ADINSX posted:

I don't think technology has peaked, but I do think that the rate of technological acceleration has flattened out and will probably remain flat for the foreseeable future. I think this happened somewhere around 2010. That was 12 years ago, but if you time traveled back: Smartphones were pretty common at that point. We had twitter, facebook, obviously doing stuff on line was the norm (paying bill, writing emails, etc). Tindr came out in 2012 but I think dating online (via facebook, or whatever) was pretty common. It was common to have an online life and to talk about stuff that happened online in conversation, it wasn't weird like in 2000 if you talked about forums drama or something.

Mass Effect 2, red dead redemption, black ops, blah blah... in general anything with solid art assets and good design made then (when run on the highest settings) would still look "pretty good" today.

I think that's the reason that the two big hyped up technologies of the 2010s: VR and Crypto, are busts. Both have had plenty of time to make their mark on the public. I remember playing around with a Oculus alpha headset in maybe 2013, and crypto obviously has been around since 2009... Neither have found their way out of niches when compared to actual revolutionary technologies like internet access or smart phones (which both of course spawned tons of big businesses). Without looking at the numbers I feel they even fail when you compare them to home computers which became somewhat common in the 80s, only a few years after they were made possible at all with ICs invented in the mid to late 70s: The internet made a computer at home a "must have" but even in the 80s you could edit and print documents, do home accounting and use not-quite-internet stuff like dial up BBSes to get news, etc. It was clear to anyone paying attention that computers would and could continue to become more useful, and they did.

But I don't think its as obvious with VR (and definitely not crypto). It feels like the hype is a lot more "top down" than scrappy startups making cool products, it feels awkward and desperate from an industry that for the past 40 years has only experienced "number go up", when I think the reality is: We're at peak computer now. Nothing we could do online isn't being done now. We could put on clumsy headsets that make a substantial percentage of the users nauseous (me included) but... why? Why would I do that? It's neat I guess, but it doesn't feel the same. No one had to convince me to try a smart phone, that was incredible; VR headsets not so much.

I remember back in 2012 or so talking to a friend about the potential of VR: That you could watch concerts virtually, or sporting events, or metaverse bullshit. Well, we could do it then, and we can do it now, we just don't want to. Sporting events are still routinely sold out, people still go to coffee shops, it still costs a loving fortune to live in any sort of decent city because we don't want to sit at home with our VR headsets and buy virtual shoes to show off in the metaverse. We want to buy real shoes and take pictures to show our friends online. Just like we've been doing for a decade.

So anyway, that's a lot of words to express something I think a lot of us probably know and agree with, but when I talk about this with non-computer people they seem surprised at my opinion. I think its just natural to assume everything is going to get better and more technical forever; that's been the trend ever since the computer was invented. But now I think its over, and computers will become like any other industry, software will become a commodity like paper or steel (barring some actual breakthrough like quantum computers or neuromancer-esque brain interfaces) and it'll be interesting to see how we handle that transition.

fart simpson posted:

too many words. didn’t read

echinopsis posted:

rude

tho did you know rego dates in the forum respect time zones because it’s the 13th on my screen

ADINSX posted:

I don't think technology has peaked, but I do think that the rate of technological acceleration has flattened out and will probably remain flat for the foreseeable future. I think this happened somewhere around 2010. That was 12 years ago, but if you time traveled back: Smartphones were pretty common at that point. We had twitter, facebook, obviously doing stuff on line was the norm (paying bill, writing emails, etc). Tindr came out in 2012 but I think dating online (via facebook, or whatever) was pretty common. It was common to have an online life and to talk about stuff that happened online in conversation, it wasn't weird like in 2000 if you talked about forums drama or something.

Mass Effect 2, red dead redemption, black ops, blah blah... in general anything with solid art assets and good design made then (when run on the highest settings) would still look "pretty good" today.

I think that's the reason that the two big hyped up technologies of the 2010s: VR and Crypto, are busts. Both have had plenty of time to make their mark on the public. I remember playing around with a Oculus alpha headset in maybe 2013, and crypto obviously has been around since 2009... Neither have found their way out of niches when compared to actual revolutionary technologies like internet access or smart phones (which both of course spawned tons of big businesses). Without looking at the numbers I feel they even fail when you compare them to home computers which became somewhat common in the 80s, only a few years after they were made possible at all with ICs invented in the mid to late 70s: The internet made a computer at home a "must have" but even in the 80s you could edit and print documents, do home accounting and use not-quite-internet stuff like dial up BBSes to get news, etc. It was clear to anyone paying attention that computers would and could continue to become more useful, and they did.

