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Is the Next Big Thing In Tech -- Disconnecting From It? (cnbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes CNBC: It is inevitable that artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation will take over some jobs, internet entrepreneur Arianna Huffington told CNBC in a recent email exchange, but that will place a premium on uniquely human qualities in the future labor market -- creativity, compassion, empathy and complex problem-solving. That's where Huffington sees a pressing problem to solve. She says these human qualities are at risk today and the cause is -- no surprise -- too much technology. Her advice: Reevaluate your relationship with technology before it is too late. "These are the very qualities that are diminished when we're burned out from being always on," Huffington said of human abilities like creativity. "One of the next frontiers in the tech world is technology that helps us disconnect from technology and create time and space to connect not with screens but with other people and with ourselves...."

Huffington, who is an executive producer on the new '90s tech-sector docudrama "Valley of the Boom," said the consumer relationship with technology is one of the most important issues of the modern era, and it is time to reevaluate the seeds that were planted back in the '90s during that first internet boom.... "Even for those of us old enough to remember the first boom and to have lived through it, it's sometimes hard to remember that there was a time before we were all hyperconnected and glued to our screens. And seeing the decisions that were made that led to our current moment makes us realize we can also make decisions about how we use this technology."

To this end Huffington has launched a startup called Thrive Global "to go beyond raising awareness and create something real and tangible that would help individuals, companies and communities improve their well-being and performance and unlock their greatest potential." CNBC reports that Huffington "sees a bright future for a new kind of technology -- the kind that helps individuals disconnect from the damage done by the internet's first generation."

In a related story, Bloomberg reports that the Ashton Kutcher-backed meditation app 'Calm' now has a valuation of $1 billion.

112 comments

  1. Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by lucasnate1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just ask every kid who's addicted to games because they provide him with the positive feedback that the rest of society doesn't.

    1. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fake compassion, fake empathy, fake feedback.
      Just like so-called 'social media'.

    2. Re: Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I never had a problem with games. I was addicted to my giggling schoolgirl classmates

    3. Re: Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by lucasnate1 · · Score: 1

      If enough people get acquainted to it, fake becomes the new real.

    4. Re: Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trouble is while the game gives him feedback that feels like that, it doesn't teach him to treat others the same way. There seems to be an ever increasing amount of socially inept and selfish young people. They've grown up spending too much time alone and reading too many opinions of trolls.

    5. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      The Simulated Empathy and Compassion just stops you from feeling bad.
      The Real Empathy and Compassion will help you feel good.

      Empathy and Compassion, the real ones, is earned or given and when received it feels good.
      The type from Computers, basically is simulated at to not insult the user, and prevent them from feeling bad.

      However I don't feel that Video Games gives Empathy and Compassion, but it gives them empowerment.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    6. Re: Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      If you die in the matrix, you die in real life.

    7. Re: Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and if you blow your load in a dream, you still have to change the sheets or Putin can compromise you and make you repeal the Magnitsky Act.

    8. Re: Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Real empathy and compassion are extremely rare. If it seems fake it probably is. The real stuff stands out big time

    9. Re: Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lame hoax yet again. And all that

    10. Re: Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the comments and images I exchange with my mother today over social media today are fake, then so were the handwritten letters and photographs we exchanged via postal mail 30 years ago.

      Here's a life lesson for you. Most of your in person social interactions are just as fake.

    11. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by rtb61 · · Score: 0, Flamebait
      Lets not beat about the bush, we are talking computer geeks and nerds (the majority will be white males too but in reality it makes no difference colour, nationality or sex), will get ZERO compassion ZERO empathy and well no zero but ABUSIVE, like it is a national corporate main stream media sport. The compassion, empathy and positive feedback we get from other computer geeks and nerds online.

      You have a social interaction problem with regards to EXTROVERTS only, introverts are happy and content but for some reason liberal arts twonks wont leave them alone and want to change their lives or as it turns out actively destroy them for refusing to change.

      Yes, you day have a problem with failed extroverts who have trapped themselves within false social interactions and are now psychologically suffering. So you fix the problem with the solution that has been around for decades, group therapy sessions, voluntary get the directly associating with each and discussing their shared problems, you might not call them group therapy session but that is what they are.

