Ruined these things for you maybe. I still enjoy them. And don’t use my phone for most. One of the things I live about the phone is being able to communicate with my friends and family I want. I also enjoy having the majority of the worlds information available to me. Ooooo and music. Soooo much music at my fingertips.
There’s no way you are having a good time with digital dating, there just isn’t.
Even if your goal is to hit it and quit it like dating apps encourage, it’s still not a good time.
I’m not very confident in person in the sense I would never randomly start talking to a cute girl. Online dating is great for me as a way to start conversations.
Well, not anymore no. Living with my bae. But I dipped my toe in that scene some years back, it was kinda fun. Setting up my own blind dates, occasionally meeting someone as thirsty as me. I’m sure it’s changed. I meant more that the mobile versions of those things doent ruin the regular versions. Im sure the affect each other, but Normal dating is still a thing.
NO! You are not allowed to enjoy things, you must be sad, capitalism bad, communism is solution to all our problems. enshitification. enshitification. enshitification. 😡
Gotta respect the rules. Enjoyment canceled.
Capitalism is demonstrably bad. Very few people are claiming communism fixes everything, and you might as well take a flying fuck at a rolling donut if you think we can pull off communism right now. And yeah we’re surrounded by enshittification. What’s got you mad?
The problem isn’t smartphones, it’s capitalism.
All of those things would have happened anyway in a different form factor because capitalism is just a race to the bottom.
Except maybe UI design. That has been special in its enshittification.
I don’t see how we would have smartphones without capitalism. We’d still all be farmers.
Without capitalism, we’d all have the ability to swap out parts and create a phone for the purposes that we need. Some people want the best while others want the minimum, and most want something in between. Every part would be replaceable.
With capitalism, we have planned obsolescence without the ability to repair or replace parts and every conceivable thing to reap more money off us and force us to continually consume.
I’m saying without the greed of capitalism we wouldn’t have phones to swap out parts. We would have very limited technology because the incentive to innovate is much less when you do it because you want to rather than earning extra resources to raise standards of living(greed). Not as many people will volunteering their entire lives to come up with new technology while living the same standard of living as a farmer.
I’m saying without the greed of capitalism we wouldn’t have phones to swap out parts.
This might be a hot take but I’m not sure we all need a phone in our pocket or that it’s inherently a good thing.
I get what you’re saying but, respectfully, I think you’re incorrect. The field of science is not about capitalism but the goal of understanding everything around you. Aqueducts were not the result of capitalism. Russia won the space race. Innovations happen regardless. Capitalism drives innovation in specific directions.
Also id argue that the creation of the smartphone is the result of market forces, which arent unique to and predate Capitalism by millenia. The bronze age collapse happened largely due to the collapse of the grand trade networks and markets that birthed the bronze age, most bronze age societies predate currency as we understand it outright.
Everything that happened before capitalism happened at an extremely slow pace. We might have smart phones without capitalism and therefore the industrial revolution… but how long? Centuries? Another millenia?
The reason things happened at a slow pace wasnt because capitalism sped it up by a particular amount, its because human knowledge builds on itself. Plus capitalism was borne from the enlightenment which was when a shit tonne of ideas that made the scientific revolution possible came to be.
Capitalism just happened to be the major economic ideology that was gaining favor, id actually argue that social liberalism and Republicanism was the major factor for innovation on a political level.
“When they say ‘there is no alternative to capitalism’, they do not make a observation. They make a demand. They demand to not think about alternatives.”
You missed patch 1917 on eurasian servers.
You know capitalism is really new in the scale of human history right? It wasn’t until the industrial revolution in the 18th century that the means of production could be privately owned which then allowed for further speculative capital (stocks, land value, etc) to be equated to power.
The people of the past weren’t inherently stupid. Plenty of scientific and cultural progress was made prior to capitalism being our economic model.
What were most people doing before the industrial revolution? Farming.
Most were farmers because humans needed food, and food productivity was low before the age of industrialization. Not really sure what you are trying to argue other than it took a long time for enough progress was made to free humans to presue other things other than farming their land.
Capitalism incentivises rapid progress in all fields.
I’m not cheering for capitalism, just saying it takes advantage of the inherent greed of people to quickly speed innovation. There would be no industrial revolution without capitalism. At least not on the short scale of just a hundred years or two.
No, capitalism only incentivises profiting.
I’m not cheering for capitalism, just saying it takes advantage of the inherent greed of people to quickly speed innovation.
Except in the end you will get innovations of greed.
There would be no industrial revolution without capitalism.
Wrong! Sadly, article is only in Russian.
Russia’s industrial revolution did not happen in a bubble. They did not invent the technology that allowed the industrial revolution, they took advantage of others inventions to take a very inefficient rout to the revolution. They have enormous resources and a vast population… yet it was much smaller capitalist nations that advanced much faster.
weird that not everyone was a farmer before capitalism then
UI design too. Making a good UI means putting some effort into it, hiring devs native to each platform. But that costs money, so they do the minimum with the cheapest frontend devs they can find using some cross platform html ui technology like electron.
bad UI design is also because of capitalism, because the software companies can’t stand just having a working software, they must make some changes in some way and UI is a low hanging fruit.
How does everyone everywhere having a really decent camera ruin photography? One of the things we had to do in photography class was use a disposable to take well composed shots (but also we developed the film ourselves). A phone camera would make those look way better.
Photographic art is drowned in a world of snapshots. That which we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly. Of course, there are a lot of awesome upsides and people can still do photography as a hobby, but there’s a real “you can’t go home again” feeling. You probably would have had to been into the hobby prior to the smartphone to appreciate the loss.
