Oh yeah. Maybe it’s because I’m still in the just-got-my-first-credit-card phase, but damn I love that little piece of plastic. I’m clumsy and suck at using cash, but I feel so graceful with a card.
The one thing I don’t like about digital payments is that so far, they’ve all been owned/controlled by various major card processors, like Visa. That control really gives those processors a dominant position and basically free money.
Loved the idea behind satoshis. Even tried it out. Even made a little money and got out before it all crashed.
It was an interesting concept until all the mega-grifters showed up to make it yet another speculative commodity to fuel their insatiable gambling addictions.
I consider myself pretty knowledgable in lots of computing topics but even I felt very shakey at the sheer paranoia required to keep digital currency safe. (Assuming it doesn’t suddenly become worthless overnight on its own).
I can’t imagine normies navigating that. And using paypal or a bank or something put you right back at “not your coins” anyway.
Personlly, dumping 100% of it all at once purged a LOT of anxiety.
Plus, accounts are readily trackable on public ledgers. Not very private as soon as various means are deployed to know your public account.
The thing that saddened me most was seeing how much freaking energy and technology was thrown on the pyre of make-believe numbers. The “metaverse”, web3, the fact NFTs even happened. Hardware shortages whenever some new coin figured out how to store a hash on it. Super sophisticated scams everywhere…
If anything it was definitely a psychological experiment to see what intangible nonsense even entire nation-states would devote massive resources to instead of feeding or housing people.
Not to mention the huge mess with constantly changing laws and taxes from officials who struggle to send emails.
Plus, and finally, it was supposed to democratize money unlike fiat currency, but it was worth fiat currency, so the a-holes hoarding all the fiat currency just gobbled up all the digital ones too and tried to sell it back to us.
I really just don’t care either, Ill just pay who im forced to, 1/10th of my paycheck (it costs them pennies to make) or I could randomly die. It’s all corporate bullshit anyway. /s
I really just do not care, Ill just take out a loan I cannot afford so I can stop playing chicken on crosswalks and avoid dieing to that driver who is on their phone, not paying attention. Its just human bullshit anyway. /s
This is just pure bullshit scare tactics. In order to successfully make a transaction, I have to have my watch facing me, double click the button, and then hold it near the terminal for a few seconds. There is no way someone could just swoop in and do a transaction without my knowledge. It’s bullshit fearmongering like this that makes people scared of new features like NameDrop. Quit it.
In my experience with my Apple Watch you have to activate the wallet functionality in order to pay for something by clicking the side button twice, which should make it harder for somebody to just walk around with a terminal charging random people. Phones usually need to be unlocked to make payments too. In theory NFC credit cards could be scanned like this, and if you’re worried about that you can look into NFC blocking wallets… I’m not super worried about it, though, because usually you wouldn’t be on the hook for such a fraudulent charge.
Agreed. I think cash should always be there as a fallback. But 9/10, I prefer to use card because cash is so dirty, and is harder to keep track of.
If I go to my bank app. I know exactly how much I have. Whereas if I keep cash in my wallet, I have to count it all out and keep track of it in my head. I don’t like that. It’s just more awkward for me.
Yes but how do you pay your prostitute? I’m surely not in the mood to explain my wife what’s that $200 transaction on my card from a MELINDA TEEN at midnight that day I was supposed to be late at work.
I think someday we will look back and consider if taking everything digital was ever the right choice. Friend always uses the term, “high tech downgrade.” The more I interact with the internet the more I learn how it pushes the limits of our society in not so great directions.
because Reductio ad absurdum is easier than confronting hard truths they don’t want to accept and possibly risk firing off a dreadful thing called a “thought” in that inert mass of jello they call a brain.
Thing is, the Internet at its core is just a vastly interconnected network. That’s it. All the effects of the Internet are direct consequences of that fundamental property, and time.
The technological architecture that supports the complexity of modern civilization? The direct consequence of interconnectivity × time. QAnon? The direct consequence of interconnectivity × time.
You can’t restrain the bad without crippling the good.
You can’t restrain the bad without crippling the good
That part. “People should…” is an impotent sentiment. How do you incentivize, or force, a regression to “sufficient” technology? How do you do so without affecting beneficial network technology?
Is your point limiting technological advancement always results in hindering the opportunity for good?
If so, no, I haven’t. Unless you define good as anything that someone could find value in.
Maybe what you’re missing is an example.
Tim and Susie live right next to each other and have windows facing each other. Tim and Susie are 6. They talk everyday over a tin can and string. Susie had the idea from seeing it in a comic book and Tim went home and made the tin can string telephone. The best part of their day is meeting up at the window and yelling to each other as each talk into a tin can. One day Tim’s absentee father stops by for a visit and sees Tim and Susie preform their ritual. Tim’s dad runs to the store and gets them a pair of walky talkies.
