[HN Gopher] "When we all have pocket telephones"
___________________________________________________________________
"When we all have pocket telephones"
Author : mayiplease
Score : 302 points
Date : 2022-11-14 08:44 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.openculture.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.openculture.com)
| azik123 wrote:
| [deleted]
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Lately, stand-up comedians have been saying they're out of a job,
| because the absurdity of reality is escaping parody. Nothing
| stays funny for long, because soon enough it's true, and then
| banal.
|
| In a world where all things are absurd, ipso facto nothing is
| absurd.
|
| An interesting question becomes what remains? What are the solid
| relations that underpin our humanity?
|
| Having a boss that tells you what to do? No, long since passed
| the point where I have to tell my boss what to do - it's called
| being the consultant in a clueless, inverted meritocracy.
|
| People wanting to take your money? No. The insane conceit of a
| "cash-less society" has already created situations where you
| cannot physically force someone to take money from you.
|
| I'm honestly struggling to see what is cast in stone. Even death
| and taxes are looking worried. <shakes fist at clouds>
| keithalewis wrote:
| You can always count on the existence of charlatans in every
| society. People who deceive others to get something by lying
| have existed since the beginning of recorded history.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| It's just another wave of some people getting older and
| decrying all change as bad. Comedy is thriving. The world is
| fine.
|
| Also, are you complaining that you cannot be mugged as easily?
| mbg721 wrote:
| I'm not sure if it's related to or orthogonal to everything
| actually being absurd, but there has been a decades-long trend
| of America/the West taking longstanding elements of culture
| less and less seriously, just as a matter of fashion. That
| removes a lot of the low-hanging fruit for comedians.
|
| Decades ago, acts like Monty Python or Allan Sherman were
| subversive; now they might still be kind of funny, but
| certainly not shocking. When you have generations that grew up
| on self-conscious irony, where the way to be cool was not to be
| seen caring about anything, it's harder to make comedy stick.
|
| Politicians and religious figures may not be any more or less
| corrupt and out-of-touch than they always were, but now they
| can gain enough support to keep their jobs without anyone
| actually taking them seriously, and that's where the self-
| parody comes in.
|
| I wouldn't say comedy is failing because the source material is
| too ridiculous, I would say it's failing because the audience
| is a tough crowd.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| "I wouldn't say comedy is failing because the source material
| is too ridiculous, I would say it's failing because the
| audience is a tough crowd"
|
| We are certainly a more 'educated' crowd living completely
| awash in content.
| papito wrote:
| The race to the bottom, this unwinding of civilization, should
| halt and rewind at some point after people realize this is
| unsustainable. Hopefully.
|
| Seems like the nihilists, the "nothing matters" crowd, and the
| neo-libertarians (chaos is good) have been having a bad streak
| lately.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| There was an issue while I was giving a presentation for a
| cryptocurrency startup I was a part of and I started telling
| jokes. Afterward people asked me if I did stand up and I said
| well I do now.
|
| Absurdity will find a way .
| pmontra wrote:
| They can turn to satire. There is an endless stream of public
| figures unwillingly creating scripts for them.
| coldtea wrote:
| Yes, but satire is not so effective when everything is
| satire-able, and people get along fine with everything turned
| so.
|
| Satire needs a point of sanity and order to stand on (and
| refer to as the way things should be, versus the bad version
| it mocks).
| jpm_sd wrote:
| "Satire died when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize"
| - Tom Lehrer
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Lately, stand-up comedians have been saying they're out of a
| job, because the absurdity of reality is escaping parody
|
| that's not a recent phenomenon. It's a cultural debate that's
| been going on for decades, probably the most prominent figure
| is David Foster Wallace, the 'New Sincerity' genre as a
| response to detached irony and that sort of thing.
| jeltz wrote:
| I think that you are just getting old.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| That is true. And the older I get, the funnier things are.
|
| I just don't see many young people laughing these days.
| otikik wrote:
| My dog has no nose. Ask me how does it smell.
| ArcMex wrote:
| Like a dog?
| 867-5309 wrote:
| actively it cannot, passively like dogshite
| wizardforhire wrote:
| Careful, you're treading in ITAR territory.
| user_7832 wrote:
| ...Does their dog use a radar to smell?
|
| (Context: there was a recent HN post on radar software
| being restricted in the US partly due to ITAR)
| easywood wrote:
| It smells terrible!
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| They can just literally quote real-life dialogues instead. Rick
| & Morty featured a whole court session that really happened.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bjDkQR57fA
| asddubs wrote:
| this is a fan-made animation, it wasn't on the show (the
| voices are of justin roiland though)
| sethammons wrote:
| Wow, that is batshit crazy.
| creshal wrote:
| Germany's highest form of comedy is political cabaret, i.e.
| someone quotes a politician verbatim and the audience,
| briefly, imagines _they were actually serious_. It 's the
| only form of entertainment that keeps getting funnier every
| year.
| markeibes wrote:
| There is Tatortreiniger and Stromberg, both of which are
| funnier.
| yackback wrote:
| Simulacra!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation
| googlryas wrote:
| Stand up comedians are saying this while they're...performing
| standup?
| coldtea wrote:
| Yeah, so?
|
| Your comment is like saying "CEOs saying the current market
| is bad for their industry, while ...still running
| companies?!"
|
| It's not like the observation that a trade is being hurt (in
| this case, in the kind of disconnect between your job being
| pointing out absurdity as something that stands out and
| making it funny, and a society that seems to drown and revel
| in it) cannot be done by practitioners of said trade while
| they practice it...
| robertlagrant wrote:
| No it's like saying "CEOs saying they're out of a job while
| being CEOs".
| coldtea wrote:
| No, that's the uncharitable, strawman version, that goes
| for pedanticness over understanding what it means.
|
| It's more like a crooner saying they're being put out of
| a job after rock n' roll or the Beatlemania, while still
| having gigs...
|
| Yes, they might still get work and sell some records, but
| they have a harder time justifying their career, get
| smaller audiences, and people see them not that
| culturally or socially relevant anymore...
