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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.
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.
Just ask every kid who's addicted to games because they provide him with the positive feedback that the rest of society doesn't.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
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.
I've thought for quite a while now that people are too reliant on technology -- and I'm far from alone in thinking that.
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.
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
Indeed. Completely insane.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
"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.
... 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
?? 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?
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"
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.
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.