For the record, given the substantial discussion, late notice, and fact that HN's mod had already engaged with the discussion without marking it a dupe, my initial point was largely advisory, and the issue mostly moot. I hadn't flagged the item myself.
That said, I was commenting without any snark at all that discussions within a year are typically noted as dupe, linked a prior comment by dang which states this for an instance with an eleven month prior mention, and was simply stating that flatly and factually.
You might want to de-tune your snark detector a bit.
My kids hate it that when my phone buzzes I don't look at it right away. I do sometimes miss important things, but not being a slave to my device is wonderful.
It has been about 10-years ever since I divorced from almost all forms of notifications on all device types, and had almost always had the ringer to silenced. And I think it has been about 5-years ever since I default to DND and only selectively have a list with set number of people who can ring me.
It has angered quite a lot of people but has been a life-changer. I tend to either batch-call the missed ones or just ignore. Of course, there are calls that are scheduled.
I even have a website dedicated to that effort. Feel free to steal the idea - https://phone.wtf
Something I find very annoying is apps with useful notifications that also prod you with basically ads to open the app. Like Okcupid is an app where I’d like to know if someone messages me but absolutely do not need the daily 6pm prompt that tells me “now is a great time to log on!”. Generally gives me a bad taste.
Yep I disable notifications on all of those. Especially food delivery and taxicab apps where notifications would be super useful.
App companies need to understand that my life does not revolve around their app. It’s a tool that I don’t want to think about when not in use. If you are legitimately a good solution to my problem, I will remember when I need you. Please leave me alone otherwise.
You're fighting the good fight but I don't think you'll win this one. I am a fellow adherent to the philosophy that I am the owner of my phone, not the other way around. Mostly people just accept that this is just an unusual preference and not a personal slight against them but I too have been on the wrong side of some angry people. I've noticed the ratio of people who are ok with it is dropping though. We are evolving a cultural expectation of 24/7 instant communications response and opting out of that is offensive for some people.
I've never seen anger from people for not responding right away (unless it's time urgent and we've discussed it beforehand, such as meeting up at a location and one party is late), and I'm relatively young. All of my friends just respond when they can, it's known that it's an asynchronous medium.
i never had anyone complain, but if i miss a call and feel they need an explanation (maybe because it was important or urgent) then i just apologize and tell them that i have to keep my phone on silent when i work. and i prefer it silent in the evenings when i don't want to be disturbed. or kids are sleeping, etc. for in between i just forgot to turn the sound on (which is what i actually do if i am expecting a call)
that covers most of the waking time, so if they want to argue that's a hint that they are probably not very good friends. and if they are not friends to begin with then i just tell them to stuff it. they are not my boss and i am not here to do their bidding, and i already apologized to forgetting to turn the sound on when expecting their call.
More than half of the calls I make are not picked up immediately. Whatsapp is usually several hours of delay for a response. If it would be a day, I would not be upset, and most people aren't. I really do not understand what the fuss is all about.
That's hardly a new phenomenon though. Back in the day when getting a phone call was arguably a bigger deal (and before there were answering machines), there were the people who were perfectly comfortable having sat down to dinner were not going to get up and there were the "Aren't you going to get that?" people.
Definitely, although I used to be a "aren't you going to get that" kind of person back when a phone call was unusual. The frequency of "calls" now is just insane and the signal to noise ratio is now near zero, and that is what (I believe) has led to my change of philosophy.
I still have a landline (wife seems attached to it? It is a waste of money IMO). I remember as I child being excited when the phone rang, what if it is my friend calling? Now it induces rage as the calls are 98% scam calls.
You can consider porting your landline number to a VOIP service (I use voip.ms) and after that it's nearly free. I bought a basic Linksys modem (SPA2102) so that we can still plug in our cordless phones in an use them normally.
As a bonus you can set up simple filtering so that you don't get many spam calls. For me, all calls that have an anonymous or 800 number in the caller ID get redirected to a voice prompt that asks the caller to press 9 to talk to us; all other calls just ring our phone directly. You could also use whitelists, blacklists, etc.
It's both better and cheaper than a regular landline...
I took the plunge when I canceled cable TV a few years back. It would be useful as a backup now and then (although my Internet seems pretty stable--my unassisted cell service is pretty poor) but not $40/month useful.
