Are We Luddites?

[AshleyC]

There isn't much about technology that I would prefer to regress in. The phone I'm using is literally a portal to the sum total of all human knowledge. And it is far more powerful a computer than what the Apollo missions used to get to the moon.

It has been awhile since I sat down and read a physical book. I couldn't tell you the title of the last physical book I did complete. I started listening to a 19 hour history of Romania by Paul Kenyon today while at the gym. Thanks to Audible.

Nor does the threat of "AI" alarm me all that much, because no computer can "think" outside of the limits of the inputs a human mind enters into it. We are a long, long way from Skynet. If a computer does something you don't like, it is because a human at some point told it to do that.

Music has become a lot more dependent on technology, and has suffered greatly from it.

Quaznoid observed some weeks ago that before the internet, what you knew about shaving was limited to what you saw in the store. He was certainly right about that.

Technology...I'm fine with it, overall. It is bizarre and incomprehensible trends in post-modernist, post-rational thought in culture that I find more unsettling.

 

[Phoenixkh]

I'm a hybrid, I suppose.. I enjoy the more-than-decent camera in our iPhone 15 ProMax-s... I didn't bother taking a DSLR to Bali this time around, knowing we weren't going to be taking photos of surfers where I would need a long lens. I have my photos backed up on 4 hard drives (two internal and 2 external on my desktop) and even have a 5th tiny one with all my photos on it. My iPhone photos are also backed up on the Cloud.

I stream music from Amazon Prime Music on my TV surround system... I love being able to listen to an album before I buy the CD and that's exactly what I do if I like it. I don't have a huge collection by some standards but I do have around 1300 CDs now, as I keep adding them. I play my CDs on a dedicated two channel stereo music playback system with a pre-amp and amp that both have <gasp> tubes with sound floating out of floor standing speakers.

We got rid of live cable television but we do subscribe to a few streaming services. We only have a handful or two of DVDs and BluRays.... There aren't that many movies we want to watch repeatedly.

I do prefer using a laptop to my phone for just about everything except taking photos and ummmm making phone calls. I hate texting but I do it on occasion... and I love email.

I hope we don't outlive our current cars. We just replaced 2002 and 2004 Avalons with a couple used Lexus-s (what are the plurals for Lexus and ProMax anyway? Lexuses and ProMaxes don't look right to me. I don't think Lexus's is correct either.) I wasn't remotely tempted to go the electric car route.

With a couple of the newer apps (Signal and WhatsApp), we were able to stay in contact with our kids from overseas without paying for international phone calls... We even sent videos back and forth for free.

I have all the hand tools necessary to do most any carpentry related job, but I also have 3 nail guns and lots of power tools.

All that to say... I think modern technology is a mixed bag.... I hope I'm embracing the "new" when it is helpful and holding on to the former ways when they make more sense.

Oh, and btw, LPs have been making a huge comeback over the past decade or so.... Odd isn't it? That CDs might go away but LPs will still be around? I still have a great turntable but only around 300 LPs.

 

[rsp1202]

I stream music from Amazon Prime Music on my TV surround system... I love being able to listen to an album before I buy the CD and that's exactly what I do if I like it. I don't have a huge collection by some standards but I do have around 1300 CDs now, as I keep adding them. I play my CDs on a dedicated two channel stereo music playback system with a pre-amp and amp that both have <gasp> tubes with sound floating out of floor standing speakers.

Oh, and btw, LPs have been making a huge comeback over the past decade or so.... Odd isn't it? That CDs might go away but LPs will still be around? I still have a great turntable but only around 300 LPs.

The day music came out of a hard drive instead of a CD or turntable, is the day the music died.

Or maybe it was when everyone got a Walkman and earbuds, and accepted MP3 compression as the default sound source. Add to that the creation of soundbars to replace actual loudspeakers.

Hyperbole aside, for those who still have a banging stereo system, know you are noble men. All honor be with you.

 

[Guido75]

Oh no. Has it really come to this, that you look foolish if you go into a hifi store with CDs? When did they send out the email saying CD was over? I don’t think I got it, but I’ve just started to notice that everyone else knows.

Reminds me of this old comedy sketch from the early ‘90s, I think.

It became even funnier when he had to look up the first CD and then he turned on the stereo for the whole store to hear. I chose There’s a Fire in the House from the album Fire Garden by Steve Vai (“can you spell that?”). It covers s complete range of sounds and I knew it by heart as this was my CD I played over and over while in hospital when I was younger. I had a blast listing to that record at that volume!

The music starts at 1:12

By the way the music is point in case: all modern with much Tech, but with an actual human guitarist (and what a guitarist! YMMV).

Cheers,

Guido

 

[Guido75]

I'm a hybrid, I suppose

Speaking of hybrid. I do use Outlook, but I still carry an A5 Filofax with me to meetings and it’s always open on my desk.

 

[GR5233]

I'm a hybrid, I suppose

All of us are hybrids in one respect. We all still use “mail order” catalogues. The only difference is format. Anytime someone orders something from a website it’s no different than when they filled out an order form from a physical catalog and sent it in

 

[Hopalong]

I suppose I take what I need and leave the rest.
Technology is not immune to the law of diminishing returns.
Here's a prime example. Bought a new truck last year. Electronic emergency brake, and electronic shifter.
Wow, isn't that great. Push a button and then wait to read on the screen if the emergency brake is on or not.
Better be quick though because the tiny line that says "parking brake is set" only lasts a second and is sandwiched in the middle of countless icons, lights, and symbols that must resemble a video game that I don't play.
Coupled with the electronic shifter, these engineers literally painted themselves into a corner.
Because if you get a dead battery, in the garage for example, there is no way to shift this big tin can into neutral. Can't roll it out for a jump. Have to crawl underneath and disassemble the transmission.
I could go on and on about the worthless tech in this contraption that I would gladly trade for some good paint.
I had to order this truck, because the lots were empty in 2022, when I ordered this 2023.
I'm glad I grew up when I did.

