True. We cannot take it back in it's entirety, nor would we want
to. But for some people that quickly becomes the argument for a kind
of technological irreversibility principle, that we cannot take back
any mis-step or feature no matter how immediately awful and obvious
its effects. Left unchallenged that entitlement becomes an argument
for bullheaded intransigence and the labelling of whatever suits us
as 'progress'.
In reality many "genies" are strategically limited; poisons, invasive
species, bio-agents, nuclear materials, knowledge hazards, weapons,
bad poetry...
Sure, I am really glad we won the crypto wars and that "code wants to
be free" etcetera, but on the other hand that seems to have set off a
kind of megalomania in tech, which legitimises turning the entire
digital world into our own personal laboratory for experimenting on
everyone, sans ethics oversight committee.
> The general public needs their nuggets of endorfine.
Here we go again "saying what people need" for them. I meet a lot of
people desperate to get off the digital morphine drip.
> There is a lot of rosy retrospection when it comes to the old web
It seems like that. I've made a more elaborate argument in other
threads. You're right that it's "rosy", like all nostalgia. Of course
the past was crap in its own ways. But melancholia is a symptom of
crisis, retro is a sign of interregnum and loss of common sense
(literally our common sense of things). What does it mean? It means
that our "progress" isn't serving us fully, and in some cases causing
people to recoil from it. Not acknowledging that would be an error.
> Web 1.0 simply did not provide the same level of accessibility.
Of course not. But there are many qualities/metrics by which we might
judge things if we are to avoid what I'd call the "democratic
fallacy"; external cost, stability, longevity, coherence, security,
safety, interoperability, accuracy and truth content, environmental
cost.... Technology is multi-dimensional. Accessibility is all lovely
and cool, but it should not be put ahead of more important human
concerns. OTC opioids are more accessible than street drugs ever were,
that doesn't make it an unqualified "good thing". So we can still
enumerate the ways in which Web 2.0 is worse than Web 1.0 without
invoking nostalgia for a "smaller cosy digital world".
True. We cannot take it back in it's entirety, nor would we want to. But for some people that quickly becomes the argument for a kind of technological irreversibility principle, that we cannot take back any mis-step or feature no matter how immediately awful and obvious its effects. Left unchallenged that entitlement becomes an argument for bullheaded intransigence and the labelling of whatever suits us as 'progress'.
In reality many "genies" are strategically limited; poisons, invasive species, bio-agents, nuclear materials, knowledge hazards, weapons, bad poetry...
Sure, I am really glad we won the crypto wars and that "code wants to be free" etcetera, but on the other hand that seems to have set off a kind of megalomania in tech, which legitimises turning the entire digital world into our own personal laboratory for experimenting on everyone, sans ethics oversight committee.
> The general public needs their nuggets of endorfine.
Here we go again "saying what people need" for them. I meet a lot of people desperate to get off the digital morphine drip.
> There is a lot of rosy retrospection when it comes to the old web
It seems like that. I've made a more elaborate argument in other threads. You're right that it's "rosy", like all nostalgia. Of course the past was crap in its own ways. But melancholia is a symptom of crisis, retro is a sign of interregnum and loss of common sense (literally our common sense of things). What does it mean? It means that our "progress" isn't serving us fully, and in some cases causing people to recoil from it. Not acknowledging that would be an error.
> Web 1.0 simply did not provide the same level of accessibility.
Of course not. But there are many qualities/metrics by which we might judge things if we are to avoid what I'd call the "democratic fallacy"; external cost, stability, longevity, coherence, security, safety, interoperability, accuracy and truth content, environmental cost.... Technology is multi-dimensional. Accessibility is all lovely and cool, but it should not be put ahead of more important human concerns. OTC opioids are more accessible than street drugs ever were, that doesn't make it an unqualified "good thing". So we can still enumerate the ways in which Web 2.0 is worse than Web 1.0 without invoking nostalgia for a "smaller cosy digital world".