“Much better” Tim’s dad exclaims while throwing Tim’s tin cans in the trash. Tim and Susie think the walky talkies are neat and they run around for a day hiding behind bushes and seeing if they can find each other. Without the tin cans though they don’t have a reason to meet at the window everyday so they quickly forget why they ever had the ritual in the first place. Eventually ones batteries dies and it doesn’t even matter because they have long forgot their fun game.
Tell me. How did the tin cans cripple the chance for good?
Who does Tim’s father represent? What does him throwing the tin cans in the trash represent? How does this analogy represent the topic we’re discussing?
If the tin cans are old but sufficient technology, then the proper analogy would see Tim and Susie discarding the tin cans themselves voluntarily because the walkie talkies do what they do but better. Maybe there are drawbacks too, but Tim and Susie made their choice. Maybe Jack and Jill down the street like the intimacy of tin cans better and decide not to get walkie talkies, that is also their choice.
Maybe the window ritual is socially beneficial, but who enforces that, and how? Does Jack’s mom get walkie talkies banned? Now what about all the emergency responders who used walkie talkies to save lives? Just banned for children? Who decides who qualifies as a child, and what about the children in the country who’s houses are too far apart for tin cans?
I’m not saying there are no benefits to simpler options, and obviously every person has the freedom to use the simplest technologies they wish, but we’re having a conversation about society not individual choice . I’m saying that there’s no practical way to incentivize or force them at a societal scale. Unless you can think of one which isn’t just Big Brother censoring the Internet, in which case I’m all ears.
Just answer the question. Did Tim’s tin can stop the world from spinning? Did it have purpose? Was its replacement adequate?
Tim’s dad represents Tim’s dad. Not everything is an analogy. Of course we can extrapolate it but I’m trying in the most simplest terms possible to make you see my point.
If it’s not an analogy then… yes, the world continues spinning if kids talk with tin cans? I don’t see what any of this has to do with the topic of the societal effects of widespread use of algorithm-driven social media platforms. restraint with regards to the Internet?
Edit: got this conversation confused with a similar one. My bad
… right, because that is what I was talking about in the first place. Societital effects of widespread use of algorithm-driven social media platforms. Pretty impossible w/ you.
To spell it out again, not everything has to be done on the internet. Many people go on thinking ‘out with the old in with the new’ without ever considering scope and practicality. If you suddenly became manager of an office building with a complete pneumatic tube system your first instinct might be to gut the pneumatic tubes and do everything over email. That’s an OK thought but should that really be your first instinct? Most people wouldn’t even understand how pneumatic tubes work in the first place. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to to understand what the tubes are there for. Why they’ve lasted 60+ years. If the building is already wired with ethernet and has internet connection what should it matter if you use both keeping the tubes in place to continue their purpose?
Okay, sure? That was always allowed. Again, “People should behave differently than they do” without any proposed method of bringing about whatever “differently” is, is just impotent platitude. That’s why I keep reiterating “incentivize or force”. Without one of those two pressures, people will continue to make individual decisions about their behavior, including which things they choose to do on the Internet, like they have been doing the whole time. Some will choose to do things on the Internet which can be done sufficiently other ways, others will choose to use simpler technologies.
When you start talking about how restraint would be advantageous, without any concept of how to incentivize or force said restraint, you’re just becoming old-man-yells-at-cloud.jpg.
When you start talking about how restraint would be advantageous, without any concept of how to incentivize or force said restraint, you’re just becoming old-man-yells-at-cloud.jpg.
I would challenge that. Say tomorrow I invented the eat-o-matic 5000 a top of the line eating utensil. Built in wifi, self cleaning, tracks how much food your eat, easy to manufacture, biodegradable, comes with a native streaming service that allows you to stream your eating experience to friends and family, affordable, etc.
Do you think in everyone would throw away their forks and knifes immediately and start using the eat-o-matic 5000? How about 10 years? 20 years? 30 years?
Maybe the eat-o-matic is that good. I tend to believe forks and knives wouldn’t go anywhere though. I also kniw forks and knives are already not the only technology that exists and the fact that one utensil isn’t ubiquitous proves that incentives and force are not the only factors at play.
Yes, obviously, people are allowed to make their own choices. Not using the flashiest new toys and services is allowed. Acknowledging that fact is not useful. You telling people what they should and shouldn’t do is not going to have a societal effect.
If you would like to propose some regulatory or incentive policy to nudge people toward simpler technologies, then that is a useful conversation. But just stating your opinion? Old man yells at cloud.
I’m not saying that your opinion shouldn’t exist, but some restraint would be advantageous.
Unless you think that statement is overly reductive, simplifying a nuanced subject to a flippant, self-indulgent remark that accomplishes nothing but ego-stroking
Some opinions provide valuable hypotheses which can promote thoughtful discussion regardless of their validity, like “A value-added tax would benefit the working class”. Some opinions are hollow and useless, and serve only to make the commenter feel smugly clever for stating the obvious, like “Israelis and Palestinians should just get along”.
Endless promotion of the latter is probably one of the most unnecessary uses of the Internet, muttering to oneself alone at home is a sufficient technology for that purpose.