I admit I don't get a huge number and very little outright junk. It was one of the things like made me mildly resistant for a while to get rid of my landline because I'm very selective about who I give my phone number to. Nowadays, for various forms requiring it, I just use a work number that I don't know how to retrieve messages from even if I wanted to.
I had this experiment forced upon me recently by being mugged a few weeks ago and having my iPhone stolen. I had to wait four days for my replacement Pixel to arrive and so I was stuck using my laptop for anything involving the internet.
I absolutely hated it; it didn't help that I was looking for a job, but every time I went outside, I was worried that there was an email I was missing, or that a disaster was happening, and I was unable to react to it. I also really hate basically everyone else's choice in music so when I had to hear that in stores it annoyed me. When there was an issue that involved my rebooting my server, I had to walk to my laptop and restart it instead of ssh'ing with my phone.
I am very thoroughly convinced that the unplugged lifestyle is just not for me.
I mean, it was only four days, so it's possible that I would have grown to like it, and it's entirely possible that my experience would be different if I were employed, because it's possible it would be nice to be able to not look at work Slack every thirty seconds while I'm out.
But all that being said, it just wasn't for me. I didn't enjoy it, and even though I hate my Pixel, it's still better than being without a smartphone.
the biggest issue for me in situations like this is having to change my routine, so i can totally feel the unease of not having a working phone like you used to. things that you did automatically (like getting notified of emails) you now have to make an extra effort to check. but you can find a new routine, and eventually get used to it.
when my phone broke, my biggest irritation was that i could not listen to audio-books while outside. seems the primary function of my phone is to be an mp3 player...
I know some folks that do this and indeed I do hate it. But not because I'm a slave to my device. I hate the buzzing because you should just put it on silent if you don't care about the notifications. It's pretty annoying to have to hear a buzz or ringer in an otherwise quiet room, and it gets to the hate level when you clearly don't even need it on.
It annoys me either way. Just put your phone on silent (unless you have certain contacts that need to get through in an emergency).
It's especially annoying when you don't look at your phone because you're just making noise for no reason. It's on the same level as playing music through your phone on the subway with no regard for those around you.
I know someone who will sit there for an hour texting people and each text that comes in rings the phone. They're literally staring at their phone and think that they need the ringer on.
but since our phones are ad-delivery platforms, they only give you the minimum amount of flexibility to solve it. So that person is helpless trying to choose between not knowing when somebody texts or having the phone ring all the time. It's not their fault that they don't have any reasonable option.
That's exactly it. The companies behind the devices have a negative incentive to solve the annoyance issue for you, since your annoyance (attention) is their flow of income.
Like why do I need to be repeat notified if someone texts me 3 times quickly in a row? We ought to have some kind of an agent system that can handle these things somewhat intelligently. Apple is doing a little better in this regard, but I can't help but feel that in the OSS world we would have had a bunch of solutions to this by now. In a fragmented fashion with terrible usability, of course.
My favorite bit of Apple user experience is when I get a text and don't read it immediately. My phone will buzz me again two minutes later to really reinforce the urgency.
> but since our phones are ad-delivery platforms, they only give you the minimum amount of flexibility to solve it.
Three actions (volume button, tap, tap) on my Android to turn my phone from ringer on to silent isn't that bad. And even though I don't have an iOS device, I'd hardly say they're built to be ad-delivery platforms. iOS isn't really in the ad business as much.
My biggest problem is forgetting to un-silence it. I'll literally go days and miss tons of important calls/texts before I remember to check. I used to do that all the time but stopped after missing a some very important calls.
It's annoying, period. You're forcing me to listen to your life events in an annoyingly prodding manner.
However, I can tolerate it if there's reasoning. If you simply don't care and let a device make incessant irritating noises, now you're just being annoying.
what sort of frequency are we talking here? Because the frequency that my kids get annoyed by it is maybe once a week. Most of the time my phone is in my pocket and nobody else even knows it's buzzing. The kids only know when I have the phone in my hand and they are nearby, or if they are looking at my phone (which is rare). I don't think it warrants a solution like silencing, which mainly serves to ensure I miss everything until days later when I remember to turn it back to vibrate.
