
The Victorians had the same concerns about technology as we do - benbreen
https://diseasesofmodernlife.org/2016/06/21/the-victorians-had-the-same-concerns-about-technology-as-we-do/
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Spooky23
In many ways, they were correct.

>sulphurous vapours were asphyxiating passengers on the London Underground.

Early underground trains were powered by steam engines. My understanding is
that ventilation was horrific for many years as well.

> The philosopher and essayist Thomas Carlyle, for example, lamented the new
> lack of direct contact with society and nature caused by the intervention of
> machinery in every aspect of life. Print publications were fast becoming the
> principal medium of public debate and influence, and they were shaping and,
> in Carlyle’s view, distorting human learning and communications.

Very true -- 20th century politics in the US shifted away from the pub local
political folks acting as tastemakers to national and regional movements.
Modern periodical media shaped opinion.

> In his 2008 article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, journalist Nicolas Carr
> speculated that “we may well be in the midst of a sea change in the way we
> read and think”. Reading online, he posits, discourages long and thoughtful
> immersion in texts in favour of a form of skipping, scanning and digressing
> via hyperlinks that will ultimately diminish our capacity for concentration
> and contemplation.

Is there any question here that this has happened?

If you look at books like "Bowling Alone", it's also pretty clear that ready
access to entertainment, cars, and other resources has had a pretty glaring
impact on social structures. The clubs, leagues and church gatherings that
were huge part of life in 20th century america have largely faded away.

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scott_s
> Is there any question here that this has happened?

Yes. The notion that our capacity for "concentration and contemplation" has
been diminished is a testable claim, of which I have seen no evidence, and I
would approach any attempt to quantify that with an enormous amount of
skepticism. (It's a hard thing to quantify in a meaningful way, and easy to do
poorly.) Further showing that any such diminished capacity is _caused_ by how
we consume information online is even more difficult, and as far as I know,
not done.

~~~
Spooky23
I think that you can argue it either way.

Information access is so cheap today that the framework for how I learn now is
very different than how it was when I was growing up 25 years ago.

Most knowledge is bundled up into bite-sized chunks and indexed by Google. In
1991, you'd be consulting a reference manual or some other physical medium to
get the information to answer a question. Today, that answer is pre-
interpreted and available on Stack Exchange via Google.

That said to master your craft, whatever it is, still requires that attention
to detail and complemative approach.

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scott_s
My point is that this is a _factual_ claim about how humans actually behave.
Such claims should not be believe based on argument alone.

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rimunroe
There was an xkcd related to this
[https://xkcd.com/1227/](https://xkcd.com/1227/)

~~~
internaut
I don't accept this reasoning.

I'm not debating the specific points, but the general reasoning.

Is it not plausible that sometimes we periodically really do lose something
valuable and the conservatives in society notice this?

Otherwise we are postulating or at least heavily implying that conservatism is
always wrong.

Why then... would it exist at all? Are we not creatures of evolution?

~~~
olalonde
Edit: parent edited out the political stuff.

~~~
marcosdumay
I don't think the GP is about party politics.

It makes perfect sense if you replace "liberal" with "neophilic" or something
like that. Looks like a bad choice of words, I don't think it is aligned with
the meaning of "liberal" and "conservative" on US politics, but I'm not from
there, so I'm not sure.

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jimhefferon
The book _The Victorian Internet_ talks about this. A good read.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Internet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Internet)

~~~
drdeadringer
I just read this about 1.5 months ago. I enjoyed it very much.

~~~
jomamaxx
Funny, I read it 1.676 months ago. :)

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Mendenhall
Ah yes, but now we have nukes, and look at everyone trying to put that genie
back in the bottle. Wait till one day when one goes off, humanity will change
in the blink of an eye. It is always wise to consider how technology changes
things for in does in fact change things, and not always for the better.

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zepto
And then we had two world wars.

~~~
digi_owl
Sometimes i wonder if we had one, that just happened to have a decade long
seize fire.

Then again, said wars may well be seen as a extension of the great game. A
game that continued through the cold war, and is now once more in the
headlines...

~~~
smacktoward
If you want to get _really_ expansive, you could read both World Wars as part
of a longer-term (running from around 1815 to today) working-out of what used
to be called "the German question" \-- what role Germany would play on the
European and global stages.

I elaborated on this idea a bit in another comment here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10549103](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10549103)

~~~
jomamaxx
Still going on today with reunification of Germany and their joining the Euro
as the price of reunification - and subsequent Brexit.

It's the never ending game of balance of power.

I'd argue that the Russian Empire is maybe more important to the equation.

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fierycatnet
Prior to that you can find the same thoughts during Romantic era.