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It's the opposite of a straw man. The previous post was a
| straw man, deliberately changing the analogy as well as
| the subject. I restored the analogy.
| aikendrum wrote:
| Standup comedian is a freelance job. It's perfectly
| possible to be unable to perform and still be a comedian,
| whether due to lack of material or lack of opportunity.
| googlryas wrote:
| Yes. But it is not possible to perform while not being
| able to perform.
| coldtea wrote:
| It's still possible to perform while being less able to
| get gigs, less able to come up with good jokes, less able
| to make those jokes relevant, increasingly feeling the
| jokes are superfluous as everything seems to get at
| satire-level status by itself, etc - in other words while
| "not being able to perform" and being slowly put out of a
| job.
|
| Which was the point (and even made in jest)...
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Tale as old as time...
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF2RYhNhBdw
| bostik wrote:
| I wish I could remember who said this, because it was a
| standup saying something ... in an interview. Not performing.
|
| "It's a sad state of affairs when the most accurate political
| commentary is done by comedians, while the country is being
| governed by clowns." Such an apt description of the UK. And
| while that was said two governments (ie. less than a year)
| ago, it's only slightly less accurate now.
| jimbokun wrote:
| When could that have not been truthfully said?
|
| Wasn't the court jester the only telling the truth a trope
| hundreds of years ago?
| bmicraft wrote:
| Or a child, in the case of The Emperor's New Clothes
| DennisP wrote:
| I've seen Jon Stewart say very similar things.
| hammock wrote:
| No. They say it in interviews, on podcasts, etc.
|
| Most comedians refuse to play shows on college campuses now
| (once a highly lucrative venue for them) because of the
| audience
| superchroma wrote:
| Comedians weren't lining up to do college campuses 20 years
| ago either.
| hammock wrote:
| College campus is never the preferred venue however as I
| said, it's a money maker. Similar to corporate gigs.
|
| The difference is now they're not worth the trouble.
|
| Seinfeld (not even who you think of as "anti-woke") has a
| good take on it you could search for.
| https://ew.com/article/2015/06/08/jerry-seinfeld-
| politically...
|
| >"I don't play colleges." Seinfeld says teens and
| college-aged kids don't understand what it means to throw
| around certain politically-correct terms. "They just want
| to use these words: 'That's racist;' 'That's sexist;'
| 'That's prejudice,'" he said. "They don't know what the
| hell they're talking about"
| nonameiguess wrote:
| I would at least like to see real quantifiable evidence
| that comedy shows on college campuses are less frequent
| now than they used to be, as opposed to individual
| comedians who are two generations removed from current
| college students saying they personally don't feel
| welcome there any more.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Most of the people on a college campus will not even know
| who Seinfeld is or identify with his jokes at all - he's
| probably older than their parents. I'm sure there are
| plenty of younger comedians killing it on campus
| atourgates wrote:
| I think maybe the teens and college age kids DO
| understand what they're talking about, and the Seinfeld
| generation doesn't.
|
| The difference is that many in the Seinfeld generation
| (and other generations) think of "Racism" or "Sexism" as
| terrible evils that they must never commit.
|
| While likely the "teens and college-aged kids" he's
| complaining about recognize that we all engage in some
| level of racism or sexism in our daily internal or
| external lives.
|
| So, if someone accused Seinfeld of racism or sexism, his
| reaction might be to defend himself, and say, "No! How
| dare you!"
|
| But if someone told one of the "woke kids" they were
| racist or sexist, their reaction would more likely be,
| "yeah, probably."
|
| To Jerry, being "a racist" is synonymous with being a bad
| person. The "woke kids" recognize that we're all racist
| and sexist and prejudiced to some degree, and (hopefully)
| trying to be better about it.
| superchroma wrote:
| Having talked to trans and bi youth, they're cynical,
| well-read, yet simultaneously naive and emotional, use
| slurs copiously and ironically, and like any generation,
| are politically all over the map, including fashy. I
| would not dare to try and paint these people a certain
| way.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| the majority of comedians are residents of said campuses
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Gentle inquiry: Are you a comedian or work in comedy? Can
| you state a general region of comedy you're familiar with
| (USA Comedy? UK Comedy?) without doxing yourself?
|
| [I'm not, and therefore have no opinion on this, but I
| wanted to know where you're getting your repository of
| knowledge of "most comedians" from and how to contextualize
| your knowledge in this matter. I'm asking in good faith.]
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Since you ask in good faith (hard to tell around these
| parts sometimes);
|
| I'm British, middle aged, and yes I have worked in
| entertainments during my career.
|
| So far I have heard (via media interviews or similar)
| John Cleese, Mark Thomas, Eddie Izzard, Stewart Lee,
| Frankie Boyle, Charlie Brooker, Chris Morris, Steve
| Coogan, Ian Hislop, and Armando Iannucci all say
| approximately the same thing in a more-or-less serious
| context.
|
| Of course the "nothing is funny any more" trope is
| timeless. It doesn't need saying. However, these comics
| are also serious cultural analysts and they're
| identifying a genuine sea-change.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Thanks for providing me context. If it helps to display
| the depth of my ignorance about comedy (thus trying to
| get more context to the claim) I don't know who any of
| those names are.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Sorry, it's a very parochially British viewpoint. Perhaps
| where you are there's also the same undercurrent, just
| not visible in the mainstream. You may have to dig a
| little.
