Is technology killing our gut instincts and intuition?

All kinds of businesses are "inefficient" but survive. Think of the people hand sewing thousands of sequins on to a couture dress, or using an old letterpress machine for specialist invitation cards. Or attempting to make slide film hardly anyone uses in a defunct Italian factory when there are perfectly good digital cameras to do the same job. So long as it provides sufficient income to maintain the worker in a standard that befits their needs, the business is viable.

Personal satisfaction is the only arbiter of human efficiency.

blockend said:

Personal satisfaction is the only arbiter of human efficiency.

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First, using the factory in the video as a reference point is an arbitrary choice. That technology was not benign, it upset the world and moved people from hand work to machine work, the first generation of automatons, injuring many and throwing many out of their original trades.

Second, Personal satisfaction is a luxury. It's great when you provide it for yourself, as a hobby or pro-sumer/lifestyle business. I will postulate though that a serious injury caused by that machinery might get construed as something besides a luxury by the employee's family.

markbarendt said:

First, using the factory in the video as a reference point is an arbitrary choice. That technology was not benign, it upset the world and moved people from hand work to machine work, the first generation of automatons, injuring many and throwing many out of their original trades.

Second, Personal satisfaction is a luxury. It's great when you provide it for yourself, as a hobby or pro-sumer/lifestyle business. I will postulate though that a serious injury caused by that machinery might get construed as something besides a luxury by the employee's family.

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No technology is "benign", there are psychological or physical consequences to every man made thing from flint tools onwards. How does it "upset the world" and how can you tell? The steam powered box making factory is just one example of sufficient technology, there are many others. Hand made clothing, bespoke joinery, custom steel bicycles, sail powered boats, all "inefficient", each life enhancing to the maker and owner.

blockend said:

No technology is "benign", there are psychological or physical consequences to every man made thing from flint tools onwards.

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I completely agree. Pick and use technology carefully. Technology has relieved a lot of suffering from human kind. Technology is a double edged sword. Along with benefits, technology has isolated people. Before modern times, humans had depend on each other for survival and there was greater connection between people. Look at the invention of air conditioning and the car. Before cars, people had to walk everywhere so we're more connected to the environment and other people. With AC, people used to cool them selves on a hot summer evening on their porch while they said hi to their neighbors. Some are so disconnected due to technology, they can't connect with people on a personal level. From the isolation, some feel depressed and anxious. And of course, we have meds to deal with all that. I'm sucked into big time too.

Some people still find it relaxing to knap flint tools. I doubt they hunt with them. I did try that once. Got awfully hungry, then finally stumbled onto a
mountain meadow full of wild onions. Big mistake. They have substantial bulbs but are truly hot. Now I just use them for a pinch of seasoning when
I'm out backpacking. Otherwise, they have lovely photogenic flowers.

blockend said:

No technology is "benign", there are psychological or physical consequences to every man made thing from flint tools onwards.

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You make my point.

blockend said:

How does it "upset the world" and how can you tell?

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Smog, injuries, changes in work patterns (factory v farm).

I think you would be hard pressed to make a believable case that steam power didn't upset the economic and cultural models of the world. (e.g. Sailing v Steaming across the oceans)

blockend said:

The steam powered box making factory is just one example of sufficient technology, there are many others. Hand made clothing, bespoke joinery, custom steel bicycles, sail powered boats, all "inefficient", each life enhancing to the maker and owner.

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I like sailboats, they are an example of sufficient tech if I want to cruise around the world for pleasure, not so hot for transporting cargo anymore though.

markbarendt said:

You make my point.

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I don't see how. If all technologies have consequences why are current ones preferable? All we've done is shift the big dirty stuff to Chinese megacities from the US and UK, the smoke didn't go away. When people worked in those industries domestically everyone in the High Street benefitted. Same with industrial injuries, we just transplanted them elsewhere. Railway and canal technology was sufficient when Westerners still made things.

It requires a religious attitude to progress to insist everything is continually getting better. If that was true, people wouldn't leave jobs in finance with giant salaries to chop down wood or farm sheep. Job satisfaction, like personal satisfaction as a whole, is not measured in numbers.

