Shameless plug: If you are interested in reading and discussing some of the books mentioned in this thread, we're looking for additional members: https://strangers-club.com
This is why I am going to drive my 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee until it explodes. The dash is wonderfully analog, with knobs and buttons and just the right amount of lighting. One day, I am going to start a business that specializes in ripping out new car technology and replacing it with quality analog components.
The simple issue I have with all of car technology is that most of it does not solve a problem I have. These days, we build shit not because it would be useful, but just because we can. And then businesses shove their products down your throat whether you want it or not. I don't know which car site on was on the other day, but they had a giant feature callout on the page for animated light sequences on the headlights and taillights, saying the car would "greet you" and say "goodbye" when you unlocked or locked the car.
I don't need my car to communicate with me like it's the fucking mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I want my vehicle to be a reliable but mostly unremarkable tool. We've got decades of engineering brain power and marketing know-how in play to bring a car to market, and car companies are trying to sell us on light beam sequences. I want off this planet.
And I find it funny that manufacturers are making screens look like phones and tablets. They float above or in front of the dash in the same way your phone would be positioned with a holder. I'd much rather have a great analog interior, with a strong magnet mount for my phone when I need it. With a simple bluetooth connection, you'd be good to go.
What about safety? I'd argue the added "safety" technology is just an illusion. The indicator lights on the dash and in the sideview mirrors whenever you're "too close" to a car or object are super distracting. As soon as you get up on the interstate, your eyes start twitching uncontrollably side to side in response to the side view proximity lights. "No officer, I haven't been drinking, my nystagmus is a side effect of driving my brand new car." And, even though everyone has backup screens these days, people still can't parallel park or get out of a grocery store parking without restarting the process no less than 10 times.
I also don't need to talk to my car. "Alexa, ask Jeep how much gas is left in my car." I bet you'd know if you didn't have to tap three times on a screen to see your fuel gauge.
I really don't know who these new vehicles are designed for. "Alexa, ask Jeep to accelerate and drive us off that cliff."
If you're interested in reading and talking about these types of books with people who have a similar bookish intuitions, shameless plug: https://strangers-club.com
Just wanted to leave a few quotes here, from The Sociological Imagination by C. Wright Mills, one of my favorite books. Also, if any of this resonates, see the link in my profile and come read with us:
"The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of men to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values. Even when they do not panic men often sense that older ways off feeling and thinking have collapsed and that newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of stasis. Is it any wonder that ordinary men feel they cannot cope with the larger worlds with which they are so suddenly confronted? That they cannot understand the meaning of their epoch for their own lives? That—in defense of selfhood—they become morally insensible, trying to remain altogether private men?
Is it any wonder that they come to be possessed by a sense of the trap? It is not only information that they need—in this Age of Fact, information often dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not only the skills of reason that they need—although their struggles to acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy. What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use information to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and what may be happening within themselves."
"What are the major issues for publics and the key troubles of private individuals in our time? To formulate issues and troubles, we must ask what values are cherished yet threatened, and what values are cherished and supported, by the characterizing trends of our period. In the case both of threat and of support we must ask what salient contradictions of structure may be involved.
When people cherish some set of values and do not feel any threat to them, they experience well-being. When they cherish values but do feel them to be threatened, they experience a crisis—either as personal trouble or as a public issue. And if all their values seem involved, they feel the total threat of panic.
But suppose people are neither aware of any cherished values, nor experience any threat? That is the experience of indifference, which, if it seems to involve all their values, becomes apathy. Suppose, finally, they are unaware of any cherished values, but still are very much aware of a threat? That is the experience of uneasiness, of anxiety, which if it is total enough, becomes a deadly unspecified malaise.
Ours is a time of uneasiness and indifference-not yet formulated in such ways as to permit the work of reason and the play of sensibility. Instead of troubles—defined in terms of values and threats—there is often the misery of vague uneasiness; instead of explicit issues there is often merely the beat feeling that all is somehow not right. Neither the values threatened nor whatever threatens them has been stated; in short, they have not been carried to the point of decision. Much less have they been formulated as problems of social science."
"Yet men do not usually define the roubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction. The well-being they enjoy, they do not usually impute to the big ups and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary men do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of men they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they take part."
He goes on to talk about the relationship between work and leisure as a "crisis of ambition" in American society. Great read.
Depends on your taste, and your budget! I love firm chairs, firm sofas, firm beds, etc. When I sit down into a chair or sofa and it feels like I lose my spine, I'll never get comfortable. This is especially true for a reading chair.
I rarely read long-form articles online these days. If it looks interesting, I'll print it. I read a lot of non-fiction, cover to cover, and always in physical form. I just enjoy sitting down with a book and marking it up. But also, I avoid recently published non-fiction because most of it reads like poorly edited blog posts. There are a few exceptions, but most of the new stuff doesn't draw me in the same way that older books do.
