I mean, the massive progress in science, medical, renewable energy, etc. are pretty good problems to be solving. The silly games and facebooks are only a problem for those who choose to participate in them.
I understood the point of the article to be that it's addictive -- and intentionally so.
"...smartphones hook people using the same neural pathways as gambling and drugs."
We have laws regulating the others. Or in some countries, treatment programs. But either way, we don't just say "Cocaine is only a problem for those who choose to use it".
Making cocaine illegal hasn’t been too successful either though :(
We would be better of learning from the war on drugs that “Wars” don’t solve any problem...but sitting down, listening and providing help to addicts does!
I stopped believing in progress personally. Progress doesn't help you in many important part of life. We're spending too much time on science, and often to fix economic / political errors of the past.
I empathize with what you're saying. But the error is in the meaning we put into the word "progress".
We need to talk a lot more about "false progress". Because that's what it is if we create more problems than we solve when society changes.
It would be irrational to not believe in "true progress", any change that solves more of our common problems than it creates new one's.
If we can't have true progress then human society has kind of lost its point. It seems illogical to say that it's not possible. But we often seem lost at adopting the right process for it.
Interesting. Personally, I enjoy living in a world where my friends have overcome cancer, where I can spend < 1 hour a day focusing in food, and I am able to travel halfway around the world to experience machu picchu and be back by then next monday. At what point do you think we stopped productively progressing? Have you considered joining an Amish community?
> At what point do you think we stopped productively progressing? Have you considered joining an Amish community?
For all the miraculous cancer drugs we develop, we don't spend enough time or effort making sure they're obtainable by actual cancer patients. All of the "advances" you tout are only available to a certain privileged class of first-world citizens.
It's great you have access to prepared food and an airplane, but for those who aren't part of the jet-set, no progress has been made in addressing or solving any of their problems or making their lives easier.
There's no app to make daycare more affordable for single parents. Laundry doesn't do itself any better than it did 50 years ago. The blockchain doesn't hold police accountable for shooting unarmed civilians during traffic stops. Owning a smartphone doesn't provide you with competent or affordable legal representation when you need it most. Having a GPS transmitter on your person still can't reliably help 911 operators guide first responders to the actual scene of an incident. Nobody dependent on public transit to get to their retail job is saving up for a Tesla. Public schools are still underfunded, and we have entire generations with underdeveloped critical thinking skills plugged into a global network of lies and misinformation for most of their waking hours.
It's obvious none of these things affect you, but come on. At least pretend like the little people exist. The answer to a perceived lack of social progress is not suggesting the dissatisfied should renounce materialism and adopt someone else's rural way of life.
curing cancer is a worthy endeavor that is not on the same plane as most technology we spend time talking about (believe me I wish I could have saved some family members)
experiencing machu picchu and coming back in a week .. feels pointless to me. time is required to experience things fully. there's a middle ground between risking your life on a boat for 6 months before reaching south america and uber fast tourism.
And in a way I think that only people that really want to go the distance should travel.
The old agricultural system was too demanding it's true, but it's not removing it that makes life better. See how people eat shitty things, waste meat etc ..
Also with proper education, one can go really far if he knows how to use energy, even without heavy industry behind.
It's a shifting plane, new ideas create new societies, they don't make the previous one better.
>The old agricultural system was too demanding it's true, but it's not removing it that makes life better. See how people eat shitty things, waste meat etc .. Also with proper education, one can go really far if he knows how to use energy, even without heavy industry behind.
>It's a shifting plane, new ideas create new societies, they don't make the previous one better.
Would you mind explaining this more? It sounds rather cryptic to me the way you are saying it.
Curing cancer is obviously positive progress. No-one who has cancer would prefer 19th century medicine.
Spending less than 1 hour a day focusing on food seems less clear-cut. It's really good not to starve or think you might starve, and we are really lucky that we don't have to spend most of the day meeting our basic nutritional needs. There also seems to be a risk that we put not enough thought into taking care of and fulfilling our biological needs, because we can. We can't escape food, sex, exercise and other meatspace needs, and attempts to do so often become pathological. If we have to eat, shouldn't we be taking our time and trying to enjoy the full rich experience of doing so?
Similarly, visiting Machu Picchu and being back by Monday seems like a double-edged sword. Maybe it would be worth spending more time in Peru. Does the short stay really allow time to absorb the history of the Incas and how it fits into the present-day culture of people living in the area? In the 19th century, the vast majority of the people living in the United States couldn't visit Europe. But those who did went on a tour for several months to a year, visiting many countries and cities and staying long enough to learn a bit about the language and lifestyle. Were they missing out by not being able to go in a day, take photos in the right places, and get back a few days later?
Or does it just seem that way because science and technology have already solved so many problems?
"People get distracted by smartphones" is a problem. But so is, "India doesn't produce enough food to feed its people", and that problem had a technological solution. Climate change will require technological solutions. Energy sustainability will require technological solutions. More diseases have been eradicated through science and technology than through any other mechanism.
I'll take a bunch of distracted teenagers over a bunch of crippled teenagers who barely survived polio any day.
I think the main issue these days is a lack of root cause analysis, so solutions tend to be superficial. Of course I'm not referencing things like the polio vaccine, but for the past few years my mantra has been "strike at the root", but after I've waded through the branches to get to a root I look up and see hardly anyone else is there, it gets lonely.
Politics is the perfect example of this in my opinion.
