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Comment on Why do I have this weird reversed-"FOMO" feeling when I watch TV shows or Movies about Pre-Information-Era time period, like not as in "I miss the past", but actually as in "Okay this era is weird"?

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throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

We are all stupider now thanks to tech, no doubt.

I respectfully disagree.

I mean, if you mean like for some of my peers that spend their time on shit like “tik tok” all day, that’s obviously making them more stupid. But for the nerds that actually want to know more about the world, Not really.

For example, the Encyclopedia. That’s a very narrow source of information, and subject to the author/publisher’s censorship possibly by government pressure. There is no direct publishing like there is today.

In my birth country, PRC, the Tianamen Square Massacre wouldn’t ever made it into any encyclopedias, but with the internet, at least now there’s better chance of someone using a VPN and accessing the truth. Might not change anything politically, but at least the truth is out there for anyone willing to see it.

The internet-connected world make it harder to censor thing. There are a lot of videos and images of protests during the covid lockdowns that would’ve have a hard time mading it out to the international community without the internet.

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bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Im talking about the majority of humans, the lazy and the simple ones for whom tik tok is their lives. Yes sure, for those who are actually adventurous and interesting, it’s awesome to have this information and power. But most people don’t utililize that at all. They want spoon fed content. People don’t even want to find content. They want it shoved in their faces because they would rather not use their brains for 1 second.

I don’t agree with the making it harder to censor. They don’t have to make it harder to censor because everything is misinformation now, and by using that logic they can say everyone is just lying (except for their side, of course) so it’s right back to square 1. Have you seen how many people think ai slop images are real? I rest my case. Technology enabled the dumbest to become dumber and, more dangerously, confident.

All of this could also just be because it’s Americans im interacting with, and we are definitely the dumbest country.

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Azzu@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
You’re absolutely right, but the average person does not think like you. Most people don’t ever think about stuff like this.

And so you currently have a very “high-level”, rational view of technology, that makes it amazing specifically for you.

However, you either disregard or lack contact with people that are (vastly) different. When looking at a technology in relation to the world, like you want to know about in this topic, you have to view the effects on those different people from you as well. And what other people in this thread said is simply observable and happening. A very small percentage uses the internet/technology like you do. The overall effect on the population is not solely amazing.

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sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I agree with most of the points you are making, but I think the main point the person you are replying to… their point was that … younger generations simply are not able to remember things they have read, either online, or in a book.

It used to be the case that you could not just pull up literally any information, out of your pocket, on demand.

That knowledge had to exist in your brain.

Historically, it gets even worse.

Many cultures had dedicated members of their society who had memorized an ancient tale that would take one hundred pages to write out on paper.

Of course, they did not remember them 100% accurately each time… but humans do seem to be losing a capability for mass information storage in our own brains as technology enables us to… not need to develop that capability.

The GPS navigation example is maybe easier to grasp: Before everyone had a GPS homing beacon and navigation telling them where to go, how to navigate through a city or country…

People knew how to read road signs. People knew how to read maps. People knew how to avoid high traffic areas and take shortcuts… all on their own.

Now, if you take GPS away from literally those same people, 20 or 30 years later, they would end up lost even in places they’ve lived in for decades.

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