Ask HN: Are things getting more convenient but less satisfying? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are things getting more convenient but less satisfying?

225 pointsagomez314203 comments

I read a post on HN recently where a guy in his teens used to visit a construction site to watch how peopled worked and even help them for small fee. Now he could just watch a YouTube video about it in 10 different ways but the experience differs in that the workers used to treat him well and converse with him, which obviously made him a deep impression.

So I'd be interested to generalize this: with things getting more and more digital and disembodied (ahem, ChatGPT), does it produce convenience at the expense of contentment?

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Yeah... sitting in front of screens all day makes us forget we are highly developed animals first, then rational minds second (or third). Out “lower” instinctual selves who crave that sensual/physical experience are never fully satisfied/soaked within that disembodied life.

Also, Modern civilization is making a lot of things "frictionless". Less friction is indeed more convenient. However, it makes us forget that a lot of "real-life" frictions (difficulties, challenges, Human interactions...) are what make us grow. Our "higher selves” who crave that "personal growth" are never contented with that bland/rippleless experience.

So, we are left in the middle in superficial satisfaction and security, with deep fulfilment (both lower and higher) always out of reach. I wonder if the "mental illness" epidemic has something to do with this, as a psychological mechanism to get us out of our virtual stupor.

> Also, Modern civilization is making a lot of things "frictionless".

Recently it feels like the stuff that’s frictionless are the distractions and time wasters and all the important stuff I’ve been trying to do are well guarded by walls of bureaucracy.

That's exactly how I see it. Everything that is frictionless has been designed that way to either suck your attention or your money. Everything that rewards you in life has always had some modicum of struggle to it, and now that we're all used to convenience, those struggle walls seem much higher than before.

I don't really know how to get out of it. I take ice-cold showers every morning and it's now more or less "easy". Doesn't really feel like a big step though. I guess I just keep going, trying more and more difficult things.

Living a life in complete comfort can make us fear even minor discomfort, pain, and stress. But these are ordinary and essential parts of human life. Stupor is a very appropriate word to describe a state of living without even minor discomforts, and I believe this lifestyle has severe negative mental and physical health consequences.

Mental health consequences include:

- Anxiety about minor unpleasant things.

- Catastrophizing them.

- Ruminating on inconsequential aspects of one's life.

Also, living a dull life probably has other adverse mental health effects.

Physiological health consequences include losing physical readiness through lack of (uncomfortable but necessary) exercise. And we'll likely discover a lot of harmful physiological effects of a live-at-home lifestyle that remote work, online shopping, telehealth, and social media now enable.

While I can see some glaring negatives of living a life devoid of discomfort, there are likely many more. Psychologists and other health professionals should pay more attention to this.

This is one reason why I regularly participate in Crossfit. It pushes me into a very uncomfortable place, perhaps even painful. Yet it has a strong grounding effect on my mental health, and makes me feel alive. Other stress/pain in my life seems much more manageable somehow.

A little discomfort can put a lot of things in perspective.

this reminds me of some things in the book Brave New World

I recently listened to a podcast about that same concept: https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/advice/nietzsche-te...

Smith: " Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program."

> we are highly developed animals first, then rational minds second

I feel this. People I interact with all day everyday remotely I have trouble relating to.

Where I’ve made new friends recently we have gone out maybe once or twice, shared some personal opinions on life etc and quickly I feel an emotional connection to the point where I care about their well-being and want to support them.

It’s happened a few times like that in the last year, various gender identities and ages.

I know some people aren't going to like reading this, but this is the reason I got an office job after working 2+ years remotely.

I am in my mid 20s, working as a software engineer. I have never worked in an office. I live alone in a city where I don't know anyone.

I haven't talked to another person in real life since Thanksgiving.

Will there be bad things about the office? I am 100% sure there will be. But for me the decision to not be remote wasn't even a want, but a need. I am slowly losing my mind, locked up in my apartment, 23 hours a day.

Before someone comments about "go to a rock climbing gym" or "go to a coffee shop" - I tried all of those things. It's not that simple. An office job is a very consistent way to talk to another human person in real life.

> Before someone comments about "go to a rock climbing gym" or "go to a coffee shop" - I tried all of those things. It's not that simple.

So, you are choosing the cheapest/easiest of the options out there: to talk to people that are forced to see you in person every day of the week. To that, I can only say: good luck.

While you spin it negatively, for a 20 y/o especially that is valuable life experience. I think they are wise for making that change.

You aren't going to like everyone you meet, but you need to cooperate with them. And some can't be cooperated with, and you need to handle THAT.

I can totally understand this perspective; we're social animals.

But I'm also mindful that the reverse has applied to a lot of people both throughout history and the present day, who had to be away from their families for work. Or situations where a couple have to choose who gives up their career in order to live in the same place. Or people jammed into overcrowded apartments because that's all they can afford in order to get to where the work is.

No easy answers, but the people who say remote work has been liberatory for them aren't lying.

(I'm grateful that I can have a partial-wfh experience where I go into the office two days a week, I think that's a compromise that works for me. I like being in the office, it's a nice office, I just don't like commuting.)

The problem, I think, is that only the people who don't like reading this leave comments.

So here I am, commenting that I feel exactly the same way as you. This is the reason I went back to the office

I used to think I was someone who did NOT like the light social interactions in the office. After the pandemic lockdowns I thought I'd continue working from home. After six months of that I realized that I did enjoy the office.

Turns out I don't like small talk, but I like having a small group of people I can bond with over a meal or whatever. Its a lighter interaction. It's still professional, but it helps me.

And before anyone asks I do have that outside of office. That wasn't enough for me.

Anecdote from someone in their mid-30s:

I've spent the majority of my professional life fully remote. The few years I have spent in an office, I've really appreciated. These days, I do miss the meat-space office and having in-person interactions with coworkers from time to time.

Pros and cons for sure, and I guess the factors that tipped me to still being remote again can be summarized as

* country and location where the lifestyle suits me

* stimulating and rewarding work where I feel I can make an impact in something I believe in while working with skilled people

* not moving every couple of years

* not spending half my free time in commute

If my current work magically had an office in town tomorrow I'd 100% start going there.

My guess that it'll come down a lot to the people you'll be working with.

Anyway, sounds like you made the right call! Good luck and hope you found something that brings you joy!

I think happiness with remote work depends a lot on whether you live with a family / roommates who you see regularly.

This doesn't help the actual problem for me. Which is much more about embodied effort and tangible outcome.

You can feel yourself swing a pick or cut through an onion, pay attention to the minute physical, aural stimuli, experience how small adjustments to the angle or force or whatever affect those feelings and the outcome of the next motion. Nearly all kinds of work have this embodiment in some form, even things like washing the dishes have so much sensory experience in them.

Coding just... doesn't. It has analogs to those things, in refining techniques or "honing" "tools" but without the embodiment something essential is missing from my connection to the work. I swear I think this is why mechanical keyboards are so popular right now.

And yeah it's also true that I have a lot of other places to experience those but there seems to be something important about it tied up with my experience of work per se. Being in an office doesn't help me at all because it's not a social problem really.

A few months into the pandemic I overheard someone who eventually become a friend, a welder, ask "do you have a computer job or a real job?" It's a dismissive way to phrase it but I knew immediately that this is what he was talking about.

Yeah, I don't blame you at all. All my 20s were spent working at software companies in the office.

I went remote when I turned 30. I am very grateful I spent that time working in the office, making friends, and hanging out. It was a lot of fun.

Be really careful with this one. I spent my 20s working for startups, loved going to the office, and hanging out with friends outside work.

Then my manager quit. Or a power-hungry executive starts targeting your area, creating chaos. Or the company doesn't raise the funding it needs.

So, you quit, or get laid off, or fired. That family culture, and friends you saw every day and bonded with are either no where to be seen or the dynamic shifts so dramatically it becomes practically unbearable.

Each job I seem to stay in touch with 1 or 2 coworkers regularly, and am on good terms with a few dozen more. But in terms meeting your social needs, it ends up hurting a lot more when you realize you were all alone the entire time and your coworkers were just paid to talk to you.

This is part of why you see a lot more people in their 20s attending company functions or working in startup "family" cultures, and fewer in their 30s, 40s, or 50.

It's good that you're finding something to help address your loneliness. I would encourage you to try to find a few work friendships that you can take offline and outside of work to start building a social network that's divorced from where you're working. And if you have a difficult time doing that, then that's particularly a skill you should work on developing -- because as someone in my mid-30s, it's only going to get harder to make and maintain friendships from here on out.

Counterpoint: as a 35 year old man, I met all of my closest friends at work, in the office, and I still talk to 3-4 daily.

I work remote now and making new friends has become significantly harder because I no longer have consistent repeated contact with anyone. Outside of works, meeting a new person tends to be a one-off far more often than not.

They said: > Counterpoint: as a 35 year old man, I met all of my closest friends at work, in the office, and I still talk to 3-4 daily.

You said: >Each job I seem to stay in touch with 1 or 2 coworkers regularly,

You're describing the same thing - you will keep a friend or two from your old jobs, but it's not a whole social group.

The lead with

> So, you quit, or get laid off, or fired. That family culture, and friends you saw every day and bonded with are either no where to be seen or the dynamic shifts so dramatically it becomes practically unbearable.

As well as the distinction between work friends and a real social network was what I was attempting to counterpoint. It's little confusing because they backtrack at the end and say to use work to build a social group, which is what I'm promoting.

I'm saying start building the social network while you're in the job, and don't let the company's social infrastructure be your social network or else you'll be screwed when you leave that job.

If OP is feeling better because they can go to bowling night with their team, and feel connected and bonded... then that's not sufficient long term. If they meet one or two people who they seem to jive with and suggest meeting up outside of work for bowling... then that's a good way to start a social network that'll outlast their job and potentially not land them in the misery they were in originally.

Startups, especially in the Bay Area, will often promote the former to make people feel engaged in their work and to scratch that itch for connection. But in some ways that works against your own longer-term social needs.

Makes sense!

> Each job I seem to stay in touch with 1 or 2 coworkers regularly, and am on good terms with a few dozen more. But in terms meeting your social needs, it ends up hurting a lot more when you realize you were all alone the entire time and your coworkers were just paid to talk to you.

Yeah, exactly - you'll probably make a few good work friends who you'll convert to just friends and then keep in touch with afterwards, but for the rest the common link is the work and once that's gone so is the connection.