      Leave us introvert computer geeks and nerds and otaku and ÐsомÐÑOEÑZÑÐÑÑÐÐ and Jà kà etc. etc. out of your ideological delusions. We prefer reason over beliefs, your beliefs should be your problem not mine. Introvert computer geek/nerd it's a global culture and not a fucking problem.

      We have to differentiate between the two, introverts and extroverts, we do not want to force solutions for one as a destructive harmful psychological attack on the other.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    12. Re: Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the fuck does rtb smoke and why do moderators have a hard on for her?

    13. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by lucasnate1 · · Score: 1

      You sound very repressed and lonely, I hope your life gets better.

    14. Re: Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're isolated from their peers, then punished severely for making any mistake visible to any authority figures. If they actually cooperate with each other they're punished by authority figures who upset by not being in control of them.

      It's practically a recipe for personality disorders.

    15. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      ... it gives them empowerment.

      I agree, and that sense of empowerment is very persuasive.

      The emphasis is on the word, "sense."

      The "sense of empowerment" gained from online is similar to the "sense of sex" from masturbation.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    16. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Not fake at all. The brain chemicals created are quite real. It's astonishing to see such basic ignorance of biology modded to +5 on Slashdot - but maybe it isn't.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    17. Re: Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      So that somehow makes it okay?

    18. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      So by your logic being addicted to porn, for instance, and not being interested in actual sex with an actual person of the opposite gender is perfectly okay, because the 'brain chemicals created (by porn) are quite real'? Are you really going to take that position?

      Your kid ends up going through life with a 'social anxiety disorder' because he can't relate properly to people live-in-person and can only really be comfortable if it's 'interacting' through social media; the brain chemicals are 'real' according to you, so that makes it okay for him to be that way?

      I think you need to think through this a little more carefully.

    19. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      You sound very repressed and lonely, I hope your life gets better.

    20. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      You said the feelings were fake. They are not. The brain chemicals are real, the feelings are real. I didn't say it was OK. You made up a position and assigned me to it. Stop doing that.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    21. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      You made the same comment with this account and your other sockpuppet account, genius.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    22. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      No I just copypasted someone else's. Unlike some and perhaps you I don't have multiple accounts so I can troll people.

    23. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Don't copy & paste other people's comments. Especially uncreative ad hominems. You might want to look in to posting less often.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    24. Re:Compassion and empathy are easy to simulate by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Haters gonna hate.

  2. Best Idea Ever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Disconnect the battery from your car and hook it up to your balls. Trump Powa!

    1. Re:Best Idea Ever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      12 volts for everyone... than we can make cars... fml

    2. Re:Best Idea Ever by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Hooking up a 6 or 12 volt battery to your balls will do nothing except maybe the clamps will pinch.

      It's the current that matters. Human body parts have a resistance to current. Put 9 volt battery terminals on your dry skin (balls) and it will be unimpressive.

      "Taste," the 9 volt battery and you'll get a pretty good jolt on your tongue. In the former case, the resistance is high and the latter, the wet tomgue's resistance is low. Lower resistance means higher current.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  3. Apps to use fewer apps? by DogDude · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This article is beyond stupid.

    Self-care and wellness applications for smartphone devices have been booming. Meditation apps, like Headspace and Calm, have grown into huge successes on app stores by helping consumers manage anxiety and stress.

    Instead of using an app, how about turning off your fucking phone? Jesus. We don't tell heroin addicts that they'll feel better with a little more heroin. People need to turn their phones off, or even better, get rid of them completely. Almost nobody NEEDS a smartphone for anything.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
    1. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by TeknoHog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, the cool guys who used to laugh at us geeks were a couple of decades late to the IT party, so let's give them a few more years to realize the obvious.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      said DogDude from his smartphone.

    3. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Funny

      Instead of using an app, how about turning off your fucking phone? Jesus.

      I totally agree.

      Sent from my iPhone.

    4. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Headspace is just guided medication. Lots of people do human guided meditations, so in that case it isn't really that strange to use an app -- which does nothing more than play recordings. Personally, having used the free version of Headspace, I find the guy's Shatneresque intonation really distracting.

