The net neutrality tie-in is bogus, but in the quoted part, annoying prose aside, the man has a point!
If you don't use the internet right, it will have to be taken away for your own good, and for society's.
Sure, it's the same point as the silly video that Smearcase trolled us with last week. But what a gigantic blowhard. I am unwilling to grant him anything but how hard he blows.
1: Those are really, really unsettling.
Nothing makes me detest someone quicker than striking a nerve about how much we're all wasting our time.
Nah, I genuinely don't identify with the self-loathing of internet immersion.
I love the internet and also I like being outdoors and I like books and my friends, and all these things are compromised by the shit gruntwork of life, but not particularly by each other.
Book and the internet you can do with the shit grunt work. This works less well for the outdoors and not at all with friends.
Nah, I genuinely don't identify with the self-loathing of internet immersion.
Me neither. People who feel like the internet is a waste of time should do something else, for sure! Lots to do.
Yes , yes , and thrice yes, to 8.
The later Oz books had a glass cat. Not that that's relevant, just that there is prior art in the field.
We can change things enough to patent it.
To the OP, I get the concern about the Internet replacing lovers, religion, and knitting, but wouldn't replacing whiskey "grasp[ed] tightly in [one's] hand" be a net plus?
And also there's the observed fact that the Internet and alcohol do in fact go pretty well together, though I suppose that's a separate objection.
I wonder how often people used to grasp their rosaries while watching television, and in what way it was pleasant or desirable.
It seems to be possible to grasp--even to clutch!--one's pearls at the same time as doing all this, I notice.
14: But how many people have found lovers on the internet???
How many people have found religion? (heard a story the other day about how the Mormon virtual missionaries were by far more successful than the ones that walk around)
How many people have found knitting patterns?
"We cannot champion Network Neutrality without admitting that the Internet is no Utopia."
We cannot champion [gay marriage] without admitting that [marriage] is no Utopia.
We cannot champion [Heebie U] without admitting that [universities] are no Utopia.
We cannot champion [literacy] without admitting that [literature] is no Utopia.
etc. etc. ad nauseum.
Or, to put it another way, go away.
16: Watching a Catholic televangelist, maybe? I assume such exist.
Nothing worse than a reporter with literary pretensions.
Except a novelist with literary pretensions.
If he thinks people can't knit and be online and watch tv, he should come hang out with me except that I don't want him to. Maybe with enough whiskey I could be persuaded.
Ian Bogost is a writer, game designer, and contributing editor at The Atlantic. He is the Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in media studies and a professor of interactive computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
I don't think that makes him a reporter.
How many people have found knitting patterns?
That was the moment when I first really got what a big deal the internet was going to be for day-to-day stuff -- I was in college, 1991, finishing my first sweater ever, and I'd mislaid the pattern to do the neck. I just needed the last four lines or so. In a moment of cleverness, I went onto rec.arts.knitting and asked if anyone had the book and could post the neck of the pink sweater with the bobbles, and I had it in under an hour. The ease of finding the needle in a haystack of the person who knew exactly what you needed to know struck me as an immensely useful interaction that would come up in all sorts of contexts.
23: Can you do all those things and drink enough whiskey too?
26: I thought that was a given. I don't recall ever having had sex with the tv on and can't speak to that, but that's because I hate tv. Whiskey works fine there before and after, at least.
I really like Bogost. Here's a good takedown of techno-luxury services. Agreed that the linked piece is written in a really pretentious way for some reason.
I can't knit and drink at all. One beer and I'm dropping stitches right and left.
I've only read a few things by Bogost and some I thought were good and some were like this.
30 is me with math. I can't knit sober.
One beer and I'm dropping stitches right and left.
I'm like that with rhymes. Wait, no, with my keys.
The article is terribly written, but the idea that there are no costs whatsoever to internet use, and that any position otherwise is technophobic pearl clutching, is also super lame and delusional.
I mean they're nice pearls. You look great, real classy.
"'Internet unambiguously awesome and totally non-problematic,' say losers wasting time on Internet."
