Re: [silk] ‘Kind’ technology?

[Srini RamaKrishnan]

On Feb 6, 2018 11:54 AM, "Srini RamaKrishnan"  wrote:

On Feb 6, 2018 8:57 AM,


[...]

Stalin would consign to Siberia those who didn't believe in communism.
Today, the banks will have us living under the bridge, if we are lucky, if
we don't believe in capitalism.


I tend to wonder about the little things that say a lot. When two strangers
are introduced to each other at a party by the host, it's almost a rule
that they are introduced by their profession, by their status or their
wealth or education.

I can understand that sort of protocol having value in a business setting,
which is by design transactional, but why in a picnic or in someone's
living room. This is purely the logic of the head.

The heart whereas mourns the lost innocence - every adult was once a child
who didn't care if his playmate in the park was well accomplished.

Globalisation and the technology that aids it makes us all strangers to
each other, constantly sizing up others.

There's almost no room for the heart, and I am saddened by this.

Capitalism with compassion does increasingly exist, where companies develop
something resembling a conscience when their bottomline is sufficiently
strong.

However it's an after thought that is preferably displayed in the glare of
the media. For humans it's who they are even when no one is looking.

Machines ought not to rule men. The logic of the banks, the corporations,
the governments are powered by the computers that have no room for the
heart. Yet this heartless logic bites men.

Currency lends itself easily to two decimal places, Bitcoin has an almost
unlimited fractional capacity. We are only learning to divide better, not
to unite.

With the advance of technology men are being made in its fashion, guests at
a party behaving like firewalls.

I heard second hand about a retired government official who was denied his
pension because his fingerprints didn't match the Aadhaar dataset. He had
banked in the same branch for years, the manager knew him, his colleagues
knew him, but none could help for the computer didn't know him.

Kindness, compassion and all that heart stuff obviously has a place in
human interactions. However when we replace humans with computers in the
pursuit of ever bigger ambitions we risk losing what it means to be human.

Another quote that stuck in my mind seems appropriate here, growth for the
sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

Re: [silk] ‘Kind’ technology?

[Srini RamaKrishnan]

On Feb 6, 2018 8:57 AM, "Tomasz Rola"  wrote:

Frankly, the whole thread reads a bit surreal to me, to the point
where I wonder if my English...

On Mon, Feb 05, 2018 at 06:54:52PM +0100, Dave Long wrote:

On some other day, Someone Else wrote:
> >"We are human beings, not human doings".

This may be very deep and wise and yet I happen to have other opinion
on this: those who do not do might as well cease to be and nobody
would be able to tell the difference. We are perfectly described by
our doings, including acts of thinking and acts of having
opinions (thus, a consciousness is defined by some "internal acts",
which might also manifest in the outside world).



Not that long ago European aristocrats prided themselves on "being"
aristocratic, and any useful work was looked down upon. So much so, a
frightful disease such as consumption was tied to the literary and poetic
aesthetic.

Today we have become the opposite. People must work till they die because
there's no respect or income in just being retired. Monks and nuns or poet
philosophers are a vanishing race because they are considered lazy bums who
can't contribute anything of value.

We ought to balance the two energies of being and doing because there's
wisdom in both. The head and the heart.

A podcast app I like very much was perfectly useful and complete 7 versions
ago, but it's gone through several design iterations, bloated in size and
cpu usage. The cost of compulsively doing. I notice this at workplaces too,
where often the only way to get recognition is to launch something new.

Compulsively being or doing is bad.

Many people are engaged in compulsive doing today because that's how they
define themselves. The ruling belief is that a human life is ab initio
worthless, and each ought to prove her worth by doing something. This has
destroyed a lot of social and family ties, and is the cause of distress and
disease.

A human life ought to have respect and value in society regardless. People
ought not to start out of the gate feeling worthless.

Stalin would consign to Siberia those who didn't believe in communism.
Today, the banks will have us living under the bridge, if we are lucky, if
we don't believe in capitalism.

Silicon valley has fallen into the trap of compulsively doing deeper than
most others. The useful life of a computer was 6-8 years only a couple of
decades ago. Now a two year old smart phone is not new enough.

Re: [silk] ‘Kind’ technology?

[Ashim D'Silva]

>
>
>
> On some other day, Someone Else wrote:
> > >"We are human beings, not human doings".
>
> This may be very deep and wise and yet I happen to have other opinion
> on this: those who do not do might as well cease to be and nobody
> would be able to tell the difference. We are perfectly described by
> our doings, including acts of thinking and acts of having
> opinions (thus, a consciousness is defined by some "internal acts",
> which might also manifest in the outside world).
>

If your definition of do is broad enough, this becomes simply a semantic
stance. “Be” simply opens up the definition of a person to include beliefs
and dreams; things they want to do, or would like to learn how to do. If
you include that in what you call “internal acts”, it’s just words.
However, the question “what do you do?” often does not imply a request for
those discussions.