    5. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by ArhcAngel · · Score: 1

      Says the guy who's been on /. since ~2000.

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    6. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      This article is beyond stupid.

      Indeed, it is. It is also a marketing-ploy, pretty much along the lines of curing one addiction with another (and possibly worse) one.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    7. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Yeah. We were pushed into a corner for decades and now that we made gold in that corner we are called toxic, sexist, xenophobic, alt-right, literally any modern slur to force us out of where we were forced in to.

      Pathetic how transparent the dead-weight portion of society is.

    8. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by DogDude · · Score: 1

      Ir's an awesome marketing ploy. There's tremendous gadget addiction (at least in the US right now), and some people are starting to realize it, so why not make an app that lets people pretend they're tacking their addiction, while in reality, they're getting even more addicted? That is fucking genius (and evil).

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    9. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And there's todays winning comment, for the catergory of irony ...

    10. Re: Apps to use fewer apps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well heroin is an interesting choice, so you never heard of methadone treatment?

    11. Re: Apps to use fewer apps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thatâ(TM)s exactly how heroin addicts are handled. Treatment programs rarely advocate detox. They are put on management programs with prescribed opiates.

    12. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    13. Re: Apps to use fewer apps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please donâ(TM)t speak for geeks. You are not a geek, you are a loser.

    14. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the
      beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying
      for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and
      you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek
      after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color,
      without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals.
      You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us
      and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.

      Blast from the past hacker manifesto. Nobody cares what race you are, or even if you are a human at all. That is one of the greatest virtues in the tech community, once called a subculture. All that matters is what you can do. But now, people like you are destroying it with your own words:

      white male snowflake

      As if anyone who pounded away at a keyboard deep into the night to make the technological world we live in couldn't be anything except a white male.

    15. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lol nazi faggot self-rationalizes idiotic failzistence, news at 11

    16. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This article is beyond stupid.

      It might be, however...

      We don't tell heroin addicts that they'll feel better with a little more heroin.

      Yes, we do. We just don't call it heroin, we call it methadone. And for nicotine addiction we use nicotine patches or chewing gums. So why wouldn't we use apps for apps addictions?

    17. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 0

      Yeah. We were pushed into a corner for decades and now that we made gold in that corner we are called toxic, sexist, xenophobic, alt-right, literally any modern slur to force us out of where we were forced in to.

      Pathetic how transparent the dead-weight portion of society is.

      Best comment all week! Sorry, modpointless at the moment.

    18. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by kenai_alpenglow · · Score: 1

      Well we sorta do...shoot-em-up parks, free needles,...

    19. Re: Apps to use fewer apps? by GhostBond · · Score: 1

      Yeah wish I had mod points, this sums it up perfectly.

    20. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by doom · · Score: 1
      Not all geeks.

      But most idiots.

      Bulk of the actual scorn is reserved for "fratbros": fake geeks chasing a gold rush.

    21. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Nobody NEEDS a TV. Nobody NEEDS books. The real answer is to just worry about individual needs and stay out of other people's business.

      I'm a retired IT guy, 73 years old, and I grew up with all this shit.

      I just checked my wallet and every thing's there. Looking in the mirror, no one busted me in the nose.

      I'm good to go despite technological opportunities to get to know the rabbits by fucking name.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    22. Re:Apps to use fewer apps? by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Good point, I was just going to comment that anyone taking Huffington and Kucher's advice should see professional help. But, I didn't think about the marketing, and I'm sure our /. friends will likely get a little something for the slashvertisement.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
  4. Late to the party, Huffington by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 2

    I've thought for quite a while now that people are too reliant on technology -- and I'm far from alone in thinking that.

    1. Re:Late to the party, Huffington by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      +1

      I piffed the phone in the trash about 2 years ago. Not long after I realized the declining problem solving capabilities of those around me.

      Go figure.

