I didn’t even own a mobile until 2000…. Age has nothing to do with anything… I’m 8 years younger than you, and I owned a boombox, but as you well know I’m much too disabled to have carried it out of doors.
Back to 2024, and my own concession to new tech is an upgrade to an I phone 12 which I had no choice but to obtain when the previous one, an 8 year old I hone SE-died, completely and irredeemably. I guess my point being that whilst I agree with Anna Schott about the fun part, I am mindful of the extent to which it alienates us from this grim hell hole of a world, which I suspect is one of its purposes. In my humblest of opinions, my dear Stephen, the more attuned we are to our surroundings, to other humans, and to the horrendous things that take place on a daily basis, the more we are able to possibly affect a positive change without the danger of being succoured into a virtual otherworld…..
Not all of us can make life better by simply being ourselves, the way you manage to, Stephen! Some of us have to work at it….
Lecture has now concluded. Please exit quietly lol.
I tend to flip between feeling that technology is soulless, inhuman, and remembering that technology is FUN. While my luddite sensibility won’t allow me to be trying on one of these doodads for myself, it was exciting to go along for the ride via this essay, from unboxing to avatar shaming.
I wanted so much to thank you for gratifying my curiosity about this new gadget without having to fork over what are for me big bucks that I subscribed for a year. I look forward to future savings.
It is wonderful to hear of your playing with toys.
You highlight so beautifully these technological and productive features of our world which are ever-changing and transformative — as well as that which we seem incapable of prevailing over, which is of course our humanity. Our now-obvious and predictable pattern in response to these reactive and generative phases of early adoption, mad resistance, eventual assimilation, and inevitable forgetting of any prior opposition to the matter entirely, is still surprising, comical, and all too human.
Gosh, I saw Apple’s advert for this gadget and the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘Lord, that thing looks rather clunky. However is that going work, not only with my small head, but also with my eyeglasses?’ I think I’ll rather wait until someone comes up with some sort of occular implant. Given the speed at which technology is advancing, it won’t be before too long. So, for now, my MacBook Air has got to suffice. 😉
Ah, but Stephen, aren’t you concerned about being lured into a digital panopticon in which privacy, human connection, and physical reality become supplanted by a Matrix-like collective delusion?
“By crossing into a space whose curvature is no longer that of the real, nor that of truth, the era of simulation is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referentials—worse: with their artificial resurrection in the systems of signs, a material more malleable than meaning, in that it lends itself to all systems of equivalences, to all binary oppositions, to all combinatory algebra. It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and shortcircuits all its vicissitudes. Never again will the real have the chance to produce itself—such is the vital function of the model in a system of death, or rather of anticipated resurrection, that no longer even gives the event of death a chance. A hyperreal henceforth sheltered from the imaginary, and from any distinction between the real and the imaginary, leaving room only for the orbital recurrence of models and for the simulated generation of differences.” —Jean Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulation” (h/t MacKenzie @ https://twitter.com/Smackenziekerr/status/1756216846439854385)
I am surprised at modern technology, and I absolutely, and I mean, but I don’t think we should always rely too much on modern technology for everything in the world. Specially, when we need our usual things in life, I’m not everyone seems to be committed to that but I’ve started a new thread on here and you’ll love it.
100% the most charming review of the Apple vision Pro, Stephen. And, well this is embarrassing, I’m sure this is bad form, but here’s a link to mine: https://atomless.substack.com/p/ways-of-not-seeing
This post made me very happy because it oozes curiosity and joy about new technology. Much writing about technology is doom and gloom, completely disregarding all the wonderful things that have come out of technological progress. Of course, I'm not naive. There's a lot of bad stuff, too, but isn't that the nature of most things? It's up to us to put the new stuff to good use rather than bad.
I didn’t even own a mobile until 2000…. Age has nothing to do with anything… I’m 8 years younger than you, and I owned a boombox, but as you well know I’m much too disabled to have carried it out of doors.