That said, I feel like because I do so much skimming online, just for work and whatnot, going from one physical page to the next while reading a book does something great for my brain. When I read offline, if I have selected the right book, I don't ever feel the need to skim. All of the time I spend reading offline feels like a compensatory reaction to the cognitive twitching that takes place in the browser all day.
Because we're talking about reading and non-fiction, here's a shameless plug for a non-fiction book club I'm putting together: https://strangers-club.com
Thanks for your thoughts! I should clarify that I am not looking to go to the bank with this project. But I did want to start shaping the idea, and part of that was defining a lightweight, uncomplicated subscription of sorts. From price to the number of people, to the books on the list, all of this is subject to change.
This is my attempt at organizing the kind of focused reading and discussion group I wish existed.
Truth is, I haven't found anyone in my own peer group who is reading, thinking, or talking about the effects of technology on society. Elull, Boorstin, Illich, Postman, McLuhan, de Tocqueville, Mumford, Baudrillard, Dewey, Debord...these are names you don't typically see on people's bookshelves. I'm eager to read alongside and talk to people who are equally curious about their works and ideas.
Anyway, I just wanted to get this out there, see if it resonates, and I'll update the page with questions and answers as needed. If you're interested, I'm happy to talk via email or over video if you just want to learn more.
Having spent the last few months away from technology to take care of my head, I find myself pacing around the living room waiting for a spark to return. This does not bother me in the least bit. I am someone who craves alone time. That means no music, no podcasts, no computer, no noise, no people. I am quite happy with a book and a writing pad. I want to be left alone to have a certain kind of inward experience.
As a side note, I have always felt that the point of reading is not to remember everything you have read, it is more to shape the way you think. And we might remember more of what we read if we would stop reading about other people's reading and productivity habits, and just keep to ourselves. But I digress.
Sometimes people ask what it is I am working on, or what it is I do by myself all of the time. The answer, of course, is not a whole lot. Ours is a society that celebrates participation and creativity, yet I feel no pressure to create for the sake of creating, or to share for the sake of sharing. And I do not feel guilty or lazy for not "producing" anything of note. If there is a hell, it is full of groups of people doing group activities, and I am required to participate and create and talk about whatever it is we are doing for eternity. What a nightmare.
To be sure, I have written plenty. But what I am driving at is that a lot of the writing or "creative work" I do is for my eyes only. Sometimes I think about sharing an essay, but I have to pause to ask myself if I want to share because I have something to say, or if I want to share because I am seeking validation. Most of the time, the desire to create comes not from some quiet space inside of me, but from the side of me that wants to be seen and heard. I find that the quality of my writing, or any creative work, is far better when it comes from the right mental state, rather than from an abstract sense of urgency that I should be creating something, anything.
On another note, having thought about this for awhile now, the deep need for solitude is part of who I am, but also a compensatory reaction to being connected all of the time. Whether we realize it or not, we spend the better half of our days in a sympathetic state. This has consequences, I think, that are different for everyone. Eventually, you have to deal with the residue of living and working at a pace that is often not of your own making. Sometimes you have to get your bearings before the creative spark comes back. That can take longer than expected.
In closing, it is worth paying attention to the kind of creativity that comes from helping a friend or lover make something better. Even though the project is not of your own making, being able to add a touch of your creative insight is intellectually rewarding in a unique way.
I've been thinking about organizing a snail mail letter writing initiative. Less about fancy stationary and pens and group writing sessions, more about one on one correspondence. I'd post a reading list, or a specific topic, and we'd spend a good chunk of time going back and forth to whatever end. Maybe in time, I'd share addresses (with permission) with other writers when I notice a common thread so that the conversation can branch out. I'd like to think this would be a good way to share ideas, and to learn through the act of writing, one thought after the other. And it would be a great way to practice handwriting.
Having had the luxury of stepping away from the screen for a few months to sort out what it is technology is doing to my nervous system, I've been heads down reading Jacques Ellul, Jean Baudrillard, Lewis Mumford, Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman, Daniel Boorstin, Carl Jung, Alan Hayakawa, C. W. Mills, Guy Debord, Wendell Berry, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, and all sorts of philosophy from Schopenhauer to Spinoza.
To be honest, I am having a hard time finding people to talk about this stuff with. That's where the idea comes from. On one hand, it seems like people don't read much these days. So there's that. And on the other hand, I haven't found many people who seem concerned about how our habits, behaviors, and thought patterns are changing in response to our digital environments.
Perhaps letter writing is too much to ask? I thought a physical note, and actually having a single person to write to, opposed to an unknown audience, would be a nice change of pace. That said, I suppose this might also take shape in a private Discourse community, or Basecamp message board, or something like that. A space where paragraphs and punctuation are required to participate.
If you are interested in letters, let me know? Or if you are interested in helping me whip up a digital space where we can hear ourselves think, let me know?
https://www.are.na/justin-s-ptylb5wff1u