    2. Re:Late to the party, Huffington by gweihir · · Score: 1

      I used to think that, but I do not anymore. Even though the current tech and Internet infrastructure is not really good, western society is critically dependent on it, which means that any severe problem will be addressed with high intensity. Not the same as having good (secure, reliable) tech, but the next best thing. And when something has so much invested in it and has become so critical, then it is only rational to depend on it and people do.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:Late to the party, Huffington by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      The problem is that it isn't critical. I don't need to, for example, talk to my radio to get it to change the channel. I don't need to have a computer-voice telling me when to turn my car. These things are 0% critical, yet somehow people are volunteering to have Amazon record every word that gets whispered in their home, and throwing away all of their navigation and map-reading skills. If you're going to tell me these scenarios offer an even trade-off, you'll have to justify that.

      They sure like it when they get you to believe these things are critical, however. Just like any dope peddler. You don't even have the autonomy afforded to a "customer" in this scenario - you're simply a user - hooked.

    4. Re:Late to the party, Huffington by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Well, some things are not critical, true. But imagine what non-available web or email does to a modern economy if it last more than a day or so.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    5. Re:Late to the party, Huffington by ezdiy · · Score: 1

      To cue an obligatory car analogy, cars are not really critical either. Just convenient. The fun part is how convenience transforms into "critical".

      Want to get out to hang out with acquaintances? It becomes more than merely inconvenient to not use facebook anymore - it becomes mandatory as imposed by networking effects of culture itself. Just as cars were a convenience at first, but later increasingly became a necessity.

      Civilization creates its own addictions and "necessities".

    6. Re:Late to the party, Huffington by nine-times · · Score: 1

      I've also been arguing for years that someone needs to come up with a sensible system for managing alerts/notifications. We have all kinds of little notifications that pop up and grab our attention, and there really aren't sufficient ways to say, "Only interrupt what I'm doing with a notification if these sets of circumstances are met. If any of these other circumstances are met, then compile the notifications into a report that I can review when I want to. Everything else, ignore it and don't ever tell me about it."

      The problem is, the tech industry isn't going to allow there to be systems that let end-users use technology how and when they want to, and to otherwise ignore it. The tech industry is making too much money forcing end-users to operate in the terms that advertisers set.

    7. Re:Late to the party, Huffington by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      How, precisely, does people who are, in your assessment, "too reliant on technology" affect your life? How do those extant dependencies intrude on your well being?

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    8. Re:Late to the party, Huffington by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      But you did not piff the problem, right? Here you are. You're no longer using a phone to get here, but you are using a substitute.

      What did you switch to, a tablet? a desktop? a portable?

      Obviously, your approach satisfactorily addressed the "problem solving capabilities of those around" you, or you would not be here, right?

      Please explain how your change in behaviour affected those around you.

      Thanks.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    9. Re:Late to the party, Huffington by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Good point. I love car analogies. Notice that the dependency on cars did not make us all insane, non-productive zombies.

      I'm old enough to recall the encouragement from car manufacturers to go Sunday driving. People got to visit places that were unreachable before there were cars.

      Then the parents bought their kid a car. Unbelievable. Nowadays, high school kids have their own freaking parking lot.

      Still no sign of mental illness despite addiction to the technology of cars.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    10. Re:Late to the party, Huffington by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hello Jehanne Butler... was wondering when you'd show up.

    11. Re: Late to the party, Huffington by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      There is actually quite a bit of mental illness due to cars. Lead poisoning directly causes it, and for a good 70 years, cars would spew lead residue onto anything and anyone nearby. Once we banned lead fuel additives, the prevalence of developmental disorders declined from its peak in the 80s. But persistent heavy traffic noise has been linked to dementia in the elderly, which I believe is still rising. And it's not like the non-lead pollution from cars is harmless either.

      Then we have the deaths caused directly by the vehicles, traffic accidents being the #1 cause of accidental death until just last year. (Overtaken by fentanyl overdoses, thanks to our latest phase of the drug war: making legitimate pharmaceutical opiates unobtainable).

      Obviously we need to transport certain things over road, but I'd be A-OK with cutting out 80% of my own driving. Briefly last year, I moved to a more central area of the city with access to a light rail network, and I loved it. Walking a few blocks to the station felt great, physically. I would much rather watch YouTube on the train than beat my car up for hours each day in stop and go traffic. Oh, and the homeless people I saw on the train caused me a lot less property damage and annoyance than the assholes on I-10 have.