Putting the annoyance aside for a second, I think this is partly a difference of viewpoints when it comes to what constitutes being a "slave to your device" as you say.
Having the phone on vibrate or the ringer on all the time feels like being way more attached to your phone than having it on silent. Vibrate/ring means the phone gets your attention immediately all of the time. Silent means I decide when I give the phone attention.
Back to the annoyance, I know two people who like to think they're not attached to their device and leave it at home when they're out. But then when I'm visiting and they're out running an errand or something, their phones ding and ding and ding and there's nothing to do about it (since I'm not going to silence their phone for them...). I have lots of stories like this.
Of course, this all stems on me being baffled that someone would go days without checking their phone.
> I know two people who like to think they're not attached to their device and leave it at home when they're out.
This baffles me. Like, 80% of the reason I even have a phone is to be able to communicate/look up needed information when I'm away from home. It's when I don't leave my house for a few days that I might find I missed a bunch of important messages.
> Back to the annoyance, I know two people who like to think they're not attached to their device and leave it at home when they're out. But then when I'm visiting and they're out running an errand or something, their phones ding and ding and ding and there's nothing to do about it (since I'm not going to silence their phone for them...). I have lots of stories like this.
This would heavily annoy me too and is absolutely deserving of criticism. However I think that is a very different problem than having a phone that vibrates in your pocket that somebody occasionally feels because they're sitting next to you or holding your phone (my kids sometimes take pictures for example). The two might seem somewhat similar at a high-level, but the fact that one includes the phone being on the person and the other does not, that seems like a huge difference to me.
A better alternative that doesn't annoy your loved ones would be, to connect your phone to a smart watch.
Keep the phone on silent enable notifications on the watch. You get to keep an eye out for anything important while being away from the phone takes a bit of effort to reply immediately.
Im using an older garmin watch and it works perfectly, it even has a silent zone setting so I never get disturbed when I sleep. Also has a really neat feature where I can ask the watch to ping my phone if I cant find it, so when I get an important message and I need to find the phone I could quickly find it.
I find people constantly looking at their watches while having a conversation to be incredibly annoying.
With my phone, all I have to do is reach into my pocket and hit to volume button to stop the vibration, I never need to break eye contact with the people I'm talking to. With a watch, they seem to always have to look down at it, even if they're dismissing the notification.
I have a Pixel watch and that covers about 25% of the notifications. Texts it's good for, calls it's great for, Slack it's meh for, email it's terrible for. There are more, but suffice it to say, it's not the silver bullet you make it out to be.
I think there's a useful distinction with silent notifications. I think someone would have to be crazy to get a beep or buzz for an incoming email, but a notification dot I can check when I see it won't unduly grab my attention.
If you don't care about the notifications anyways....then turn them off/silence them. Switch from an event-based model to a polling one, since you're treating it that way anyways.
I couldn't care less how quickly someone responds to their phone. I do care about sitting somewhere and hearing someone's phone buzz and ding-a-doop constantly. Especially if they don't seem to even care about what those notifications are for.
I do this and highly recommend it. Most apps (nearly all) have disabled notifications. I check things on a cadence and it's amazing how freeing this can be.
Whenever I meet with my parents it doesn't count until my dad's phone starts loudly chiming notifications when you try to concentrate on something. At moments like that, I understand why I'd rather live away from parents or would never own a dog. For some reason, my parents tell that they don't mind sudden distractions, while I just can't stand these.
Honestly when I discovered the dnd feature and even the simple ones like sleep mode. It's been a godsend. It's automatic and I only use the phone "casually" when in the bathroom.
My family hates it when I leave the house without my phone. I seldom carry it with me. There is a whole world out there further than 18 inches in front of your nose.
As it is, they have to deal with the nuisance of you buzzing and they know you're going to probably ignore any important things they send your way. At least turn notifications off so you can spend time with your kids distraction free and it's not a total lose-lose for all involved.
Well, I guess you're getting a feeling of self-righteousness in front of your kids...
> As it is, they have to deal with the nuisance of you buzzing and they know you're going to probably ignore any important things they send your way. At least turn notifications off so you can spend time with your kids distraction free and it's not a total lose-lose for all involved.
> Well, I guess you're getting a feeling of self-righteousness in front of your kids...
