Am I having an existential midlife crisis or is the post Computer Age just awful?

Yes

No

the Internet was invented to be a panopticon, which is a concept of how to watch over all of your prisoners in a prison

it also doubles as a large speaker box though. only approved messages.

I don't think the Internet is inherently bad. but it certainly got bad once corporations went on it and "people started to care about it", and now politics is warping it even further

I still keep getting suspicious Google now news stories of stuff I've engaged with but my phone should know nothing about. I've turned off all the tracking I could find and I'm at a loss for what it is

Post computer age? What replaced the computer?

@MammaNeedHummus some people think apps are only on phones. So I suppose there are people that think phones are not computers. They probably think they don't use a computer because they don't have a desktop or laptop.

@MammaNeedHummus That's like saying "What replaced the Stone, the Bronze or the Dark".

@jestdotty I've narrowed that type of behaviour down to certain websites (including search engines) receiving browsing data from installed extensions and a windows 10+ background service which also reports keywords. It's very annoying if not dangerous in my opinion, there's much more than the claimed "targeted advertising" going on.

@bazmd interesting

meh the world always sucked.

There is no such things as progress or regression. Just change

@bazmd plastic has replaced stone and bronze ☠️

@bazmd I haven't had windows since like 2018

and I didn't search engine any of these topics. I thought it was my keyboard reporting what I was writing, so I turned off them taking metrics. otherwise it's stuff I'm saying in discord voice chats, because matrix voice chat ceased working on my bf's phone

@jestdotty There's another reason.

You can have the most secure device on the planet, but if you interact with a website that shares information with "Trusted Partners" a site can pull the ol' card trick on you, for example, if you view the Queen of Hearts on my site and I let a bunch of other sites know what card you viewed, when you visit one of the other sites they will show you the Queen of Hearts and say "is this your card?".

This is a dodgy practice used to suggest and reinforce suggestions. It is open to abuse but its mostly amusing and annoying if you know what you're looking at.

@MammaNeedHummus If you're asking what came after the "Computer Age" I would have to take a wild guess and say the "Information Age".

@bazmd which is rapidly becoming "What the fuck are my government officials really doing?" age. Which will turn into the "FAFO" age. I know a lot of people that are in the FAFO age already.

@MammaNeedHummus "What replaced the computer?"

wearing the skins of our enemies, and drinking bootleg hooch out of their skulls.

Also probably mad max.

@mostr4am "There is no such things as progress or regression. Just change"

Relevant, but also depends on how you measure progress.

@Demolishun Some have already moved on from the FA component, to the FO stage.

@Wisecrack yeah, ask the Cajun Navy.

@Demolishun I heard they beat the snot out of some fema officials. Just a rumor though as far as I know.

there is no "post-computer-age".

if anything, there is a "omni-computer-age", since nowadays chips get stuffed into everything.

@tosensei chips != computers 🤔

@MammaNeedHummus Red hats with the word "Mage" or "Magic" on them, I don'tget it either tbh

well, snacks are getting worse, so there is that...

If the term "post-computer age" smells so bad to so many noses, I guess you could say "not only desktop/laptop age".
Those used to be the only way to use the internet to any practical ends.

Then instagram became a source of income, banking became "mobile-first-but-in-fact-mobile-only" and one can not even order at a restaurant without first asking google for permission to look at the menu.

@Lensflare unless you are talking about potato chips: yes, they are.

@tosensei I’d say that chips are parts of a computer. A chip alone can’t compute anything. It needs a power source and something that provides inputs and reads the output.

@Lensflare i'd say that chips are the only thing in a computer that actually _do the computing_ and everything else is just their to enable them to do so. (note: keep in mind that "computer" and "personal computer" have a slightly different meaning, when being technical)

@tosensei non-sense, chips are fried piece of patatoes.

@mostr4am oh, really?

what about banana chips? hm?

WHAT ABOUT BANANA CHIPS?

@tosensei you said it yourself: a chip does the computation. But it’s not the computer itself. It’s part of a computer. The computer can be a PC or a microwave oven or even a pregnancy test.

@mostr4am @tosensei
You are both wrong! It’s poker chips!

@Wisecrack good, I'm surprised the Americans are standing up for themselves for once. it hasn't happened historically when your government is doing fucky things

@tosensei those are crisps

@jestdotty I wish the citizens of most nations would stand up for themselves.

If wishes were horses.

@Wisecrack exactly but measurement of progress always happens in a specific historical context.

Saying it was better before or worst before only says something about you now, not about the past or future.

@Lensflare i never heard that term before tbh for me they just were tokens.

@mostr4am "exactly but measurement of progress always happens in a specific historical context. "

I disagree with the 'always' part. It subjects objectivity to an all encompassing potential dismissal of historic context.

We can objectively say, for example, science and industrial progress has lifted billions out of abject poverty.

Sanitation, Indoor plumping, modern medicine, clean water, literacy and education.

Even third world countries have some of these. For example even some african nations have access to more modern amenities than some kings from 500 years ago.

This is an objective measure of progress.

I assume you were talking of other more abstract measures because otherwise this kind of seems like an oversight?

@mostr4am According to chatgpt they are called chips or tokens.

to be fair sanitation was a political win. all the doctors laughed at the one guy who wanted to wash his hands

I think human progress shouldn't be measured in the typical things people think contribute to it. I think it's literally always when people stop being dogmatically stubborn about something they believe to be true (when it is false) that we suddenly explode in quality of life

interestingly it's literally not any different than religion in that way. you either have a good faith that helps you survive and thrive or you have a shitty one that will go extinct because it's too self destructive and not prosperous enough

and then the wildcard is when people come over to sabotage you. that one's really annoying and I suck at seeing it

@tosensei There's also the term "transistor age" which makes sense, without the transistor the micro chip wouldn't be possible and therefore the computing technology we currently use wouldn't exist.

But, if you want to talk about some serious hardware; Irish style double fried chips smothered in creamy peppercorn sauce, best type of chips for the animal processor.

@bazmd i'm sorry, but i'm more of a nacho-guy myself

@tosensei Nothing wrong with that. Enjoy!!

@tosensei Now I want to eat nachos!

@Demolishun eat computer chips, they are much more healthy!

pilz

Both. Both is good.