|
| Cultural malaise often hides beneath the surface. One of
| the most frightening accounts of this, on a more
| international stage, is what Slavoj Zizek had to say on
| it; He said that in the former Yugoslavia, humour kept
| ethnic tensions at bay. The civil war was foreshadowed by
| a creeping political correctness and people "not finding
| things funny anymore".
| hammock wrote:
| I run a podcast that regularly has comics on as guests.
| These comics are typically on the level of filling
| theaters across the country. I'm sure the open-mic early-
| career comics would be happy to play a college
| cainxinth wrote:
| No, they say it on podcasts mostly... where many of them they
| are making more money than they they ever did at standup.
| bluGill wrote:
| > Lately, stand-up comedians have been saying they're out of a
| job, because the absurdity of reality is escaping parody.
| Nothing stays funny for long, because soon enough it's true,
| and then banal.
|
| I've heard them say that as long as I've been alive. I'm sure
| 3000 years ago traveling bards were saying the same things.
| There is a lot of comedic value from the statement, so of
| course any good one will use it from time to time. That doesn't
| mean it is true.
| asveikau wrote:
| Frankly there's parts of life where this resonates more today
| than any time I've been alive.
|
| I've followed US political news since I was a kid. 2016 and
| onwards shit started getting really weird. Political satire
| from 2015 was no longer relevant by 2017ish not due the
| passage of time, but due to the fact that the events that
| followed are more ridiculous.
|
| I imagine this has happened before. For example, my mom's
| generation always says 1968 was a crazy year in politics and
| culture. I imagine early 60s political satire looked tame by
| the late 60s. But I don't think political satire from 2008
| looked ridiculous in 2014, for example.
| [deleted]
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| A good comedian can split your sides with a bit about waiting
| in line even.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Taxes have never been as high as now in recent history. You
| dont have to worry about them going away.
| throw827474737 wrote:
| If that just be true for every tax group we would be in a
| much fairer world with less issues...
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| No, that is insane.
|
| If anything, sending arbitrary amounts of money to be spent
| on the interest to pay for the debt of corrupt and failed
| political ventures is not fair in any regard.
|
| If taxes actually paid for government services, you might
| have a point, but they do not.
| pavlov wrote:
| In the US, the highest marginal tax rate for individuals was
| 70% as recently as 1981. It was 92% in 1952.
|
| Today it's 37%. So it's really the other way around -- taxes
| have never been as low as now in recent history.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Taking extremes is a strawman. What matters is what most
| people pay.
| eesmith wrote:
| "Average federal tax rates for all households, by
| comprehensive household income quintile. 1979 to 2018" at
| https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-
| averag...
|
| "Average Total Federal Tax Rate (percent)" is lower for
| every percentile from 1979 to 2018. Year
| 1979 2018 Lowest Quintile 9.3 0.0
| Second Quintile 15.0 8.1 Middle Quintile
| 19.1 12.8 Fourth Quintile 21.7 16.7
| Highest Quintile 27.1 24.4 All Quintiles
| 22.4 19.3 81st - 90th Percentiles 23.6 20.0
| 91st - 95th Percentiles 25.2 21.9 96th - 99th
| Percentiles 27.1 24.2 Top 1%
| 35.1 30.2
|
| So is "Average Individual Income Tax Rate (percent)"
| Year 1979 2018 Lowest Quintile
| -0.2 -12.0 Second Quintile 4.1 -2.1
| Middle Quintile 7.4 2.2 Fourth Quintile
| 10.1 5.9 Highest Quintile 15.9 15.4
| All Quintiles 11.1 9.4 81st - 90th
| Percentiles 12.3 9.0 91st - 95th Percentiles
| 14.1 11.4 96th - 99th Percentiles 16.8 15.5
| Top 1% 22.6 23.5
|
| That makes it really hard to accept your claim that
| "Taxes have never been as high as now in recent history."
|
| Now, sure, there are state taxes, and sales taxes, and
| payroll taxes, and all sorts of other taxes.
|
| Still, where do you get the numbers to back your
| statement that after 40+ years of Reaganism and unending
| legislative attempts to lower taxes, that the numbers now
| are higher than ever before?
| ekianjo wrote:
| > "Average federal tax rates for all households
|
| Wait, so you only pay Federal taxes in the US? That's
| practical if you only cherry pick a part of the data.
| eesmith wrote:
| If you read down to the end, I wrote "Now, sure, there
| are state taxes, and sales taxes, and payroll taxes, and
| all sorts of other taxes."
|
| I used this to ask for source data for the claim.
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| I don't know if taxes are higher now vs some point in
| history (probably higher than some, lower than others)
| but your implicit claim that 'taxes' == 'US Federal
| Income Tax Rate' is so laughable I can't believe you can
| make it with a straight face. Not everyone is from the
| US, and the people from the US know that there are like 5
| levels of taxation, from local sales tax to property tax
| to state income tax, state personal property tax, taxes
| relabeled as 'fees' to circumvent state rules about new
| tax creation, tariffs, payroll taxes, etc etc etc etc
| etc. Then there are taxes like social security,
| disability insurance, unemployment insurance, etc.
|
| Even if all we look at is US federal income taxes, you
| don't include them all. Social security is a sum of 12.4%
| of your income (and it is regressive!). Medicare is 2.9%.
| These have gone up considerably since 1979 (8.1% total in
| 1979, 15.3% now)
| eesmith wrote:
| "so laughable I can't believe you can make it with a
| straight face"
|
| Which is why I didn't. I specifically pointed out that
| there are other taxes.
|
| My point was to get ekianjo to present data to support
| their claim.
|
| Do you have better data?
