Andreessen’s manifesto is silly, unrestrained capitalism is a terrible idea, and billionaires are out of touch douchebags.
AND
Technology has created a higher standard of living than at any time in human history.
These two things can coexist, and you can also discuss the real abuse that went along with that increase in technology, the exploitation of weaker regions by the powerful for resources, and so on.
I don't agree that now we have the highest standard of living. For me standard of living is how nice an environment a family can have. So how large and nice a home, quality of food, and time to interact together especially for the parents to be active participants in rearing their child.
For most of human history, people have lived without sewage, power, running water, or information about the world around them. A vast number of people now have all four. It could be better, obviously, but in raw terms, they do have a higher standard of living. I’ve lived under those conditions, and while they have a certain simplicity, I much prefer not.
okay yeah. if we take a long enough time period for comparison and chunk it up in pretty large sections. then yes currently. Like the last century or so. Has been the best times. If we are talking decade chunks then we have fell a bit.
Technology has created a higher standard of living than at any time in human history.
I don't think many ppl dispute this. Techno-optimism isn't about just having technology, though. It's about capitalists creating technology and ignoring all and any negative outcome that could arise from it. The average standard of living doesn't matter to someone who can't attain it and techno-optimism ignores how technology hurts those ppl most of all.
The core assumption of techno-optimism seems to be that technology has led to a vast improvement in living standards, so we should do that more. This article is a hit piece which spends a fair amount of time trying to characterize techno-optimists as frantic, manic, wild-eyed, pseudo-religious nuts, but the core assumption of techno-optimism is not unreasonable.
I disagree with the tone of the article, while agreeing with many of the arguments.
"... as quickly as possible, while ignoring any harms caused by the technology or claiming they'll be fixed later, and only as long as they're in control of it" Again, there aren't many ppl arguing that technology itself is bad. Techno-optimism isn't just about "tech=good"; it's philosophy is that our current technology industry is good for society and shouldn't be examined (regulated) because its leaders know better than govt or simple citizens.
They showed their hand, they are either so dumb as a company to not understand their own products and how they are used. OR they want to nickle and dime so badly that they were willing to bankrupt a lot of the smallest people, even making those in school worried to even try to make those great smaller games that would let them start out deving. They can get stuffed.
Is it possible it's an HDR conflict (e.g. HDR content on a non-HDR screen or similar)? Have you messed with the various "Color Space" options in your monitor/video card settings? My monitor was wonky for awhile and it ended up being set to the wrong color space/profile.
If it were a monitor issue, I wouldn't have been able to capture the brightness discrepancy in a screenshot. Turning on the HDR feature in Windows makes EVERYTHING darker and washed out, the video application should be able to play HDR encoded files just fine, but as you can see from the screenshot, it simply doesn't. I wonder if anyone else has downloaded 2160p encoded video files and had them play bright and crisp in HDR on Windows, ever.
Depends on your needs. Honestly, you can possibly beat (or at least equal) this level of privacy by using Firefox with the Arkenfox user.js and a couple add-ons (uBlock Origin, for one). This is what I do.
Out of the box, though, Mullvad Browser is going to be more private and more hardened than plain, untouched Firefox. This means users can achieve much better privacy with no more effort than downloading the browser. For someone who doesn't want to do any tinkering, this is a great option. Mullvad Browser also has a portable version, which is cool.
The advantages of Firefox + Arkenfox over this are more customizability and faster updates (meaning you get security patches sooner).
Same deal as Mullvad. Librewolf is just a fork of Firefox with the Arkenfox user.js already incorporated. It's super convenient, and it will get updates a bit slower than vanilla Firefox because the devs have to wait for Firefox to release their update and then patch Librewolf. It's a great option, though. I have a spare PC I use for certain tasks and I don't do much upkeep or browsing on it, so I use Librewolf there to avoid the hassle of remembering to update my user.js and all that junk. It does a great job balancing ease of use and privacy/security hardening, though I'll probably switch to Mullvad Browser at some point soon.
Iceraven is basically just vanilla Firefox. There's a couple small differences and it (probably) doesn't send telemetry back to Mozilla, but otherwise, you're not really getting much of a privacy benefit from using it and updates are slower than stock. The only beneficial thing is that the about:config section is available, but I think that's the case with Firefox Nightly, too (though I might be mistaken).
Mull is another fork that uses the arkenfox profile on mobile, which is really cool, but as of right now, Firefox doesn't offer proper site isolation on Android and isn't the most private option, unfortunately. As much as I dislike Brave for personal reasons, it's probably the best Android browser option today after a few settings tweaks. At least until Mozilla finally gets site isolation going on Android.
I like the ideas the site proposes in principle (a lighter, more efficient tech/internet); however, I am not sure I agree with some of the solutions, such as returning to typewriters and paper-based solutions in a general office environment. Also, I am not sure image dithering lightens a website enough. (Full disclosure: I do like the aesthetic of the site itself.)
Instead of typewriters and paper, I would say that more cli-based and tui-based solutions would be more energy efficient. As well as replacing most monitors with e-ink displays for these solutions. I do agree with the deployment of minimal, static websites. However, instead of image dithering, focus on image formats optimized for the web (such as webp). Also, include images only when helpful or relevant; not just plastering a site with stock photos. I would contend that the images and videos included on most webpages are irrelevant, anyway.
The problem here is not me and you and our websites; its corporate websites (retail, news, social media.). With all of the tracking, javascript, inline ads, popup ads, video ads, spam emails, etc that they deploy, the web has become bloated. They deploy whatever they can to get us to click. Until we, as content consumers, actively choose to avoid these sites, their behavior will never change.
@sparseMatrix
It is happening relatively fast. Solar glass is already in production, at least as good as I know in Spain (the Spanish startup Onyx Solar is one of the pioneers in the area. They have already implemented solutions in buildings in Spain, Australia, Saudi Arabia and a prototype of a new version of the product in Israel.
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