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which I am seems to love electronics and the internet, go figure... no tv set or newspaper subscription though...
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Interesting article here...
Edits: 11/26/14
The article is NONSENSE. Computers are and CAN be lots of things. Intelligent is CURRENTLY not one of them.
Ask of a computer a question which a 5 year old could answer. You'll get NOTHING.
Computers can and are ingeniously programmed. Can act as 'experts' in quite a number of fields from medicine to engineering.
But ask one about an unknown disease or a machine which has yet to be invented, or to simply 'invent' something, and you won't even get an answer.
Too much is never enough
I like using the calculator.
...you can be some of both.
With a 24 year old daughter - the last generation born before cell phones - I felt like I had to get a smart iPhone to keep up with technology or it would pass me by.
Glad I did since everyone I know has a smart phone, texts and sends pictures.
TV is a little different - I dislike most TV, but watch the NBC news and local news every evening, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and Homeland. My wife watches other shows while I listen to music in the other room.
I still read 2 newspapers, at least 3 weekly and a half dozen monthly magazines.
And I read books,but once I get through my current stack, I may get a Kindle for convenience.
Kindle is just another excuse to get your personal data. They could GIVE them away and still make money out of resale of YOUR data, buying habits and site visits.
You need an ACCOUNT to do almost anything.
I had been given one and I regifted it within a week.
However, you MAY want to get the Kindle Reader for your COMPUTER than you'll have full access to Gutenberg Project which is MILLIONS of free books in all the popular formats. Lots of out-of-copyright stuff is just a click away.
Too much is never enough
Luddites read newspapers, because newspapers pre-date luddites. Gotta get
your news from somewhere.
If I lived alone, I'd have no TV. But my GF cannot live without the TV. I
find TV on all levels to be an insult to anyone with an IQ above room temp.
I have a 3 year old laptop computer. I have 2 digital cameras. I have a
small sound system, and satellite radio in my car.
I guess I'm not a luddite.
your gf's IQ is only double figures? ;-))
Seriously, mine certainly has an IQ well into 3 figures ... but she's a sucker for "reality" shows (which I detest).
Regards,
Andy
Yes, probably 80-90% of it is. But the rest "can be" pretty good. Some is great but very little. I'll be happy to expound on that. I find I dislike 80-90% of restaurants too since fast food and corporate chains has to be included in that group. That doesn't mean I won't go out to eat.Most people are a waste of time. Nice thing is the rest can make up for that on some level. My wife and I share a cell. No smart phones, a laptop and a harsh refusal to jump on pop culture bandwagons whether with technology (smart phone, tablet) or any other category. Long live the full duplex land line! And I can't get newspaper delivery where I live, no cable or gas lines just ugly propane tanks which I don't have.
ET
Edits: 11/24/14
Absolutely, but more and more, the other party is speaking through a crappy cell phone or cordless handset, often in speakerphone mode. There goes the full duplex advantage, and one has to endure the exasperation that follows.
My own cordless phone sits adjacent to my 1957 Western Electric 500 (the youngest of my phones), for those times when I need to insert tones to complete a call.
Long live brass bells!
Yep, I heart ya. I always run into that too. I too have a few vintage phones. None as old as yours and your youngest is older than me! I did grow up with an old phone with its polarity reversed so it wouldn't ring and incur extra charges from ma Bell. My dad was an electronics guy. It's where I got the bug.
ET
Me thinks you and I are on the same wavelength. Couldn't have said it better myself.
I totally hate having a cell phone.
.
Freak out...Far out...In out....
Yes and with me know having a small business and a website I need a cell at times. I still don't list its number on my site though. I use a track phone and spend only $80/year. No voice mail is set up and I do not read or respond to text messages. Take that you piece of crap cell phone industry......I'm sure they are laughing at me but I am proud of my stance if you will. You are either part of the solution or part of the problem.
ET
And I wisely purchased one (for $39!) that provides me with triple minutes for life. If I use the phone strictly for screening calls (or quick outbound calls) and then call back on my $25/mo. landline, I find that I can use the TracFone for about $18/mo. That, to me, is about what these things are worth.
I silently chuckle when I see my friends ponying up $400+ for a fancy smartphone and then paying $100 - $200 per month to use it. That, IMHO, is *insane* - I've had car payments that are less!!
-RW-
Another TracFone user here, mine is for emergencies, etc. Anybody wants to speak to me, call on my landline, leave a message if I don't pick up.
No Iphone, no "smart" phone, no MP3, no tablet, not even a laptop.
I don't feel that I need to be available to anybody at their beck and call. Being retired and independent is true freedom!!!!!!
