seen the underbelly of the tech world from the inside. There's a reason I don't have cable, run ad blockers and Pi Hole on my home network, and severely limit my kid's screen time. Companies don't spend billions of dollars every year on advertising because it doesn't work.

... so... you are saying that people should use the technological solutions that everyone of this forum use? This is such a strange thread.

[PDXTabs]

In particular, all of the walled gardens of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc are designed to be addictive, not useful.

Could you explain how you view places like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram a walled garden?

From what I can tell, Facebook has a low barrier to join, a low barrier to post, and lax enforcement of policies and content restrictions.

Other platforms seems to be similar.

I meant that in the good old days of the Internet if you wanted to make a new protocol you published a public RFC that anyone could read and comment on. This meant that anyone was free to implement your new protocol. Eg, the USENET RFC. This is not how Facebook, Twitter, etc work. They expose as much or as little of their API as they want, and they can change or discontinue API access on a whim as it fits their business needs. This is so that they can keep eyeballs on ads. They wouldn't want you to easily implement your own Facebook Reader that didn't have ad dollars flowing to them. Some of this is understandable, but still sad. Especially when you realize that Facebook is a US company that has to comply to US laws, so if the US passes a law that says "no one in Iran can be on Facebook," Facebook is forced to comply. In contrast, the US government can't ban USENET. They could ban US companies using it, or hosting servers, but the protocol is too widely known to put the genie back in the bottle.

[FINate]

But, as far as I am aware, technology is not sentient (nor is it made of sentient beings, like society). It does not have objectives and goals for which to use people/society.

And this is where we disagree. Strictly speaking technology may not be sentient (yet!), but neither is it an inanimate object like the pencil sitting on my desk. Technology, software in particular, is very much a living organism that's animated by a collective mind...usually a very large and intelligent collective mind of software engineers, technicians, data scientists, and the usual cast of characters. But also people with backgrounds in psychology, advertising, behavioral economics. It all operates together like a superorganism, similar in many respects to a beehive. It has one goal: maximize profit.

[FINate]

... so... you are saying that people should use the technological solutions that everyone of this forum use? This is such a strange thread.

I don't see what's strange about this. As I've already stated, technology itself is neither good nor bad. It *is* very powerful, and thus it is wielded by large powerful corporations (and their owners) for their benefit. Honestly, I'm surprised this would be...surprising...to anyone. This is just the same story of humanity repeating as far back as we have records. What's strange to me is anyone thinking that technology was somehow going to magically change this. Yes, you can use software, especially open source software (e.g. many of the ad blockers and PiHole) to shield yourself. But the systemic solution is for the government, the larger collective of we-the-people, to put limits on what the tech companies are doing w.r.t. data and privacy.

[Villanelle]

In the 1904s, when my grandparents and their kids moved to Japan (Army), they basically waived goodbye to family and friends, and didn't speak to them again for years.  Letters were sent, which often took a month or more, making news outdated by the time it arrived, and conversational engagement impossible.  When they went out in town, they didn't have an app to hold up to a label at the grocery store and have it automatically replace the words with English words.  They couldn't google or use an app to help explain something to a waiter or ask a question about a product.  As I understand it, they lived almost entirely on the US Army base.

When my husband and I moved to Japan (Navy), I spoke with my mom via Skype--so I could even see her face and show her out hotel room!--withing hours of arriving.  I Skyped with her at least once a week.  I was able to keep up with the lives of friends and share my life with them via Facebook.  I kept my Stateside phone number via a VIOP system, so people who knew my landline could still call me, meaning I didn't lose touch with the people in my life I rarely speak with but still value. And now that I no longer live in Japan, and nor do most of my closest friends from that time, we have a text group for our friend group where we chat almost daily.  We've seen photos of the nursery of a friend living now in Hawaii, expecting her first baby any day now.  We've celebrated another friend purchasing her first home in CA. We've seen photos of a homecoming and a growing baby (who was either dasy or months old, or still in utero when various friends last saw one another), still in Japan. 

Just today, I sent an email to the English-speaking son-in-law of the very elderly couple that owned the cafe where we spent a majority of our Sundays, telling them we are happy but we miss them and hope they are doing well.  They will be beyond thrilled to hear this, even though much of our communication happened via charades.  Oh, charades and lots of help from a translation app on our phones. 

Technology certainly enriched my life and relationships. 

I completed about 1/3 of a master's degree from an American University via the internet while living in Japan.  (Time zone made group projects a bitch, though!).  And despite living in places where reading a daily newspaper or even watching a daily newscast would have been difficult and very limiting, I managed to keep up with the news of the world via numerous and varied outlets. 

You ask if technology has made things like relationship, learning, and interacting with people better.  It's certainly done so for me.

[BicycleB]

OP seems to be arguing that society was better 10 years ago

Off the top of my head, that would have been before:

• Cambridge Analytica
• Russia annexing Crimea
• Foreign interference in a US presidential election
• Foreign interference in the UK Brexit election
• Recent Chinese meddling with Hong Kong
• The ability to cheaply interfere in foreign elections without anyone noticing until after the fact
• The US trade war
• Twitter based presidential politics
• War in Syria with an abysmal international response to the refugee crisis
• Turkey going down hill and arresting a bunch of journalists

So, I might have to agree. What great thing have we accomplished in the last 10 years? The watered down Paris Climate Agreement that the USA then pulled out of?