Sounds like an opinion to me. Of course your opinion is more valid because you said it. Since you would never be a hypocrit incapable of self reflection. Certainly, at the very least, would be able to detect sarcasm. If by chance you came across it.
Let me know if you need me to explain it because I know how hard it is for you to comprehend simple ideas.
Certainly, at the very least, would be able to detect sarcasm. If by chance you came across it.
The irony.
Unless you think that statement is overly reductive, simplifying a nuanced subject to a flippant, self-indulgent remark that accomplishes nothing but ego-stroking
Or a new normal… paved roads and cars in the US was once pretty extreme, until it became normal. Did you be it’s grownup and tell it to go to bed on time, did you make a futile effort to stunt its growth or did you roll over. Story of the frog in boiling water.
I think the problem was that technological advances were faster than social ones. We ended with new ways to control people, and new forms of inequality.
Many of our problems with technology are rooted in a company abusing from their power. Even the troubled ways we communcate online today are a product of how bigh tech manipulated social networks.
The issue is in your software that displays the capacity (most likely windows).
You bought 2 TB SSD. You got 2 TB SSD. This is equivalent to 1.8 TiB (think of it like yards and meter). Windows shows you the capacity in TiB, but writes TB next to it.
Say you buy a 2.18 yard stick. You get a 2.2 yard stick, which is equivalent to 2 meter. Windows will tell you it’s 2 yards long. Why? I don’t know.
I find it pretty funny seeing people talk about how Japan is not as advanced as people think. Meanwhile my home state the majority of people don’t have Internet. I’ve been getting pretty convinced that most places use fax machines due to how few places have Internet. Anyplace that has any amount of beurocracy uses paper files. There are a considerable amount of places were cell signals simply don’t work. The only way reason I know of public transport busses is because of movies. VHS player are common place for house holds. Many work vehicles were made in the 60s and we still use buckets to collect sap when sugaring. Card readers are rare so some gas stations require you to pay with cash. All around the only advanced tech things Vermont has to offer are our winter cars and the f13s that occasionally blow peoples ear drums out.
Yeahhh but when the race you’re making fun of isn’t threatened, doesn’t face any meaningful discrimination, and pretty much runs the world, I think it’s safe to make fun of us.
Either race-tinged observational jokes can be funny if good spirited (I subscribe to this view) or they should be considered poor taste 100% of the time. (That’s fine too)
But this self-flogging “lol but it’s ok to be racist against people that look like me because the stereotype is some bad people also look like me, so I totally deserve it based on my ancestry, right guys?” Schtick isn’t good for anybody.
(Unless you literally don’t face any injustice on your way to running the world, then I totally misunderstood lol.)
But the idea that you should denigrate yourself to appease others’ misguided hatred of your racial “impurity” is…the exact concept we want to eradicate isn’t it?
As a white person, I am authorising and allowing this joke to be made, and I am retracting and removing any racism labels associated or attached to it.
Most people don’t have home Internet because almost everyone has it on their phone. Plenty of people don’t own a computer anymore unless it’s for work.
Both things can be true, but Vermont doesn't have a giant "We're a high-tech place!" image harped upon constantly that can feel like false advertising.
Hah, yeah I learned I wasn’t so much a night person as much as someone who indulges in revenge sleep procrastinating and doesn’t get enough alone time in the day.
That’s specifically a USA problem only. In the rest of the world, the price you see is the price you pay (not inc. restaurant service fees, etc, which are more BS exported from the US)
There is zero reason that the price sticker on a shelf or menu shouldn’t be what you actually pay. It’s not like online shopping where they need to calculate shipping based on distance, or tax based on state of the receiver. And there is no reason they couldn’t even put both prices on the sticker.
But in America, they do it for one reason: capitalism. It’s a marketing scheme. Makes you think you’re getting a better deal and paying less while you shop, so shoppers tend to spend more.
It’s why fuel costs $2.19 ^99/100
Because that’s seen as cheaper than $2.20.
Sorry, but they’re not going to be rounding that final price down to save you 1¢.
In short: you’re as much a victim as everyone else.
Taxes don’t vary inside a store, you idiot. There are no physical stores that straddle state lines and charge you different amounts depending on which checkout you use.
I’m going to guess you’re both an idiot and you didn’t read my second paragraph where I mentioned this specifically.
I’m gonna need an explanation as to floppies and hard drives being so similar. I can easily buy a brand new hard drive. Floppy disks and drives, not so much…
I honestly had several catastrophic failures of floppy disks that made me stop trusting them. imo floppy disks are the least reliable way to store data by far
I don’t know how reliable SSD is compared to magnetic but I guess they do fail too. Good thing about SSD is that it doesn’t have moving parts so at least one fewer points of failure.
Depends on how much writing you are doing. I think that if you’re doing tons of writes all the time, HDD might edge out SSD, but it all depends on a lot.
Floppies were an entirely different beast. Instead of a disk failing every few years, a floppy disk that hadn’t been used in a few months, in my experience, was about 50/50 if it was bad or corrupted in some way.
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