That's a new one on me. Around here, the rich execs move to the country to grow wine or apple orchards, not raise sheep. But I dd have a rich uncle
who gave up his mayorship of large city, and sold his chain of pharmacies, and moved to a tiny cabin in the woods and raised sheep. It didn't work
out so well for the sheep, since he did it for the lamb chops and not the wool.

markbarendt said:

First, using the factory in the video as a reference point is an arbitrary choice. That technology was not benign, it upset the world and moved people from hand work to machine work, the first generation of automatons, injuring many and throwing many out of their original trades.

Second, Personal satisfaction is a luxury. It's great when you provide it for yourself, as a hobby or pro-sumer/lifestyle business. I will postulate though that a serious injury caused by that machinery might get construed as something besides a luxury by the employee's family.

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From the narrative in the movie 'Seabiscuit'...

"They called it the car for every man. Henry Ford himself called it a car for the great multitude. It was functional, and simple, like your sewing machine, or your cast-iron stove. You could learn to drive it in less than a day. And you could get any color you wanted, so long as it was black. When Ford first conceived the Model-T, it took thirteen hours to assemble. Within five years he was turning out a vehicle every ninety seconds. Of course the real invention was the assembly line that built it. Pretty soon other businesses had borrowed the same technologies. Seamstresses became button sewers. Furniture makers became knob turners. It was the beginning and the end of imagination, all at the same time."

Technology is not the problem, it's the mis-management and mis-understanding of technology that is the problem. When you can light a gas stove with a flick of the wrist, that is a great thing, yet a prudent person knows how to make fire with a flint and steel or bow drill. My GPS is great for navigation, yet I make sure my son know how to shoot and work a noon-sight with our sextant. Of course, we're crazy.

People live in cities, on average just a scant three days away from the beginnings of starvation and squalor, and never give it a thought. Nor do they think about how their excrement magically vanishes, or how fragile those and other systems of civilized living really are. It is this easy life that of complacency that breeds ignorance of fundamental skills and knowledge of how things work, not technology. If you are truly lucky, it won't matter. If you are truly unlucky, you'll be eaten alive. Between those two extremes lies the middle.

Further, it is easy to observe (once you give up most of your own participation) that the constant battering ram of useless but important information, the Tweets, the Facebook feeds, Snapchats, emails, texts, politics, and news news news, that many people constantly subject themselves to results in so much going in that little of consequence comes out. Far from the commonly accepted lay belief that the constant barrage of information and contact makes us productive, the loss of productivity is both staggering and well documented. The misallocation of our attentions is the problem. However, you can't blame the either media or technology for giving you what you want. The blame lies with the consumer. It's up to you to shut it off. Most can't, or won't, and all manner of excuses are proffered, very similar to other common addictions. And that's it.

JBrunner said:

Further, it is easy to observe (once you give up most of your own participation) that the constant battering ram of useless but important information, the Tweets, the Facebook feeds, Snapchats, emails, texts, politics, and news news news, that many people constantly subject themselves to results in so much going in that little of consequence comes out. Far from the commonly accepted lay belief that the constant barrage of information and contact makes us productive, the loss of productivity is both staggering and well documented. The misallocation of our attentions is the problem. However, you can't blame the either media or technology for giving you what you want. The blame lies with the consumer. It's up to you to shut it off. Most can't, or won't, and all manner of excuses are proffered, very similar to other common addictions. And that's it.

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It's the illusion of participation. It makes fools of us all. For my own part I gave up TV fifteen years ago, have never Tweeted, and lasted a month on Facebook before surreality set in. I couldn't tell you what the rest are. I have an empty Instagram account somewhere and Flickr refused to move over with my last change of computer. I don't miss it. Most people would view this as a Luddite sensibility, but even a handful of internet forums can be the thief of time. How people manage the rest and a real social and work life I have no idea.

blockend said:

I don't see how. If all technologies have consequences why are current ones preferable?