 

[BigJ]

Great thread!!

Once upon a time, we went for the ‘newest’ and most modern products.

Then we learned to value functionality, not functions! My household focuses on things we enjoy and that work. For example, we have gone back to heavy cast iron and stainless steel cookware rather than various iterations of non-stick. We use this cookware on an induction range that is very safe and efficient. We also drive late model cars that are in immaculate condition. I am in the fortunate position of not having to impress anyone other than LOTH!!

 

[Firemonkey]

Paying with data can definitely save you money. Take store loyalty cards for example. In my local supermarket, there are a myriad of products which will come with 50% savings if you have a loyalty card (and make a personal data payment, so they can track your spending as an individual).

That one is easy - every cashier has a "house account" card that they can scan if you ask. When you check out, just tell them you don't have a loyalty card, and ask them if they have one they can scan for you. They always do.

 

[blethenstrom]

That one is easy - every cashier has a "house account" card that they can scan if you ask. When you check out, just tell them you don't have a loyalty card, and ask them if they have one they can scan for you. They always do.

That avoids you from giving them your information so that they can send you a bunch of junk mail, junk emails, junk calls and know everything you buy.

 

[AimlessWanderer]

That one is easy - every cashier has a "house account" card that they can scan if you ask. When you check out, just tell them you don't have a loyalty card, and ask them if they have one they can scan for you. They always do.

Here in the UK? I've never encountered that.

 

[Phoenixkh]

That one is easy - every cashier has a "house account" card that they can scan if you ask. When you check out, just tell them you don't have a loyalty card, and ask them if they have one they can scan for you. They always do.

Here in the UK? I've never encountered that.

I've never tried that in the States either, but I'm going to try the next time I'm at the Fresh Market.

 

[Firemonkey]

I've never tried that in the States either, but I'm going to try the next time I'm at the Fresh Market.

I travelled for work for about 18 years (USA). Not once has a cashier not had a card sitting on the register to scan when I asked. If they steer the conversation towards getting you your own card, just smile and say I’m traveling and we don’t have any of <insert store> where I live.

Most of the time they just say sure and swipe the thing before you even blink.

 

[Phoenixkh]

I travelled for work for about 18 years (USA). Not once has a cashier not had a card sitting on the register to scan when I asked. If they steer the conversation towards getting you your own card, just smile and say I’m traveling and we don’t have any of <insert store> where I live.

Most of the time they just say sure and swipe the thing before you even blink.

I'm definitely going to try it.

 

[Mike M]

I am not a luddite, but I am definitely regressing.
I wet shave and I use bar soap instead of shampoo and shower gel, they both seem less wasteful.
I have reverted to shoes or boots rather than trainers or sneakers, I prefer the way they look and feel particularly when polished and especially when compared to many people who wear sneakers everywhere. The same with jeans or trousers instead of tracksuit bottoms.

When our internet went out for a week due to the router breaking and the cable into the house getting flooded we had to resort to using phones with an internet connection. I was fine, reading the news or posting to B&B, the rest of the household (including the OH) acted like their human rights had been stripped from them. The screams of anguish every time a video stopped streaming were reminiscent of the screams of souls trapped in hell. My children's social lives collapsed because they could not play online games with children who live a couple of streets away. My youngest son actually started going outside to play (he still does that).
I can't help thinking not all changes have been for the better

 

[DesertIguana]

The World is in constant state of change. My father was born in 1920, he experienced the Great Depression, served in Merchant Marines in WW-2 in North Atlantic, Mediterranean, and last Pacific. He did in 2014 made comment before his death, saying " I NO LONGR RECOGNIZE THE COUNTRY I GREW UP IN".

Wet shaving has changed as you got more choices then Gillette Blue Blades, and Tech Razor.

 

[Alum Ladd]

Not a Luddite, as I don't have an urge to burn weaving machinery, but someone seeing my familiar, sane world being taken away from me in real time, and I want aspects of it back. Maybe a Luddite of the tools and attitudes that have brought us all to this sorry pass.

Marvellous technologies that could have spread real education, wisdom, the arts, but instead are utilised to spew hatred, propaganda and lies, and rubbishy entertainments and 'social media' to recruit and 'influence' the proles.

The great new religion of 'me'. An overarching new reality for the increasing majority who painfully lack true self-awarness.

A time when mediocracy is the apex of achievement, where the stupid, morally rotten and cowardly lead the stupid, morally rotten and cowardly.

An epoch where white is black, and black is white, and one can be arrested in a democracy, for daring to utter an original independent thought.

An era of mass survellience, and a dangerous and growing shrinkage of personal freedoms.

Democracy usurped by the tyranny of the moronic and vicious, using the very tools of democracy.

Our young are tought or indoctrinated to hate their forebears, and worship those who would kill or enslave them.

A time when, to paraphrase a pithy description of the doomed Bourbon dynasty, "they had forgotten everything and learned nothing" seems to be a badge of honour.

I just use my dear old vintage razors and read real books and histories, not of a 'better' time, but a time when problems and crisis were dealt with courageously and with common sense, and with a complete disregard for any repellent 'woke' or 'pc' nonsense.

All the clever gadgets in all the world do not even begin to compensate for something beautiful, intangible that we have permanently lost if we don't radically refocus.