      Cars, the way most people currently use them - definitely something that could be reduced, to everyone's benefit. The problems with bringing viable alternatives online are completely political, not technological.

    12. Re:Late to the party, Huffington by sad_ · · Score: 1

      there was some guy in a cabin in the woods who said the same thing, then he started to mail bombs...

      --
      On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
  5. Arianna Huffington? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Give ne a break. No, none of the things she mentioned are guaranteed or even necessarily functional at this point, and her perspective is that of a Kool-aid drinking 20 year-old. Editors? Editors? Does Slashdot even have editors anymore?

  6. 1 Billion USD Valuation for a Meditation App by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's your damage done by the first-generation internet right fucking there!

    1. Re:1 Billion USD Valuation for a Meditation App by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Made by AShton Kucher! You know, the dumbass who shacked up with Bruce Willis' busted old cunt? and her rugrats? He pays spousal support for that wise investment. A true millennial.

    2. Re:1 Billion USD Valuation for a Meditation App by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed. Completely insane.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re: 1 Billion USD Valuation for a Meditation App by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also shows income inequality, instead spending a bit of money at the local gym or community center to learn meditation, all that money gets goes to Ashton Kutcher who paid no more than $10 million to make it (50 employees * $200,000)

  7. Fresh new thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hack journalist. Makes a billion. Decides to become a messiah and tell people how they should live their lives.

    She could at least have tried a track different from all the other robber barons.

    Classwork lacks imagination. D-

    1. Re: Fresh new thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Starts with Facebook. Ends with Facebook. Any questions?

  8. How about finding friends who network in meatspace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are still come out there you know.

    Alternatively, make your own offline time by setting your decide to mute, putting an away reponse for email/txts/ims and do your stuff away then come back.

    Personally though myself and my friends already do that. You set it down, leave it for a half hour, hour, half day, and you get back to them when it's convenient. This always on culture is really a reflection of the general sickness in society. It's not a new sickness, just the symptom has migrated to always on digital tech usage, rather than whatever the vice of the previous era was (drugs, sex, books, booze, gambling, violence.)

  9. Try camping by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    CNBC reports that Huffington "sees a bright future for a new kind of technology -- the kind that helps individuals disconnect from the damage done by the internet's first generation."

    You don't use more gizmos or apps to disconnect, you just disconnect. When was the last time she has been outside of cell service, not counting air travel?

  10. Disconnecting malware/botnets/trackers is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: Via APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux/BSD h t t p : / / a p k . i t - m a t e . c o . u k / A P K H o s t s F i l e E n g i n e F o r L i n u x . z i p

    Yields more security/speed/reliability/anonymity vs. any 1 solution (99% of threats use hostnames vs. IP address most firewalls use) more efficiently/FASTER + NATIVELY 4 less!

    Vs. "Bolt on 'MoAr' illogic-logic" slowing u hosts speed u up 2 ways: Adblocks + Hardcode fav. sites u spend most time @ vs. competition w/ security bugs (DNS/AntiVir) + overheads slowing u (messagepass 'souled-out' to advertisers easily detected & blocked addons + firewall filtering drivers) & their complexity leads to exploit!

    * ONLY 1 of its kind in GUI 4 Linux/BSD (soon 4 MacOS)!

    (Better vs. Windows model)

    APK

    P.S.=> Protects vs. scripts/trackers (kernelmode faster vs. usermode slower NoScript vs. 3rd party script)/ads/DNS request tracking + redirect poisoned or downed DNS/botnets/malware download/malcript/email malicious payload

    1. Re: Disconnecting malware/botnets/trackers is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because you're spamming Slashdot again, I'm going to turn my spambot back on and impersonate you. Time for a few hundred posts from you whining about bump stocks and bullying. Don't like it? Too fucking bad, you should have thought about this before deciding to spam Slashdot with your bullshit.

  11. Idiot: Grep -v *.nazifaggot* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's not like you were going to have anything interesting to say anyway, nazi faggot.