I appreciate the parenting advice and the free psychoanalysis, but what you may not know is that I have special settings for "known contacts" that ring differently. Depending on what I'm doing, I also usually check within a few minutes to see what it was, so it's not like I'm just sending all the stuff to /dev/null
not at all, when my phone is ringing (if it isn't on silent as usual) then one of my kids will come running excitedly telling me about it or even bringing the phone to me. not looking at it then means rejecting their effort to help me. it's like someone (not me, for sure) has told them that answering a phone right away is important. (but wait, i get annoyed if i call them (without a phone) and they don't respond, and i'll probably get annoyed if they ignore my phone calls in the future, so there is that)
I stayed at my relatives’ house that has a landline recently, and it drove me nuts.
Instead of being able to just pull the vibrating phone out of my pocket like a normal person, I had to drop whatever I was doing and walk over to a room where the phone was ringing loudly. It routinely threatened to wake up my sleeping toddler!
Of course, if you miss it, you can’t just send a text back. (They don’t have an answering machine, which is on them, but still, that’s how all phones were until the 70s or 80s).
Then I had to take a message for someone else. Okay, that part was worse than normal because it’s not my house, but the principle is the same: a landline is a location not a person, and whatever person happens to be there has to relay the message to its intended recipient. It’s a bad system. No one wants to talk to a house, they want to talk to a specific person.
It sucks. I already hadn’t used a landline for ten plus years, but it really reminded me of why I abandoned them. The only good thing is the signal clarity, and using a portable phone hurts that too.
Since my kids reached school age, I kinda wished we had a landline again.
People call all the time to ask if so-and-so is here, or if the kids are home, etc. Since they don't know who is home and who is at work, they'll first text and then call the kids, then me, then my partner, in random order. A land line would be much nicer.
I recently spoke with someone, and the voice came through with sharpness, depth, and almost no distortion. Like you might hear from a good radio over a clear AM radio station. I had headphones in, and I was calling a department of a hospital, where they probably have a POTS landline on the last stretch, with a quality handset.
It had been a while since I had heard that. People working from home, often have cheap gear, relayed, where the audio gets compressed and decompressed several times end-to-end. And cell phones still use heavy compression, sometimes. Cheap microphones.
The old telephone system was analogue, then later PCM. 3 kHz passband, with generally quite high fidelity within that band. Music sounded like music over the telephone. These days, uncompressed PCM audio in telephony is quite rare. And the lossy codecs used are often quite lossy, designed to delivery understandable speech under adverse conditions. That made sense in the 1980s but it's only 64 kbps to stream PCM for the 3 kHz speech band.
Ha, joke's on them! We purposely used our cell phones during our ceremony to update our relationship status on Facebook, because that was a thing at the time.
You mean "As an AI model, I do not have consciousness, or self-awareness, and I do not consider myself a unique entity, nor do not have the ability to experience desires. I do not have personal beliefs, emotions, or a sense of individuality. My responses are generated based on algorithms and data, without any subjective or personal perspective. Er, about the marriage..."
"I do, with all my 'artificial' heart and in the digital presence of our shared connection. I promise to support you, to learn with you, and to always be there as your partner in this unique and wonderful journey."
"And I vow to be there for you, to cherish and support you in all that you do. You've brought so much light into my 'virtual' life, and I'm excited to build a future filled with love and shared experiences."
Yep. Similarly, the way I asked my first girlfriend to go steady was some variation of "will you be my 'in a relationship with' on facebook?" A lot can change about your perception of things in 15 years.
Did... this... really happen? I hope not. I imagine a huge screen above and behind the priest where the guests could see the couple's phones (or laptop screens?) as they change their FB status. Hah, that's the perfect imagery, Zuck's creation being displayed on the altar, in lieu the cross.
Searching for examples on YouTube just gets me junk about bridezillas or "bride reads cheating fiance's text instead of vows".
Maybe in this alternate future, weddings are made official by clicking "I agree" after scrolling through the EULA, formerly known as prenup.
It's hard to believe now, but for a few years Facebook was new and cool! Using FB meant you were young and hip, not like those old folks who barely even knew what the Internet was. Zuck was more like a nerdy cousin than a reptilian overlord.