Back to 2024, and my own concession to new tech is an upgrade to an I phone 12 which I had no choice but to obtain when the previous one, an 8 year old I hone SE-died, completely and irredeemably. I guess my point being that whilst I agree with Anna Schott about the fun part, I am mindful of the extent to which it alienates us from this grim hell hole of a world, which I suspect is one of its purposes. In my humblest of opinions, my dear Stephen, the more attuned we are to our surroundings, to other humans, and to the horrendous things that take place on a daily basis, the more we are able to possibly affect a positive change without the danger of being succoured into a virtual otherworld…..
Not all of us can make life better by simply being ourselves, the way you manage to, Stephen! Some of us have to work at it….
Lecture has now concluded. Please exit quietly lol.
I enjoyed the lecture, or chastening. You make good points.
And, I have never exited in any other manner.
Thank you very much! I am so keen on calling out societal alienation when I spot it.
I tend to flip between feeling that technology is soulless, inhuman, and remembering that technology is FUN. While my luddite sensibility won’t allow me to be trying on one of these doodads for myself, it was exciting to go along for the ride via this essay, from unboxing to avatar shaming.
I wanted so much to thank you for gratifying my curiosity about this new gadget without having to fork over what are for me big bucks that I subscribed for a year. I look forward to future savings.
It is wonderful to hear of your playing with toys.
You highlight so beautifully these technological and productive features of our world which are ever-changing and transformative — as well as that which we seem incapable of prevailing over, which is of course our humanity. Our now-obvious and predictable pattern in response to these reactive and generative phases of early adoption, mad resistance, eventual assimilation, and inevitable forgetting of any prior opposition to the matter entirely, is still surprising, comical, and all too human.
Gosh, I saw Apple’s advert for this gadget and the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘Lord, that thing looks rather clunky. However is that going work, not only with my small head, but also with my eyeglasses?’ I think I’ll rather wait until someone comes up with some sort of occular implant. Given the speed at which technology is advancing, it won’t be before too long. So, for now, my MacBook Air has got to suffice. 😉
Ah, but Stephen, aren’t you concerned about being lured into a digital panopticon in which privacy, human connection, and physical reality become supplanted by a Matrix-like collective delusion?
“By crossing into a space whose curvature is no longer that of the real, nor that of truth, the era of simulation is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referentials—worse: with their artificial resurrection in the systems of signs, a material more malleable than meaning, in that it lends itself to all systems of equivalences, to all binary oppositions, to all combinatory algebra. It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and shortcircuits all its vicissitudes. Never again will the real have the chance to produce itself—such is the vital function of the model in a system of death, or rather of anticipated resurrection, that no longer even gives the event of death a chance. A hyperreal henceforth sheltered from the imaginary, and from any distinction between the real and the imaginary, leaving room only for the orbital recurrence of models and for the simulated generation of differences.” —Jean Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulation” (h/t MacKenzie @ https://twitter.com/Smackenziekerr/status/1756216846439854385)
P.S. Typo alert: “correspoindent” :-)
Typo alert “you faithful”
Anal reader alert comment #5
I am surprised at modern technology, and I absolutely, and I mean, but I don’t think we should always rely too much on modern technology for everything in the world. Specially, when we need our usual things in life, I’m not everyone seems to be committed to that but I’ve started a new thread on here and you’ll love it.
*I Phone, not I home
100% the most charming review of the Apple vision Pro, Stephen. And, well this is embarrassing, I’m sure this is bad form, but here’s a link to mine: https://atomless.substack.com/p/ways-of-not-seeing
This post made me very happy because it oozes curiosity and joy about new technology. Much writing about technology is doom and gloom, completely disregarding all the wonderful things that have come out of technological progress. Of course, I'm not naive. There's a lot of bad stuff, too, but isn't that the nature of most things? It's up to us to put the new stuff to good use rather than bad.
My mum got something a bit similar to this Apple Vision Pro my mum’s got something called mata, quest, which is a very similar thing