This is a false dichotomy. There is value in the normal social interactions of a workplace even if they don't become lifetime friends. Seeing people during the day, small talk, having relationships come and go - these are healthy and enjoyable things even if they never get deeper.

I think you’re both right, just don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Sure having office “friends” or social interactions at the office is a good thing but just make sure those aren’t your only social contacts.

Here here

> There is value in the normal social interactions of a workplace even if they don't become lifetime friends. Seeing people during the day, small talk, having relationships come and go - these are healthy and enjoyable things even if they never get deeper.

Definitely true, but it's a completely different kind of value than what you get from a stable circle of friends outside work. If you have the latter sorted out, than the former is a great addition because overcoming challenges together and spending a ton of time together leads to bonding, if shallow, and I've had lots and lots of fun with my "work besties" especially early in my career. Plus, since most people do spend a lot of time at work, might as well make that as pleasant as possible, and being well-connected and well-liked never hurts.

But if your social network is just your colleagues, then this sort of thing becomes liability since in all likelihood you'll lose all of them, possibly quite abruptly, possibly even when you actually need support. A lot of workplace friendships tend to not outlast a common place of employment for long, if at all, so changing jobs means you'll also ditch your social circle, and having to start over again and again isn't fun after the third time or so, nor is discovering that some people become icy once they're sufficiently ahead in the rat race. Workplaces tend to be an environment well-suited for relatively shallow but fun connections, but quite badly suited for forming deep, long-lasting ones, and a healthy social life needs both.

Hence I second grandparent's advice to focus on building a stable social network outside work (possibly even from work friendships where there is a strong connection and a common hobby or the like, but that should happen outside the office and over non-work topics). It does get harder to make new connections later in life (at least I find it so); better not tie those that you manage to make to a workplace that may well try to foster and exploit this exact thing because it serves the interests of the business to have you depend on their office for social warmth.

That's also not necessarily tied to WFH or from an office; some people may find it easier to do this in a WFH setting, others will be very successful mining the office for actual friends to go hiking with on the weekend.

> But if your social network is just your colleagues, then this sort of thing becomes liability since in all likelihood you'll lose all of them, possibly quite abruptly, possibly even when you actually need support.

Yep. Moved for a job, only real social circle that "stuck" there was coworkers. When people started leaving and the company started to fall apart, my "social circle" fell to bits.

A lot of friends have similar stories, and a lot of companies in tech try foster this environment where everyone in the office is a whole ecosystem of mates. Which makes you not really bother put the work in to make friends outside of work.

As grandparent, I would add that my advice is also in the context of the original comment. If you're going crazy and feeling locked in your apartment for 23 hours per day, then you definitely don't have a strong social support network. If your solution is to get an in-person job for social contact, that's a great first step... just make sure to take the subsequent steps to use those contacts to build a non-work social network so you have the support you really need.

Many of the comments/responses to me seem to be missing the original context. Yes, all friendships come and go. Yes, interaction isn't family and family isn't interaction. Yes, you can carry on friendships with people after you quit.

Everyone is saying true things. But as someone who has moved cross country to work at a startup, treated the startup as my social life, and then left that job... I was devastated by the number of people who I thought were close friends who basically didn't talk to me after I left the company. I learned that lesson in a really rough way at 26.

Now, I take my own advice, and when I meet people through work that I get along well with, I try to move that friendship outside of work so hopefully it has a chance to outlast the job and be an ongoing social connection. That also opens my network up to their friend network. It also gives me social support beyond someone to gripe about work with.

That's all I'm saying. When you have no friends or support, having daily interactions is good/necessary, but try to use that to solve the main problem: having no friends or support.

> If you're going crazy and feeling locked in your apartment for 23 hours per day, then you definitely don't have a strong social support network. If your solution is to get an in-person job for social contact, that's a great first step

Someone in a place like that should take whatever socializing they can get, because such a situation is dangerous in itself, loneliness kills and the lonelier one becomes, the harder it is to get back out, socializing is a muscle that wants exercise. Certainly not arguing against an office job and coworkers as a first step, just don't leave it at that, is what I'm saying (as are you)

> But if your social network is just your colleagues,

I found this to be especially true in academia ... I spent about 10 years at the same university in different groups and have not kept many of the friends I made along the way.

This goes both ways, I spend a lot of that time in one group and got to see several "generations" of students and colleagues come an go ... After a while you just stop trying to have deep connections because most are there only temporarily.

(Also at some point students just become to young to befriend :-) )

The parent comment is talking about human interaction, not human interdependency. You can acknowledge and hold the belief that working in an office causes constant human interaction AND not treat everyone there as family or become ingrained in that lifestyle.

I'm good friends with many of my former coworkers from the office (boring FAANG 9-5 job, not a startup). It's easy to chat, make lunch plans, go drinking, etc when you're all working together in the same space. Having said that, we were all in our 20s and early 30s, so I think you're onto something. There are plenty of young people around to hang out with, but not so many middle aged ones.

Friendships made in any context might end as people move or take on different commitments.

Friendships made in the workplace aren't better than friendships made in other contexts, but they aren't necessarily worse, either. A lot of coworker friendships may end when the working relationship ends, but it's possible to carry on a friendship with a former coworker after you are no longer working together.

> "go to a rock climbing gym"

why not go skiing on the weekends. My eyes and body was degenerating from sitting in front of screens all day. I had crazy cervical degeneration and poor eyesight from using computers all day. Skiing is helping me manage the constant cervical pain and helping my eyes relax.

Escape the screens before its too late.

I don't want to hop on the "just do this" train, but I'll say that sitting on a ski lift and talking with a random stranger about their life is a simple joy. You probably won't see that person ever again on a big mountain, but you can learn a lot about them. Underrated social activity.

What percent of Americans live in a place where they can just casually go skiing on the weekend? It's an okay option if you live in Denver, Salt Lake City, or Seattle (although even in those cities you'll be spending 1-2 hours sitting in traffic both ways which isn't everyone's cup of tea) but I can't imagine anyone in Southern or Midwestern states doing it.

That is the whole point of being remote! The parent poster is already all alone in a city, why not be all alone somewhere you can ski? Or surf/kitesurf/SUP/skate/paraglide/etc

There are so many activities out there that require specific geography. Normally you have to choose, a long commute to the office or a long commute to nature. But when you're remote, you can move somewhere near an activity you want to do!

Working remote and living in a city where you don't know anyone is almost definitely the wrong choice.

There are ski resorts throughout the appalachian mountains, all the way down to North Carolina.

I'm with you. Other than parents, I do not understand people who can work from home all day...and like it.

I felt like I was in my own prison, made even worse by moving to a suburb where the nearest non-chain coffee shop is over two hours by foot. It drove me nuts.

What I did that seems to be working really well is this:

- Drive to a gym that's about 30 minutes away from a coffee shop, walking distance

- Work out

- Walk to coffee shop

- Work for a few hours

- Walk back to my car

- Drive back home, or (likely) to some other place

- Close my work day.

However, I'd prefer to commute to an office, work in the office, walk somewhere interesting during lunch break, walk back, gym, then home.

Having worked from home for 20 years now, it was great pre-pandemic. Once the office crowd came online over the last few years, having no working from home skills and wanting to do things as if they were still in the office, then I can see why you'd rather be in the office. This office at a distance model is quite horrid.

What do you think are the key working from home skills? For some roles such as sales and marketing I can definitely see the challenges with working remotely.

> I know some people aren't going to like reading this

That's because it's an unpopular opinion in an industry teeming with reclusive and rabidly antisocial people.

But it's one that I subscribe to and indeed all the engineers at the company I work for do, as well. The fact is, at remote jobs I made zero relationships even though the people were generally approachable and easy to talk to. I got one job with a person I already had good relationships and wouldn't you know but our relationship never got much deeper until I flew out to Utah to simply hang out with him.

That was what made me switch to an on-site job, and 14 months in, I think I've made the right decision. Office shenanigans, small talk, an overheard joke are what really make the relationship. To say nothing of breaking bread with your office companions! Who likes eating alone every day? I've also found that the artificiality of Zoom sessions really ruin mundane interactions. I communicated less with people whilst working remotely, and the communications themselves were noticeably less satisfying.

> Before someone comments about "go to a rock climbing gym" or "go to a coffee shop" - I tried all of those things. It's not that simple. An office job is a very consistent way to talk to another human person in real life.

Yes and no. Living in a city defeats the purpose of working remotely. If you're remote with no dependants, you have ultimate freedom. Pick an outdoor activity and move east from your working timezone. Stay at a hostel, they usually have private rooms. Do said activity in the morning, work during the day, hang out with people from the hostel at night.

If you're in the city, then yeah, go to an office. Preferably one that is walking distance from a good pub or a good music venue.

There is no single purpose to working remotely.

There's something to be said for joining a club or joining a church if so inclined.

It's much easier to create a community once you get rolling, but very hard to get started.

Getting a job in an office is good, it'll help build friendships. I'd just caution against that being the only community you're apart of. I personally try to be apart of 3-4 communities, it keeps me busy and makes my life more robust if one community is impacted.

"Rock climbing", "going to a coffee shop", isn't a community - those are effectively solo activities. You may get some human contact, but it's not someone you can call when you're sick.

What’s an example of a club you have in mind?

Depends on your area: board game clubs are common in cities, shooting clubs are common in the country, a soccer club, what ever.

It really depends on your interests, but there's bound to be something where people gather on a regular cadence and you can join.

A bit late reply, but dancing classes. I have met a lot of people in my salsa class, we organize parties from time to time.

> "Rock climbing" ... [is] effectively solo

I disagree with this one, though. It depends on how you look at it. Rock climbing CAN be an activity you go to, put earbuds in, and block out the rest of the world, and sure, many do... but if you approach it with an open mindset, talk to others at the gym, make friends, then you are already ahead of the game, because those friends already share your same hobby (vs. finding a friend at a social event).

Anecdata:

- My cousin started rock climbing because of her fiance. His entire wedding party was made up of rock climbing friends

- Another two friends I know from the gym met at said gym and got hitched

- Dissatisfied with the "phone number whiteboard", I started a local discord group which now spans two gyms, we chat online but meet up when convenient. I found one of my very good friends from that group.

I worked in an office that I really enjoyed. Then due to covid, ended up working remote, and then taking a remote only job. It's a weird feeling thinking that such a drastic social change may basically be permanent.

also adding my voice to say I did a very similar thing. 2 years WFH (as a young single male) was a miserable experience for me. I switched to an office job and I’m much happier.

