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Comment by Htsthbjig | Hacker News Reader

So this man talks about saving the "old Web", and then he forces everybody to Sign in with facebook, twitter or Google just for writing comments.

You should walk the talk. If you want to promote decentralization, you should decentralize yourself, not channel everything you do through social media.

About less and less text on the web, that is a normal thing to happen. Just look at the presidents of the US. First ones were great at writing because dominant mass media was newspapers, then came great orators because of radio, then Kennedy with images and television(staged images and footage), ending with Obama(public speaking live on video).

As technology improves, communication becomes more human, and this is great. Of course, you could feel bad if past technology limitations made you special, like silent film actors did when they lost their stardom.

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>As technology improves, communication becomes more human, and this is great.

I actually would say the opposite, there is nothing human about internet or videos or social networks or most technologies. They give us an impression of social contact without any of the actual benefits, it's creating a society of lonely people who are connected to thousands of others but are more isolated than ever.

We have health professionals warning us about this, that loneliness and associated feeling are a major health concern[1] and we should remedy to it as technology isolates us more and more from our peers and social circles which are essential to the survival of our specie.

[1]http://time.com/3747784/loneliness-mortality/

It's very much in the eye of the beholder, I personally feel way more connected with friends and family and much less lonely with social media than when the technology was more primitive.

This whole "technology alienates us from each other" narrative seems to me like a misguided reaction to social change, nostalgia for a time that never existed - where people were never lonely because they were always face to face or on the phone. (Oh except the geeks interested in boring things like math or science fiction, fuck them.)

Perhaps this depends on whether you've lived in many places or travel a lot, and have friends spread throughout the world. Or if you have peculiar interests and meet friends through those shared interests - hard to do if you're in a small town, easy to do online.

What creates loneliness is artificial borders and boundaries. Why can't I move to America to meet my friends? Not because of any flaw in the technology.

I have many online friends. They are fulfilling relationships, except that it bugs me how hard it is to meet face to face.

I was with you until this sentence:

> As technology improves, communication becomes more human, and this is great.

It's certainly arguable that communication has changed form, and that more approximates to looking at a person. But looking at our soundbite-rich politicians I'm not sure I'd say politics has got more human as it's become more media-savvy.

I remember reading an article about party political broadcasts in the Uk a couple of decades ago, and the chief media person for the Conservative party genuinely wanted to throw away 4mins30 seconds of their allocated 5 minutes broadcast and just have a 30 second advert. They thought that would be more effective, but election rules forbid it so they had to go with the full 5 mins.

Not everybody can be Richard Stallman you know... Hypocrisy is unavoidable nowadays, so don't be too ready to call people out. You are discrediting their point without touching on the point at all. You can destroy anything good and of any value that way.

Well, I guess he could refuse to use the tools that he has to use to reach an audience and get this message out, and we could all fail ever to hear about it, fail to discuss it, fail to think about it, and we could shut our brains off and enjoy our dystopia.

I very much want our walled garden dystopia to wilt, wither, and die, and so I'm glad people are at least hearing for a minute that it doesn't have to be this way.

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