    1. Re: Idiot: Grep -v *.nazifaggot* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hahahhhhhhh!!!!!!... say again?

  12. And a thousand wellness apps are launched by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is almost a slashvertisement, but I know slashdot is too incompetent to make money.

    Which is more ancient and out of touch Huffington or Slashdot?

    I am sitting in an incubator right now and the amount of wellness/psych crap being pitched... ugh. I need a wellness app to escape from wellness apps.

    1. Re:And a thousand wellness apps are launched by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      So here you are at slashvertisement helping them being incompetent at making money.

      Appreciate your contribution to slashvertisement revenue stream, bloke.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  13. A problem of cashing in. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem here is not the technology, the problem here is the companies that make the technology. In short, they have positioned themselves in such a way that the more you use their technology, the more they profit. It's this parasitic relationship that is the issue. As such, some people are beginning to discover that their lives are better without these parasites invading their lives and stealing their time. A desirable outcome would be application that maximize your capabilities without trying to exploit you endlessly for profit. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening in the mainstream until society hits rock bottom and realizes it has an addiction problem which isn't going to happen any time soon because most fools still have Facebook accounts despite being told how it's hurting them.

    The EU is fighting for their countries but the US is really doomed for until most of the current generations die off.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re: A problem of cashing in. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Very stupid! Lame fucking boob licker go back and bite my ass and donâ(TM)t pull your hair out thinking if something else to write. Er or whatever

    2. Re:A problem of cashing in. by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      The EU is fighting for their countries but the US is really doomed for until most of the current generations die off.

      The difference between privacy concerns re: EU and US is that the home base is in the US.

      ALL countries should, in my opinion, establish law that knocks down the insanity of monetizing the internet at the expense of personal privacy.

      It will not happen. The whole planet is in the grip of the Capitalist Party.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  14. Nope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You'd have to replace it with something and there is nothing people want to replace it with. People use it to escape their lives and the tasks they've been putting off. In order for tech disconnect to become a real thing, other than something simply cool to claim, something would have to take its place and that hasn't happened.

  15. Not disconnecting from it - Managing it by apoc.famine · · Score: 1

    I've been skipping most all social media, blocking most all ads, and relying on my RSS feed for a long time now. Managing tech, information, and the broader internet is where it's at. Fixing the signal to noise ratio issues, blocking the shit, and trying to let a sliver of truth get through all your defenses.

    It's not easy, but if you work at it you can get closer to something worthwhile than most.

    I'm generally pretty happy with my RSS feed. It's got some decent variety, and it filters out most of the blatant propaganda and news-entertainment on all sides. It's got an international look at the US, which I find helpful. It's also got an international view, which is sorely missing in most US news. I know this is a war I'm going to fight for the rest of my life, but I'm in it for the long run.

    I'm going to fight the force-feeding of propaganda to me as long as I can. Disconnecting is not the answer. You get nothing then, and that's not helpful.

    --
    Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    1. Re:Not disconnecting from it - Managing it by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      I don't use RSS, but I do most of the other things you do.

      I did delete Facebook recently. I don't miss it. Social cooling, whereby participants are self-restrained from posting anything more controversial than shared cat videos made the platform boring while still being dangerous.

      I know where to go to get real news, for instance. The Facebook bubble is useless as tits on a boar.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  16. "thriveglobal" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Kaiser Permanente might have something to say about that company name. "Thrive" is a term they've been using for quite a while as a service if not trademark - certainly, in a lot of advertising.

  17. Seems like a trustworthy voice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Damage done by what now?

    Is she still related to Huffington Post? The intent's enflamed herpes?

    1. Re: Seems like a trustworthy voice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who knows? I bet there a whole bunch of different places they post their stuff. Maybe someone wants to post a comprehensive list of variations.

  18. Everyone knows I don't whine... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: You do - it's what you're doing! I stop the BIGGEST SPAMMERS that infect/track/slow you in advertisers (as well as blocking malware/botnets + scripts...)

    * Keep whini' there, "whinin' willy" (lol)...