> I know some people aren't going to like reading this, but this is the reason I got an office job after working 2+ years remotely.

Nobody dislikes reading about how someone finds value for themselves in going into the office.

Some people would greatly dislike reading about how everyone should go into the office.

Me too man. I burned out from my previous company, which was already in a bit of crisis, but I think I prolonged my suffering with the disconnect that comes from WFH. Don't get me wrong, there were many things I liked about WFH, but I underestimated my ability to isolate myself as an unhealthy coping mechanism and get away with it.

I'm at a new firm now, in a better role, but also in office - and I'm constantly shocked by how much I enjoy going into the office. Like you, I'm in my 20s, and I do have an active social life outside of work whether WFH or not. For now, I prefer being in the office (on a good team, with a good culture and work-life balance, on a good project) than being WFH at a cool company with a mediocre culture.

Do activities that require interaction with other people. Sign up for a dance class, or a hiking group or a book club or a marital arts class or chess club and commit to going two to three times a week. You’ll make a lot more friends not related to your job.

> I know some people aren't going to like reading this

Sure, just don't push your preferences on other people. That's really the issue of work remote or not.

Super important warning though: make sure that you still work on developing some friendships in your city outside of the office.

I've kinda fell into that trap myself during the pandemic. Both my team and our customers are really cool, and I spend a lot of time on calls, so I didn't feel any need to meet people outside of work.

But then I took some time off and realized I barely have any friends in my city. I fixed it since then and met some great people, but at the time it wasn't a pleasant experience.

Try a crossfit gym with group classes and attend at the same time a few times a week. You'll get to know people and be involved in a "shared struggle" which is a good way to build friendships.

Triathlon culture is like this too, most endurance people are a bit insular and weird, but triathlon culture (owing likely to the three sports and socially interacting with people in those three spheres) was a lot more social.

Plus, triathlon is inherently so much more interesting to talk about. You get all the bike gear stuff, there's talking about good routes to both run and bike, there's destinations to go to for training and racing.

Finally, you get to interact with swimmers, who are frankly the most fun and accepting of the three, I think owing to the fact that it involves people that are basically spending time together naked wearing only the thinnest, smallest amount of clothing possible.

> Before someone comments about "go to a rock climbing gym"

Not all climbing gyms are exactly social spaces.

Some have a good culture of being a social space etc, others don't.

I've been a member of both types - the current place I climb (the only one in my current city) really lacks the social element.

I suspect there's a survivorship bias esque thing happening where people only really report on the sociable climbing walls, and nobody talks about the others.

The general air of sociability at my gym has gone up and down over the years. The culture seems to be driven by a handful of A-type personalities, and when less of them are showing up the place feels a fair bit less extroverted.

Oh yeah, I couldn't do it alone. I love working remotely, but that's because I have my wife, dogs, and nearby family to keep me more or less sane.

This happens even in university situation. Before moving for study abroad, I thought I had made connections at former university, until I realized I didn’t. Recently I had few episodes of really wanting to talk to people, but none of them were available. However, they hit up everytime, they need something. Might be my personal nature too. But I realized this recently. So I stopped talking to them either. I thought it was because of the distance, but I had few friends from university who moved to same place as me. Then after going on one trip with them, I realized everyone was phony and I didn’t have friends at all. Now I have accepted I will be alone. So I will never put trust in any form of social relationships. I can control the algorithms but not people. Human are selfish, so I would rather be selfish and happy than social and depressed. It doesn’t mean I am antisocial. Simply put, I put numbers before emotions. Performance over humanity. Machine over heart. I might hangout with people but there won’t be any deep connections. I will crack jokes, but won’t bother helping them in need. Learnt my lesson the hard way. Most of the time, it’s best to say “No”.

He took the red pill!

I have a very large friendship network outside of work (to the point of it being overbearing). I still hate working from home. It’s convenient, efficient and soulless. My excitement from work is solving problems with people in person, and the human element is a critical component.

If you woke up tomorrow and found you were the only person left on the world, would you be inspired to create? I wouldn’t.

     An office job is a very consistent way to talk 
     to another human person in real life.

Well, it's certainly a way, but your coworkers are (essentially) forced to be there and to talk to you.

I have made many genuine lifelong friends this way, but "forced proximity to another person whose finances depend on their presence" is not always going to be the healthiest basis for human relationships.

     Before someone comments about "go to a rock 
     climbing gym" or "go to a coffee shop"

I don't want to extrapolate/interpolate too much from your words here, but simply showing up at those places seems like a very non-ideal way to make friends. I'm sometimes up for chitchat with randos, but often not, and I'm not really looking to form lasting friendships.

The real key is to join groups who do things together, whether it's gaming or hiking or volunteering or whatever. Those are true shared passions, interests, and experiences.

Forgive me if I've misunderstood your words. Perhaps you already tried things like that, e.g. you were part of a group at the rock climbing gym or something like that.

So you're using the office as a crutch for your social life. Don't drag us all back into the office just for that.

Plus you're destroying the planet commuting every day.

I think people often memetically comment that because they've found they like it or found it to be a cheap way they can buy into hypothetically socializing. I like coffee shops and would happily meet there with a friend, but for someone with a scarcity of organic interests that would naturally take them there, they need to explore why that is and why it seems troublesome first. You can't or shouldn't try to just hack your way into a good social life by adopting arbitrary social activities; though many of them might be fun to explore among a long list of potential other things to explore.

Many people move to cities from the suburbs of their hometown where everyone they knew just happened because they were already around them for the specific reason that they had to be around them day in and day out, like an office job in a way.

My biggest recommendations would be to explore the area and be open to trying new things, and then also to meet your coworkers and their friends eventually, if you can.

So many people I know back home have only ever made "friends" with their coworkers, and if that job went away, so would their "friends", because they are linked in only that way. If you meet your coworkers friends somehow though, the only reason that relationship would flourish to the point of friendship is that you each felt that it should, because you discovered common ground or realized you both had chemistry.

Likewise, another thing I recommend to people who feel isolated, is to try and find something you like doing for 2-3 hours a day, once or twice a week, somewhat around other people. Could be the gym, could be hanging at a coffee shop, could be many other things, you just need some common faces regularly so you have the opportunity to discover if you vibe with them. It's important that you'd do it regardless of anyone else being there too. You need to be down for it, and anything else that happens should be considered a lucky side-effect.

So yes, it's not that simple, and you're absolutely right.

A sedentary lifestyle likely contributes to this heavily. You can be in the best physical shape and still live a very sedentary lifestyle. I think Nietzsche said something along this line of any idea that comes from movement are those that have actual value. Up to your interpretation of movement here though.

> Out “lower” instinctual selves who crave that sensual/physical experience are never fully satisfied/soaked within that disembodied life.

Isn't this why a lot of furries exist? (I say this as a DID system where all members happen to be furry creatures.)

> Also, Modern civilization is making a lot of things "frictionless".

I would debate this. Everything seems to have more and more friction to me. There was a sweet spot about 10-15 years ago where things were mostly frictionless, and it's been intentionally made worse because people believe it improves their numbers (without actually understanding what the numbers mean, I suspect).

Some examples:

- I want to read a blog. 2 paragraphs in, the screen is taken over by a popover trying to trick me into giving them my email (by making the "Cancel" control not a button, in an odd place, smaller, and a different font). I do one of 3 things that does not help the person who put it there - I give a fake email address and continue reading, I do the work and find the close/cancel button, or I simply close the tab because it's not worth my time. I suspect many people either enter a fake email or enter their real email address then mark the first few "newsletters" as spam and forget about them once their spam detection recognizes it regularly.

- I order a simple product like a gallon of milk or a light bulb, or have a routine visit to the dentist or eye doctor. I get an email imploring me to write a review of this revolutionary product or service. I ignore it. They send me several more. Annoyed, I write a scathing review of their stupid hounding efforts after buying something so mundane and give them the lowest marks. Sometimes this backfires and they want to "make it up to me" and offer me some sort of small discount on more of their products or service, or they want me to give more information "so they can improve my experience". Having the ability to write a review is great for when something goes really well or poorly, but who has time to do this for every single bank transaction? Like all I did was pay a bill. It worked exactly as expected. There's nothing to say. It wasn't spectacular, it wasn't awful. But if you do write a review and give them only 3 out of 5 stars, you'll hear about it, thus wasting more of your time.

- I want to watch the next episode of my favorite show. There's a trailer for a different show from the same service. If it's related, maybe I'm interested. Just let me tell you whether I want to see these or not in a preference. Don't make me skip it every time. But most of the time it's something they're pushing that's unrelated and not interesting, or that I already saw 5 times when watching the last 5 episodes, so usually I hit the skip button. Then there's a title card about downloading their podcast about the show. No thanks. Then a title card to "stay tuned after the episode to have it mansplained to you". Then, finally, there's the opening credits. Then after the show, there's the closing credits, followed by the credits for all the people who did voiceovers in other languages that you didn't have turned on, followed by mansplaining the episode. "When Jeremy yelled at Sally, he was angry with her!" You don't say! (Yes, I usually bail out shortly after the closing credits, it's just ridiculous how much other junk they put in there. Plus, sometimes if you don't watch it all, the episode remains in your queue until you mark it as watched.)

No one of these is terrible on its own, but it's the death by 1,000 paper cuts. I just want to accomplish some task and someone or something is constantly interrupting me to try and extract more data or money from me. It's incredibly irritating.

Everything these days seems to come with some monkey paw-esque catch to it.

You can log into amazon and order millions of items to your home without getting up off the couch, but amazon only shows you the same products over and over and what you get is probably counterfeit or broken because amazon doesn't care about quality and they've made reviews useless.

You have endless entertainment for free on youtube, but it's all data collection and an algorithm dedicated to amplification of the worst aspects of your psyche. It'll entertain, and recommend you toward extremism. Don't even ask what it's doing to your kids.

You can use social media to stay in touch with everyone you love, but mostly it will make you depressed, and you'll need to self-censor and craft your social media profiles to best promote your "brand" to satisfy the future potential employers who will google the shit out of you before hiring.

You can have a tiny powerful computer in your pocket but it's designed primarily for tracking and media consumption. The engagement it's designed to extract from you comes at the cost of disengagement with the loved ones around you.