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| This reminds me of the guy who lost his keys. He was
| looking by the street light when his friend asked him if
| he lost his keys by the light. "No, I lost them over by
| my car, but it's too dark to see anything over there."
|
| Here is a graph from wikipedia that shows that taxes in
| the US are in total about as high as they have ever been
| (which was 2000). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
| commons/7/72/Federal%... You can very clearly see that
| while Federal taxes are gradually decreasing, that is
| more than made up by Payroll taxes.
| eesmith wrote:
| It's supposed to remind you of Cunningham's Law: "the
| best way to get the right answer on the internet is not
| to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."
|
| As nonameiguess already pointed out, your answer disputes
| ekianjo's claim, as the peak in your graph was 1999.
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| As fun as tribal arguing is, I wasn't taking a side. Did
| you read my post at all? I was saying that the
| methodology for claiming taxes were lower was so stupid
| as to defy even any attempt to ascribe good faith.
|
| Let me quote my post for your convenience: "I don't know
| if taxes are higher now vs some point in history"
| eesmith wrote:
| I don't know what "tribal arguing" means.
|
| I did read your side. You believe I'm not arguing in good
| faith. I think that's a misinterpretation. I am not
| versed in the topic, and I don't pretend to be one. But
| the exchange was claim/counter-claim/counter-counter-
| claim without any citations, going nowhere.
|
| While presenting wrong, or at least incomplete numbers,
| shifts it to one about presenting the actual numbers and
| what they mean, and if it's justified tax increases.
|
| If that's that's bad faith tribalism, than so be it. But
| you'll notice the pointless exchange about "most taxes
| EVAR" has stopped.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| This still directly contradicts the original claim,
| though. This graphic shows aggregate tax burden was at
| its highest ever in the late 90s and is currently on a
| slight downward trend. "About as high" isn't great if you
| hate taxes, but it isn't what was being disputed.
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| >This calculation does not consider the growth of
| expenditures
|
| edit: was meant as reply to a different comment
| eesmith wrote:
| Where is the data to back the claim "Taxes have never
| been as high as now in recent history"?
|
| My data is half-assed, certainly. Surely you should be
| more critical of someone presenting no data, yes?
| areyousure wrote:
| In case anyone was curious, United States federal tax
| receipts were $463 billion in FY1979 and $3.33 trillion
| in FY2018, a growth of a factor of ~7.2 = ~5.2%/year. The
| population has grown by a factor of ~1.44 = ~0.95%/year
| and the effect of inflation has been a factor of ~3.63 =
| ~3.36%/year, which multiply together to a factor of ~5.2
| = ~4.33%/year. The receipts grew faster by a factor of
| ~1.38 = 0.82%/year.
|
| This calculation does not consider the growth of
| expenditures specifically (as opposed to receipts) and
| similarly does not consider the growth of GDP (as opposed
| to inflation).
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| Likewise it makes the false assumption that taxes are
| collected in the same year that income is received.
| Beginning in the 1980s, many billions of dollars that
| were subject to tax ended up in IRAs and 401k retirement
| plans where taxes are deferred for many decades in most
| cases. Likewise, like kind exchanges of property also
| defer huge amounts of taxes. So looking at annual tax
| receipts omits a huge amount of taxed-but-deferred
| income.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| That is US federal taxes. Now go grab your check and see
| how much you are paying in taxes that are not called that.
| Then remember you also pay taxes when you buy things too.
| Also remember your must carry insurance (3 of those). Also
| in some cases just for owning something. Plus state and
| local. My theory is We did not really lower taxes that
| much. We just itemized the bill to make it look smaller.
| guhidalg wrote:
| Ok cool guy, please show your work. That should be a very
| easy to verify theory, you have CPI data, historical IRS
| tax schedules, state tax schedules, company quarterly
| statements, etc... Simply saying that taxes are higher
| than ever feeds into right-wing conspiracy theories and
| I'm just tired of it.
| bena wrote:
| Yes, it is tiring when someone posts something with
| absolutely no evidence is taken at face value as truth.
| But when someone offers evidence to the contrary, it gets
| argued to death. "What are taxes?" "Insurance is a type
| of tax." "Sales tax counts now."
|
| None of these people are making the same arguments to the
| poster who offered nothing but a claim. Because "of
| course it's true, everyone knows it". Well, everyone is
| quite capable of being wrong. As those self-same people
| will happily tell us when it's time to enact some very
| mild preventative measures for the health and safety of
| the country that the vast majority of health
| professionals recommend.
| jean_tta wrote:
| It's really tricky to compare marginal rates like that. Has
| the definition of taxable income changed over time? How
| many people were actually taxed at those marginal rates?
| And so on.
| bena wrote:
| You didn't bother to interrogate the other poster on
| these aspects. Why is it only tricky when looking at the
| evidence against the claim?
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| In 1952, there were so many carveouts and exemptions that
| few individuals payed the actual 92%. With fastidious
| accounting, one's personal tax liability could be zero even
| if one qualified for the highest income bracket. This was
| the case until 1970 following Congress's invention and
| institution of the Alternative Minimum Tax. And while 1981
| wasn't the most friendly year for low income taxes,
| increased globalization meant easier opportunities to set
| up overseas tax structures for the purpose of reducing
| one's overall tax burden (what's commonly referred to as
| tax "avoidance"). To make the claim of highest or lowest
| tax year for the highest income bracket between 1913 and
| today is impossible to make without accounting for
| reductions available in the given year.
| mantas wrote:
| What about tax for a median citizen?
| pavlov wrote:
| I don't know. It's pretty difficult to compare when the
| median citizen's circumstances have also changed so much.
|
| But in the context of reality's absurdity reaching escape
| velocity from parody, it seems fitting that the rich
| barely pay taxes anymore and are seeking immortality
| cures like Thiel does. Death and taxes are the postmodern
| libertarian's greatest enemies.
| otikik wrote:
| Not for companies or wealthy people.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Are you either?