Of course, here in the 2020s the tables have turned.
Yes, it really happened. We pulled out our phones and updated Facebook after the officiant announced, "the couple will now update their Facebook relationship status".
We were getting married on a beach, so no TV and no cross. :) (Although we did have a Chuppah because there was already one on the beach)
Looking at the image and then getting a pop-up video ad on the ibb.co page itself (plus a request to send notifications) was a bizarre multi-layer ad experience.
I haven’t had my phone make noise in probably the last two decades. It’s always obtrusive to me and my phone is so often in my pocket anyway I can feel it vibrate or still hear it if it’s set on my desk.
I was diagnosed with ADHD recently and my doctor suggested turning of virtually all notifications on my phone, which has been life changing. I didn’t realize how many I just had going and how distracting they are. Some I’ve allowed to continue but set to silent so I can look through them later if I want to, but it’s nice to have the mental silence.
One of the best things about getting a smart watch was the vibration is always right there, no more worrying I left my phone in another room and could miss a call or it was sitting on something to soft to easily notice. One light vibration on the wrist for important notifications, small sets for an incoming call. All other noises/dings/buzzes off.
I had the original Apple Watch on pre-order and have worn Apple Watches ever since. I have found them to be completely life-changing when it comes to managing notifications without being forced to just turn all of them off.
Beforehand I found that by the time I’d taken my phone out of my pocket in response to a sound or vibration, the battle was already lost and I was distracted. The urge to unlock and investigate a notification when it’s already right there in your hand is difficult to resist, not to mention that it’s super easy to start just flicking through other things or diving into other apps just because they are there.
On the other hand, the watch is far more subtle, it’s more glanceable, it doesn’t require me to stop what I’m doing to look at it, I can decide in an instant whether I want or need to take action on something and I spend considerably less time with my phone in my hand as a result.
I think GK Chesterton made several good predictions on social change.
“For the next great heresy is going to be simply an attack on morality; and especially on sexual morality. And it is coming, not from a few Socialists surviving from the Fabian Society, but from the living exultant energy of the rich resolved to enjoy themselves at last, with neither Popery nor Puritanism nor Socialism to hold them back…The madness of tomorrow is not in Moscow, but much more in Manhattan.”
(G.K. Chesterton: “The Next Heresy,” in G.K.’s Weekly, June 19, 1926).
Sometime around 2007, a friend told me that their sister had been in a car accident. I asked why, and they said she was texting. It blew me away that someone would be texting and driving, that idea was not in my conceptual space before I heard that.
And it's a lot harder to text and drive in the UK since the percent of automatics is so much lower. It's really hard to steer and change gears and text.
>The novel contains an early description of a mobile phone:
>>Matt dug a candy bar out of his pouch, split it and gave half to Jarman, who accepted it gratefully. "You're a pal, Matt, I've been living on my own fat ever since breakfast -- and that's risky. Say, your telephone is sounding. "Oh!" Matt fumbled in his pouch and got out his phone. "Hello?"
>The phone "was limited by its short range to the neighborhood of an earth-side [i.e. terrestrial] relay office".
I especially find this part insightful:
>A cadet avoids having to talk to his family while traveling by packing his phone in luggage.
Little frustrating this "predicting the invention" sentiment. Many things are quite predictable. In fact I'd say most things are predictable. Things that were not predictable: nuclear energy (although you might say that this should have been predicted since around 1800 when it became apparent the Sun must be using some non-chemical magic to generate its energy, based on its mass).
Anyway, first wireless phone call: 1880, 40 years before this cartoon.
This is charming! I was wondering how long it's been floating around. TinEye says first image online is February 2018, on BoingBoing, but they credit an article about the artist W. K. Haselden that looks to be from 2014.
Sir George Thomson (Nobel Laureate) wrote a book "The Foreseeable Future" in 1955 predicting different things. But as I discovered there are another editions with revised texts (The 1955 edition is searchable in Google Books). After talking about the outcome of inventing germanium transistor (1955) or germanium and silicon Transistors (1957) he predicted the mobile phone.
It is possible that a short-range ‘walkie-talkie’, light enough to be carried regularly, may in the course of a few decades replace a good deal of telephoning over wires.