We have more choices in our grocery stores than at any point in history, but that choice is largely an illusion since every brand is owned by one of a handful of corporations. Those corporations can be caught literally and knowingly poisoning you and your children and they'll not only stay in business, but they'll stay very profitable.

It's really not the convenience of things that are the problem though, it's that none of the things we have are designed to serve us. Everything you buy* or use is working for someone else (often against your interests) and companies are dedicated to delivering the barest minimum required to sucker you into forking over your money, your data, and your control.

Give me something that works great and works only for me and I'm perfectly satisfied with it.

*it isn't yours.

Yes. The best thing to do is to try your best to make something that makes at least one person truly joyous.

> You have endless entertainment for free on youtube, but it's all data collection and an algorithm dedicated to amplification of the worst aspects of your psyche. It'll entertain, and recommend you toward extremism.

My spouse and I never use the YT homepage, where these recommendations are made. We have two use cases: search for something specific 5% of the time, view videos from subscribed channels 95% of the time. The subscriptions feed shows a nice, clean timeline of all videos ordered by upload date. So we get none of the “recommendation rabbit hole effect”. I do wish that one could have multiple named lists of subscriptions so that we could separate things out by interest.

FWIW, this is the YT app on AppleTV.

I only go to the subscriptions page thus all my recommendations are from people I'm subbed to or similar creators. You gotta give the algo good data in to get good data out.

Essentially we’ve given aspects of community fulfillment corporate control and true healthy human fulfillment through community is not profitable to shareholders.

> amazon doesn't care about quality and they've made reviews useless

And, even more hurtful to any trust one might have in such a party (it's not unique to US or Amazon), seeing the reviews being introduced with great promise, serving their purpose for a time but almost imperceptibly degrading to being an antithesis almost od their promise and purpose. Even if execution is great, such technological "solutions" to complex problems end up degrading to zero net value add, or even a net negative over their time of being "live".

Part of satisfaction is completing something, and fewer things end anymore.

You can't watch a really good movie with a satisfying conclusion, they are all written for a sequel.

You don't just buy things, you have to subscribe to them.

You take a vacation, but also 3000 pictures.

Relationships don't end, they have long lingering deaths of less and less a contact on social media.

You never get the moments of walking away from prison a free man, it's just an endless series of half way houses.

I've noticed a lot of DIY kits for sale for what was once routine things, like making a gourmet dinner where all the ingredients come neatly packed in one box. No need to think beyond the actual assembly steps. It's sort of like satisfaction in a box. A whole market has sprung up to recreate the experience without the hassle.

> “You can't watch a really good movie with a satisfying conclusion, they are all written for a sequel.”

This only applies to the Disneyfied mega-blockbusters that represent a large share of production dollars but a small share of movies created overall.

It’s never been easier to find and access good movies, new and old. No matter if they’re from Iowa or France or Korea, practically anything is available on streaming a few clicks away. The problem is really the overwhelming abundance of choice. Given the choice of “The Batman” and “The Northman”, people will default to the familiar title and then complain that it’s derivative and anticipates a sequel.

Yeah, this is like how you often see complaints about movies all being the same and shitty these days, or how horror movies all suck now, or whatever.

In fact, there are hundreds of movies made every year and many are very good. Enough that it's kinda hard to watch all the good ones, unless you spend a whole lot more time than most people do watching new-release movies. All I can figure is people come to this conclusion because they're just looking at the blockbusters and what they see advertised everywhere, and figuring those are the only movies that exist.

> All I can figure is people come to this conclusion because they're just looking at the blockbusters and what they see advertised everywhere, and figuring those are the only movies that exist.

This might be my age showing but movies used to be both blockbuster hits and completely unique storylines. Those things somehow became mutually exclusive and people never figured out how to explore the underground movie scene. When I was younger, even now to some extent, I sought out underground music as my interests were not popular. Yet, I have no idea how to do that for movies; it's just not a skill I ever acquired. When something new and "indie" shows up on my radar, I feel I am more likely to default to a feeling that it's a waste of time than something special I should invest some time on. Perhaps also due to run time differences, it's easier to "check out" some new music than a new movie.

Mmm, kinda. I think some of that's a bit of an illusion—I suspect there's a tendency to remember the dozen great original blockbuster movies that came out in a decade, and forget the hundred sequels, cookie-cutter genre movies, and other crap that was most of what was coming out. Even now we get something good that's also a big highly-promoted spectacle movie maybe once a year, but we do get ten or more mediocre-to-terrible ones for every one of those.

Music's a lot easier to check out quickly than movies, so yeah, it's just easier to keep up with, especially these days with Spotify and such. I've found TV easier to get into lately because there are sharp cut-off points pretty regularly—I hate having to leave a movie unfinished and return to it. Fortunately, there's been a ton of great TV in the last couple decades. I've also been really appreciating when I can find a tight 90-minute film instead of a 2+hr monster, which is way more common outside blockbuster-film territory.

Finding a critic with taste similar to yours, who writes frequently enough to cover plenty of non-blockbuster films, helps with discovery. I've personally also had luck watching basically anything A24 puts out. Very rarely been sad I watched one of their pictures.

However, it is the case that some aspects of big blockbuster movies are simply worse now, more often than not. The original musical score situation in particular is notably dire, as has been much-commented-on and the causes analyzed in great detail by film-nerd Youtube. So-so directors and editors have arguably too many knobs they can cheaply and easily fiddle with now, leading to things like heavy-handed and poorly-motivated color grading that looks like crap. A lot of CG still kinda sucks, including cases when it's replacing relatively-simple practical effects and not doing something that would have been nigh-impossible otherwise. And Disney discovering the sweet spot of just-bad-enough-to-save-a-lot-of-money, but just-good-enough-to-sell-well with their films has probably been a bad thing overall, especially since they own half of popular culture now.

No, there really are more sequels today:

https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/hollywood-sequels-remakes/

Key chart:

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2...

Eh, top-20 grossing only and starts in the early 80s. There are lots of remakes and sequels (and some "cinematic universes"!) in the 1900-1950 range—not infrequently, one of the remakes is far better-known or better-regarded now than the original.

[EDIT] I've actually looked into this before and if you have better data on it I'd genuinely love to see it—I couldn't find any.

[EDIT EDIT] What I was most interested in was seeing whether there was a major change in this in the 60s-80s when director-as-auteur trend took over after the Studio System was broken up—arguably we're kinda trending back toward a Studio System sort of arrangement, so it'd be interesting to see if a ~century-long graph that includes wider-ranging data looks U-shaped.

There are a lot of movies in the 30s and 40s that a cursory analysis wouldn't notice are remakes, but totally are. For example, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies are all nominally unique characters, but most of them have identical pacing.

The media that bucks this trend always stands out to me, especially in series. The classic animated series "Avatar" rarely splits stories over multiple episodes, so that each episode ends in a satisfying way. Another example in a totally different genre is "Atlanta" (2016) which has a similar focused structure.

Episodic (vs serial) television has its own problems. It can be done well, but the path of least resistance is to make episodes low-stakes, formulaic, and mindless. Law & Order, The X-Files, The Simpsons et al have vague arcs but are approachable by design, which I see as "convenient but less satisfying".

In the case of Avatar, it was a bit of both. Most episodes did have a satisfying conclusion, but it was nothing like the Simpsons or X-files. The show was a serial and it had a story arc that played out over three seasons with each season having a theme. It had been planned out that way very early.

I love shows like that where the creator has a beginning, middle, and ending in mind from that start and so it can't just be stretched out forever until they've run out of ideas or the audience gets bored and ratings drop off. It's just better storytelling to have a compete story. In TV animation that sort of storytelling isn't as common here as it is in anime which helped Avatar stand out, especially compared to what other shows were airing on the channel at the time

Uhh, no. It was easier to find better movies to watch before all the streaming services balkanized. This is why piracy almost died out, and why it's now back.

The total selection of movies available on streaming services is certainly much better now than it was ten years ago. For example the Criterion Channel is only four years old.

I think their point is that the selection is much better if you're willing to pay for 5-6 subscriptions. In it's heyday Netflix didn't have everything, but it had more than any current service has and for $12/mo

I think one thing that is being lost is the idea of discomfort, or contrast. Think about how good it feels to go for a cool swim on a hot day. Or perhaps a warm shower after time in the brisk cold air? The satisfaction comes as a result of the discomfort. One follows the other.

I've long been a proponent for the idea of taking your hobbies outside of the digital world to something physical. So many programmers have Gaming, Twitch or more programming as hobbies. I think there's a rut that comes with distancing yourself from the physical world and I've long since believed the lacking element is "failure". To lose at a game is often just a state. You retry until you win, nothing is lost, perhaps time? Much of programming is similar, there's no risk to the failure of a buggy program. You debug and try again. But something physical has consequences. Using tools to build a cabinet shows you every shortcoming and every failure along the way. The result is not always perfect, but if it was something you poured heart and soul into it is loved despite the flaws.

Without the discomfort of failure. Of risk. Of stepping outside the comfort zone the reward is lessened. I've seen what I talk about summed up as urging people to "Create something, even if it is an experience for others" and I think that rings true to me most.

EDIT: I know others may poke holes in some of this. You can create things with programs. You can share experiences digitally. There's risk and loss in both, and that's true to an extent, but I'm a programmer first, perhaps a writer (ranter?) second so it's just difficult to articulate what the differences are. There's something physical missing from our lives when we center ourselves digitally and I think it's healthy to recognize that we're physical creatures still and need that "real" attachment to the world.

My N=1,

I was a gamer before I was a developer, tbh. I started with a CS elective in high school, because "If I'm going to be on the computer all day, why not make them work for me?", suffering GridWorld by day, and binging CoD most evenings. I was a C student, except for CS and some other things.

Less games interest me as I've gotten older. If they don't actively fill some enjoyable niche, have an element of challenge that feels satisfying to overcome, and/or involve my friends, then they don't get bought or played.

My last Rimworld game was laid to rest when I'd built a massive wall around my base. I realized that I'd achieved the 80 of 80/20, since I was now secure enough to do almost anything I wanted with 1/3rd of the map, while weathering the consequences of my colony's wealth factor counting all of the marble tiles I'd been putting in.

I can't play Minecraft anymore, and have not responded to MS's emails about account stuff. I get in, build my base, establish food and resource security with the tried-and-true-enough methods that are burned into my brain. Then, I raid caves until I start forgetting to log in. Like above.

