How we used to live (serious topic)

BladeRunner_

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Jul 4, 2020
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I'm gonna repost that thread from the old forum with Daysleeper's approval. It was very touching OP and i think it resonated with many of us.

Ok, I need to collect my thoughts and try to be as articulate and clear as I can.

A couple weeks ago I was in my local indoor swimming facility. After I was done swimming I sat down in the sauna and after awhile a middle-aged man enters with his younger daugther. She sits in his lap and he's joking with her and all of a sudden he just asks me some ordinary normal questions related to the pools and if there were lots of people in there, but the thing was, he was genuinely happy and I picked this up instantly and it almost brought me to tears. I answered him back that there were a little packed with some families with kids in the pool where they have a wave machine and then he looked at his daugther and says - Lets just throw in a shark there!! I laughed, not because it was the best joke in the world, but because of how he said it. I smiled all the time and he wished me a good day and I him.

THIS, right here, is what I miss so much! Have we totally forgot about this? I lived on this the whole weekend.

Has people forgot how to be humans???

At work,in parks,on the train,when we walk, when we ride our vehicles, when we wait in line, everywhere!

Smartphones,internet,facebook,snapchat,selfies,you tube,spotify, earphones in our ears 24/7.

Have we forgot how to talk, how to live, how to love, how to laugh, how to cry?

I think we have forgot how we used to live. For real. I think most of us are victims of this, in one way or another. And people used to call the television addicting.

Could you imagine a life without it all?



 

Archon

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Thanks for bringing the thread back here! I enjoyed reading, and writing, a lot.
 

BS_BlackScout

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Jul 13, 2020
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I grew up witnessing this transition from a non-technological driven world to a technological driven one.

What bothers me the most is how Social Media has become a weapon of mass influence and how moderate thinking is increasingly disappearing.

Politics didn't use to be the mess that it is nowadays. (Which is now somehow possible to be injected into any conversation)
People pick their favourite extreme and follow it by rule, idolizing a political spectrum, party or person as if they were their "lord and savior".
It's pretty bad, pretty bad. Almost like a cult or weird fundamentalist religion for some people.

There are other things that we have lost and forgotten over time, some that I cannot remember now. I'm just here to add my two cents to the conversation.

EDIT: Smartphones, I don't believe they are necessarily a problem. They are just a composite of a portable camera, radio and a typical mobile phone in one device. Things people had before they exploded in popularity.
The internet is the only thing we didn't have on our side all the time.
 
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Archon

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Agree with this 100%. Just witnessing this can sometimes be a bit too much for me. And it's the same with TV nowadays, I mean just listen to the news, listen, to what is being said and how. It takes a few minutes to figure out which agenda the channel is pushing. And there's always some! They are being (ab)used by people in position of or in pursuit of power, and by means of polarization, deceit and whatnot. It's not just them, it's also the larger players, depends on who's funding it. But I won't really go deeper than this.

The internet can be such a wonderful place, and just browsing it, finding about certain books, people etc. has helped me know and understand myself better, get out of some dark times...but at the same time, it's probably what has caused them. But we're pretty much dragged in all the way, and seems like there's no escape.

So sometimes I'm like...fuck the laptop! Seriously. Fuck the laptop, and fuck the phone. I wish I didn't have them. Not because they are at fault (I am), but they stand in the way of personal happiness.

Sometimes I think I'd be much happier doing this for a living:


But then I occupy my mind with college and projects and whatnot, and all seems fine.
 

BS_BlackScout

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Today while I was playing online with a friend, I was wondering if the big heads in power are making us believe that the world is becoming a better place, when in fact it's not.
I'm not sure I can explain how they would be doing that...

Maybe they would be pushing positive statistics and information, selectively, to give us an impression that things are getting better.
Maybe the world is becoming a better place to live and I'm just suffering from bias because I'm getting older.
It's hard for me to decipher who's wrong or right, you can't trust who's always thirsty for power and money.

Anyway, over the years I too have become a little more sensitive to the narrative of certain people and how they are often polarizing.
How often they're just trying to convince us of something so that we can fight against ourselves.

It is always quite convenient for those in power that there should be chaos and disorder. It's easier to create silly distractions, it's easier to incite hatred quickly and instantly.

