I often wonder this. I love computers and the internet but when it comes to quality of life I don’t see much imporvement over when I was young and the world was still analog. I mean I would not want to live in a time before electricity and definately before plumbing and sewer. a nice metro line is great and well as geared bicycles. libraries to. can’t really say much from the computer age really is all that great.
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hneerqe@lemmy.world 5 days agoReally, after all this years of computer technology and the internet, what good came out of it? That it can outweigh the bad.
People are dumber and misinformed. Social media is a cesspit of fakeness and product advertisements. Software improves profitability and takes away jobs. Unparalleled potential for mass surveillance.
HubertManne@piefed.social 5 days ago
KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago Open access to information is one thing I love about the internet, I can find information (of varying quality) about anything I’m interested in without having to look through a library or get a massive encyclopedia
JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org 4 days ago
Trying to remember how the world was before computers and the internet. It was really hard to look up information yet that you didn’t have in your own home. You had to hop on the bus and go to the library searching through several books. That’s one Google search today. You hadn’t had the access to music, films, and so on. You can listen to nearly every modern song on Spotify versus those few CDs you had on your home or the songs that were playing on the radio. If you want to watch a movie you can do that. You do not have to wait until it’s showing on TV with at breaks or go to some kind of rental store. You want to go somewhere, just fire up Google Maps, versus buy and paper map, figure out where you are, and still get lost. Global communication is free. Just remember how expensive long distant calls were and how you lost contact to people who moved away.
The internet and computers really have made everything easier.
hneerqe@lemmy.world 4 days ago
No absolutely not everything is on spotify. And Google is not a search engine anyway. We gave them the privilege of their brand becoming a verb and now they’re a corporate surveillance monopoly. We absolutely botched it here. Same with facebook.
We can search to get a quick superficial view written by whoever and now AI vs reading through a book to get a comprehensive view by someone who studied and has a reputation to defend. One doesn’t substitute the other. The internet merely allowed for the lazy masses to pretend they could get away with not reading, which worked just as well because their boss needs his productivity/wages ratio in check.
JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org 4 days ago
You are so wrong, I really do not know how to respond to that. Yes, not every song is on Spotify, but you are able to listen to millions of songs there. That is more than your local record shop was able to stock
rumba@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Computers have been a mixed bag
Entertainment is better.
Education is far better. (you can learn about anything you want right now for free)
Racism was on a slow decline. (communication, education)The economy is far worse The job situation is worse.
I’d say cars are better, being more efficient, but the SUV loophole fucked that.HubertManne@piefed.social 4 days ago
Yeah I can’t even say that. There is more entertainment and its a lot more accessible. Better special effects are great but that is so low on quality of life things I don’t care to lose it. Education is kinda the same. Not really better but more access to information but less information is high quality as a percentage of what you have access to. Honestly cars themselves are another problematic technology to begin with.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
Exactly most people are happy because of netflix and I just was never even tempted to sign up for it. But hey im the weird one wcyd.
I can think of hundreds of innovations and good. Take just the medical field. Huge advances in attending the sick, the diseased. Yes, all technology wields a double edged sword. When the first Ford rolled off the assembly line it was a huge boon to travel, tourism, commerce. What were the downsides? Well, it’s noisy, pollutive, the processes to extract it’s fuel is very volatile. Yet, you get in your car and go to the grocery store, work, or even vacation without thinking about such things for the most part. The efficiency, the decrease in pollution, emissions, etc. are somewhat a thing off the past. Yes, there are massive improvements we can make, especially in renewable resources and electric vehicles.
Those who pine for ‘the good ol’ days, usually do so with thick rose colored glasses.
hneerqe@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Yes Ford. That guy was pretty sweet. When the assembly line was first implemented by him. An innovation that eventually lead to unchecked industrial growth and waste production, greed intensified.
On a surface level. Yes there were many good innovations, or rather many good business opportunities. On one hand the health care is better, on the other hand no effort seems to have been made to prevent people from becoming sick in the first place. It’s a catch I guess.
Anyway those innovations will become annulled when no one will be able to afford it.
Ford didn’t create greed. Computers and the internet didn’t create hucksters, neither did it create gullible people blown around by the wind without a compass or direction. Fools and their money have been parted for millennia.
I would somewhat disagree with you in that no effort has been made to keep people from being sick. That’s a pretty bold statement. However, a large portion of the medical industry (which, yes is subject to greed) is not really about the curative and more about the maintenance. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. You can instruct people on healthy living which will extend their life and the quality thereof, but you cannot force them to do so. That is, and has been a huge issue. People line up at the hospital in large instances because they did not even attempt to lead a healthy lifestyle. They are an encumbrance in a way, because those who do live healthy lifestyles are penalized for those who don’t.
Without being overly dramatic, I can confidently say, that if it weren’t for medical advances, I would probably not be typing these words. I did everything I could to live a healthy lifestyle, but suffered a TBI in a fall from 2 stories up. I have a medical polymer implant in my right frontal lobe due to cranial damage. They scanned the hole in my skull, and 3D printed a replacement. Jack’s a doughnut, Bob’s your uncle. I’m 71 now. That’s pretty damn awesome in my book.
hneerqe@lemmy.world 4 days ago
It’s high time for “bold statements”. I’ve been in both left and right, and they’re the same or atleast I know none of them supports me. This system fosters nothing more than inequality. Failure to regulate unhealthy but profitable materials and ingredients and addiction tactics away. That’s the shit the poor - soon all of us - are able to buy. There’s 20 chemicals in a simple product (they don’t even call it food), sold with a plastic wrap that is gonna go around the world and come back inside our brains. That’s why, just one example.
All this to say if there are advancements using computer technology on this, they’re nowhere to be seen making a difference. So what’s the point…
As I keep saying poverty is correlated with sickness. Poverty of mind too. The internet didn’t solve this, far from it.
Oh and the number these data centers are going to do to the environment? Why do we need thousands of them? If we look at who’s moving around and what kind of laws world governments are enacting… it’s not gonna be good in a thousand years…
I’m happy it worked out for you.