The article is terribly written, but the idea that there are no costs whatsoever to internet use, and that any position otherwise is technophobic pearl clutching, is also super lame and delusional.
Sure. Fortunately, this article is deep in purple prose pearl territory, so we're in the clear.
Ooh, Halford is going to pick up the troll banner and charge into battle.
My daughter has used the internet since shortly after she could read, so there's no before/after with her and knitting patterns. She has and uses pattern books, but the online resources she just takes for granted.
Old books, which I struggled for years to find copies of, I can often find in .pdf online. And manuals, exploded diagrams and repair procedures, to fix anything you have. Time was you'd go to your local library and see if they had a general manual which might have a page or two with specs or a diagram for your model, or something like it. Hit or miss. In the last few months, we've done the garage door, dishwasher and washing machine, all with good well-illustrated procedures.
And recordings. Youtube alone has given me access to vast stores of almost unavailable music, so that following an interest, even a whim, I can have legendary recordings on my ipod in minutes.
Why go on? I was a heavy user of research materials before, but my capacity to find what I want has exploded with the internet.
(There's a road named "Halford" in the south bay, I've recently learned.)
"Person makes mundane point with pretentious prose, expects to be considered deep."
Come to think of it, are we sure this guy's name isn't Ted?
"The article is terribly written, but the idea that there are no costs whatsoever to internet use, and that any position otherwise is technophobic pearl clutching, is also super lame and delusional. "
If it wasn't for the stupid (tying the concept to network neutrality) the Atlantic would have never publish his article.
written in a really pretentious way for some reason
Never underestimate the power of a deadline or a project you just want to move on from to make you stupid.
And I'm just kidding. There are huge drawbacks to internet-dependence, though maybe not as huge as the ubiquity of tvs. I am very grateful not to have a smartphone and will hold off as long as I can, though I have an iPad that serves a similar purpose. I just think this guy was being stupid.
Insofar as the internet replaced movies and TV as an obsession for people it can only be good, right?
Speaking of net neutrality, here's the actual notice of proposed rulemaking at last, despite the best efforts of the FCC to bury the details under spin.
Obviously, the internet is a net positive. I do think there are qualitatively different and great aspects to deviceless socializing and solitude that it would be a shame if people didn't experience periodically, but it would take a much better article to convey that.
Here's a crazy thought, you all-or-nothing weirdos: the internet isn't so great for some people, for others it's just fine, and for still others it's a real boon. Sometimes it might even be all of those things for the same person! Or maybe at different times it's different things to the same or different people!
I do, though, tend to think the chronic wasters of time -- which is a real cost of the internet for some people (or so I'm led to believe) -- would, were the browser with which they browse the web plucked from their clutching cave-fish-white claws, just find another way to waste time.
As one of those, yes and no. I would probably waste at least 75% as much time, and I would waste it in a stupider, less valuable way (paper clip sculpture and the like). On the other hand, I'm pretty sure there's at least some volume effect, and it can be significant sometimes.
I mean, I waste shitloads of time whether I'm on the net or not. It's just what I do.
LB is right--there's a mindless/addictive quality to clicking around, refreshing, checking this site and that feed and the other account. Ever since I started using the SelfControl app, I am definitely and noticeably more productive.
51 seems irrefutably true. Also, I think accrued value of what the internet provides me is substantial and often harder to quantify than the time wasted.
53: whenever I find myself serially hitting refresh, I turn off my computer and read a book. Or murder a hobo. I just hate myself a lot -- even more than usual! -- when I start refreshing like that, so I don't do it much.
read a book. Or murder a hobo
See, deep down, you can't help but be productive.
Well internet made it possible to locate potential documents for kid's performance, but Harvard library procedures likely going to make it impossible to actually obtain scans in time. This makes me really sad because he is DYING to take a crack at writing a piano reduction. Also, silly of school to wait til last minute but on other hand you'd think the bo/shoi school would have this.
This is how it usually works for me, find obscure thing via internet, but actual object (book, music, DVD) not available online. Thank god for interlibrary loan.