    APK

    P.S.=> I could care less about bumpstocks or your attempts @ "bullying" (lol, pussy that STALKS me by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous posts OR by IMPERSONATING me (proving you WISH you were ME))... apk

  19. Styx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is not a new idea...

    "The problem's plain to see. Too much technology. Machines to save our lives. Machines dehumanize."
    Lyrics from "Mr. Roboto" by Styx - 1983

  20. Re:Idiot: Grep -v *.nazifaggot* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously how dafuq does that work, do you wear a pink triangle with your swatstika?

  21. LEARN BASIC SHIT NUMBNUTS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    THE 1st AMENDMENT IS AGAINST GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP ONLY. YOU DO NOT GET A PASS IN PUBLIC. YOU SAY DUMB SHIT, CONSEQUENCES.

    YMMV.

    STOP.

    BEING.

    DUMB.

    Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
    Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
    Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
    Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

    1. Re:LEARN BASIC SHIT NUMBNUTS by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      AC that depends if a site is just working like a utility for people and passing on their comments, links.
      When social media censors and takes full responsibility for every comment and link as the publisher of its users work and links.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  22. all of humanity's dreams are cursed somehow by js290 · · Score: 1

    "The view that we should not worry about any of these things and follow technology to wherever it will go is insane," said @daronacemogIu, an economist at MIT. https://t.co/NvHdDpaPLv

    — Decivilized (@decivilized) February 9, 2019

    "[Previously], I didn’t think this was a very complicated subject; The #Luddites were wrong and the believers in technology & technological progress were right,” Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary and presidential economic adviser “I’m not so completely certain now.”

    — Decivilized (@decivilized) February 9, 2019

    "People who design airplanes and machines... no matter how much they believe that what they do is good, the winds of time eventually turn them into tools of industrial civilization. It's never unscathed. They're cursed dreams. Animation, too. Today, all of humanity's dreams are cursed somehow. Beautiful, yet cursed dreams... What I mean is, how do we know movies are even worthwhile? Most of our world is rubbish... It's difficult." --Hayao Miyazaki, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
  23. Where do they find these people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This woman's main contribution to society is to prove that, with words alone, she can cause wide scale vomiting.

    I remember the time before the internet. I didn't like it.

  24. "Uniquely human" by sound+vision · · Score: 1

    "that will place a premium on uniquely human qualities in the future labor market"... in other words, we will all have jobs bullshitting eachother. I guess someone figured this was less damaging to society than (for example) UBI or free housing. I sure hope it's true, but we've been slowly transitioning to the "bullshit model" of employment since the industrial revolution, and it's been a bit of a rollercoaster.

  25. We were already addicted to screens... by blahplusplus · · Score: 1

    ... it was called television. TV existed long before computers. The naive idea people were "more connected" back in the day is quite the bit of bullshit. People have always had a love hate relationship with other people, including their own family.

    If we want better relationships that would require whether most human beings are actually capable of genuine relationships. If human history is anything to go by the answer is not really, racism, war, poverty, environmental destruction, stupid politics. Human beings are not well put together life forms on the whole.

  26. Nostalgia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In other news: Old man yells at cloud for not being 'like the clouds we used to have'.

  27. monetizing meditation ??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    a ... meditation app ... is worth $1b? ... sometimes I want to kill myself... how do you extract monetized value from ... meditation ??? you just sit there and breathe ... no profit ... no goal .. no motive... you just sit and breathe... how is that worth anything, let alone $1b?

  28. Ain't no such thing as 'too much technology' by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    Because any technology, no matter how primitive, can be misused, regressing to some earlier level of it will not magically cure problems in human culture. I could use a shillelagh to gratuitously go around bullying people - or I could use it to hunt food for my family.

    But I'm glad that Ariana Huffington is pushing this. If we could get her to relaunch her failing site in cuneiform pressed into clay tablets, there will be fewer bad ideas being spread.

  29. Control = Disconnect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When the moment comes where individuals no longer have control of their personal data, identity, access and privacy," watch their feet" as Turks like to say.

  30. And Yet No One Will Disconnect... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    10 to 1 odds the vast majority of these people who are expressing their hate and disdain for technology by using technology will do nothing whatsoever to truly curb their "screen time." It reminds me vaguely of parents telling their kids to go out and climb a tree and get away from that screen, while refusing to remove their face from Candy Crush.