Like you, many times in my life I have wondered whether or not it would be easier to live a totally different life, away from modern society and all that.
But the truth is that I've gotten very deep into this modern way of living and ended up becoming a slave to it too.
In other words, as good as it would be to escape this way of life, part of me would miss some comforts and modernities. Making it not the best option.

(for the first time in years I have used a translator so that my thoughts make more sense)
 
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Archon

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I think people feel this somehow, instinctively. That's why all the conspiracy theories are gaining in popularity.

But think about it - who would have power (behind the scenes)? A large, rich corporation. And how to they earn their money? By having the world richer, able to afford and spend money on their products. When are people richer? When there's peace. I'm still not sure whether that's all there is to it, but it does need some thinking.

Anyways, I get the last paragraph from your post. Same here. I can live without Instagram, and will at some point have to, but I still need my phone, I still need my laptop. The problem is that I'm too used to them.
 

Toadcop

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Jul 22, 2020
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>> Could you imagine a life without it all?
sure rofl i live this way and always did. computer/internet is a blessing, the rest is solely up to you i mean "just don't use it" all my music is on my local hard drive (with backups ofc) and i do stuff on pc so i just need it and i love it. my phone is switched off 90% (and it's not even a smartphone) of the time and no one can reach me if i go for a walk etc. i mean i do this not because of paranoia or something just because i don't need it/don't care. most problems are just in peoples heads. i am also very excited about new technology evolutions releases like new generations of cpus/gpus which allow you to do more/what you "couldn't" do before. so this all is more up to you. i am also waiting for webasm to mature right now it's dogshit like most web technologies. etc live is full of fun things but you should decide what you choose.


what a tune <3 love max graham's sidechain remixes <3
 
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Jetflag

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Jul 17, 2020
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I finding locating the balance between the two quite satisfying and something I would recommend.

My job involves a lot of screen time often accompanied with internet stuff to pass (render) time. After a long day of the stuff i often feel drained which is odd, because all I did to feel tired was basically sitting.

The alternation between that and basic human stuff such like taking care of / playing with my kid when i get home or an hour paddling/ sailing or occasionally sleeping outside under the clear sky or just... A walk with with wife for 45 minutes can almost tangibly bring my energy back.
 
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Archon

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The Digital Wellbeing app (from Google) and the Intention extension for Firefox have been gamechangers for me.

I use the app on my phone, which sets soft limits on app usage, per app, which you specify. After a timer expires (say you set Insta to 10 minutes, and you use Insta for 10 minutes in a day), it blocks the app for the rest of the day. You can easily override this in the app's settings, by extending or disabling the timer, if you're weak or really need those apps for some reason. There's also some small stats, on how much you used the apps, how many times you opened them, how many notifications you received etc.

The extension works a bit differently. After you flag a website as distracting, every time you try to access it, it forces you to set a timer that expires after 1 minute, after 5 minutes, and after 15 minutes (or custom, or just close the tab). When the timer expires, it allows you to set a new one, or close a tab. It records how much time you've spent on your distracting websites (the goal is to stay under an hour). It's pretty much an additional hassle, nothing more than that, but it has been working for me this past week pretty well.
 

Psybee

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Nov 22, 2020
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I don't know if it's really someone telling us to be technologically minded that's the problem. It's just that it's a drug. There's just so much out there to consume that we forget that we have lives. I'm old enough to remember the transition, and honestly, I feel bad for today's kids who have so much access to things. I was just remembering how there wasn't any internet music listening back in the day, and how I treasured each album and listened to it repeatedly even if it wasn't the best. Doing this gave me strong memories of the sound and what was going on in life when I listened to it. Everything is so convenient nowadays that sometimes I get an album and don't give it the time I should. Admittedly, I still have one of those sleeve-books for albums, and it's like a photo album for me.

Also, it's interesting how time passes by faster when you're on a computer. Spending half an hour cleaning my house feels like an eternity, but I'll watch a 30 min video and feel like it's not all that long.
 

dmgtz96

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Jul 13, 2020
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Deleted my LinkedIn-account today. Now I don't have any social media. 😎

(I don't count chat apps as social media, as they don't have a "wall" and stuff from people you don't know).
I've mainly used it to connect with alumni and current students from my university. Also got a couple of "influencers" there, but mainly people who post interesting things about data science or chemE. Haven't really added my current coworkers on there, though, and I don't see myself adding them until I switch teams or switch jobs.
 