Valorant is probably the only multiplayer game I'm willing to play with pure randos from the matchmaking servers. I can screw around and be aggro, or tactical and precise, and I sometimes play on the ranked ladder. It's not a very meaningful reward to explain to people, but it gives me a representation of "mastery" I can think about. It's also a mechanically precise game with a short feedback loop, which gives me a clear 'thing' to get good at. Like, bringing my crosshairs up by a millimeter may make me more effective, but I have to train myself into it.

But at $CURRENT_AGE, if I don't have personal contact with physical humans, my social perspective gets wonky, and I get antsy. I'd choose a real party over a Valorant party most of the time.

I don't think they're getting more digital and disembodied. I do think they've become far more homogenised and corporate and far less individual and authentically creative. And tech has enabled that.

There are countless examples. In the arts, artists would literally start with a blank canvas and fill it with imagination. Trad media are almost infinitely flexible. You can paint extreme photo-realism with oils, or extreme abstraction, or something between them. The limiting factor is imagination, not the medium.

Photoshop, Illustrator, and AI art generators are far more limited. You start with a set of standard tools which force you to approach creativity in standard ways. If you're in a hurry you can click-bang with a plugin.

Behind this are uniform corporate expectations of how art and design are supposed to be styled.

Example: currently images are supposed to be generic flat cartoony characters doing useful things. There's plenty of inoffensively tame corporate blue and/or green, some nice rounded maybe slightly quirky sans serif fonts, and standard layouts and sections. Sites that want to seem a little more exciting use red and orange - still pale though - and perhaps some actual photos.

It's all so tame. So is corporate productivity culture - to do lists, self-improvement, efficiency, fitness. And so on.

There's almost no randomness, unscheduled weirdness, surprise, or creative passion. (Real passion, not corporate "yes I'm passionate please hire me.")

When was the last time anyone was genuinely surprised by something they saw online? Not in the "Cool meme!" or "OK quite edgy" sense - but in the "Who ordered that and where did it come from, actually this is amazing" sense.

There's a sense in which all of this is like Newspeak. It actively trains people not to be too original or imaginative. I don't think that's a good thing.

Another way to put it is that people who rely on these tools to think will not think for themselves. Which is ironic given these tools are built to give us our time back to think in the first place. Self-creation(real passion) cannot be replaced by AI. Those who understand will continue to create and put in the effort regardless of AI innovations and combat this sense of nihilism.

We put every kid through factory schools and are surprised at the result.

Most of what you’re describing is the result of extreme conservatism from project leadership to not offend anyone in order to have the widest possible market share.

In film, you can have sanitized homogeneous filler made by a a corpo focus group, or a genuine artistic statement from a single visionary director.

So what we could use more of, in independent software developers willing to be bold.

There was a time when Apple was the bold and transgressive one. Or at least they wanted you to think they were. Compared IBM it’s not that wrong.

I can strongly relate to the "less satisfying" part, but not to the "more convenient" part. Many things are instead getting more broken, unusable, and generally mildly infuriating.

Call any support line, get a robot suggesting you chat with another robot over some messenger app. Both the voice-call robot and the chat robot proceed to bombard you with ads. Not very convenient, that.

Even the stuff that was digital to begin with constantly degrades in quality. Certain apps on my Windows 10 box decide to autostart and can't be uninstalled (by conventional means, anyway), the latest example being "Xbox toolbar" or something to that effect. Published by Microsoft, wanted by absolutely nobody, not on this machine anyway.

You can disable that Xbox toolbar in some windows menu.

Disabling a nuisance in Windows 10 sadly doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll stay disabled for longer than when the next update is installed.

Argh! for me it's Samsung's Bixby, I don't use it, I don't want it. But you can't install it :/

As someone in my 40’s, I’d like to point out that you can still do most of this stuff. Want to visit a construction site? Talk to the foreman and ask for a tour. They probably won’t let you do the work, but that’s a liability issue the OP neatly skirted past.

EDIT: Have a look at baremetal's response to this. Volunteering on a site may still be possible, if you ask!

Want to look at Yellowstone? It’s a natural park with lodging, tours and all that. Make a holiday of it and go visit it.

Want to listen to Vinyl? Barnes and Noble sells records and players.

None of this is remotely off the table. There’s just options now we didn’t have 40 years ago.

> but that’s a liability issue the OP neatly skirted past.

I think this is the actual root of the issue right here. 40 years ago this "liability" thing was vaguely talked about and rarely, if ever, enforced. Everywhere in society - from letting a kid hop on a construction site and help out for cash, down to not allowing retail employees to interfere with shoplifters. Things continue to get more and more useless as we amp up this ridiculous concept.

The "liability" gremlin has more to do with this massive loss in social interaction than anything other than suburban style living and the Internet in my mind.

The lives of working people were more disposable.

I think feeling of freedom have a lot of value... liability rules may decrease death and injury rate, in which case the question is a tradeoff between QALYs (death and injury) and QALYs (feelings of freedom).

Don't tell anyone, it's our secret, but the liability issue can be quietly skirted if the people involved trust you to be smart, sane, and not make a fuss.

You won't get onto a high-rise project or such, but you can still get places you probably "shouldn't".

I like this part the most. Liability is a counteraction against people you can't trust doing things they shouldn't. It does protect you when things go wrong, but generally, things don't go wrong and if people do the right thing, they go wrong even less often.

Seems like half the US legal system is basically built on a lack of trust between people. I do acknowledge many legal remedies try to address the situations where trust exists but no one knows how to proceed so its not all bad

> Seems like half the US legal system is basically built on a lack of trust between people.

I think lack of trust between people is the entire foundation of legal systems.

> not allowing retail employees to interfere with shoplifters

Considering that this just recently resulted in an employee's death (at Home Depot), I can certainly see why it's a concern.

i gave a few tours of my jobsites this year.

also workmans comp insurance, at least the provider i have, includes coverage for volunteers.

> includes coverage for volunteers

That's pretty awesome, actually. Thank you for taking advantage of it!

Certainly. I love to learn and teach what I've learned.

Anticipation is one of the things I miss most about the 'old world'. I remember sending off for things in magazines, eagerly awaiting the 6-8 week delivery. Rushing home from school and checking the mail. The wait was delightfully painful. And when it finally came it was either awesome or a crushing disappointment.

Back in the late 90s I was looking for a CD copy of Primal Rock Therapy by Blood Circus. I went around to all my independent record stores to browse their used bins and talk to the staff, and checked trade-in stores/thrift shops etc whenever I saw one when I was out. Looked on and off for two years, and I remember to this day the exact moment I found it in a half-price bin in a bookstore.

I have trouble replicating that same feeling by browsing ebay listings; it's not an adventure, just a transaction. Like the dozens of other transactions I make every day. Comfort and convenience are nice, but they're not things that stir emotions and create memories.

My kid bought a Lego set a few weeks ago. Ordered it on Amazon. So naturally, it arrived 2 days later. They were DYING with excitement and couldn't believe they had to wait so long!

It reminded me of when I was a kid. I'd subscribe to the Lego magazine. And save my pennies until I could order something. I remember one time I ordered something that took so long that I was completely surprised when it finally came. I had completely forgotten I had even ordered it.

Not to worry, you can still re-capture this feeling!

Just order little useless things off AliExpress. Guaranteed you'll have forgotten about it by the time it comes.

Strong agree. Pete Holmes has a great bit about how google makes 'knowing' and 'not knowing' are the same thing.

"You don't know something now? Wait 2 seconds and you will know it. There's not time for mystery and wonder."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ4o1N4ksyQ

I've intentionally cancelled my Prime subscription and not been using my parents' account, to make myself get used to waiting for things.

I feel like I spend less when I have to wait longer, since I end up leaving things in the cart until I have enough to justify the 'work' of putting the order in and updating my budget spreadsheet, and lack free access to the impulsivity of "order by Wed to get by Sun".

I want to start ordering from more independent online shops eventually. I feel like getting used to a wait will make it easier to deal with.

I do music production as a hobby, and I definitely see this. You can get a lot of plugins these days that will do all sorts of auto generation for you — chord progressions, melodies, stylistic aspects, variations, and so on, and a lot of them are incredibly high quality.

Each to their own of course, and if I was on the clock and doing this for money I think I'd love to be able to click a button and create an authentic-sounding Motown bassline or whatever, but for me... while it does sound great, and somewhat depressingly is almost certainly better than what I could create by myself, I find it quite an empty and unsatisfying way of working. I loved it at the start — look how fast I can make a track! — but I've been slowly moving away from this sort of thing, and I'm back to having more fun as a result.

Even listening to music, it's more enjoyable watching someone play physical instruments live than listening to something someone composed digitally.

This question reminded me of Louis CK from a Conan appearance, "Everything Is Amazing And Nobody Is Happy" He says something very similar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4

I think that’s my comment[1]! You’re mixing an anecdote about the 1930s vs. today a wee bit but that distinction is not really relevant to your question.

For what it’s worth, my dad and I generally agree that things have gotten both more convenient and satisfying on the handyman front. Far more tasks are DIYable now. Expertise isn’t a limitation and I’ve been able to do even more projects than he was able to. There is an incredible amount of satisfaction in learning and solving a problem yourself.

I’m not convinced this is universal. I think there are definitely cases where convenience is a thief of joy.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33904360

Digitizing experiences (like metaverse, etc), yes, but I think I prefer digitization for completing everyday tasks. There are many times though where I've seen that making physical experiences accessible for those that are not capable of doing those (for financial or health reasons) has been a great source of contentment when it otherwise would not have been possible. If in old age, you're unable to get to a theatre but can still watch it on Netflix or at home, I consider that a win overall.

Things like banking, visa registration, and digital payments have gotten more convenient and accessible and make time for better experiences. I'm glad to have autopay for many recurring expenses and not have to worry about writing a check for every one of these. Making books and notes more portable has improved my contentment.

I have sometimes seen that once things have been made convenient and need to be optimized, they become less convenient than the original service. Customer Service over chat or tickets is oftentimes horrible, and every action you take needs your confirmation. Automation introduced in the customer service over phone is even worse than it used to be. I've started to see ads presented before watching videos on Youtube, and even before being able confirming an Uber or Lyft Ride. That time when you are focused to stay on the screen until they are ready for your decision are neither convenience or satisfying and worse than what originally existed. Here, convenience is being exchanged for profit.