Hey Ray,
Can I ask you to reconsider your pseudonym, which makes me cringe every time I see it? You should of course do whatever your ``inner voice'' requests, but I'm just saying, it's kinda weird.
Yours,
Neb Nosflow
I think he has a point (although he skips over it to jeremiadize) about how net neutrality continues to talk about the free, open, democratic internet when more and more our daily internet activities are dominated by huge companies, regardless of whatever rules exist now.
58: I wouldn't have thought to ask, but yeah, me too. Particularly given your circumstances (even without my actively screwing it up, you're generally not all that anonymous, and you're having issues with your internet footprint. I'm figuring you really wouldn't want comments under this pseud associated with your real life name, regardless of how innocuous the substance of those comments are.) (Although, can I say how bad I am at this sort of thing? I looked at the pseud and wondered what it meant for a while, gave up, and only got it hours later.)
I'm not claiming the internet is a utopia for everyone ever. I'm claiming this piece is stupidly pretentious.
Minute Bull? (Bonus: you can repeatedly correct people's mental pronunciation of it.)
58 And I thought I'd hated the last one.
Even though I did like the character.
62 is not really thematically appropriate, and I withdraw the suggestion.
No one will ever better Teary Ennui. Why am I even trying? Probably because I don't have a cat.
This conversation has made me realize that I don't care one way or the other and that changing my original pseud, which I quite liked, was dumb. I mean, that I've managed to offend someone somewhere isn't really all that surprising. That the offended party is saying that they're offended isn't really all that surprising. Now, if they actually bother trying to do something about being offended, that would be very surprising.
The only safe pseud is no pseud. We'll just assume all unsigned comments are from the same person. What could go wrong?
76: If I didn't know better I'd think you were displacing your anxiety about other things onto this whole pseud situation.
And yeah, I hated seeing that pseud in the sidebar (same with the other one, actually). So thanks for saying something, neb. No! Thanks for caring enough to have bothered saying something!
In my view, if you have the opportunity to put a "von" in your name, you should use it.
78: I am very anxious about having met you in person. I've been sweating ever since.
Of course, that could be the cholera.
I hear there's a book out there that cures cholera.
Only available through interlibrary loan, tho.
Jar Jar R. Martin
Fine. Lulu Henesecca.
I propose a general rule, cousin to the analogy ban, that any article that boils down to "X is not a panacea/utopia" can be safely discounted.
That rule won't solve all our problems.
90: Are you drawing an analogy to the analogy ban? That is no panacea/utopia.
General rules are not a panacea, minivet.
Violating the analogy ban is not an apologia, heebie.
96: Then who have I been talking to?
||
Amazed, though perhaps I shouldn't be, at the extent to which Steve Levitt has deliberately turned himself into a towering dolt:
They told [David Cameron] that the U.K.'s National Health Service -- free, unlimited, lifetime heath care -- was laudable but didn't make practical sense. "We tried to make our point with a thought experiment," they write. "We suggested to Mr. Cameron that he consider a similar policy in a different arena. What if, for instance...everyone were allowed to go down to the car dealership whenever they wanted and pick out any new model, free of charge, and drive it home?"
Rather than seeing the humor and realizing that health care is just like any other part of the economy, Cameron abruptly ended the meeting...
As well he might.
|>
Bogost actually did a pretty funny thing at GDC (which it turns out was also in The Atlantic) written from a future perspective about how game developers are nuts.
Hmm. That doesn't sound all that funny, but it was.
I was considering my time wasting/procrastinating habits on the drive home. Before Facebook I wasted time on Unfogged and other blogs. Before Unfogged and other blogs I wasted time playing an online word game obsessively. Before the online word game I bounced between Feed, Suck and Plastic. Before those I was straight out of college in an exhausting job but I still managed to watch syndicated TV shows, a lot of MASH.
