Old Man Yells at Cloud

Not affiliated with this, lol, but it was recommended to me in another comment thread, and it seems to be relevant to what this community is about. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I do have it on order.

I'm also still fine-tuning the direction of this community. I'm thinking something between Digital Minimalism and Neo-Luddism with a side dish of "this is what's pissing me off about tech lately". Like, I'm not against tech by any means, and I still like it, but I don't want to be enslaved by it. Anyway, suggestions are welcome for that.

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Synopsis

> "Newport is making a bid to be the Marie Kondo of technology: someone with an actual plan for helping you realize the digital pursuits that do, and don't, bring value to your life."--Ezra Klein, Vox > > Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It's the key to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world. > > In this timely and enlightening book, the bestselling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives. > > Digital minimalists are all around us. They're the calm, happy people who can hold long conversations without furtive glances at their phones. They can get lost in a good book, a woodworking project, or a leisurely morning run. They can have fun with friends and family without the obsessive urge to document the experience. They stay informed about the news of the day, but don't feel overwhelmed by it. They don't experience "fear of missing out" because they already know which activities provide them meaning and satisfaction. > >Now, Newport gives us a name for this quiet movement, and makes a persuasive case for its urgency in our tech-saturated world. Common sense tips, like turning off notifications, or occasional rituals like observing a digital sabbath, don't go far enough in helping us take back control of our technological lives, and attempts to unplug completely are complicated by the demands of family, friends and work. What we need instead is a thoughtful method to decide what tools to use, for what purposes, and under what conditions. > >Drawing on a diverse array of real-life examples, from Amish farmers to harried parents to Silicon Valley programmers, Newport identifies the common practices of digital minimalists and the ideas that underpin them. He shows how digital minimalists are rethinking their relationship to social media, rediscovering the pleasures of the offline world, and reconnecting with their inner selves through regular periods of solitude. He then shares strategies for integrating these practices into your life, starting with a thirty-day "digital declutter" process that has already helped thousands feel less overwhelmed and more in control. > >Technology is intrinsically neither good nor bad. The key is using it to support your goals and values, rather than letting it use you. This book shows the way.

> Neo-Luddism: Today, new technologies are being used to alter our lives, societies and working conditions no less profoundly than mechanical looms were used to transform those of the original Luddites. The excesses of big tech companies - Amazon’s inhumane exploitation of workers in warehouses driven by automation and machine vision, Uber’s gig-economy lobbying and disregard for labour law, Facebook’s unchecked extraction of unprecedented amounts of user data - are driving a public backlash that may contain the seeds of a neo-Luddite movement.

> As Gavin Mueller writes in his new book on Luddism, our goal in taking up the Luddite banner should be “to study and learn from the history of past struggles, to recover the voices from past movements so that they might inform current ones”.

> What would Luddism look like today? It won’t necessarily (or only) be a movement that takes up hammers against smart fridges, data servers and e-commerce warehouses. Instead, it would treat technology as a political and economic phenomenon that deserves to be critically scrutinised and democratically governed, rather than a grab bag of neat apps and gadgets.

I don't know if it's the platforms, the users, or both, but it just annoys the ever loving crap out of me that cloud storage is basically used like a digital junk drawer.

There's this article about how Gen-Z doesn't apparently understand how filesystems work which kind-of, maybe, explains things a bit. Again, I blame tech for that.

Even with search, I can't find half or more of the files co-workers swear are in there.

And I know they know how to put things into folders. We were using an on-prem fileserver until 4 years ago, and they filed things just fine. Now files just go into a "bucket" and they expect you to rummage through it to find what you need.

Ooh, look at my shiny, new uPhone 24. It's so thin, you guys! (proceeds to put it into a bulky-ass case)