#downsides of technology

[dragoneyes613]

A highly intelligent friend now in his grave, a secularist and man of the Left, once sat with me in a Chicago park as we watched a circle of young people silently consulting their phones, ignoring one another. Suddenly he commented, "You know, if I were the devil, I would invent iPhones." Coming from an atheist, it was a remarkable observation.

Marie Sullivan, Johnkassnews.com, January 29, 2023

[dragoneyes613]

One would think that with the unprecedented comforts and conveniences that modern science and technology have delivered, we would be riding on a crest of happiness. Growing up in the 1930s, I knew a world in which life was difficult. Prior to the advent of antibiotics, the average life expectancy was fifty. Every major city had a tuberculosis sanitarium, and this disease cut people's lives short in their thirties. There was no immunization. Our house was quarantined when I had all the childhood diseases: measles, chicken pox, scarlet fever, mumps, whooping cough. A backache in the summer brought the dread of polio. In absence of air-conditioning, we suffered in sweltering heat. There were no electronics to make work easy. The kitchen was a workplace: no fast or frozen foods, no microwave ovens, few takeouts. Laundry was done on a scrubbing board. Travel was a chore. There were no jet planes, so New York to California took sixty hours by train. My first car was a 1936 Plymouth, no power steering, no power brakes, no air-conditioning. There was no television, no smartphone, no computers. If people in the 1930s had been told what life would be like in the twenty-first century, they would not have believed it possible, but might have said, "If that materializes, we will have Paradise on Earth." What is the twenty-first century Paradise? The drug epidemic killing off youth, depression and anxiety rampant. Billions of doses of tranquilizers and antidepressants swallowed to escape the misery of "Paradise." Rehabilitation centers flourish because addictions are on the increase. The number of children growing up in a single-parent home is unprecedented. That is not the way the world was intended to be. Instead of a genuine happiness, we have a counterfeit happiness. Instead of a real "self," we have a pseudo-self, and we have been deluded into believing it's real. Technology has improved communication...or has it? One can see a group of teenagers hanging out together, essentially ignoring each other's presence as they punch the keys to send text messages. The emotional bonds in face-to-face contact have been eliminated by electronics

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski, M.D. I've Gotta Get Out of My Way! Eliminating the Obstacles to Success

[mustasheo]

TUMBLR JUST POSTED A STUPID POST ON MY FANCY ACCOUNT

AND IT WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO, AT ALL. WHY.

[mustasheo]

One of my earbuds shocked the inside of my ear while I was walking, and my first instinct was to run away rather than take it out. Luckily it stopped after a few seconds before I totally panicked and/or was forced to stop listening to music.

[mustasheo]

too many email addresses

I live in terror of the days where I send important things from the wrong one. Like today. Whoops.

[mustasheo]

what is this cr2 / photoshop raw incompatibility bullshit

you guysssss I just want to edit my photos

D':

[mustasheo]

my phone really needs to stop writing “tits” when I swype “this” or “your” or “you’re” or anything that is not really deliberately “tits.” Hey swype developers, you should add a frequency component based on what words I actually use, because then you would know that I don’t usually say “tits” and you could stop trying to put it in half of my texts