All of modern comforts, and distractions, and noise, will make you less aware of what’s wrong in your life. It’s very important to know what’s wrong in your life. The problems of our time are very different, unlike previous generations whose problems were mostly material in nature. In our generation, the biggest challenge is to live life with all its pain and all its pleasure in equal amounts, which is very hard considering that technology solely exists to reduce as much pain as possible, and increase as much pleasure as possible.

And it’s not just technology, there are many other ways to distract oneself, which the previous generations used as well, but I emphasize technology because technology exists for that sole reason, and unlike anything before it, it is only going to increase exponentially. For most things, technology only provides a band-aid solution for the human condition without fixing the root cause, and people end up applying ten thousand band-aids, and then wonder why they still are still broken inside and need more band-aids.

In the end what this means is you need to reduce things in your life that you do out of avoidance of discomfort, and increase things that you do because you want to, despite any discomfort that they may bring. You can use social media if you want to. But if you are using social media where your want is borne out of avoiding some other itch in your life that you can’t seem to scratch, it is better to not use social media. Same applies to any other comfortable distraction. What matters, is not just the specific thing you are doing, but rather the intent behind it.

heh, I just finished reading "In Praise of Shadows" the other day and this same idea has been floating around my head for a while now.

My take is take any kind of technological advancement comes with trade-offs. In the book I mentioned, the author talks about a traditional Japanese toilet and how the way it is designed lets the light come in just the right way that it makes for some interesting shadows on the walls. The traditional toilet is not as clean as a modern toilet and inconvenient, especially in the winter, but its white and sterile tiles miss out on the beauty of the traditional wooden toilets.

That book was written 90 years ago, so it's pretty obvious this is not a new feeling.

I myself still buy The Economist in print, every Sunday morning at my local convenience store. My girlfriend always makes fun of me for doing so. She says I should just get a subscription. It would be cheaper and more convenient to do that, but I would miss out on other things I truly enjoy: I wake up early on Sundays and go for a walk at a nearby park. I get to see some dogs playing around, squirrels carrying nuts as they make their way up the trees, etc. I then walk over to the convenience store where I greet the cashier (which at this point is as used to my routine as I am) and we exchange some banter as I order "the usual" and then head home.

I have the similar relationship with the girl at a coffee shop near my house, where I always stop at around the same time. She sees me come to the door and laughs as she looks at me and asks "The usual?" and I laugh back and say "yeah, double espresso again". I could easily make that espresso at home, but I get value from my walk to the coffee shop and from chit-chatting with the people working there. I also sometimes get a free chocolate which is always a nice bonus :)

None of these things are convenient but I derive value from them. Technology will always advance and bring trade-offs with it. It's up to you to choose what you make use of.

The book 'Digital Minimalism' by Cal Newport expands on your reasoning. It mentions that social media, although convenient, severely impact your social life (in a negative way).

Us humans have been developing an immensely complex social system for thousands or even tens of thousands of years, and this simply can't (and shouldn't) be replaced by Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Agree with the statement.

The example demonstrates an offline situation where you see (feel, hear, smell) what happens physically, which is infinitely richer than watching a video. Next, the youngster participates in physical labor, which is very engaging. You feel it. You contributed something meaningful and this is immediately validated by real people. Senior people that you look up to. Body and mind feel accomplished.

The video alternative is fully passive. You didn't do anything or interact with anybody. Simply put, you didn't experience anything.

In general you could say we've become incredibly good in servicing our wants, whilst completely ignoring our basic needs. And frankly, most of the wants are made-up, a result of marketing and peer pressure.

With human needs in this context I mean your body needing to be physically active outdoors. We're not designed to sit in a cave in artificial light in poor quality air. We're not even designed to sit at all. And, we need to spend a LOT of time with physical people, not digital ones. We are a physical social species.

All of that has become optional. You can live, work, connect, entertain yourself and have anything shipped to you, nothing requires you to leave your house, get physical or talk to real people. That's wonderful, because with all this time saved...one can spend even more time in the house, sitting.

It's a hard pattern to break because it requires willingly becoming inefficient. As dinner time approaches, I can open an app and tap on whatever comes to mind. Or, I could cycle to the store, hand-select ingredients, might meet/talk to somebody, cycle back, prepare dinner, eat, clean dishes.

Quite a lot more steps, but you'll definitely feel more accomplished. You moved, got out into the world, saw/met real people, produced something of your own.

This is quite obvious in games.

I had the most fun in WoW when things weren't known at all, but then thottbott and friends came out and I became the "quest whisperer" in my group. It was even more fun as there was a feeling I didn't miss anything; but then those all got integrated into the game via add ons and then into the game itself, and there was no reading of quest text at all and the fun evaporated.

Puzzle games with a walkthrough are performative; there's not much difference between that and just watching someone, and the latter doesn't have the "aha" satisfaction of finally figuring it out.

But avoiding the walkthroughs and hints may mean you get stuck on part of the game for hours/days/months.

Or maybe you are getting older. Ask the teens and other young people around, they seem quite in the zone and satisfied with whatever we have nowadays.

How would teens and young people compare the present with a past they never experienced? You need to know what a record player is before you decide if you prefer vinyl to streaming.

Vinyl is still quite present. Most “old” experiences are still around.

How about "hanging out at the mall" for the covid lockdown generation?

Hanging out at the mall died long before covid.

What fknorangesite said.

That said, there's still a mall where I live, and it's becoming popular again. There's also many other places for teenagers to hang out at.

It's interesting to read this take on young people. My impression is that most teens I have contact with feel constantly overwhelmed and lost.

Isn't that the point of being a teen lol. I miss that, lost with endless possibilities. Now I'm just lost and aging haha

Are they?

I see reports citing massive declines in mental health, especially in young people.

>So I'd be interested to generalize this: with things getting more and more digital and disembodied (ahem, ChatGPT), does it produce convenience at the expense of contentment?

Hard to generalize because digital-virtual-experience being better/worse than in-real-life depends on the situation.

For example, I used to travel to many developer conferences but I now much prefer Youtube videos of the recordings. I can watch many more at 2x speed and skip around to the segments that are interesting. Youtube is not only a substitute but actually superior to real-life because I don't have to get on an airplane and listen to someone speak too slowly and thus get bored.

On the other hand, even watching Yellowstone videos in hi-res 4k on Youtube will not convey the same peace and contentment as actually visiting.

But back to the digital convenience producing enough contentment... I needed to know how to disassemble an appliance to replace a heating element. There was the perfect Youtube video of someone showing how to do it step-by-step. At the end, it wasn't like I wish he was actually here in person so we could have an emotional bonding moment or anything like that. I was perfectly content with the digital virtual instruction because it empowered me to fix something on my own without calling an expensive repairman.

I guess it ultimately depends on what aspects of the experiences are important to you as to whether digital substitutions will leave you discontented.

For me, the sessions are generally the least interesting part of conferences. I do like recordings being available--as it means I don't need to worry about missing things I want to see. I can always catch up (though truth be told I mostly don't). Not everything is about most efficiently ingesting data.

That said, I do appreciate being able to watch sessions here and there from events I wouldn't normally attend anyway.

Yes it would have way more satisfying to write an answer myself and not have it generated by chatgpt:

It is a common belief that as technology advances and life becomes more convenient, people may experience a decrease in overall satisfaction or fulfillment. This is often referred to as the "hedonic treadmill" or the "hedonic adaptation," which is the tendency for people to quickly adapt to new levels of pleasure or pain and return to a relatively stable level of happiness.

One reason for this phenomenon is that as people become accustomed to a certain level of convenience and ease in their lives, they may develop higher expectations and desires, which can make it difficult to feel truly satisfied or fulfilled. For example, a person who is used to being able to instantly order food or clothes online may find it difficult to be satisfied with the same level of convenience in other areas of their life.

Additionally, the constant availability of technology and the pressure to be constantly connected can also lead to feelings of burnout and exhaustion, which can further decrease overall satisfaction and fulfillment.

Overall, it is difficult to say whether things are getting "more convenient but less satisfying" in general, as this can vary greatly from person to person and is influenced by many different factors. However, it is important to be aware of the potential impact of technology and convenience on overall satisfaction and well-being, and to take steps to maintain a healthy balance in our lives.

"The value of a technical advance to the whole undertaking of life must be judged by its contribution to the human opportunity for spiritual occupation."

"Other technical inventions enrich only the life of the inventor himself; they represent a gross and ruthless theft from humankind’s common reserve of experiences and should invoke the harshest punishment if made public against the veto of censorship. One such crime among numerous others is the use of flying machines to explore uncharted land. In a single vandalistic glob, one thus destroys lush opportunities for experience that could benefit many if each, by effort, obtained his fair share."

A couple of Zapffe quotes on how we aren't thinking enough about the effects of the technology we deploy. I don't agree with his statement against 'flying machines' but he is correct about theft of experience. People are robbed of experience and motivation by being able to go on Youtube and watch others do what they could likely do themselves with motivation and time.

I'll put it like this:

Before, if you wanted to meet hippies you'd have to go outside and find them - usually in a park or at a concert.

Now? Find their Discord.

Before, if you ever wanted to be a hippie you'd have to talk to hippies, hang out with them, debate them, and relate to them.

Now? You spend 2 hours on a search engine and realize they're full of shit.

Now no one wants to be a hippie, but a lot of people wish they did.

the human mind is not designed for instant gratification and overstimulation. Things seemed more satisfying to me 20 years ago, standing in line waiting for a playstation or game release and then playing it. Now a days, i download a bunch of games but never seem to finish any of them. The same goes for movies, friday night movie rentals were magical.

I think what you’re describing could be because the pace of life was slower, there was less competition for everything, the consequences of making mistakes less severe, the general economic situation easier, and it was worth a lot more to learn and know something. There was also more quality work to be found in software, relatively speaking.

actually no, what you are describing is abundance... you get easily bored when you have too many options

I ponder about this as well but I wonder if it's not simply that these things felt more magical just because well... I was a kid back then, I can't expect to get the same level of wonder from a videogame nowadays.

"Things" is broad.

For basic entertainment, I don't think it's entirely true. To me at least, a great home theater and gigantic back catalogs of damn near everything ever made available in my living room is a flat-out better experience than waiting and hoping for whatever is worth watching to be available in a nearby theater. Learning about the history of a musical genre I get into from AllMusic and Wikipedia, and being able to find the music more or less instantly on Spotify is far better than having to find old issues of New Musical Express and Rolling Stone somewhere in print and then scouring every record store in the city hoping what I wanted was there.