| otikik wrote:
| Irrelevant
| ekianjo wrote:
| Nope, because most people are not companies nor wealthy
| either, so you don't make such an argument on the
| extremes. That's what is truly irrelevant.
| otikik wrote:
| At the time of this writing, 3 Americans own as much as
| the bottom half of all the Americans [1] .
|
| https://inequality.org/facts/wealth-inequality/#richest-
| amer...
|
| I don't know how you qualify that. I would qualify it as
| _extreme_. The fact that "most people are not companies"
| doesn't matter, what matters is where the wealth is.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _The insane conceit of a "cash-less society" has already
| created situations where you cannot physically force someone to
| take money from you._
|
| You'd be very very surprised...
| hammock wrote:
| Yeah isn't that the sinister point of CBDC's... transforming
| our world to what you get is doled by daddy govt
| dr-detroit wrote:
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| That comic got one small detail incorrect: in 2022, phones are
| rarely in pockets, because most people can't stop using theirs
| long enough to put it in a pocket.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| Also, they didn't foresee that particular style of mustache
| going heavily out of style in a few short years.
| danudey wrote:
| If my phone is in my pocket I can't watch billionaires destroy
| society and the planet in real-time, and then I'll have to
| catch up on /r/outoftheloop later that week.
| OJFord wrote:
| > when the novelty and prestige of cellphones (to say nothing of
| their gratingly simple ringtones)
|
| I don't think I'm just projecting when I say we've pretty much
| reverted to that? As far as I can tell it's not 'cool' among
| schoolchildren any more either to have some song or joke sound or
| whatever.
|
| The vast majority I hear (i.e. if it rings at all, not just
| vibrating!) I would say are 'simple'; it's the 'songs and joke
| sounds or whatever' that grate.
| layman51 wrote:
| This comic really reminds me of the pilot episode of the cartoon
| "A Kitty Bobo". It's the same sort of premise where the main
| character gets a cell phone before his friends do and he ends up
| falling into awkward situations even though he thinks it's very
| cool he has a cell phone now.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Reminds me of one of the pilot episodes of my own life as well
| :p When I was in elementary school, my father gave me a cell
| phone so me and him could call each other.
|
| No one else in my class nor in most other classes at school had
| a phone. So it was kind of cool. But still for many years the
| only thing I could do with the phone, since no one else had
| mobile phones yet, was to talk with my father XD It was a blue
| and black Siemens phone with an antenna. No games, no GPRS/WAP,
| no nothing other than phone call and SMS ability mainly.
| huseyinkeles wrote:
| what's more interesting to me is at the date of this comic, even
| the landline phones were not fully adopted :)
| bsza wrote:
| Yet it predicted the future more accurately than Blade Runner
| (1982) where people still use pay phones in 2019.
| seydor wrote:
| And rotary phones in the matrix. I mean it s not like people
| don't buy record players. The cities of our future will have
| payphones out of boredom
| Nekhrimah wrote:
| But the Matrix was specifically set at the time of "peak
| human civilization, 1999". I'm starting to wonder if they
| weren't wrong about that.
| layer8 wrote:
| They may have predicted Y2K differently. :)
| nurettin wrote:
| I think it might be an aesthetic choice. Pay phones and
| perpetual night scenes are more detective-noir than
| cellphones.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Definitely this. Bladerunner is all about being a future
| Noir set in Los Angeles where it is perpetually night and
| often raining. Surely they knew when filming it or it being
| written that LA is extremely sunny and never rains.
| eesmith wrote:
| Picking nits while skipping how we don't have off-world
| colonies or replicants?
|
| In that case, the comic got things wrong too.
|
| You'll be hard pressed to find people wearing those clothes
| these days, especially the nurse's headgear. Canes and
| briefcases are also rare, though I suspect that those rare
| few wearing a bowler hat might still use them.
|
| Also, few people use a bell as their ringtone.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| My understanding is in the blade runner universe the off
| world colonies aren't somewhere you'd want to live & the
| replicants are banned on earth. In other words, two things
| to be avoided.
|
| So we could easily advance past those points without
| touching them entirely.
| LeonM wrote:
| > Also, few people use a bell as their ringtone.
|
| I have always used a bell ringtone, I like it because I
| find it less-invasive then all the other abstract modern
| ringtones that only give me alarm clock PTSS.
|
| Unfortunately, Samsung removed the classing bell ringtone
| in their latest models :(
| themanmaran wrote:
| Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/479/
| dleslie wrote:
| Motorola, too. But you can always add ring tones.
| eesmith wrote:
| Sure. Mine's a bell too. But it's still uncommon, yes?
|
| Plus, I know a lot of people who only have it on vibrate.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Blade Runner was never about predicting the future. It was
| what could become if technology went in certain ways. Japan
| did not end up ruling the west either.
| bena wrote:
| Blade Runner isn't about the technology per se. It's about
| our reactions to the technology. If we create a completely
| autonomous artificial life, is it "a person"? Does it
| deserve personhood?
|
| The source book is a little better about the question. The
| major difference between Replicants and people is that
| people have empathy and Replicants don't. In the book
| there's a device that allows people to essentially get into
| this weird empathy group mind thing. It's been a hot minute
| since I read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" so
| forgive the details.
|
| And that's what the Voight-Kampf device measures. That's
| what the questions are designed to test. It's why the first
| Replicant flips out on the turtle question. He can't
| process the need to flip over the turtle. He can't
| empathise with the turtle.
|
| But he's kind of still a child. Which is a little
| understandable, because Replicants have a 3-year lifespan.
| They are babies. Toddlers. He flips out because he's
| throwing a tantrum. Roy Batty and Pris are closer to the
| end of their life, they've developed empathy, as any person
| would. That's what gets Deckard. He realizes Replicants are
| fully people and what we do to them is wrong. Batty was
| never the bad guy.