But I don't think its as obvious with VR (and definitely not crypto). It feels like the hype is a lot more "top down" than scrappy startups making cool products, it feels awkward and desperate from an industry that for the past 40 years has only experienced "number go up", when I think the reality is: We're at peak computer now. Nothing we could do online isn't being done now. We could put on clumsy headsets that make a substantial percentage of the users nauseous (me included) but... why? Why would I do that? It's neat I guess, but it doesn't feel the same. No one had to convince me to try a smart phone, that was incredible; VR headsets not so much.

I remember back in 2012 or so talking to a friend about the potential of VR: That you could watch concerts virtually, or sporting events, or metaverse bullshit. Well, we could do it then, and we can do it now, we just don't want to. Sporting events are still routinely sold out, people still go to coffee shops, it still costs a loving fortune to live in any sort of decent city because we don't want to sit at home with our VR headsets and buy virtual shoes to show off in the metaverse. We want to buy real shoes and take pictures to show our friends online. Just like we've been doing for a decade.

So anyway, that's a lot of words to express something I think a lot of us probably know and agree with, but when I talk about this with non-computer people they seem surprised at my opinion. I think its just natural to assume everything is going to get better and more technical forever; that's been the trend ever since the computer was invented. But now I think its over, and computers will become like any other industry, software will become a commodity like paper or steel (barring some actual breakthrough like quantum computers or neuromancer-esque brain interfaces) and it'll be interesting to see how we handle that transition.

Asymmetric POSTer posted:

i read this and agree, thank you for poasting

Asymmetric POSTer posted:

i read this and agree, thank you for poasting

Asymmetric POSTer posted:

thank you for poasting

rotor posted:

this is not yospos orthodoxy

rotor posted:

this is not yospos orthodoxy

echinopsis posted:

remember when ctrl alt delete would INSTANTLY work? on single core processors?


windows has been wokeified. it used to run like an authoritarian regime, a police state, keeping applications in check and threads under the boot

now if you try to close a program it’s like windows turns to the thread and snowflakely says “pweeze can you close? only if you want to tho uwu”

~Coxy posted:

Windows lock screen, even in early editions of Win 10, was instantly responsive. You could start typing in your password and it would take.

In one of the major updates they permanently broke it and now you'd better hit the spacebar a couple of times and make sure that password field has focus!

ADINSX posted:

I don't think technology has peaked, but I do think that the rate of technological acceleration has flattened out and will probably remain flat for the foreseeable future. I think this happened somewhere around 2010. That was 12 years ago, but if you time traveled back: Smartphones were pretty common at that point. We had twitter, facebook, obviously doing stuff on line was the norm (paying bill, writing emails, etc). Tindr came out in 2012 but I think dating online (via facebook, or whatever) was pretty common. It was common to have an online life and to talk about stuff that happened online in conversation, it wasn't weird like in 2000 if you talked about forums drama or something.

Mass Effect 2, red dead redemption, black ops, blah blah... in general anything with solid art assets and good design made then (when run on the highest settings) would still look "pretty good" today.

I think that's the reason that the two big hyped up technologies of the 2010s: VR and Crypto, are busts. Both have had plenty of time to make their mark on the public. I remember playing around with a Oculus alpha headset in maybe 2013, and crypto obviously has been around since 2009... Neither have found their way out of niches when compared to actual revolutionary technologies like internet access or smart phones (which both of course spawned tons of big businesses). Without looking at the numbers I feel they even fail when you compare them to home computers which became somewhat common in the 80s, only a few years after they were made possible at all with ICs invented in the mid to late 70s: The internet made a computer at home a "must have" but even in the 80s you could edit and print documents, do home accounting and use not-quite-internet stuff like dial up BBSes to get news, etc. It was clear to anyone paying attention that computers would and could continue to become more useful, and they did.

But I don't think its as obvious with VR (and definitely not crypto). It feels like the hype is a lot more "top down" than scrappy startups making cool products, it feels awkward and desperate from an industry that for the past 40 years has only experienced "number go up", when I think the reality is: We're at peak computer now. Nothing we could do online isn't being done now. We could put on clumsy headsets that make a substantial percentage of the users nauseous (me included) but... why? Why would I do that? It's neat I guess, but it doesn't feel the same. No one had to convince me to try a smart phone, that was incredible; VR headsets not so much.