Cheers,
Al
And I'm referring to the expectation that because I have a cell phone, I am expected to drop whatever it is that I'm doing and *immediately* respond to your call or txt msg. My cell phone exists for *my* convenience, not yours.
Unless, of course, you're willing to pay all of my expenses incurred by owning it. Otherwise, I'll get back to you when it is convenient for me, bubbe...
-RW-
your example is quite the opposite of one
Instruments of propaganda is all they are. Good for you.
My kid likes Modern Family and The Walking Dead. I can't blame her. At least, internet and Netflix fill in for the other 'ancient' media that have been largely co-op'ed anyway.
Luddites are people who don't trust themselves to make use of what's useful in new technologies without being contaminated by what's 'evil' in them. I see that as a kind of superstition masquerading as moral purity, a fear of the Devil. Not that anyone asked me.
I just find telephones to be a major PIA, and portable devices even more so.
I don't have the need nor desire to be constantly tethered to the rest of the hive.
As for evil, I LIKE a little evil...
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
I put evil in quotes to suggest the point of view of the Luddite I was inventing here.
I hate telephones too but Modern Technology now flashes the caller's number/name on my TV screen and phone and also tells me via my answering system who it is. So our phone seldom gets answered...and very few messages are left. Phone Spammers are worse than the email kind.
I mean who answers a call from "Name Unavailable?" It's also as bad at Asylum members with false names!
i heavily doubt true luddites - today or in historical context - would have thought of themselves in that way.
roger wang
Of course not. They would say that "superstition" is a word materialists apply to anyone who believes materialism does not exhaust the possibilities. And they would go on to say that every step we take to remove things from our own hands is a step toward abandoning our humanity. They ascribe a goodness to humanity that is well...superstitious. Their favorite adjective is natural. And yeah, most of us have some of that in us, we're just not ites.
Edits: 11/23/14
but why superstitious? ("goodness to humanity" equaling in your interpretation) they saw machines as replacing human labor and maybe dehumanizing. can you explain, by modern standards, how superstition comes into play? also, i never read where critics of luddites accused them of being superstitious.
thanks for interest.
roger wang
My sense is that believing that humanity is something especially noble that machines can/will infect with their...well inhumanity (of course they can but they needn't) is a form of superstition. Humanism has replaced religion for some, attaching a spirituality to us that, for example, dogs and proposes are supposed to lack. Not to make too big a deal of this, it's mainly just sentimentality. We needn't become or be replaced by our tools, though I'll concede some of us are more susceptible to that than others. All I'm saying is if and where that happens, God is not dying again. I've not heard superstition applied to Luddites before either but that's what it feels like to me. I like it. I also prefer books to Kindles, paint brushes to sprayers, and still write my first drafts of reviews in pencil. I'm just sentimental: I don't attach any special spiritual value to book or writing stick,just prefer 'em. My nineteen-year-old doesn't share my sentiments, nor need he. etc.
The physical connection to the things you mention are important to how many of us connect, shape and interact with them.
I'd use a pen and quill if the results would be anything resembling cohesively readable.
Kind of surprised you don't do the vinyl thing anymore; it's part of that tactile tradition many don't seem aware of.
Even the keyboard at a computer offers a tactile experience you don't get with current electronic communication devises.
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
I still do vinyl. Sold 'em all (c. 2000) a long time ago, then heard PQ's vinyl rig in Hove, and went on EBay to buy 'em all back! Dumbest and then smartest thing I ever did. I don't know how much I prefer vinyl to CD's at this point, I just find them somewhat different and then forget it and listen. CD reproduction has come a long way. Yes, a different way but not a bad way.
I'm not in love with the whole ritual of playing LP's though; to me that's a perfect example of sentimentality, a ritual which is nothing more than it is. Sentiment is not a sin, it's just not anything more than what it is.
Google Sven Berkerts, one of the best known contemporary Luddites. He's a very good writer but sentimental at the center. Just reading him helps to understand that state of mind.
but then I have no car (nor use for one) either.
Then again, it's been quite a while since I threw a TV out a window...
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
I don't have a phone of any type. I do use a notebook laptop and it's still running on microsoft xp(I think). Have a flatscreen tv with extended basic cable but never bother with ordering movies,etc. I have a 12+ year old Onkyo cd changer and a panasonc dvd changer. Still collect vinyl,lps and 45s. My stereo is 70s-early 80s vintage. So I'm into technology but just don't have a need for the latest in everything. I really don't give a shit.
I don't know - I thought a Luddite was a person who rejected the most current technology. It seems to me that newspapers, printed or otherwise are not included in that definition. I'm not sure about tv sets.
whata crack up!
would help a person qualify as a luddite, no?
----------------------
"E Burres Stigano"
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