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Technological changes almost always solve real problems.

For example, dirt roads vs paved roads vs concrete. Imagine trying to go about your business in a city of 2 million on dirt roads.

blockend said:

All we've done is shift the big dirty stuff to Chinese megacities from the US and UK, the smoke didn't go away. When people worked in those industries domestically everyone in the High Street benefitted. Same with industrial injuries, we just transplanted them elsewhere. Railway and canal technology was sufficient when Westerners still made things.

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Sure there has been a shift in locale but ask somebody in Beijing if they want to fix the smog. I don't want to go back to the bad old days, I grew up in CA in the 70's a the smog was bad the, imagine how bad it would be if we had not forced smog controls. It would be like Beijing.

The canals and rails were only good enough for the population of the time no for the population we have today.

blockend said:

It requires a religious attitude to progress to insist everything is continually getting better. If that was true, people wouldn't leave jobs in finance with giant salaries to chop down wood or farm sheep. Job satisfaction, like personal satisfaction as a whole, is not measured in numbers.

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Not a religious attitude, just a big picture attitude.

There are problems with satisfaction in life but those are generally '1st world problems'.

blockend said:

It's the illusion of participation. It makes fools of us all. For my own part I gave up TV fifteen years ago, have never Tweeted, and lasted a month on Facebook before surreality set in. I couldn't tell you what the rest are. I have an empty Instagram account somewhere and Flickr refused to move over with my last change of computer. I don't miss it. Most people would view this as a Luddite sensibility, but even a handful of internet forums can be the thief of time. How people manage the rest and a real social and work life I have no idea.

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Ain't THAT the TRUTH!!

markbarendt said:

Technological changes almost always solve real problems.

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They solve problems for some people. The industrial revolution stopped people starving on the land by giving them 14 hour factory shift and sending children up chimneys and down mines. If you were an industrialist your problems were solved. We've solved the smog problem by exporting it and importing the produce. I believe there's a happy medium that reflects the natural creativity of humans, and the cohesion of society, without humans becoming a variety of machine. What we generally have is unfettered capitalism and globalisation, offering sweatshop sports shoes and lens adapters at £5 a piece, and calling it "progress".

mainecoonmaniac
look at threads on THIS site that deal with sunny 11 or sunny 16.

its a way, as you know, to use instinct, and experience to determine
a meterless reading, yet much of the time, and many of the responses to such threads
involve people claiming it is a waste of film, a waste of effort and it is something only hacks
do, so don't be a hack and get a meter and learn how to use it &c &c. granted a lot of people get
a meter and don't really know how to use it, but that's a different thread ...

so to answer your question in some sense, yes technology, no matter how basic it might be
maybe a meter, in camera or handheld ( for example ) are killing our instincts.
i think no matter the technology whether it is completely automatic ( camera ) non film ( digital )
meter, bread machine, blender/cuisineart, gas grill, oxen drawn plough, shovel whatever ...
it removes us from whatever the process might have been originally enough, to let us forget what it was that was done before.
use technolgy enough it really doesn't matter what was done before, it ends up just a faded memory.

ymmv

hi mark,
then i guess the question is
technology taking the fun out of things ..

I enjoy photography more than scrawling on cave walls with burnt sticks, so I am okay with technology.

jnanian said:

hi mark,
then i guess the question is
technology taking the fun out of things ..

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I don't think so. Our imagination is the only limit there.

markbarendt said:

I don't think so. Our imagination is the only limit there.

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exactly what i was thinking !

jnanian said:

exactly what i was thinking !

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Technology, is killing some other things ... Itself!

^^^ Ha ha.... LOVED THAT!!!

A burnt stick in a cave was the peak of technology at one time. Unfortunately, forty thousand years of better technology has not given us better art.

DREW WILEY said:

A burnt stick in a cave was the peak of technology at one time. Unfortunately, forty thousand years of better technology has not given us better art.

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In my opinion easy comments come out of one´s keyboard very often and without proper thinking. Technology is not only about tools, but knowledge as well. The art dewlls in the eyes of the watcher.