I remember back in 2012 or so talking to a friend about the potential of VR: That you could watch concerts virtually, or sporting events, or metaverse bullshit. Well, we could do it then, and we can do it now, we just don't want to. Sporting events are still routinely sold out, people still go to coffee shops, it still costs a loving fortune to live in any sort of decent city because we don't want to sit at home with our VR headsets and buy virtual shoes to show off in the metaverse. We want to buy real shoes and take pictures to show our friends online. Just like we've been doing for a decade.

So anyway, that's a lot of words to express something I think a lot of us probably know and agree with, but when I talk about this with non-computer people they seem surprised at my opinion. I think its just natural to assume everything is going to get better and more technical forever; that's been the trend ever since the computer was invented. But now I think its over, and computers will become like any other industry, software will become a commodity like paper or steel (barring some actual breakthrough like quantum computers or neuromancer-esque brain interfaces) and it'll be interesting to see how we handle that transition.

git apologist posted:

are you over 40 perhaps

ADINSX posted:

git apologist posted:

are you over 40 perhaps

Achmed Jones posted:

just the right length, did read. thanks for posting it

im not sure i agree 100% with everything there. it's not because everything doesn't look like you're right - it does. it's just that truly transformative technology you don't see coming. that isn't to say that transformative technology is always newly-invented. 'transformation' as im using it must involve both the thing precipitating transformation and the thing being transformed (society, interpersonal relationships, whatever). so what i mean is, we can see iterations on the Current Thing, but we can't reliably predict what the real Next Thing is going to be. it's often obvious in hindsight, but not being able to forecast the next revolution doesn't mean it won't happen, or that it won't be obvious once the paradigm has shifted such that its appearance seems inevitable

idk maybe i read too much kuhn and peirce and friends.but, like, even if you're right that humans have wrung all the interesting stuff out of silicon ICs (or whatever the relevant artifact is), to say that _technology_ has peaked feels a lot like every generation saying that the next is lazy, that the world is ending, and that sort of thing

Achmed Jones posted:

ok but what about rna vaccines? we don't know where that's gonna go. that's technology. i hope that this effectively points out that there's more to technology than consumer electronics

Achmed Jones posted:

just the right length, did read. thanks for posting it

im not sure i agree 100% with everything there. it's not because everything doesn't look like you're right - it does. it's just that truly transformative technology you don't see coming. that isn't to say that transformative technology is always newly-invented. 'transformation' as im using it must involve both the thing precipitating transformation and the thing being transformed (society, interpersonal relationships, whatever). so what i mean is, we can see iterations on the Current Thing, but we can't reliably predict what the real Next Thing is going to be. it's often obvious in hindsight, but not being able to forecast the next revolution doesn't mean it won't happen, or that it won't be obvious once the paradigm has shifted such that its appearance seems inevitable

idk maybe i read too much kuhn and peirce and friends.but, like, even if you're right that humans have wrung all the interesting stuff out of silicon ICs (or whatever the relevant artifact is), to say that _technology_ has peaked feels a lot like every generation saying that the next is lazy, that the world is ending, and that sort of thing

echinopsis posted:

not the right length, unable to read

ADINSX posted:

ok sure but the spirit of the thread so far has been consumer oriented technology and its impact on the way we live our lives

Achmed Jones posted:

ok, but changes in idk power generation or storage could easily impact these specific technologies in transformative ways. the thing i called out as an illustration was an illustration of a general point. you're gonna have to use your imagination a bit, and obviously we can't know what's coming next. if we did, we would build it (or at least patent it)

Achmed Jones posted:

to say that _technology_ has peaked feels a lot like every generation saying that the next is lazy, that the world is ending, and that sort of thing

Achmed Jones posted:

i don't have anything to say about rockstar devs. sure maybe that fad is ending. but so did the trucker fad in the 70s or whatever. but that wasn't anything that mattered, and i don't think "rockstar developer" poo poo will be either.

Achmed Jones posted:

anyways it's bedtime for me, thanks for the discussion!

ADINSX posted:

I think its baked into the culture (and insane valuations) of a lot of tech companies though, and once software becomes boring and normal, those valuations are gonna have to fall

ADINSX posted:

white color profession,