For human interaction, absolutely. You guys are great and all, but back in the high school/college days of hanging out late in a room talking the whole damn night about current events, philosophy, whatever topic we cared about, those resulted in far stronger bonds with people whose faces and names I actually knew. Sometimes friendships. Sometimes touch. Sometimes sex. Lots of basic human needs being met that are not all that well met by reading and typing text.

I don't know how far to take this, though. Remember you're romanticizing the experience of a guy who grew up in the Great Depression. Both my grandfathers are dead now, but they lived until I was at least in my late 20s, so I remember them fairly well, and have learned quite a bit more about them talking with my own parents now that I'm in my 40s and we can talk as adults. Their lives were not great. They suffered through incredible hardship that scarred them terribly. They were closed off, withdrawn, emotionally distant, and abusive to their own families. They killed people and witnessed enormous numbers of their own friends getting killed.

If you ask me was the pre-digital age better than now, you're asking me if my childhood was better than getting old. Of course it was. Everything was new and magical. I was healthy and got better at things and learned quickly. Life now is a boring grind. Is that because the world has gone digital or is it that I've gotten old?

Maybe.

Take fuel injection as an example. You used to need to adjust carburetors for altitude, environment, performance; today, an engine's computer auto adapts. It can be modified but the specialization required is much higher with much less reward.

Take computers as an example; 30 years ago, and updating an OS took hours and a dozen floppy disks, installing a new program took purchasing it, installing via floppies, now we have app stores and wifi. (Installing apks not from store is an example to still get this technical detail and satisfaction).

Take networking; a single access point is solved, but if you explore into mesh, or figure, hey, i stream 4k there a lot, i should use cat5, it's exciting when you solve the problem.

Yes! I had the shower thought this morning that gathering to go out to the movies with friends is nearly a thing of the past now, and one of the reasons is we have giant TV's in Walmart that take up your living room wall for $500.

I have an 80" tv myself and I can attest that it is LESS satisfying. I can see so many details in the film now that almost every movie looks low budget. No one wants to "come over for movie night" ..they have their own 60+ TV at home. It's easier than ever to watch a movie, but boring as heck for sure.

Just an anecdotal part of my life that is as you suggested - more convenient but less satisfying.

Likewise with gaming. Back in the days of dial up you had to put effort into playing multiplayer. Everyone had to plan a full day of packing their computer up, bringing it over to someone’s house, setting up and then trying to get the networking to work because switches with auto DHCP were still expensive in those days.

When you finally got that game of AOE2, or Starcraft or Quake to work, it was like magic seeing you and your friends playing in the same game.

Much easier to play with friends (or randoms) now, but not as satisfying if I dont have to figure out what my IP should be and manually putting it in my network settings.

Traveling comes to mind. It used to be quit an adventure to travel (even in a neighbourhood country where people don't speak your language). You needed to do some research and put some work. Nowadays, you plan a trip to the other side of the world with a few clicks. Different experience. I enjoyed traveling more in the past.

Overall, I don't like the fact that everything is on the computer now. Work, traveling, watching movies, making music, paying your taxes, communicating with friends... I'm on holiday at the moment, It feels I spend as much time online as when I'm working.

> I'm on holiday at the moment, It feels I spend as much time online as when I'm working.

This is your fault.

In my day to day life I am on my computer pretty much every waking moment. But when I'm on vacations I only am on an electronic device (my phone) a couple hours in the evening, at most.

If I'm paying hundreds a day for a plane ticket, lodging, etc. you better believe I will cram every second with cultural visits, tours and activities that I cannot do where I live.

I planned my 2011 trip to Japan in a few clicks. And yet the actual getting there was still an adventure. And of course, once I landed I had to remember what I could of the local language, figure out where to go and what to do (I don't plan these things in advance), etc. Far from convenient, I was at sixes and sevens the whole time, but incredibly wonderful.

It's quite noticeable how homogenous the world is when you get there, too. Anywhere that isn't tremendously dangerous or closed to outsiders is copying Westerners and their brands as much as possible.

I remember doing weeks of planning just to take a road trip within the US -- to a place we were already familiar with... driving down to the AAA office, getting regional and local maps, a highlighter and some string, determining the best route, highlighting it, calculating ideal places to stop, flipping through the guide books to find hotels, calling them individually to book reservations.

Digitalization and disembodiment per se do not decrease my contentment. After all, touching and holding an great piece of engineering that is a computer or a phone is not that different from touching and enjoying any other physical object.

It's the ease with which digitalization and disembodiment open avenues for eroding my ownership of things and for making my things actively work against me that decrease my contentment.

Kindle is a great example. I like the hardware, I love being able to haul a lot of books around and not break my back, but I loathe Store UI part that is being pushed to me all the time.

I'm going to reflect on my faith to think about this (and, before you immediately skip, maybe hear my logic).

One of the most fundamental teachings of any religion is that we are a composite being of both a body and a soul. We have both a physical essence, and a spiritual essence, of what we are. Your daughter cannot be quantified by her body alone, as that ignores the wonders of her mind.

Many of the issues I see with the "frictionless" society (where everything gets more convenient but less satisfying) is that there is an increased focus on only one or the other - but not both. Bitcoin has a spiritual essence (as does paying with, say, a credit card), but no real "body" representing its worth. ChatGPT as well could be viewed as having a spiritual value, but no physical "body" representing it. Physical media (CDs, DVDs) are, in my view, ideal as a media distribution method because they are a body, and a soul, together. Why is an eBook so much less satisfying than a real book? Conversely, why are blank pages with ink smudged all over so much less satisfying than a book that's well-written? Why as an original console much more interesting and nostalgic at parties than an emulator?

It's just a thought on one potential reason for this. The best things, it appears, are a composite of both physical and spiritual realities; and something is missing when one or the other is lacking.

I like this line of thought, as it resonates with my own experiences. But I also think things (physical or virtual) are far less important than relationships when it comes to a fulfilling life. We have some basic human needs that have less to do with acquiring stuff, and more to do with being needed/useful, being creative, having purpose, overcoming obstacles, etc...

The Internet is a data transfer mechanism. Considering it equivalent to people or living things is a mistake. It can be used to deliver elaborate illusions, which are fun, but you have to have the ability to lose yourself in illusions for that to work, and at a certain point it's not healthy. But we live in a world that is anything but healthy except for the very, very well-off, and sometimes it's better to be lost in illusions rather than allowing oneself to be totally destroyed/subsumed in a hostile, unconquerable reality.

> does it produce convenience at the expense of contentment?

I don't understand those who have a constant/ambient need to interact with whoever is near them--seems to be a vehicle to relieve boredom. I don't want to talk to people while I buy groceries, renew my driver's license, or do other mundane stuff, and if someone is just talking to me because they are bored, that is something they need and I don't - honestly, it's not my job to entertain you. So I'm very glad of these conveniences such as online shopping, etc. and I am fine with it happening at the expense of those who use me for their own boredom relief/contentment without regard to mine.

It's an interesting thought experiment.

Recently, I've started switching my note taking to being more aligned to the ideas in the antinet zettlekasten. (See https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/). Basically, I handwrite notes into images that I store. This basically makes it less "convenient" to search, but I've found that doesn't matter - I seem to recall things that I handwrite far, far better than anything I've ever typed. And I can make pictures. But it's still pretty nice to have it on my tablet vs a card index (though I can still transfer between the two formats pretty easily using a scanner or my phone camera).

My sense isn't that there's this strict "convenience vs satisfaction" thing going on, but that there's more of a bit of a UX mismatch between how people kind of naturally interact with the physical world and the very limited interactions we currently have with the digital ecosystem. I find handwriting to be much more engaging, even on a tablet, versus typing anything. Though it still feels like we've barely scratched the surface here of what you can do with digital interaction.

Maybe AI improves on this, making these more physical interactions easier for machines to understand. Like, in my note taking example, maybe my handwriting could be used as input to a recommendation system for new books. Or, instead of thinking about YouTube as a replacement for physically being on a construction site, you could have shorter, contextual videos sent to something like an AR system while on a site, and then ask more significant questions of people when you get stumped.

I believe it is: I recently got rid of my music streaming service because I found myself constantly unsatisfied with my music listening. Don’t get me wrong I got to explore a lot but with that comes the “Tyranny of Freedom”. I then recalled the simple days when I had an iPod and how satisfied I was with my select FLAC albums.

Needless to say I installed VLC on my iPhone and imported my FLACs…

Karl Marx talks a lot about alienation as capitalism advances. Alienation from our labor, alienation from our society, and eventually alienation from the self.

Independent of how you think of the rest of Marx's work, I think it's useful to examine this specific concept in the modern era. What you are describing is a classic example of alienation from society - as our society turns increasingly to machines to create and deliver entertainment it's easier for us all to just... stay separated and isolated. Machines tell us marvel movies are profitable, so we get marvel movies, etc.

And I know hn is not a fan of Marx, generally, but this concept I really think is applicable here.

I wonder if the same type of alienation appeared in late Soviet Russia or Mao's (or even current day) China? That was also people having the humanity ground out of them by a faceless technocratic machine not really a happy community of people helping each other.

The problem might be less "capitalism" and more the rise of large highly specialized bureaucratic nation states.

I would argue that Soviet states were autocracies (and some would argue they were capitalist, just state capitalist.)

Stalin sucks, flat out. Any socialist or communist who thinks Stalin was good should not be listened to.

Not really.

You know what is satisfying? Watching a 10 minute video on how to replace my cars brakes and it taking me less than an hour to do it successfully the first time around. Or my dryer blowing cold air and finding a reason within minutes to have a part arrive at my home the next day.

It is both convenient and satisfying. I can focus more of my time and effort on my meaning as a human.

You pick the good parts, some pick the bad parts. Just because modern life bring with it some bad aspects doesn't mean we should reject it all together. We are ourself responsible for identifying and avoiding the elements of a modern lifestyle that we find troubling. Sure some companies makes that needlessly hard, and tries various tricks to make us feel bad, and in some sense actively hurt ourselves, at least emotionally, but we need to learn to identify those tricks and shun those companies.

No one is complaining that their bills are paid automatically, saving us from standing in line at the post office everyday or that we can avoid the Christmas hassle of endless lines in stores after a busy day work. Technology is a tool, how we use that tool is up to us and a good way to start is to view your phone, computer, car or TV as tools. You put them down when the work it done.