|
| But that's all tangential. Blade Runner is set 37 years in
| the future. Which is now 3 years in the past. It was trying
| to guess when the relevant technology will be available. I
| think that's a better way of thinking about it. Science
| Fiction isn't trying to predict what will be available in X
| years, it's trying to predict in how many years X will be
| available.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| It's like how hacking or computer UIs are depicted in 80s/90s
| movies. When the general public doesn't have a good
| understanding of a technology or the technology doesn't have a
| good foothold in peoples' lives, you can make these crazy
| fantastical representations of what (the future of) these
| technologies might be.
|
| I'm sure some people had the imagination when they first saw
| radios and how they were removing wires from some devices to
| think about what this meant for any device with wires.
| _thisdot wrote:
| I remember when I was young, my dad came out of a Parent-Teacher
| meeting and showed his flip phone which showed 40 missed calls
| from work. He worked as a lead programmer in a bank which was
| very new to Internet Banking.
|
| He was clearly annoyed with the calls, but as a kid I was amused
| and a little jealous of the fact that in such a short time so
| many people wanted to get hold of him. I also remember signing up
| for all kind of email newsletters just to get more emails!
|
| Have to admire the vision of this artist in an age when even land
| lines weren't in wide use!
| timonoko wrote:
| They are now banning cellphones in schools in Nordic countries.
| But alas, parents are buying standalone smartwatches for their
| precious brats.
|
| Which reminds me of me in 1950s. I always tried to get seat by
| the window where the heat pipes run. My crystal set needed ground
| wire and the antenna could be hidden by the curtains.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Didn't know about that ban, but doesn't seem to go that well...
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02727...
|
| > In Sweden, we find no impact of mobile phone bans on student
| performance and can reject even small-sized gains.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| I'd bet the majority of phone interactions are Internet based,
| though- not people wishing to text/talk but notifications from
| apps telling you about the latest inconsequential thing to
| promote interaction with them.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| remember when we used to playback our voicemails on analogue
| tape, and check our mail, and interact with strangers, and read
| the headlines, all maximum once a day..
| m463 wrote:
| I thought voicemails came scrawled on pink sheets of paper
| with "While You Were Out" at the top... :)
| taylorius wrote:
| Now there's a futurologist worth listening to!
| darkwater wrote:
| I think the joke is still good, because it's still a bad manner
| to have your phone ringing and buzzing in many situations (a
| concert, at the opera etc). I mean, it's actually an impressive
| comic, it imagines a possible future tech and correctly
| identifies some real misuses, 70-80 years before it became
| reality.
| temporallobe wrote:
| I was just in an awkward social situation the other day where
| someone left their phone on a table at a party and walked away
| to do something. Some guy was telling an interesting story and
| we were all trying to politely listen, but suddenly that phone
| started ringing at full volume. Everyone just kind of ignored
| it at first but it kept ringing. I was annoyed and wanted to
| reach over and mute/end the call, but, you don't touch other
| people's phones in polite society. Eventually it stopped
| ringing. Amazingly, everyone just acted like it wasn't there. I
| guess we've all become accustomed to such things.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| In my circles, you would mute the disruptive call with the
| side button and tell them, "sorry, your phone was ringing
| while you were gone and I muted it." Or just "your phone rang
| while you were gone."
| wnoise wrote:
| When batteries were removable, removing them was the standard
| way to make unattended, ringing cell-phones stop.
| maxbond wrote:
| "A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the
| automobile but the traffic jam."
|
| - Frederick Pohl
|
| I've heard this misquoted as, "a good sci-fi predicts the
| automobile but a great one predicts traffic jams and parking
| lots," which I also appreciate.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| It is great. I think they got there by extrapolating a home
| phone interrupting dinner table conversations, and similar. The
| urgency of a ringing phone dominating all else. Like a fire
| alarm alerting that this is the most important conversation to
| be had!
| danudey wrote:
| When cell phones were in their infancy, I remember reading an
| article, some kind of op-ed, about how they were ruining
| society.
|
| His primary example, his primary complaint, was a situation
| where he was at dinner with his wife and his own cell phone
| rang. A friend was calling him! On his phone, at dinner!
|
| How incredibly, unimaginably rude could someone be? To call
| someone while he was in a public restaurant, at dinner with his
| wife! Can you imagine the audacity?
|
| I remember thinking what a complete asshole this man must be. A
| friend called him while he was at a restaurant, the ringer
| went, it embarrassed him at this nice restaurant, and he went
| on a tear blaming everyone but himself.
|
| Meanwhile, we now have people who get on the bus blaring music
| from their cell phones or hanging a portable bluetooth speaker
| from their backpacks while walking down the street, and people
| miss the idea that hey, the problem isn't the technology, it's
| that the technology enables inconsiderate, rude people to be
| inconsiderate and rude in new and exciting ways, as though boom
| boxes didn't exist before bluetooth speakers.
| PakG1 wrote:
| Seems to me that the Bluetooth speaker is really just the
| reincarnation of the boombox.
| mrexroad wrote:
| To which the Vulcan nerve pinch may still be the solution.
| nuggetys wrote:
| When we all have telephones embedded into our brains, linked in
| to our neural circuitry. When Google advertises to you in your
| dreams, daydreams and nightmares. When Huawei gives their
| government control over their citizens' thoughts, and feelings
| and desires. When Samsung kills millions with a botched over-the-
| air firmware upgrade.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| > When Huawei gives their government control over their
| citizens' thoughts
|
| So this I guess would be the ultimate authoritarian end game,
| but from my perspective - what's the point. When you've got
| _total_ control, what then? Like what 's the next move...
| because anything else is just a rounding error to what you've
| already got.
| trashtester wrote:
| > When Google advertises to you in your dreams, daydreams and
| nightmares.
