Author Topic: I despise the modern phones and internet  (Read 21487 times)

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Offline Sherlock Holmes

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #25 on: December 14, 2022, 12:44:40 pm »
I’ve said this many times over the years and I mean it. I’d go back to 1998-2003 era phones and BASIC internet in a heartbeat.

For those who want a TL;DR: “I’m a whiny curmudgeon who doesn’t accept that other people have different priorities than me, so I’ve started yet another rant thread even after being officially warned to stop doing so.”

As soon as you publicly label someone like that, someone you disagree with, then rational discourse ends. If you disagree with something the disagree without making personal insults and insinuations.

Is the post controversial to you? well good, we need controversy, all this tunnel vision, herd mentality these days is destroying us, I don't agree with everything he said, but there is a great deal of truth to much of what he said.
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
 
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Offline Sherlock Holmes

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #26 on: December 14, 2022, 12:47:41 pm »
Here's the fun thing eti: you don't have to use one of these phones.  You don't have to spend £1,200 on a phone.  Nobody is compelling you to do so.  If you want the bare minimum phone, a £20 or so phone can be acquired from most good online websites, which will ONLY do phone calls and texts.  Other people clearly enjoy and appreciate these devices, so why not let them live their lives?  It would be very authoritarian - something you have rallied against - to tell people what they can do with their devices, when that behaviour really hurts no one.

Replace "modern phone" with assault rifle, and you might notice something about your post.
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
 

Offline pcprogrammer

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #27 on: December 14, 2022, 12:53:20 pm »
It's funny, I have the exact opposite opinion.  A great deal of people on this forum, who shall remain unnamed, have strong views reminiscent of the Luddites.  If we were listening to these people we'd still be using horses to pull carts.  It's really odd to me that engineers would be so critical of the very field they are often involved in, you don't hear too many medical doctors arguing for leeches and trepanning still.

To some extend true, but not about the leeches. These are still widely used to resolve problems with bleeding after a surgery. There is no good working modern substitute, for as far as I know, to drain the blood like these little suckers do.

I myself like modern technology, but don't like the way it dumb down the general public. Everything pushed on the smartphone is often taken for granted and to be true, whilst often it is not. I certainly dislike the "thinking" it does for you. Like for instance that your IP address originates from France and that this triggers a lot of websites to switch to French no matter how you try to set it to English. And I know, one can setup a VPN for this, but that is the world upside down.

But enough of a rant from me  :-DD


Offline wilfred

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #28 on: December 14, 2022, 12:58:25 pm »
I’ve said this many times over the years and I mean it. I’d go back to 1998-2003 era phones and BASIC internet in a heartbeat.

For those who want a TL;DR: “I’m a whiny curmudgeon who doesn’t accept that other people have different priorities than me, so I’ve started yet another rant thread even after being officially warned to stop doing so.”

Hush, busybody. Go about your business and wind your neck in.
Nope. I’m gonna keep calling you out on your disruptive BS.
The case against doing that is it is the space it takes up in the list of new posts which I, and I believe, many others use to get a feel for what is going on, on the forum.

I'm not saying you shouldn't respond but I think you'd be better off if you didn't.
 
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Offline Sherlock Holmes

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #29 on: December 14, 2022, 12:58:52 pm »
It's funny, I have the exact opposite opinion.  A great deal of people on this forum, who shall remain unnamed, have strong views reminiscent of the Luddites.  If we were listening to these people we'd still be using horses to pull carts.  It's really odd to me that engineers would be so critical of the very field they are often involved in, you don't hear too many medical doctors arguing for leeches and trepanning still.

Few people seem to understand the history behind the Luddites, huge numbers of people lost the ability to feed their families, pay their rent, clothe their children. Wealth and capital exercised power, there were no unions, those changing society did so for their own gain not society's.

The luddites resisted the only way they could, they were crushed by violence, murder even execution, the term is poorly used to depict a simple disapproval of technology, but it was never that, it was much more than that.
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
 
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Offline tom66

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #30 on: December 14, 2022, 01:02:43 pm »
Here's the fun thing eti: you don't have to use one of these phones.  You don't have to spend £1,200 on a phone.  Nobody is compelling you to do so.  If you want the bare minimum phone, a £20 or so phone can be acquired from most good online websites, which will ONLY do phone calls and texts.  Other people clearly enjoy and appreciate these devices, so why not let them live their lives?  It would be very authoritarian - something you have rallied against - to tell people what they can do with their devices, when that behaviour really hurts no one.