The power running my air conditioner right now is about 30% carbon free. In Republican, Paris Climate Agreement-blockin' Texas. 30% is even a statewide number! That wasn't the case 10 years ago.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/a-snapshot-of-texas-growing-appetite-for-wind-and-solar-power#gs.10v6tn

My city is on track to roughly 70% renewable by 2027. Last week I started subscribing to an email summary from a green-power-industry newsletter. It's already blowing my mind with how many specific workable projects are underway to develop and actually implement climate friendly power systems.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/#gs.10u5th

It's too soon to tell whether the human race will stave off the worst effects of climate change. But we're in the fight. Our chance at victory is just as much due to technology as our chance at defeat. And the last 10 years have seen real progress if you know where to look.

[WhiteTrashCash]

OP seems to be arguing that society was better 10 years ago

Off the top of my head, that would have been before:

• Cambridge Analytica
• Russia annexing Crimea
• Foreign interference in a US presidential election
• Foreign interference in the UK Brexit election
• Recent Chinese meddling with Hong Kong
• The ability to cheaply interfere in foreign elections without anyone noticing until after the fact
• The US trade war
• Twitter based presidential politics
• War in Syria with an abysmal international response to the refugee crisis
• Turkey going down hill and arresting a bunch of journalists

So, I might have to agree. What great thing have we accomplished in the last 10 years? The watered down Paris Climate Agreement that the USA then pulled out of?

The power running my air conditioner right now is about 30% renewable. In Republican, Paris Climate Agreement-blockin' Texas. That wasn't the case 10 years ago.

My city is on track to roughly 70% renewable by 2027. Last week I started subscribing to an email summary from a green-power-industry newsletter. It's already blowing my mind with how many specific workable projects are underway to develop and actually implement climate friendly power systems.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/#gs.10u5th

It's too soon to tell whether the human race will stave off the worst effects of climate change. But we're in the fight. Our chance at victory is just as much due to technology as our chance at defeat. And the last 10 years have seen real progress if you know where to look.

My electricity is 100% renewable because we have solar panels that produce almost everything we need (thanks to incentives by the federal government and our home state) as well as supply choice by state law that allowed us to select a 100% renewable electricity supplier which still cost less than our standard supplier. The proliferation of green energy is one of the big success stories of the 21st century. As citizens, we need to push for legislation that will allow people to produce more of their own energy, just as we need to push for the right to produce our own food and water, and run our own businesses without interference.

[scottish]

Do you have a battery system to store power for use at night?    Or are you getting power from the grid when the solar cells aren't producing?

[WhiteTrashCash]

Do you have a battery system to store power for use at night?    Or are you getting power from the grid when the solar cells aren't producing?

Home batteries aren't permitted in the state where I live, so it is net metered. I sell SRECs, which are certificates for green energy production to various companies so they can get credit for green energy from the government and right now I earn over $200 per Mwh produced by the solar panels in addition to the electricity itself.

[big_owl]

I go back and forth with this. Luckily I'm just old enough to have been in the the professional world when email and internet was first starting to become a thing. For me technology has definitely been a drag at work (engineer).  Most specifically email.  It was so much more sane to have a couple projects at work, because that's all you could do in those days.   Now there's 37 different priorities at any given time and with the Ole company iPhone there's never really a break. Things like videoconferencing seem cool at first but all they really mean in my experience is that you either have to get up really early or stay up really late (time zones) to deal with vendors whereas before the development was done in house and it was a hell of a lot easier to just walk to the next floor to meet with the dev team face to face in person. Net loss there.

Transportation...without a doubt modern cars and motorcycles are better, at least as long as nothing goes wrong with them, and they tend to be pretty reliable so I take this as a net gain.  Air travel, fuck no that's a hard negative. Planes are faster and more fuel efficient but the overall experience sucks ass compared to the 90s. Well at least as long as you are stuck in economy, which is why I only fly business or first, then it's better.

Internet and smartphones... I'm neutral-negative on this.  On one hand it's cool to be able to just look up pretty much anything. On the other hand I'm not really sure that's made my life any more fulfilled.  The happiest periods of my life were generally before smartphones and pretty much decoupled from the internet. One thing both smart phones and the internet excel at...and that's getting you to spend more money on random shit online. I don't really count that as a plus.

Medical... Yeah we've made advances on things like cancer or end of life treatments, but my experience has been that we haven't done much for middle aged quality of life even though I'm constantly reminded that we are supposedly making great strides in health care. They still can't stop my hair loss, they haven't figured a way to fix the degenerated L4-L5 disk that hurts 24/7, fixing the torn labrums in my hips still involves staples and grinding bone.  Diagnostic imaging has been meh, yeah they can tell me I have an annular tear in the disc but then in the next breath tell me there's nothing they can really do about it. Cool, thanks that was really helpful.

Heck it just took me 20min to write this post on my phone.   Did it make my life any better?  No, but I did waste valuable free time after work pretending my opinion mattered to random people on the web.