I Used to Be a Human Being – How we are all becoming information addicts | Hacker News Reader

I Used to Be a Human Being – How we are all becoming information addicts

nymag.com

62 pointsjack-bodine19 comments

My father was an early adopter in home computers, dial-up internet, and IRC communities. While we weren’t poor, our lives weren’t exactly laden with many luxuries. My father saw computers as something to learn from and use as an advantage that other people in our income bracket didn’t have.

And so I grew up with the internet, chatting on forums, instant messengers, and even MMORPGs. Aside from a few friends from school, my social network was online. People like me who grew up in communities that didn’t understand them whether they were nerdy, queer, or just non religious.

In my opinion, the Midwest is a cold, lonely place to grow up without the internet. I’m a queer agnostic narcoleptic without a drivers license —- AKA absolutely screwed for social connections in the Midwest.

I’m sure the author is speaking his truth. I just don’t think he can appreciate what technology has done for people that weren't served by traditional societies. The silence of an open field reminds me of how alone my home town made me feel. The silence of a church weighs heavy on the person considered most sinful. Some of us were born on the internet and our lives are better for it.

I share that sentiment, I think that particular internet you are referring to is gone, or at least for me, but it did provide connection and windows to other things for me as well.

It does feel like that internet is gone, or at least in the rear view mirror. If there’s anything incredible about the modern web, it’s high definition video. Being able to watch shows with a group of friends over zoom still feels like magic.

What a great comment. Thanks for sharing. Self-driving cars may be in your future to enable you to get around freely.

Thank you for the kind words. Unfortunately for the OP, I think the internet and real life will continue to blend together until it’s considered as natural as running water and electricity.

> Some of us were born on the internet and our lives are better for it

I think this goes without saying in that there was always going to be a minority of people who have benefited as you say and while I certainly sympathize with your specific condition, I think for the vast majority of people, the article better resonates with their experience.

"Since the invention of the printing press, every new revolution in information technology has prompted apocalyptic fears. From the panic that easy access to the vernacular English Bible would destroy Christian orthodoxy... And yet society has always managed to adapt and adjust"

How is Catholics & Protestants killing each other for hundreds of years in Europe considered a good example of society adjusting to innovation?

How is Catholics & Protestants killing each other for hundreds of years in Europe related to easy access to the vernacular English Bible?

The Bible was originally in Greek/Latin which only the Clergy were trained in, not the language of the people (Vernacular). Democratizing access was a direct result of the printing press and was a very contentious part of the protestant reformation [1]. I wouldn't have specified "english" vernacular, but England, like the rest of Europe, has a very bloody history [2] here see "bloody" Mary and Henry VIII. Until eventually King James approved of what is known as the Kings James bible.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Bible 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_English_Bible_tra...

People were dividing into groups and killing each other long before the 1600s. Graphs of killings dropping: https://media.gatesnotes.com/-/media/Images/Articles/About-B... (from pinker and gates notes)

Also having some familiarity with the conflicts in Ireland it was never much about varieties of Christianity - it was about the English colonising Ireland and pushing the native Irish around as second class citizens - see the potato famine and the like. Catholic vs Protestant was just a way to identify the two sides.

Henry VIII and Bloody Mary were 1500's. Not sure what point you are trying to make but that graphic is for homicide which is very different than deaths from state genocide and war.

The Irish oppression started in large part because of the Irish were Catholics & Henry VIII was excommunicated by the pope. The potato famine was in the 1840's which is over 300 years into the conflict, ignoring the role religion played over that time is missing a massive historical context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwellian_conquest_of_Irelan... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation_in_Ireland

Protestants weren't the first of their sort - they were there well before the printing press made it there. Protestants were just the first to get political backing and remain successful enough to persist unlike their deceased elder sibling heresies of the Lollards, Hussities, and Waldesians. These weren't stubborn local heterodox traditions which stuck around despite corrections from Rome but arose from dissent. The Catholic Church had far too many transparent self contradictions in preaching poverty and mercy while being covered with gold, not providing sufficiently for the destitute, and sentencing people to death (regardless of any semantics or sleight of hand in turning the condemned over to secular authorities).

Do you disagree that a large factor in the reformation being more successful (and bloody) was the printing press? That there were similar, smaller, failed movements beforehand seems irrelevant.

I still don't understand why the author, in an anti new technology article, would cite the printing press and protestant reformation as an example of people being overly concerned about new technology. To me it seems like there were severe immediate consequences from that technology.

One thing that I like about this article is the authors point that digital human interaction is incomparable to real human interaction.

I spent much of my teen years on Skype or Discord playing video games with friends. Although, I still consider these close relationships, I feel we missed out on a lot of bonds and development that we could've only gotten by spending more time in person.

I agree with the sentiment but my teen set up a couple of discord servers at the beginning of lockdown last year that allowed some of his far less technical peers to keep in touch with him and a number of their peers when face to face wasn't possible. Even now, with some students in person for school and others remote Discord serves as their side channel for the little side comments that would normally happen in the back of the classroom.

There is value in both forms of interaction.

I've noticed that as I've gotten more and higher quality irl interactions, I tend to neglect my digital or remote friendships more and more. It just doesn't feel the same, which makes me kinda sad

To cite zuckerborg in his famous Freudian slip - "And try not to let stuff bother you as much as possible, but it is going to bother you because you're human. And I was human... I am human still... but it, I was just referring to myself in the past, not that I was not human."

Dehumanization on social media is a real threat to mental health. The Zuck seem to have transcended us mere mortals in that regard, good for him. It's not the "addiction", it just that you are a digital cattle, consciously or subconsciously you know it and behave accordingly.

I too used to be human and am now connected to the internet. Resistance is futile.

I believe the marvels of early information technology / pre-corporate internet culture can be rekindled (and are still partially with us). But for that the shallow and overly rapid and disjointed endeavors, however addictive, will have to cease.

In early public internet times I feel me and my friends had hit a true sweet spot of mixed RL/virtual interaction and mixed RL/virtual shared experiences (via video games mostly): A parallel world much more interesting than the slow, dull and formal real (public) life.

However, lacking personal records of that time, my memory fades (a personal archive helps with that)...

Now many have fallen victim to the consume, engage, forget, repeat cycle (myself included, but recovering) :(

Here's to the coming era of self-moderation.

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