Replace "modern phone" with assault rifle, and you might notice something about your post.

Very incendiary -- smartphones generally don't hurt anyone.  Even if you throw them at people.
 
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Offline Black Phoenix

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #31 on: December 14, 2022, 01:04:43 pm »
It's funny, I have the exact opposite opinion.  A great deal of people on this forum, who shall remain unnamed, have strong views reminiscent of the Luddites.  If we were listening to these people we'd still be using horses to pull carts.  It's really odd to me that engineers would be so critical of the very field they are often involved in, you don't hear too many medical doctors arguing for leeches and trepanning still.

I was thinking I was the only one with that perception...
 
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Offline tooki

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #32 on: December 14, 2022, 01:23:20 pm »
It's funny, I have the exact opposite opinion.  A great deal of people on this forum, who shall remain unnamed, have strong views reminiscent of the Luddites.  If we were listening to these people we'd still be using horses to pull carts.  It's really odd to me that engineers would be so critical of the very field they are often involved in, you don't hear too many medical doctors arguing for leeches and trepanning still.

I was thinking I was the only one with that perception...
Definitely not!
 
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Offline Sherlock Holmes

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #33 on: December 14, 2022, 01:35:22 pm »
Here's the fun thing eti: you don't have to use one of these phones.  You don't have to spend £1,200 on a phone.  Nobody is compelling you to do so.  If you want the bare minimum phone, a £20 or so phone can be acquired from most good online websites, which will ONLY do phone calls and texts.  Other people clearly enjoy and appreciate these devices, so why not let them live their lives?  It would be very authoritarian - something you have rallied against - to tell people what they can do with their devices, when that behaviour really hurts no one.

Replace "modern phone" with assault rifle, and you might notice something about your post.

Very incendiary -- smartphones generally don't hurt anyone.  Even if you throw them at people.

I don't see it as incendiary, its a rather reasonable analogy, not perfect but reasonable.

Guns don't hurt anyone, it is people who hurt people. The point I'm trying to convey is simply that modern phone addiction brings with it many problems. Modern phone ubiquity increases the risk of violence and desensitizing violence. Children can easily use their phone or comparable gadget to watch violence, rape and torture. Look at what the masses do now when someone is hurt or attacked, they gather around in dozens filming, trying to get a "good" shot of someone dying or bleeding to death.

There are victims too in bathtubs, people have died, families have lost loved one because of the addictive nature these devices have for many people.


“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
 
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Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #34 on: December 14, 2022, 02:08:42 pm »
Modern phone ubiquity increases the risk of violence and desensitizing violence. Children can easily use their phone or comparable gadget to watch violence, rape and torture.
That long predates smartphones, let alone smartphones cheap enough for children. I think it's insane how we should protect children from women showing a bit too much skin yet it's OK for cartoons to show violence and to let them play with toy guns.

I suppose in your view, those buying up all the cheap phones for crypto mining are doing a favor for all the children.
Quote
There are victims too in bathtubs, people have died, families have lost loved one because of the addictive nature these devices have for many people.
Those stupid enough to try charging a phone in the bathtub deserve the Darwin Award.
Cryptocurrency has taught me to love math and at the same time be baffled by it.

Cryptocurrency lesson 0: Altcoins and Bitcoin are not the same thing.
 
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Offline pardo-bsso

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #35 on: December 14, 2022, 02:45:27 pm »
I miss my Ericsson R300.
I still have it but somehow the carrier locked it.
Good AM and FM radio.
 

Offline artag

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #36 on: December 14, 2022, 02:55:00 pm »
Very incendiary -- smartphones generally don't hurt anyone.  Even if you throw them at people.

Didn't some fashion model go to court over doing exactly that ?
 

Offline madires

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #37 on: December 14, 2022, 03:05:29 pm »
What I strongly dislike about smartphones is platform tethering and data collection, i.e. you're required to have an account to use your phone, and Android's lack of long term security fixes (expensive phones get about 4 years while many don't see any at all). iPhones aren't any better, just different problems. Regarding internet, it's up to you how to use it. You can stay away from Twitter, WhatsApp and so on if you're not interested in wasting your time that way.
 