  31. This again.. by jythie · · Score: 1

    So yet another wave of companies trying to sell 'authenticity' as having no definable characteristics but somehow better and worth paying them instead of those 'fakes' over there?

  32. Get rid of tech and shutdown Slashdot? Confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm missing something in this debate

  33. parasite pendulum eternal treadmill by epine · · Score: 1

    As such, some people are beginning to discover that their lives are better without these parasites invading their lives and stealing their time.

    The parasite pendulum is not new.

    11-year-old boy to friend: What happened to your uncle Jack? He's awfully weird.

    Friend: Mom won't say, but I once heard Dad whispering something about "too many apps".

    And so the deep generational learning continues.

    ———

    I listened to a disappointing podcast this week about the Kibbutz Movement.

    It mostly dealt with the economic incentives to stay or leave. It constantly commented on how the second and third generations never had quite the same ideological purity as the founding generation (among other things, this is simple regression to the mean).

    What they never once commented upon in this podcast is that children learn from their parents, and I'm guessing there were many heartaches and stresses involved in dealing with the collective order. (In the first generations, the children only had contact with their parents for a few hours in the evening, and were housed and educated separately the rest of the time, but that doesn't lessen perception or the gossip vector.)

    Exhibits A-D of inter-generational instruction: carrots, sticks, fables, and sad uncles—shabby discarded derelicts of dysregulation.

    Sooner or later, the attention economy is going to barf up 10% of the population onto the shoals of rusty shopping carts. And then we'll finally learn.

  34. Re:Idiot: Grep -v *.nazifaggot* by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 1

    ?? That's not a troll, I _LITERALLY_ don't read anything -- ANYTHING --from her/them. Period. Don't care if she says the sun rises in the East/West, the Earth is flat/round/square, whatever. Her sites are in the kill file; I don't waste my time with her, if it's actually useful I'm sure I'll bump across it some other way. But *not* from her.

    Kinda like critics, for movies and otherwise: Some I like, some I don't, a LOT I've decided I'm not going to bother with. We don't think the same or like the same things, and that's fine. But I'm not going to see a movie (or whatever) they recommend just because they recommended it or they didn't.

    --
    If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
  35. Simply don't let them sell you ads and gadgets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cut the cord and have these screens or less:

    - Dumb TV - broad cast only - no streaming no cable
    - Cell phone with less than 10 apps outside of vendor's standard installed set - no social media accounts
    - Disconnected car - no streaming, no airplay, no internet, no satellite radio
    - Computer for a few email a day, a bill paid or two, not much gaming, no social media, no streaming
    - Game console - nah, you don't need it
    - A tablet for mostly computer replacement, basic news, light email, no real gaming, no streaming, no social media
    - No other internet connected devices in the house
    - A plain am/fm radio + maybe a few audio only no technology content podcasts
    - Maybe even a daily newspaper subscription
    - No computer controlled nuisances - doorbell camera, smart door locks, optimizing hvac computer panels, ...
    - No need to wear headphones / earbuds more than 30 minutes a day

    Cut the cord one device at a time.
    Read paper based books and magazines mostly not about technology.
    Get a hobby not requiring a screen or screen time

    What our grandparents would tell us - Have a life, live it, don't overload yourself with entertainment - don't toil at work and work like tasks (programming free stuff at 3am) all the time.

  36. You lost me... by kaatochacha · · Score: 1

    At "Ariana Huffington".
    Bitter ex wives who change political affiliation because of messy divorces, then find their new belief is profitable are not reliable sources.

  37. I've assumed this for a long time by kaatochacha · · Score: 1

    For some time, I've assumed there would come some sort of movement, I jokingly call it the "new Amish". It probably won't be religious based, but will involve a rejection of technology from a certain point onward. My assumption would be from the beginning of mass always on two way communication networks, circa 2000 or so when wireless networking began becoming prevalent.

    You'd have computers, TV, radio, even digital photography: but no social media, tracking of network use, location tracking, etc. Increased privacy.