Before that I was in college, and procrastinated by hanging out in someone else's dorm room preventing them from getting things done. I also watched Simpsons reruns on VHS tapes and picked fights in newsgroups. Before that I checked TC Boyle novels out of the library. I don't think I would ever get a lot done in any conceivable universe, but I think there would be one in which I would have a more contemplative, sitting-still-and-reading-novels mind, and this one, in which I have a much more associative-jumping-between-topics mind. I admire novels k-sky, but it's mostly grass is greener.
"That might work in practice but it will never work in theory."
If the internet is so much a waste of our time, how come I'm so good at tunneling in Minecraft that I was to connect two tunnels more than 50 blocks below ground with no map when they were perpendicular. On my first try, too. As long as you don't count the try where I tunneled straight up into the lake.
I do sometimes wonder how I could make real-life friends who are as engaging and interesting as you imaginary internet people. Maybe I could join a co-op, or find more hobbies to do with people. But real-life friendship scratches a different itch than watching people converse on the internet.
What about glass and metal SEA KITTENS?
Did you miss the baffling PETA thingy I linked?
No, I had just momentarily forgotten it.
I didn't mean that in a "did you not catalog my recent witticisms?!" way just I wanted to know whether to re-link it.
No, I do remember it now, I just didn't catch the reference when I saw 108.
And I do of course catalog all your witticisms.
Well that is certainly a relief.
This is sure a hell of a time to be awake. Hello, lunching UK commenters, and late night teo.
I remember when I pulled all-nighters getting almost a bit affronted when there wouldn't be somebody on irc to talk to me at 5AM. Stupid internet.
It's still closer to breakfast than lunch (temporarily UK).
I got as far as "As Evgeny Morozov argues" and then stopped reading, because I have found this to be a useful technique to save my precious brain from an onslaught of pretentious idiocy.
Then I started again because I wanted to read the kitten bit.
Sitting in front of the television, you grasp your iPhone tight in your hand instead of your knitting or your whiskey or your rosary or your lover.
This is a particularly peculiar list of alternative options.I don't know quite who would be expected to have them all as available things for clutching. I don't even have an iPhone. Or any knitting. Or any whiskey. Or a rosary. Or a lover, come to that. It seems to be aimed at a stereotypical old rural Irish woman. "Will you have a cup of tea, Father? Or some whiskey? Or a smartphone? Or a kitten? Oh, you will now. Oh, go on. Sure, it's only a tiny little one. Go on now. They've got metal in them."
And if your smartphone is producing noticeable heat in your pocket, you should get a new one, because this one is about to catch fire.
This is a particularly peculiar list of alternative options.I don't know quite who would be expected to have them all as available things for clutching
It's metonymy, no? Or some similar device - he's not talking about the specific items, but hobbies, booze, religion and human contact. Not that I'm defending the article.
100: Oh wow, they found a big enough crank and dickhead that even David Cameron could see through him.
As long as we're not mad at the television. The iPhone, with its devil-not-a-word-internet is the unravelling of humanity.
It's pretty impressive. Cameron sits down in a meeting with a right-wing pseudo-economist and bestseller writer and after five minutes goes "Hang on, you're talking bollocks. Get out." I didn't know that was even theoretically possible.
Sitting in front of the television, you grasp your iPhone tight in your hand instead of [....]
Let's all fill in the gap with things we would otherwise be better off grasping!
-- your atlatl
-- your sword, black Stormbringer
-- pizza
-- Mossberg 500
-- in your foot, leaving your hands free to swing from branch to branch
-- your catamite
-- Ali
-- the archbishop
-- a bicycle pump made from a hollow iron bar
-- A nutritious breakfast.
-- Straws
-- Reality with both hands
-- your iPad since the screen is so much nicer.
A tisket, a tasket. A glass and metal kitten. Went to bed and bumped his head and didn't get up for his mitten.
All this talk of grasping reminds me of David Cameron's repeated use of 'grip it' with respect to political/economic/social problems, which had clearly been focused grouped.
It's 6 am and I'm commenting from the parking lot of crossfit because none of the dude-bros who work here have shown up and unlocked the damn place.