>
> As of "kind technology", this is exactly a connection of words that
> wants to revolt my stomach. I put great value in useful technology,
> also in predictable one, and have great respect to those who can
> design it. "Kind", however, is not in my dictionary for such
> context. I would rather not hear torpedo boat or meat grinder declare
> love towards me. Of course, if this is what some people desire, it is
> their choice. My desire is to have screwdriver that does a job and
> does not ask me stupid questions. Or any questions at all, actually.
>

Kind technology again might be a semantic concern. Your screwdriver does
not need to ask you how your day’s going. But a kind screwdriver might be
one with a grip developed for weaker grip strength, or people with
arthritis or carpal tunnel. The most efficient screwdriver might not be
that useful if you can’t grip it firmly and designing for a rarer use case
can be “kind”. Steve Jobs’ “You’re holding it wrong” comes to mind…

Opposition to the word “kind” might instead be “inclusive” like Jayadevan
mentioned. But Harnidh’s original question was simply: changes to existing
technology that serves vulnerable populations.


>
> > Thinking along these lines, and taking kindness to involve a
> > recognition of the human- (or living-)beingness of another, I might
> > attempt to argue that technology can be supple[0], but only
> > individuals[1] could be kind to each other ... or is this just a
> > luddite position?
>
> "Luddite" as opponent of technological progress? Where progress is
> defined as technological regress, such as stupid-smart devices prevent
> everybody from doing anything useful.
>

God I detest “smart” TVs that take forever to boot, and have the potential
to be hacked and used as pawns in DDoS botnets. Happy to be a luddite there.


> --
> Regards,
> Tomasz Rola
>
> --
> ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.  **
> ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home**
> ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...  **
> ** **
> ** Tomasz Rola  mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **
>
> --
Cheerio,

Ashim D’Silva
Design & build
www.therandomlines.com
instagram.com/randomlies

Re: [silk] ‘Kind’ technology?

[Tomasz Rola]

Frankly, the whole thread reads a bit surreal to me, to the point
where I wonder if my English...

On Mon, Feb 05, 2018 at 06:54:52PM +0100, Dave Long wrote:

On some other day, Someone Else wrote:
> >"We are human beings, not human doings".

This may be very deep and wise and yet I happen to have other opinion
on this: those who do not do might as well cease to be and nobody
would be able to tell the difference. We are perfectly described by
our doings, including acts of thinking and acts of having
opinions (thus, a consciousness is defined by some "internal acts",
which might also manifest in the outside world).

As of "kind technology", this is exactly a connection of words that
wants to revolt my stomach. I put great value in useful technology,
also in predictable one, and have great respect to those who can
design it. "Kind", however, is not in my dictionary for such
context. I would rather not hear torpedo boat or meat grinder declare
love towards me. Of course, if this is what some people desire, it is
their choice. My desire is to have screwdriver that does a job and
does not ask me stupid questions. Or any questions at all, actually.

> Thinking along these lines, and taking kindness to involve a
> recognition of the human- (or living-)beingness of another, I might
> attempt to argue that technology can be supple[0], but only
> individuals[1] could be kind to each other ... or is this just a
> luddite position?

"Luddite" as opponent of technological progress? Where progress is
defined as technological regress, such as stupid-smart devices prevent
everybody from doing anything useful.

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.  **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home**
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...  **
** **
** Tomasz Rola  mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **

Re: [silk] ‘Kind’ technology?

[Bruce A. Metcalf]

On 02/04/2018 11:54 AM, Srini RamaKrishnan wrote:


Not my phrase, but I like it, "We are human beings, not human doings".


You remind me of a wise woman I once knew. When asked what she did, her 
answer was, "I don't /do/. I *be*. I *be* MaryLou."


Miss her.

Cheers,
/ Bruce /

Re: [silk] ‘Kind’ technology?

[Dave Long]

"We are human beings, not human doings".


Thinking along these lines, and taking kindness to involve a  
recognition of the human- (or living-)beingness of another, I might  
attempt to argue that technology can be supple[0], but only  
individuals[1] could be kind to each other ... or is this just a  
luddite position?


-Dave

[0] often preferable to its default of being more rigid than the  
systems it replaces
[1] as opposed to technologies (not to groups): it may well be that  
uncanny valley thing, but in fact, I prefer dealing with technologies  
that make little to no attempt to model me