[HN Gopher] The Matt Curve (2019)
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The Matt Curve (2019)
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 37 points
Date : 2023-06-19 15:05 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (matt.sh)
(TXT) w3m dump (matt.sh)
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Confuses quantity with quality, focus on irrelevant details, and
| the always present unwarranted certainty.
|
| The article has a point. It's a well known one, but it doesn't
| hurt to repeat it every once in a while. But the entire article
| detracts from the point, confuses the discourse, and inflames
| people on useless and harmful directions.
|
| I'd say it's a bad article. The point is good, but this is not
| enough.
| valyagolev wrote:
| This reads like a parody of the argument, especially with the
| pictures. Curve good, another curve bad
| truculent wrote:
| The Matt Curve is not dissimilar to Ivan Illich's concept of "two
| watersheds" for a given technology:
|
| The first threshold occurs when a tool (be it something
| straightforwardly technological like the car, or institutional
| like formal education or professional healthcare) surpasses the
| costs required to maintain or use it. At this point, the tool is
| a net benefit to people.
|
| However, "When a tool-based activity exceeds a threshold defined
| by the ad hoc scale, it first turns against its end, then
| threatens to destroy the entire social body... Reaching a certain
| threshold, the tool, from servant, becomes despot."[1]
|
| For example, the car goes from something that enables individual
| freedom, to a basic necessity in a car-dependent society. At this
| point, the technology has a "radical monopoly"[2], and those
| without access to it are excluded or no longer able to fully
| participate in society.
|
| Perhaps this maps to Matt's distinction of "personal" and
| "social" technology. Supposedly Illich's work was very
| influential on the early development of personal computers.
|
| So what to do about this?
|
| Illich proposed a reorientation towards "conviviality":
|
| > People need not only to obtain things, they need above all the
| freedom to make things among which they can live, to give shape
| to them according to their own tastes, and to put them to use in
| caring for and about others. Prisoners in rich countries often
| have access to more things and services than members of their
| families, but they have no say in how things are to be made and
| cannot decide what to do with them. Their punishment consists in
| being deprived of what I shall call "conviviality." They are
| degraded to the status of mere consumers.
|
| > I choose the term "conviviality" to designate the opposite of
| industrial productivity. I intend it to mean autonomous and
| creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of
| persons with their environment; and this in contrast with the
| conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon them by
| others, and by a man-made environment. I consider conviviality to
| be individual freedom realized in personal interdependence and,
| as such, an intrinsic ethical value. I believe that, in any
| society, as conviviality is reduced below a certain level, no
| amount of industrial productivity can effectively satisfy the
| needs it creates among society's members.[1]
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tools_for_Conviviality
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_monopoly
| raydiatian wrote:
| Matt.sh bad, Apple good
| zdw wrote:
| There are some definite legitimate complaints about overreach of
| technology and misapplication that causes societal problems, but
| also it seems intertwined with the "grumpy old man who thinks
| these newfangled changes are bad".
|
| Speaking to the second, I think everyone has their own Matt Curve
| on specific things - given the Apple example, IMO the start of
| the "good" peak was 2005 - MacOS 10.4, and kept getting better
| through 2011, until the release of 10.7, which started pulling
| things from iOS (contacts and calendar suck now, but at least
| they have woodgrain?) and a general dumbing down of the platform.
| They also started pulling features and generally slowly killing
| their Server platform, which was a compelling offering at the
| time. But the iPhone money printing machine changed the company,
| and in ways that were unfortunate for Mac users for a decade or
| more.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| It's funny because the grumpy old man is right, absolutely
| through and through, but because they're alone people ignore
| them.
| smitty1e wrote:
| My chief grief with all of this is the vertical axis.
|
| "Society" asserts a monolithic aggregation of humanity that just
| isn't in view, sorry.
| Arainach wrote:
| Such a weird article. I like the premise of some technologies
| becoming detrimental over time as they are more adopted, and
| there are a number of obvious examples that could be talked
| about:
|
| * Surveillance cameras and storage for footage becoming so cheap
| as to be everywhere
|
| * Facial recognition, license plate recognition, etc. becoming
| available, especially when paired with the above (even
| governments couldn't pay humans to watch all the cameras all the
| time)
|
| * Social Media
|
| * Cell phones and the expectation of being always available
|
| Etc. Etc. Etc.
|
| .....and then the author chooses to focus on Apple UI?
| gumby wrote:
| > I like the premise of some technologies becoming detrimental
| over time as they are more adopted
|
| "It's the dose that makes the poison"
| romusha wrote:
| Dumbest stuff I've read this month
| JackFr wrote:
| It's a lot of words to complain about iTunes.
| Mattasher wrote:
| The problem with rolling back tech use is that it's very hard to
| do incrementally in an individual person's life, without giving
| up a lot, and losses tend to sting way more than equivalent gains
| make us happy. So sure, I can do regular tech sabbaths, or spend
| time on true vacation, and that helps my sanity. But every time I
| try and do something like remove email from my phone (and I
| _hate_ having email on my phone), something comes up where I don
| 't have my computer and I'd really like to send an email, or
| someone uses email instead of a text for something time
| sensitive, and I end up re-installing it.
|
| I really wish there were intentional low-tech communities besides
| the Amish. I would happy reduce my tech use by 9/10ths if that
| lifestyle was supported by the people around me.
| axus wrote:
| I don't understand how Apple of 2023 is bad for society as a
| whole; how is the world better without them as they currently
| are?
| joeatwork wrote:
| You should read this if you're a programmer or someone who makes
| things. It's fun and silly, but also makes an important point -
| the stuff you build is giving _somebody_ power, and if that
| somebody isn't some form of everybody, then maybe you're not
| doing more good than harm.
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(page generated 2023-06-20 23:02 UTC)