@100,123: That's definitely a heartwarming story. Levitt's popularity is a symptom of everything rotten with current society. If only more people would respond to his shtick with "Huh...this guy's a bullshit artist and is wasting my time." Good on Cameron.
Why should they, at 6 am? They're probably sleeping the sleep of the just.
I'd be afraid that this is Cameron PR just before he announces very responsible cuts to NHS, because I share ajay's surprise in 123.
Except for the fact that this story appears in Levitt's book rather than in the UK press, I would definitely agree with ogged.
There's something charming about Levitt patiently explaining that a system that's been operating successfully for sixty-five years or so is a priori impractical.
There's something charming about Levitt patiently explaining that a system that's been operating successfully for sixty-five years or so is a priori impractical.
Or indeed arguing that a system with lower per-capita costs than almost any other western health system must in fact have over-consumption.
If the NHS works so great, how come it won't close tags for you.
I could imagine Cameron thinking, "Maybe in 20 years, guys, but if word gets out I stayed in this meeting past that sentence, I'll be ripped to shreds."
If the NHS works so great, how come it won't close tags for you.
Because we don't have to pay for them. HTML free at the point of service!
David Cameron would be both the most intelligent and the most ethical Republican in Congress if he came over here. For example, his version of austerity involves raising taxes, not lowering taxes.
139: Did you come back? I thought you were "there".
I think Tom Friedman just won the pundit gibberish contest: square people
People who aren't hep to the latest jive?
It's hip to be square, as long as the kids are still listening to Huey Lewis and the News.
133: When you consider the surprising nature of the story along with the source, I assume it's not true.
141: I have this theory that journalists are responsive to public opprobrium, but if that were true, Friedman would have long ago died of shame. He certainly wouldn't keep writing this ludicrous crap.
To the OP, skipping the thread:
He does a very good job of capturing the phenomenology of what it is like to be a distracted procrastinator, which is a nice service. Of course, a real distracted procrastinator can get distracted and procrastinate anywhere, anytime.
One of the things I've learned from trying to meditate is that it is actually possible to get distracted and procrastinate entirely inside your own head. No external stimulus necessary.
If you're bragging that you can orgasm without touching yourself, just come out and say it.
|| O'Brien then asked about Farage's claim that people would feel uncomfortable if a group of Romanian men moved in next door, pressing him to say whether he "would feel the same about a group of German children".
Farage replied: "I think you know the difference. We want an immigration policy that is not just based on controlling not just quantity but quality".
You know who else thought that Germans were of inherently higher quality than Romanians?
">http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/16/nigel-farage-ukip-car-crash-radio-interview-lbc|>
100 is absolutely fantastic. It makes me want to punch Steve Levitt in the throat, but that's more or less my usual state of mind whenever he comes up.
I wonder how many Friedman columns are stabs at new book themes.
124, 125 -- I think one has to admit that Odin's list, in verses 84-86 of the Havamal, is definitive.
Also I assume we have established, perhaps repeatedly, that "lover" is a word so icky as to makes solitude sound endlessly appealing?
Also I assume we have established, perhaps repeatedly, that "lover" is a word so icky as to makes solitude sound endlessly appealing?
It really is. I was giggling helplessly at the poor priest being plied with cyborg kittens.
(Our non-glass-and-metal kitten is being very amusing despite the fact that all the internetting in the house has obviated her.)
Also I assume we have established, perhaps repeatedly, that "lover" is a word so icky as to makes solitude sound endlessly appealing?
This is my partner, and also, I'm happy to say, my lover...
http://fundozer.com/harry-enfield-and-chums-dutchpolicemen/
To the OP, I'm finally having to watch Frozen for the first time and Mara very happily got her iPod out during "Let it Go" and was able to match the video on her device with the video on the tv screen. She and Nia were delighted by this. They would also probably like a glass and metal kitten.
I just experimented by placing my smartphone on top of my cat, but she got up after five seconds and sat down out of reach. I guess you have to start the hybridization while they're young.
I like Olaf and his song quite a bit.