Snapshots can also have artistic value. Something that was also taught to me in my photography classes that I took before smartphones were a thing.
What do you mean “is there anything good about smartphones at all”? It made a ton of money for Apple and its shareholders, that’s the only thing that matters. Who cares that it caused anxiety in a whole generation and ruined social life?
Good for porn?
Shitty for porn. Tiny screen.
Do you want to take a 32inch screen to the bathroom?
Challenge accepted.
More importantly why would you even need a screen in the bathroom? Literally ruins the most basic act of our existence.
No but if I’m going to watch porn in the bathroom I’m going to use a laptop or tablet not a little postage stamp phone screen
Like sure, but it’s no VR masturbatorium.
“There’s something so human about taking something great and ruining it a little so that you can have more of it”
ITT awful fucking reasons for “smartphone good”. Fuck smartphones.
Yep. Ignore your downvotes. They’re just zoomers with Stockholm syndrome.
A standalone camera would be a better camera. A standalone media player would be a better media player. Emulation handhelds are better gaming systems.
Paper-weights don’t even have batteries. Checkmate, phones.
Phones are useless for anything but making sure you’re abiding by your state-mandated privatized surveillance of choice and if I could carry around a tiny Linux laptop with cellular integration and use it instead, I probably would.
I get not everyone can use Linux, but I feel that’s a misunderstood problem in that, it isn’t my problem that you can’t do something.
if I could carry around a tiny Linux laptop with cellular integration and use it instead, I probably would.
Some phones can be converted to Linux fyi
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The person who wrote this wasn’t alive before smartphones and are doing the whole “I was born in the wrong decade” thing.
Calling out cops on their bullshit, troublshooting your pc when you bork the ethernet, sending photos of your feces to your friends to name a few
Usable flashlight!
Take away anon’s phone for a day and see how he likes it.
Ruines photogrpahy ?
Rhien II sold for $4.5 Million in 2011
I’d suggest that ruined photography.
That really is an unimpressive photo. Most of the photos on that list are terrible.
People either have forgotten or didn’t live in the time before smart phones, but the world was fucking boring as, you HAD to talk to someone because you were so fucking bored, that’s why we discovered shit, we were bored and had to do something, then turtle neck man gave us smartphones.
I just played a game on my pc.
What game?
Not OP. I remember when I was little, playing computer games that were completely on the keyboard (we didn’t even have a mouse.) They were stored on floppy disks and would start up by just inserting them into the computer. I’m not sure if you’re asking as a fellow old-school gamer seeking nostalgic connections, or as someone who’s never played old games and is simply curious, but I did find this list of early games pretty interesting.
There are a number of adaptations of classic arcade games, pop culture tie-ins, and even flight simulators. It amazes me how much floppy disks used to be able to accomplish.
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While music was playing on the stereo… flipped the cassette every half hour…
what? thats how i feel when i use my smartphone
It’s really sad to me that people think that smartphones are the source of all entertainment now. Even today I use my phone very little on a daily basis. You’re limiting your perspective to that little screen in your hand instead of exploring the real world.
Smartphones are what is fucking boring to me. I don’t want to sit around and look at that shit.
They’re good for those of us with physical disabilities or certain mental issues. I’m mostly off today. I wish I could just go downtown and have fun or go get some groceries but my brain is not letting me.
The smartphone didn’t ruin those things. Capitalism did.
I have a smart phone with a custom ROM, and a dumb phone (Sunbeam Mobile). No, I am not a drug dealer. Sometimes I change out my SIM card and will use the smart phone (especially if traveling to another state or country), and because it can make my life easier.
Here are some rambling thoughts I have on the topic:
-If you don’t want to have a smart phone, and opt for a dumb phone, you need to be careful not to let your PC “replace” your bad smart phone habits in terms of scrolling, etc.
-For the peeps worried about privacy, I’m not sure if dumb phones would be an ideal choice. I’m not so sure how secure SMS and phone calls are. I am not an expert, so I have no idea about this, though. I usually use Matrix to have at length text conversations on a PC when I am not using a smart phone, because texting is annoying on a dumb phone and who knows if cell phone companies or other people are intercepting data to market more crap. I’m not so schizo about this, but it is annoying and creepy.
-People are isolated and need a way to build and maintain communities. These days, it is difficult to walk places and build community in the physical world. So that is why you have people getting together on Discord, Instagram, etc. I have definitely been isolated or lived in rural areas and having these outlets has been more helpful than harmful for me.
-If you want a dumb phone, I do recommend a Sunbeam Mobile phone. It supports group texting, navigation (with HERE Maps). I have an SD card full of music I put in the phone and it supports Bluetooth. I recommend the models of phones that are completely de-Googled.
-I don’t think people should feel bad if they need a smart phone, especially if they are living in circumstances beyond their control which puts them in an isolating position.
-I think that ultimately people need to want to wake up to all of this. I want to be more involved in making my life more community oriented. I do live in a city, but it is very car dependent. I think that we need to push for development and policies that support community building over the long term, because most people are not happy having smart phones a fixture of everything. For example, is creepy to me that in any moment of time, I can guess what most people are doing (and that is that they are sitting on the Internet in some capacity or a smart phone).
-I hate Google and Amazon. Any way that I do not support them and boycott them is a win for me and society.
-I find it interesting that whenever I am using my Sunbeam phone, that younger people will come up to me and start asking about it. People are desperate to escape smart phones, but there are so many macro political and macro economical problems that create the situation we are in now. We see ourselves as so atomized that there is no examples of any organization or collective rejection of this crap.
Here is a great blog post, which I highly recommend reading: https://wrongthink.link/posts/re-life-in-dysfunctional-world/