Archon

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Recognizing a bit of FOMO in myself. I want to disable Insta, but when I come back, I'll miss so much stuff. Same as with TF and other sites. But then again, I find myself mindlessly scrolling Insta and starting to get angry at myself for doing it, because I know it's a complete waste of time.

But then again, I like who I'm following, and I don't follow that many people. It's the "explore" section that's the big problem for me. And there's no way to turn that off, and I don't really have any self-control to avoid going there.
 

dmgtz96

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Recognizing a bit of FOMO in myself. I want to disable Insta, but when I come back, I'll miss so much stuff. Same as with TF and other sites. But then again, I find myself mindlessly scrolling Insta and starting to get angry at myself for doing it, because I know it's a complete waste of time.

But then again, I like who I'm following, and I don't follow that many people. It's the "explore" section that's the big problem for me. And there's no way to turn that off, and I don't really have any self-control to avoid going there.
Tbf insta is the go-to for young people to share pictures/stories about their lives.
Do many of your close friends in real life use insta regularly? Mine don't, and once I realized that it was pretty easy to disconnect from insta. I still have my account, but I use it once in a blue moon and don't scroll endlessly on there.
 
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Archon

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Tbf insta is the go-to for young people to share pictures/stories about their lives.
Do many of your close friends in real life use insta regularly? Mine don't, and once I realized that it was pretty easy to disconnect from insta. I still have my account, but I use it once in a blue moon and don't scroll endlessly on there.
Some do, but that's not really the point. Anyways, people I care about I still see, and thinking about it, none of them share their lives there that often. Plus, it's always better that when you see each other, you really catch up, not just know by default whatever happened in their lives. Still, it's always a pic or something, it can't really tell a story. Also, I don't like people who post too often and every little detail, so I don't follow them (or if I must, I mute their posts and stories).

As my last social media app I use, I use it to kinda inform myself as well on some things (like my favourite teams, players etc). Also, I'm quite a visual guy, so I like seeing cars that Chris Harris posts, photos of Porto and its surroundings that our former member Carlos Magalhaes posts, even some models that I find stunning, some people I respect etc. There's content there, for real though.

NO, SCRATCH THAT.

Just temporarily disabled my account again. Gonna install an extension that won't allow me to access it from my PC as well. At the end of the day, I really wanted to do it anyways, just had some things to overcome, which weren't that huge at all. There's more layers to this decision, but I'll keep them to myself.

Thanks to you and @Magnevi who kinda reminded me I should do that. Fuck it. Gonna let myself detox from it for at least a month, then see where I'm at.

Next up: porn.
 

dmgtz96

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Some do, but that's not really the point. Anyways, people I care about I still see, and thinking about it, none of them share their lives there that often. Plus, it's always better that when you see each other, you really catch up, not just know by default whatever happened in their lives. Still, it's always a pic or something, it can't really tell a story. Also, I don't like people who post too often and every little detail, so I don't follow them (or if I must, I mute their posts and stories).

As my last social media app I use, I use it to kinda inform myself as well on some things (like my favourite teams, players etc). Also, I'm quite a visual guy, so I like seeing cars that Chris Harris posts, photos of Porto and its surroundings that our former member Carlos Magalhaes posts, even some models that I find stunning, some people I respect etc. There's content there, for real though.
Ah, I see. Yeah, people who post every waking moment of their lives on there are kinda rare/uncommon. I'd have done the same.
 
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Archon

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Ah, I see. Yeah, people who post every waking moment of their lives on there are kinda rare/uncommon. I'd have done the same.
Yeah, it's mostly the influencers and wannabes who do that. And young people, who look up to them. As you mature, you kinda switch off from that. I mean, I can remember my Facebook from when I was like 16-17. My friend, who lived next door, would always post on each other's profiles, some jokes and whatever. Before that, when I first joined it at 14, I posted stuff all the time. So I kinda get that a bit. Still annoying though.
 
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dmgtz96

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Yeah, it's mostly the influencers and wannabes who do that. And young people, who look up to them. As you mature, you kinda switch off from that. I mean, I can remember my Facebook from when I was like 16-17. My friend, who lived next door, would always post on each other's profiles, some jokes and whatever. Before that, when I first joined it at 14, I posted stuff all the time. So I kinda get that a bit. Still annoying though.
Lol yeah I made a few "deep" posts back when I was in high school. Deleted that account and made a new one when I started college, to start with a fresh social media presence.
 
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