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Comment by rhacker | Hacker News Reader

I mean he's right. At some point if we're just robots playing candy crush or watching tiktok after tiktok - what's the real downside of just matrixing our society. I mean yes there are people that still skateboard or ski or hike, but if the population that finds meaning in activities disappears in the next 100 years, there's no reason to have physical anything. Might as well call it or fight back.

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Digital and real world hobbies are not mutually exclusive. If you have an outdoor hobby, you've probably noticed it being busier than ever over the last few years. Hiking trails, beaches, surf breaks, running paths, etc have all been the busier than they ever were before COVID. People may be spending more time than ever online, but people are also spending lots of time in nature.

If anything, tiktok/instagrammers are too prevalent in natural areas these days, harvesting those areas for likes and influence.

Out of the 63 national parks and thousands of state parks in the USA, can we have just one experiment with totally blocking those apps? The obvious place would be a park that has had problems with people going off the trail to take photos when they're not supposed to.

I know you'll still need to offer people cell service so they can call 911 in emergencies, but why not block everything else, as an experiment? Put a big sign at all entrances to that park so people know what they're getting into.

And then the big question would be... would taking this step increase park usage, or decrease it? I honestly have no idea, but I'm incredibly curious to find out.

A Data-Free zone. I love it. Probably you can find plenty of dead zones, but creating one purposely in a tourist spot? Genius.

I recently read How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. In it she advocates we "wrest our focus from the attention economy and replant it in the public, physical realm". Chapter 4 in particular covers being outdoors, in physical public spaces.

The message I took from Jenny's book seemed more about rebuilding human relationships. My tagline in Digital Vegan was "take back tech" because I see technology as complementing and facilitating human relations. Currently it's designed to do the opposite, to corrode the interpersonal and make us more insular and selfish.

Just read her blog post. The post in fantastic, but the book was long-winded and pretentious. I couldn't power through it.

https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do-nothing-57e100f5...

Not disagreeing with you, but what determines that skiing or hiking is more 'valuable' or more worthy of spending time on than candy crush or tiktok?

It pains me seeing how nature is being treated when large amounts of lowest common denominator visit the woods. Lots of noise, junk food wrappers, bottles, beer cans. In that sense, it's more "valuable" having these types away from nature

Dang don't gatekeep so strongly. Sure, no one should litter, obviously; but among those amateur casuals making first trips out into nature are budding, next generation more "hardcore" real adventurers that might pass your standards as they gain more experience. Everyone has to start somewhere.

It's better that some next generation folks are out enjoying nature and building up some care and appreciation for it than not, right?

I'd imagine there's a lot less motivation to build new physical recreation spaces like skateboards etc if almost everyone is starting at a screen every waking minute.

At the same time, appearances are more important than ever, so it might make business sense to sell equipment to people who want to pose with them. Same with rec spaces too, people don't actually have to partake in the activities, they just have to pay for the membership (and the tagging rights)

It isn't like they were really building these places before smartphones, though. These are things that are generally either services and cost money rather than make them or they are for-profit places that don't always have much demand. I don't know why it seems surprising that the "motivation" to build these isn't there now since the same restraints are still there.

I agree. Local skateboarding places that are free get pretty well-used. Hiking is still popular but requires a bit more time unless you live near somewhere suitable.

Part of the problem is so many people don't have free time and/or money to do anything more than scroll on their phones. That goes for people with good career jobs with long hours, and those scrolling on the bus as they go from one of their low paid part time jobs to another.

I think this is a somewhat self-manifested societal dichotomy requiring debate. One route leads to, as you say, a "matrix" society, which may or may not be a good thing. But we as humans need to make the decision if it's correct, because ultimately the humans profiting from the setup will end up irrelevant, and I don't think that's understood (ironic).

The people who spend all day sitting and staring at screens will end up with lower reproductive fitness due to obesity, weakness, and various endocrine system disorders. So over a long enough time scale, evolution will sort us out.

Nah.. we'll evolution won't get a chance. Between cybernetics and genetic engineering we'll eventually overcome issues with our physical bodies way before evolution comes into play.

Bad food and portion sizes carry most of the blame for obesity. You can be a gym nut and still addicted to technology though.

That's only if staring at screens is a genetic trait, which probably isn't. Two super fit parents may end up having a slouch potato.

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