Thanks for the comment. I do not believe many see technology as a tool and have very unhealthy relationships with them. It is what inspired me to write a book about my own unhealthy relationship with it.

Reflecting on my own experiences, I believe picking the bad parts might suggest unhealthy relationships with these tools, which can be improved if one has the awareness and strength to do so.

> does it produce convenience at the expense of contentment

Let me try: Have you ever purchased currency from an in-video-game shop? Did you feel like it was freeing to be able to then purchase everything in the game, and be a god amongst the NPCs? Did you feel later like you were bored, because you had already unlocked everything?

I have purchased currency a few times in games. Each time, I realize it was a mistake, because it took away from the hard work and the resulting payoff once I achieved my goal. By bringing out my wallet, I simply bypassed the game mechanics, thus removing the fun part of the game for me. Some people might find that convenience freeing, but for me it was boring. I think sometimes that we make things too easy, and it removes the challenge from life, resulting in lack of that feeling of achievement. Same with easy jobs, for some of us, which make us feel like we're useless.

Some games made me feel remorse for spending, and others are more of a slightly-begrudged feel. It depends on the monetization scheme of the game, and whether that scheme influenced gameplay at all. Grindy stuff with "pay for a boost" makes me feel that gameplay has been altered for the purpose of monetization.

Loot boxes can screw off. Valorant skins can be expensive, but some of them make me enjoy the underlying item more, since I have a tendency to covet "the shiny".

I wfh, order most things online,etc... life has never been better. It depends on your personality in my opinion. Before I couldn't go to most restaurants because I don't like dining alone or just don't feel comfortable but now I can order those same foods at home. I could stay at hotels ir airbnb when traveling, Uber on its own has had a huge impact on me. I don't like to go out or meet peope so it's been a luxury!

The only bad trend is the cost of housing, less space and no backyard/garage means I can't do a lot of hardware/physical stuff that generates noise/fumes but someone here recommendes storage units and I've been looking into those.

I think age also matters a lot, generally people want or expect different things and interactions at different phases of life.

As someone that often watches videos on YT as research, then goes on to do the thing I can say I get little satisfaction from the YT videos and much more from the action of doing it. For me, it's usually small home things (bathroom remodel, etc). The youtuber's doing these videos make it look easy. You can use it as a planning phase and to see how things aught to be done but there is nothing easy about laying tile or making nice looking drywall plaster. It comes with experience. So, I find that when I actually do a decent job that I am pretty satisfied. Although, if I hired someone to do it, my expectations would have been just short of perfection and I probably would end up disappointed.

I'm putting together a litter bot (to pick up litter, not to drop it!) and it's incredibly how simple it is compare to hobby robotics, say, twenty-five years ago. You just plug things together and then write some code (which you can also do by plugging things together, e.g. Scratch.)

It's almost anticlimactic.

(Speaking of which, I found a Roomba in the dumpster. I'm thinking of putting a costume on it and calling it done, but that would be more of an art piece than a real litterbot, eh?)

- - - -

Anyway, contentment comes from within, it's not intrinsically dependent on any external condition whatsoever.

This is something we're very interested in at Double [0].

There's an abundance of consumption streams where, like what you described, you can watch something 10 different ways and get that instant gratification. But not much where you do things alongside others and create a sense of community, a sense of actually doing - something that is a core part of being human.

In my opinion, there's still a ways to go to make the web feel more human, and we're actually very hopeful for the future of it.

[0] https://doubleapp.xyz

Yes, because we are all becoming similar, through being fed the same information. Our brains are becoming all more or less the same, and this is powered by tech.

The end result is a progressively more boring world.

my perspective, which might not be universal:

the teen at the construction site was acquiring knowledge that wasn't otherwise available to him. the teen in front of youtube only sees previously available knowledge.

we're wired to be excited by doing new things - we like a positive first derivative (available knowledge increasing). the absolute amount of available knowledge is less important to us.

Discovery process vs consumption process.

Obviously the kid wasn't the first to discover how to dig a ditch, but the kid discovered it for himself, figured out how it works for himself. Personal discovery.

Like the difference between accomplishing a sports achievement personally vs watching a picture of someone else accomplishing a similar goal.

This. There is a difference.

For a HackerNews audience, it's like saying that using apps on a phone means you are technology fluent versus creating an app and delivering it via apk to a phone. To be more inclusive it's like being able to read on a kindle versus write a document in word.

For the Youtube example; There is a difference between watching a video for entertainment, here's how to change the suspension in a car, versus watching for discovery - here's how to change the suspension, wait, where's that bolt, I'm doing it on my car too.

Society really hasn't changed that much, though the discoverers were likely more likely to survive in wars and subsistence -- though they were also labeled witches .

So the question really goes back to fabricators, menders, and consumption. Society could go a far way if we focused more on mending than consuming.

It certainly is. I can keep thousands of books on Kindle and read any at any time but there is something very enjoyable about reading a deadtree book that is just missing from the Kindle experience.

Part of it is that manually flipping through pages gives me a better mental model of the location of the information and thus its relatedness. For (good) textbooks I still prefer a hard copy to a pdf and I have a huge e reader so it’s not even about the formatting of the display.

It's more convenient to get exactly the stuff you want and you get a lot more. Of course it get's less satisfying. For me, it's gotten so far that the satisfaction of getting things has gone down so much that now I don't really want much new things.

Also, everybody was a different definition of convenient and most of the time it means giving up control for it. I'd much rather have control and keep things a bit more complicated.

I was thinking this exact question earlier today but for a slightly different reason. I'm on holiday and I used a "Henry" to vacuum up after my kids this morning.

At home we use a cordless Dyson which is convenient but damn does it pale in comparison, despite the convenience and it cost 3-4x more than the "Henry" does.

We've made things convenient with engineering, but they often suck in comparison to older technology.

> We've made things convenient with engineering, but they often suck in comparison to older technology.

Well, one does want one's vacuum to suck.

I was fortunate to travel a lot in my teens - all over Europe and parts of Asia in the 80s.

I have perhaps a dozen photos of those trips, but I have lots of memories seared into my brain.

Today my phone "reminds" me of experiences I had by showing me some of the dozens of photos I took.

These are totally different experiences, and it's hard to say the more modern one is less satisfying. Perhaps over-satisfaction is a malady worth considering.

Online dating is more convenient. Meeting a stranger in a bar or at a party, and striking up a conversation in the moment, is more satisfying.

Starting a startup.

10 years ago, that meant renting an office, hiring cool people from your city and hang out with them every day.

Today it is more effective to work remotely.

No one ever really thought startups were about hanging out with cool people every day. People who treated it that way were playing at startups rather than actually doing it.

I am a huge remote work fan and basically refuse to ever attempt to write code in an open plan office again…that said there definitely is some electricity missing in those very early stages when working remotely.

I’ve been involved with a few startups at the “handful of people in a room together” stages, and did feel that the setting made a difference. Working late in a shabby but cool office, gathered around the whiteboard, excitedly sharing ideas, stepping outside to the buzz of NYC at night. I’m romanticizing, but there’s an energy to it that I’ve missed in the past couple of years doing it remotely.

More effective, and much longer runway. My house is paid off and my expenses are minimal. Cities full of cool people are usually incredibly expensive. Would I rather spend the money on rent or on my startup?

Tim Wu wrote an essay on this a few years ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/opinion/sunday/tyranny-co...

Also the abundance and instance satisfaction of many things makes the thing itself less satisfying.

A kid loves Christmas because of the presents, ritual, food.

But if you made every day like Christmas, it wouldn’t make the kid happier overall. The kid would get sick of it and move on to the next new thing.

I think in general, in regards to human companion and aprentenceship, yes.

I think however that with these conveniences, we're able to achieve much more satisfying things though. I certainly couldn't do half the things I do if I didn't have those convenient guides online.

It’s almost like when you put more effort into something, it’s more rewarding when it works out…

It has nothing to do with the screen, or living life virtually/digitally.

It boils down to the paradox of choice. Or getting older. Mostly when it's getting older - it's nostalgia talking. Humans have been bemoaning this state of affairs for centuries.

"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality" - Seneca

Nostalgia is Greek for "returning [home] to suffering/pain".. ironic, isn't it?

We have more choice than ever before, and because of that, sometimes our choices don't seem as valuable. We are simple apes, after all, accustomed to making choices that determine the outcome of our survival.

So, instead of being able to only choose from an action movie, a horror film, and a rom-com.. it was simple - what were you in the mood for?

It definetly has to do with screens and the virtuality of living. Is not just plain old nostalgia. I agree it's a paradox of choices and "individual liberty".

Obviously new generations won't notice, they probably won't complain yet or add nostalgia to their experiences, but there's a lot of thing that without effort there is no purpose in doing, and thus no joy in it. Remember when something cost you a lot of efforts? that was the real important thing, and when you achieved it or passed it, remember the joy you had? now with so many experiences, options and things within a hand's reach, theres no fun in doing anything, because it doesn't require your effort, and I think our brains weren't developed for an easy, overjoyed, overstimulated life.

I have an unfortunate theory that "fun" and "fulfillment" are tied significantly to variable reward. If it's consistent you wont find enjoyment from it.

This is not new. It's always been more gratifying to eat what you kill than what someone else did.

imo sitting down with a newspaper and reading the whole thing is/was a lot more satisfying than reading news on the internet.

Poking about a vast news stand at all the magazines was very satisfying too. This activity, a hollow shadow of its former self. Very sad.

In the absence of quantified data, I'd say yes.

My personal opinion is that this is due to a lot of things besides digitization though. Regulation is one thing -- I think regulations sometimes do increase safety but then decrease access which is critical to experimentation and discovery.

Some of it is the nature of capitalism too. If you have a product, at some level you have to get the purchase to the point of sale (or at least to the point of no return). So that leads to a lot of selection for product characteristics that get the product to the point of nonreturnable sale, many of which increase convenience and superficial aspects of immediate satisfaction, at the cost sometimes of long-term satisfaction. Pushing back against this requires a longer-term process of not returning to a seller, or complaining about it, which is less immediate than refusing a purchase outright.

Add in monopoly and monopsony and things get even more complex.

I think what you're mentioning -- convenience allowing for short-term benefits that then miss the less convenient but long-term more satisfying alternative -- also definitely plays a role. I just think it's part of a mix of things that are separable but not necessarily totally independent.

There should just be a big popup that says "you win" and we can call it a day.

Yes, this is called “the industrial revolution and its consequences”

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