|
| If we let them wire something into our brains, it's a lot
| easier to connect it to the happiness centres:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3984894/
|
| If you can gain networked control of such a device, you could
| easily gain complete control of their motivations and disires.
| Much more strongly than with any drug.
|
| Not only would you be able to make these people hand over
| everything of value to you (bypassing any needs to advertise),
| you could even make them WANT to work for you (and even go to
| war for you) with fanatical motivation and effort.
| jsrcout wrote:
| I'd be stunned if there aren't well-funded groups working on
| this as we speak.
| bmicraft wrote:
| It was deployed 80 years ago and called Panzerschokolade
| robocat wrote:
| Internet myth.
| https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2022/11/melting-the-myth-of-
| panze...
| trashtester wrote:
| It's already deployed to some extent medically.
|
| As for the dystopian applications, I would not be suprised
| if there are some dr Mengele wannabies in some dark corners
| of the world experimenting with how to control prison
| inmates or similar "disposable" people using such tech.
| a_wild_dandan wrote:
| > It's already deployed to some extent medically.
|
| Can you say more about this?
|
| I wonder what's feasible in the near future. I recall
| excitedly watching a Gabe Newell interview on BCI. Having
| struggled with major depression and anxiety, his
| speculation on using BCI to control sleep/mood/etc seemed
| like a mental panacea. Of course, with that level of
| control over one's brain, my delight about potential
| emotional stabilization feels akin to lionizing computers
| as a newfangled bookkeeping tool -- while true, it's
| comically myopic.
|
| Here's a hard turn into wild speculation for ya: The
| Great Filter is either 1) endosymbiosis or 2) inventing
| BCI.
| trashtester wrote:
| > Can you say more about this?
|
| Not much beyond the article I linked above. I've been
| aware of such research for a few decades. It appears that
| inducing happiness is super easy. But also way more
| addictive than the hardest drugs. There term Wirehead was
| a term from SciFi (and later Cyperpunk) to describe
| someone addicted to such stimulation.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction)
|
| Early use was limited by how to control the mood. Manual
| control would be impossible, since anyone with access to
| their own happiness would turn it up to max pretty much
| at once, with no ability to turn it back down. With it at
| max setting, people would simply stop functioning, not
| even able to eat, have sex, etc, so unsupervised it would
| probably be leathal pretty soon.
|
| So for early application, one would have to set it at
| some constant offset, which probably had some downsides.
| (Possibly poor reaction to normal stimuli, I don't
| remember.)
|
| Later on, maybe about 10 years ago, brain research and
| computer tech started to allow more sophisticated control
| of the level, where it would regulate the happiness-level
| in a way similar to how normal/healthy brains do. (The
| patiens would be treatment resistent MDS)
|
| Still, the potential downsides are obviously immense,
| potentially making fentanyl, crack and meth seem like
| child's play.
|
| A self regulated version as this would be so deadly that
| I think very few knowing its risks would dare use it. But
| one _could_ imagine people setting up arrangements where
| they grant the power to regulate the level, according to
| some principles.
|
| For instance, let's say you're bored at work, and
| procastinating by reading HN, at a level that reduces
| your performance. Let's say that, instead of getting hold
| of ritalin or microdosing shrooms, you go to a shady lab
| that installs one of these things, and controls it
| remotely by lowering happiness just a bit when you're not
| doing what you "should" and rewards you slightly when
| coding (by monitoring your laptop), with additional
| rewards when pull requests are approved.
|
| Now, imagine your manager (or a CPP rep, if you're in
| China) finding out, and bribes the lab to add some more
| "features" to your profile, including loyalty to her
| personally as well as a more aggressive level of rewards
| for workplace performance.
| mmcdermott wrote:
| I recently read Fritz Leiber's "The Creature From Cleveland
| Depths" (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23164) and it gives off
| a very similar vibe.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Amazing considering the scarcity of landlines at that time.
|
| Just missed it by vibrate-only mode.
| usrusr wrote:
| That blog post seems weirdly anachronistic: that cartoon might
| have predicted 2005 astonishingly well, but in 2022, how often do
| we really use our phones for two-way real-time audio? How often
| do you actually hear a ringtone begging for immediate attention?
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Sales still exists.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Pretty flippin' often.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| ah the flip phones of 2005..
| godshatter wrote:
| > How often do you actually hear a ringtone begging for
| immediate attention?
|
| More than I would like. Apparently there is a problem with my
| SSN and my warranty is about to expire.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Quite a bit for 2 way audio. I think people don't choose garish
| ringtones (e.g. crazy frog, nokia ringtone) so much now and
| they pick up a lot quicker these days. Someone leaving their
| phone at a desk and it ringing and ringing seemed more common
| back in the day. Might be modern phones don't let that happen.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| > Now, increasingly, cellphones are * _day-to-day life*_. Far
| from the literal "pocket telephones" envisioned a century ago,
| they've worked their way into nearly every aspect of human
| existence, including those Haselden could never have considered.
|
| It is now _essential_ to be considered part of the society, to
| the point that someone who does not want to or cannot carry a
| cell phone is sneered at. Anecdotally, I was in the USA and
| during a few day lay-over, I wanted to get a hair cut. I was
| refused service at a hair cutting chain because I did not have a
| cell phone with me (it was in the hotel, did not want spam, would
| not get there and back on time, etc.). I offered credit card or
| cash, but was rejected, and explicitly told I have to have cell
| phone.
|
| I am not angry, just sad.
|
| As @nonrandomstring noted, "absurdity of reality is escaping
| parody".
| Buttons840 wrote:
| I've wondered, as wealth inequality grows, perhaps the poorest
| among us simple won't have enough money to exchange for goods.