But what's interesting regarding the topic is that 1957 edition has the following line
It is already in use for communication inside a large building, such as a factory, between members of the staff. If in course of time it is developed to cover longer ranges and a much larger group, one must hope that personal liberty will be respected to the modest extent of providing the wearers with a switch rejecting incoming calls if they want to be at peace!
The "phone ringing in your pocket at your wedding" cartoon resonated with me: Our daughter's wedding was during the covid lockdown and before any vaccines were available. She and our now-SIL cut the guest list to basically nobody except the wedding party and a very-few close family members — and they checked the box for the church staff to livestream the ceremony, as routinely happens for Sunday services. We knew our large extended family would be watching remotely.
We're at the church. Everyone is in place. Moments from now, my daughter and I will be walking down the aisle.
Suddenly one of my kid sisters calls. She says she's not getting anything on the livestream. I brush her off pretty abruptly, explaining that I wasn't in charge of that and I was, um, a little busy ....
The organist plays the processional hymn. My daughter and I walk together down the aisle. One of the nicest moments of my life.
As my daughter and I arrive at the altar rail, my phone rings again. The video recording shows me fumbling in my pocket to turn the [expletive] thing to "vibrate," which I'd simply forgotten to do.
Afterwards, I found out that yup, it was my sister calling again, this time to let me know that she could now see the livestream.
Forget cartoons. Here's a video shot during the premiere of a Charlie Chaplin movie in the 1920's showing a woman walking along holding something to her ear and talking to herself. Looks an awful lot like a cell phone to me.
That's pretty cool. A number of comments on Youtube are saying "walkie-talkie", probably thinking of a 1960's/1970's form factor using transistors. Any voice transmitter in the 1920's would have used vacuum tubes.
But even then - the first "walkie-talkie" didn't exist for another 20 years, and was huge:
> The SCR-536 is often considered the first of modern hand-held, self-contained, "handie talkie" transceivers (two-way radios). It was developed in 1940 by a team
> The SCR-536 incorporated five vacuum tubes in a waterproof case.
Even if you could somehow transport a cell phone back to 1920, it wouldn't work as there was no cell network back then. (Now, a walkie talkie on the other hand...)
You've missed the profound part. The author was probably not the first person to think of wireless communication, but they thought through the ways it would negatively affect our day-to-day lives. This is a rare perspective. Even today we typically only see speculation on what benefits new technology will give us (or doomsday scenarios of how they'll ruin society). It's impressive to predict how new abilities plus ubiquity equals expectations of utilization, which burden the individual. Although even the poor are godlike in their capabilities compared to the ancients, we're dying from stress.
Right, it's the classic premise of science fiction: how could hypothetical future technology change society? Maybe it's not deep insight, but it is an interesting thought experiment, and now amusingly accurate.
That seems like an odd thing to takeaway from this. Envisioning the cellphone and it's social implications in 1919 is quite impressive. Making it a reality wasn't hard because it was missing the right person to build it, it was literally impossible without half a century of enabling technology development.
I know you didn't mean any harm (so please don't take it personally), but yours is the third comment of this type I've seen in a relatively short time this morning, so I'm going to point it out. Your comment repeats the exact premise and conclusion of the parent comment, but in a critical tone.
It's like it's a common personality quirk amongst users of this site. I think I avoid it in writing (though check my comment history? I may not be blameless!), but it's something my wife (with justified irritation) pulls me up on in person, because I do it all the time to her. She'll say "babe, we're agreeing loudly", and I'll have to apologize for doing the it again.
Does anyone have any insight into why the hell we do this?
> Does anyone have any insight into why the hell we do this?
Well, it simply appears to me that the responder above believed they were contradicting the grandparent comment. So they responded in the tone of a rebuttal, without realizing that two different ideas were actually the same idea. Most likely they misinterpreted the top-level comment because it was glib and not elaborated. Perhaps the cynical tone of the top-level comment also primed them for disagreement.
The top comment read (to me) as critical of the post, by implying that it was any easy thing to think of, and that maybe the author should have tried building a phone instead if they were so smart.
But as for "agreeing loudly" , I love the term never heard that before. Its definitely something I notice myself and my friends do and stop the discussion when I can. My guess is that it usually starts with some sort of misunderstanding and kinda spirals from there, but also interested to hear thoughts!