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Offline themadhippy

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #38 on: December 14, 2022, 03:13:09 pm »
One of the best days of my life was the day i dumped the mobile,call me a ludite if you like,however after nearly 30 years of owning one i call it freedom
 
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Offline Karel

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #39 on: December 14, 2022, 04:15:17 pm »
Here's the fun thing eti: you don't have to use one of these phones.  You don't have to spend £1,200 on a phone.
 Nobody is compelling you to do so.  If you want the bare minimum phone, a £20 or so phone can be acquired from most good online websites, which will ONLY do phone calls and texts.

It's becoming more and more difficult to use online banking and access some governmental services (taxes, etc.) without the use of an app for authentication.
Even some public transport companies push me to use an "app" to buy a ticket on the bus...
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #40 on: December 14, 2022, 04:26:50 pm »
I still use a Nokia GSM phone from 2005. I replaced the battery once, somewhere around 2010, and that battery is still going... can't say strong, but acceptably.

And don't get me wrong, this is not excellent technology. The firmware is buggy, for such a simple thing. Everything was rushed to market back then, just like today. One of the funnier ones is, the alarm clock feature sometimes fails to alarm. People have hard time believing that "excuse" when being late in the morning, and I had hard time believing it myself, but once I caught it red-handed blinking the "wake up" alarm without the sound, and then as a side effect (bugs often come with those things), losing all icons from the menu until restart.

But it works, I can call and reply to SMS messages. It has some rudimentary web browsing stuff, but it did not realistically work even when brand new.

I have not looked at buying a smartphone. I first said I'll do it in 2015, then 2020, now let's say... 2030? And despite the fear mongering, the 2G network is not actually going anywhere, given all the legacy internet-connected things like security alarms etc. Numerous times there have been "definite" dates when it's going down, never happened.

And whenever some bullshit company or service requires me to install an "app", I simply take my business elsewhere.

Modern-day internet went crap already around 2006-2007, Youtube and blogs killed web pages. Discussion forums survived a bit longer but Facebook killed them a few years later, EEVblog is one of the rare beasts that still lives strong.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2022, 04:30:27 pm by Siwastaja »
 
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Offline Black Phoenix

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #41 on: December 14, 2022, 04:40:55 pm »
Modern-day internet went crap already around 2006-2007, Youtube and blogs killed web pages. Discussion forums survived a bit longer but Facebook killed them a few years later, EEVblog is one of the rare beasts that still lives strong.

More like Reddit being the (bad) replacement for bulletin boards IMHO.
 

Offline Ground_Loop

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #42 on: December 14, 2022, 06:30:57 pm »
I'll start by saying I'm responding to this thread on a smart phone 38000 feet above Texas which I think is kinda cool.  Anyway,  ETIs rants often make me feel better knowing that I have moved through my life successfully keeping myself safely out of reach of many of those problems. At the point I feel offended I'll just stop reading his posts. Pretty simple really.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2022, 07:26:52 pm by Ground_Loop »
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Offline james_s

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #43 on: December 14, 2022, 06:56:31 pm »
I like my smartphone, it's like an electronic Swiss Army knife. It's my communications device, my GPS navigator, my still camera, my video camera, my music/podcast player, home automation controller, portable video player, calculator, compass, pocket flashlight and many other things. It's not the best at any single one of those tasks but it does a good job and it's always right there in my pocket. Use a basic phone if you want but like most people I would never want to go back. On top of offering so many more features, it's also cheaper than my first mobile phone which was a basic feature phone. It only costs me $50/mo for unlimited everything. I don't really get what the problem is, they still sell basic feature phones for old people that don't like new technology.
 
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Offline Bud

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #44 on: December 14, 2022, 07:09:23 pm »
Many of the features in your list are only good as long as you are within a cell tower coverage, and the rest are labor intensive (too many menus/button push) compare to their classic counterparts.

Ecit: home automation controllers- you put yourself in the mercy of the vendor in the cloud as to when you are going to lose the service. GPS - eats the battery like there is no tomorrow. Good luck getting out of the woods before the battery is dead.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2022, 07:16:05 pm by Bud »
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Online SiliconWizard

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #45 on: December 14, 2022, 07:31:16 pm »
Here's the fun thing eti: you don't have to use one of these phones.