| "Sorry, you don't have enough money to make a haircut worth my
| time, but if you let me invade your privacy and show you ads
| until the end of time, that will be valuable enough to exchange
| for a haircut. Read and sign this 200 page contract and I'll go
| get a chair ready."
|
| See also essential software that cannot be purchased, only
| rented. Many of the most essential apps today are not paid for
| with money, occasionally people talk about how they _want_ to
| pay for these apps (in exchange for better customer service,
| etc), but no, they don 't want our money, our money is worth
| less than the data we give.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| But the practical necessity of having a smartphone and some
| internet access has only resulted in cheaper devices and
| services that fit the needs of the poor. It was a pretty big
| thing during Covid lockdowns in rural parts of India for
| instance, where extremely cheap smartphones and internet
| access made it possible for some amount of remote education
| to be pursued entirely remotely.
| enedil wrote:
| I doubt that if somebody cannot afford a haircut, their data
| would be that pricey.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| I'm thinking more on a macro level.
|
| Someone at Google has said "people want to pay us money to
| have better support and be treated like customers instead
| of products", and the response was "no, not worth it". On a
| macro scale Google was not interested in the money of
| individuals.
|
| Facebook / Meta is one of the richest companies in the
| world, and they didn't make their money by taking money
| from individuals.
|
| Politicians aren't swayed by the donations of common
| people, but by the donation of wealthy special interest
| groups and wealthy individuals.
|
| The poorest 50% of the United States controls 1.2% of the
| wealth. One day they'll look around and collectively ask
| "what can we do with our money?", and the answer will be
| "buy cheap consumer goods, pay rent, and not much else".
| More and more companies don't want the little money they
| have, instead they want their attention, their votes, and
| their time and labor. Going after their money alone just
| isn't worth it.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Wow, that's a new one for me (only app payments accepted). In
| the US, at least.
| warner25 wrote:
| I haven't encountered that yet, but I'm starting to encounter
| mobile apps as required proof of membership for things. My
| family got a membership to a children's museum a few weeks
| ago, and the expectation is that my wife and I have their app
| on our phones to get inside. For our second visit, I brought
| our printed receipt, but my wife had to stand there
| downloading and installing their app so that we could use our
| guest passes. The person at the front desk didn't seem to
| have any other way to do it. Similarly, my neighborhood's
| community pool and fitness center requires the Brivo Mobile
| Pass app to get through the front door (and it's unattended,
| so there's nobody who can just look you up in the system and
| let you in).
| abeppu wrote:
| I think the worst part of this is businesses that do this
| all have different crappy apps. My gym has their own app
| that must be scanned upon entry. But their app is often
| slow and unresponsive, and unpredictably logs out. Often at
| the entry, a person will be stuck trying to reload the app,
| possibly hindered by their phone having switched to the
| gym's questionable wifi. Multiple other people will be
| stuck behind them, having preemptively loaded the app and
| QR code while walking to the door.
|
| This replaced keychain fobs with a barcode, which had none
| of these annoyances.
| glowingly wrote:
| Better than a gym I turned down: that one required a
| fingerprint, then handprint scan. WTF? I didn't buy any
| of the excuses for it.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Ticketmaster using monopoly power to force use of app to
| attend concerts. Can't even print ticket any longer.
| gffrd wrote:
| As a: CONCERTGOER
|
| I want to: USE THE TICKETMASTER(tm) APP FOR MY TICKET, AND
| NOT HAVE ANY OTHER WAY TO HAVE IT--DEFINITELY NOT PDF.
|
| So that: I CAN HAVE THE CONCERT EXPERIENCE OF THE FUTURE(c)
|
| <Product Owner puts leans back from keyboard and breathes
| deeply>
|
| "That's it. I've just written the perfect product brief."
|
| <Stands and moves toward CEO's office>
| hinkley wrote:
| In some ways the smart phone is replacing the car, and I think
| I'm okay with that. As long as they don't get as expensive as
| cars.
| Animats wrote:
| What, they wanted you to install some app for a _haircut_?
| josefresco wrote:
| > I was refused service at a hair cutting chain because I did
| not have a cell phone
|
| I don't believe this.
| majormajor wrote:
| I wouldn't be shocked. QR code to payment website instead of
| on-site card processing hardware. A new small shop may be
| trying to run things super minimally.
|
| I'm skeptical of the "chain" aspect - a chain is more likely
| to have hardware and support other methods - but a visitor
| may not know what is/isn't a chain anyway.
|
| _OR_ a particular employ is new or lazy and just didn 't
| want to drag out the hardware. ;)
| colonelxc wrote:
| I actually had a similar problem trying to park in a parking
| garage. I talked to some people working there (they were
| moving 'event day price' signs around). I asked if there was
| a kiosk or any other way to pay (other than by phone). They
| said there was not and said I just had to leave and find
| street parking.
|
| This happened when I was trying to park near a place to get
| my phone fixed!
| CadmiumYellow wrote:
| Over the past year all of the paid parking lots in my city
| have removed their kiosks and replaced them with QR codes
| that open a website with a very unwieldy form. Very
| annoying if your phone happens to be dead or broken or you
| run out of data or something!
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Joined a gym and they me to install an app and did a
| walkthrough. They way they asked was as if they were just
| asking me to pose for a photo, as if it was barely a request. I
| wonder what theyd say if I refused or said I had no phone.
|
| Also during covid scares the inconvenience of not having SMS
| and QR would have been insane.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| I can remember arguments in the airport because people didn't
| like it when you didn't step away to carry on a conversation in
| public. Candy Bar phones, anyone? I now use the Samsung Flip and
| love how small it fits in my pocket, but I still enjoy the large
| unfolded screen.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Just needs one more panel where the guy answers the phone only to
| hear a recording in Chinese telling them that their student loans
| or car insurance need vital attention.
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