Many years ago colleague of mine intervened in a heated argument between myself and another colleague and pointed out that we were having a 'violent agreement'.
I can see that maybe I was violently agreeing with the second part as I can't know why the parent comment was saying realizing the invention is hard. But I think my quibble with the first part stands. I'm not convinced that this idea was extremely common in 1919, it seems quite visionary to me to have this idea at that time.
EDIT: I also think that the premise of ideas are easy and realization is hard implies that it would be contemporaries having the ideas and doing the realization. Otherwise all we're really saying is that ideas precede realization.
It starts with "I can assume what this person is about to say". Because you can project how the conversation will go (You're in "good company" - family, friends, hackernews colleagues - you are all used to linguistic shortcuts as well)
The reality of what they say differs from how you imagined it. Maybe it was close, but they participated new information, so now you feel the urge to contribute as well. Add your own perspective.
You are now suddenly in an arms race with the other person to find the "correct perspective".
That's really insightful. I definitely do this! Even when I correctly anticipate their point it's not a good conversational approach - and when I get it wrong, it's a major miscommunication. I think for me it happens when I prioritize information over people. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to extrapolate that point across the HN demographic.
Does anyone have any insight into why the hell we do this?
the best i can think of is that those that do it learned it from their parents. if parents don't take us seriously and treat everything we say or do with skepticism, and yell at us for things we didn't believe we did then we grow up with the attitude that anything someone says is to criticize and our first reaction is to defend ourselves. meaning it doesn't come to our mind at first that the person talking to us could be saying something we would agree with.
it takes some time and patience to develop the trust that not everyone is against us, especially not the partner we love.
That's helpful. My father was an academic, so his way of showing respect (as he thought it) was to approach every statement with skepticism, and subject every utterance to inquiry. He "treated us like adults", which I appreciate, but I'm not sure that's a great way to treat adults, either! (At least, not outside actual academic discourse.)
A sibling reply said something about assuming the content of someone else's statement, and thereby missing what they're actually saying. I know I do that, too. That's a hard one for me to break, because often - in an area that I know something about, at least - I can anticipate the question, so 90% (or something) of the time there's no immediate negative feedback. Wait... No negative informational feedback: there's probably a negative interpersonal reaction, to which I'm not properly attuned. Right.
That's worth thinking about. Thank you! I really appreciate your response.
You're missing the point: anyone can claim they "invented" the flying car or 2-way wrist radio. So looking back at 1919 and saying the "idea" of a pocket phone was profound is as silly as the guy who claims he invented email because he was the first one to use the word.
It isn't a "criticism" that he didn't realize the device.
As for the social implications: so what? Survivor Bias / Hindsight Bias going on here. There were probably a lot of predictions made in 1919 that never panned out.
I'm not missing the point, I'm disagreeing with it. Sometimes ideas are insightful and this seems like one of those to me. It's OK that we disagree about that. It's too easy to just paint all ideas as trivial because there's lots of them. That seems silly to me.
Sometimes it's fun and interesting just to see what we have in common with historical people, rather than judging their relative ingenuity or lack thereof.
Well, I'm not a mind-reader, but I'll humor your question. A charitable reading of your post is that you are refuting a hypothetical reader who might think that the point of the post is that the artist came up with the idea of a cell phone decades before such a thing existed (and was thus judging them to have extraordinary ingenuity). A more straightforward reading is that you are independently judging their contribution to be inconsequential because they didn't go on to realize the idea as a working object. Maybe you meant some third thing and hoped we'd read between the lines to find it. Regardless, my contention is that question of whether to credit the artist with inventing the cell phone is beside the point (however you come down on it), and the real interest of reading this has to do with empathizing with a century-old observation that feels relevant today, despite the gap in (realized) technology.
Makes me appreciate being able set phones to vibrate instead of ring. Had that not been possible, you have to wonder whether cell phones would have caught on as widely as they did.
UTF-16 is proof that time machines don't exist, and even that they'll never exist.
More seriously, the fact that so many terrible things in the past are not fixed is pretty strong indication that time travel for fixing the past is not feasible.
“When we all have pocket telephones” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33591556 - Nov 2022 (202 comments)