Which is, unfortunately, and increasingly, a wrong statement. More and more services now are requiring a smartphone, and this is just the beginning. Living without one will soon mean living completely outside of society. If you call that having a choice, I don't think it's a fair one.

You don't have to spend £1,200 on a phone.

That is quite right. A $100 to $200 device these days is all you need.

Nobody is compelling you to do so.  If you want the bare minimum phone, a £20 or so phone can be acquired from most good online websites, which will ONLY do phone calls and texts.

As I mentioned, this is getting increasingly limiting even to access basic services these days.

Other people clearly enjoy and appreciate these devices, so why not let them live their lives?  It would be very authoritarian - something you have rallied against - to tell people what they can do with their devices, when that behaviour really hurts no one.

Surely preventing people from using such devices would be stupid and counter-productive. OTOH, making those devices almost mandatory for using basic services, as I mentioned, is more than questionable, and it's where we are heading, so that part I despise.

And do those devices help many people become more stupid, more dependent, more emotional, waste their time, yes, absolutely.
 
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Offline Gyro

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #46 on: December 14, 2022, 07:31:45 pm »
It’s strange that I’ve posted this same thing on a couple of my social media outlets, all of which have received likes and positive feedback and INTELLIGENT discussion (and not a single sniff of “you’re ranting”)

I feel EEVblog has an infestation of toxic, angry, insular loners with no outlet except to attack people with whom they don’t agree.
...

If you've posted the same thing on your 'social media outlets' and received a more positive result, it's probably a good indication that you should restrict these sort of topics to those, rather than eevblog, which is primarily an education / design / development / repair / production focussed place.
Best Regards, Chris
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #47 on: December 14, 2022, 08:08:37 pm »
Many of the features in your list are only good as long as you are within a cell tower coverage, and the rest are labor intensive (too many menus/button push) compare to their classic counterparts.

Ecit: home automation controllers- you put yourself in the mercy of the vendor in the cloud as to when you are going to lose the service. GPS - eats the battery like there is no tomorrow. Good luck getting out of the woods before the battery is dead.

I don't remember the last time I was somewhere without cell tower coverage, I do keep a classic GPS navigator in my car in case I do find myself in that situation but I haven't used it in years. I normally keep a power bank in my pack that I take with me most places so I can always recharge my phone if I need to. I also have a very old Garmin GPS that runs for weeks on 4 AA batteries that I keep in my hiking pack but again I haven't used it in years, I tend to stay on the trail. I don't think most people find themselves lost in the woods. I have no idea what you're talking about by the other stuff being labor intensive, it's literally pick up phone, tap the home button to wake it up, tap the icon for camera, music, etc as all of the frequently used stuff is right there on the home screen. I don't understand the problem you're describing, it works for me.  :-//

No, I don't. I use Home Assistant which is open source, my setup is entirely self contained, the app simply connects to a dynamic DNS address that points to my own network. I have a mix of probably 8 different vendors hardware that all works seemlessly together with HA running on a RPi 3b, I set it up a couple years ago and once running it has just worked.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2022, 08:16:09 pm by james_s »
 

Offline james_s

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #48 on: December 14, 2022, 08:10:38 pm »
If you've posted the same thing on your 'social media outlets' and received a more positive result, it's probably a good indication that you should restrict these sort of topics to those, rather than eevblog, which is primarily an education / design / development / repair / production focussed place.

Social media nudges people into curated echo chambers of like-minded folks, it amplifies the positive responses only and leads people to believe that whatever their view on something represents the vast majority of the population. I see it as a huge problem that has resulted in increasingly extreme polarization we see today.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #49 on: December 14, 2022, 08:15:17 pm »
Which is, unfortunately, and increasingly, a wrong statement. More and more services now are requiring a smartphone, and this is just the beginning. Living without one will soon mean living completely outside of society. If you call that having a choice, I don't think it's a fair one.

But that's mostly because the vast majority of the population prefers to operate this way. I don't want to walk into my bank and talk to a teller, I want to pull out my smartphone, open my banking app and manage my money that way.

I suspect this same debate occurred back when cars first started to gain mass adoption, or electricity, or landline telephones or radio, or pretty much anything else. The majority of the population flocked to these things, making it increasingly difficult to get by without them, and a small portion of the population clinging desperately to the old ways of doing things complained bitterly, but progress marches on. If you insist on marching to the beat of a different drum, life is more difficult and complicated. It's swimming against the current.
 


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