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  • I’ve read so many posts like these on hn, but I just don’t relate to them. I have loved internet access since my first dial in to a BBS in the 90s. I’ve been cruising the information superhighway at top speed every day since. There is always something new to discover.
    by cainxinth
  • This is the overwhelming feeling of our time and yet we continue on this abysmal path. What will it take?
    by bix6
  • It goes from complaining about endless pitches of tech to pitching a gaming console. The tech pitching is a problem, but the need to be constantly entertained and fed some content or game is the real problem. Those are pacifiers. You stuff them in an adults mouth to keep them from actually thinking about what would improve their own life. Take the pacifier out and use your brain for your needs - what you should want to do, to make of the world, to make exist. See what happens next…
    by dzink
  • Absolutely audacious to complain about being "forced" to install apps and in the next sentence complain about the Aliexpress app. Nobody forced you to install the aliexpress app. Nobody needs the aliexpress app.

    Also people need to hate ads more. A single unwarranted notification will get me to disable all notifications or uninstall your app. If you don't hate ads enough, you'll find yourself being shown ads.

    by nancyminusone
  • I have lived in a tech-rich life since I bought my first single board home system in around 1975.

    I think it is as easy as setting boundaries: practice meditation. Learn to enjoy sitting and doing nothing, both in the living room and sitting outside.

    Then when the time is right, work hard for several hours to get important stuff done.

    Food tastes best when we are very hungry, so we must go long periods of time doing mini-fasting a few times a day in order to enjoy food. Similarly, earning a living or experimenting with tech should be something that you sit down and do for a while, then do something else.

    by mark_l_watson
  • The author loved technology when it worked for him, now he toils in its service. Previously, it was additive, only giving and not taking; now it narrows options to only one: the app.

    Obviously, we shouldn't let this happen. Keep paper tickets, physical menus, cash, etc. These things are human, made by and for humans. They make sense across the intelligence spectrum as they connect to us in the physicality of the real (which everyone understands).

    Of course, the individual doesn't get to decide if all his government and city services app-ify themselves. What to do in that case? I guess this guy's chosen the path of minimal leashing: wearing the digital yoke as little as possible. That's just harm minimization though.

    Perhaps it'll help someone to say this: It is possible to live without a smartphone. I do it. There's times when you can't use a service. QR codes are meaningless. You might occasionally be bored. I've always found an alternative or workaround to these issues. Yes, that's inconvenient sometimes (usually not though, surprisingly), but is that worse than being a slave to glass slab?

    by bm3719
  • > The people who love being connected never let the thing leave them be it pocket, palm, face-down next to the fork

    I'm tired of convincingly presented falsehoods. I hate being on my phone. I also can't stop being on my phone.

    by parasti
  • The emotions are relatable, but the examples are strange and don't back up his argument. It is true that there are many situations in modern life where a smartphone has become effectively mandatory.

    But Ali Express is not one of those. It's very feasible to delete the app, or at least turn off the notifications. The quality of TV writing may have taken a nosedive but nobody is forcing you to watch TikTok Empire. If you long for the golden age of television, you can find disc versions of The Wire, Mad Men, The Sopranos etc. Often they're free to borrow at your local library. The App Store is indeed garbage, but I open it a handful of times per year and probably spend less than a minute to search for the app I want and install it.

    The argument about losing control to devices would be much more effective if the examples weren't mainly cases where the user clearly has control.

    by cjpearson

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