From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: hector Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: humans and technology Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2017 17:16:05 +0200 Message-ID: <20170429151605.GA3057@workstation> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1493479007 5473 195.159.176.226 (29 Apr 2017 15:16:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2017 15:16:47 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Apr 29 17:16:42 2017 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1d4U6z-0001IH-MF for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 29 Apr 2017 17:16:41 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:41421 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1d4U73-0001xE-Rq for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 29 Apr 2017 11:16:45 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:54341) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1d4U6a-0001wy-6g for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 29 Apr 2017 11:16:17 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1d4U6V-0008KL-7P for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 29 Apr 2017 11:16:16 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-wr0-x244.google.com ([2a00:1450:400c:c0c::244]:34220) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1d4U6U-0008KD-Vn for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 29 Apr 2017 11:16:11 -0400 Original-Received: by mail-wr0-x244.google.com with SMTP id 6so9866898wrb.1 for ; Sat, 29 Apr 2017 08:16:10 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20161025; h=from:date:to:subject:message-id:mail-followup-to:references :mime-version:content-disposition:in-reply-to:user-agent; bh=klZbACel9h7XYBkA6um4i/lVfnqjK1IjYHVyAhOCLI4=; b=Ye9by1oHHzDWyvpbSKwjDNY4ZlAdRTdC7YfjWWzBHvXkBvREkb4tI7JBZYlaX+Qo+9 WVNiszbAtT1DBOi4pqoUicw7cigdFuC2NzixGDDV1+WG6/Zn6E97dysnr9I6dZK5KKQ0 PC4hZojYLs3lqcDQIDzt2pa0Rzgxu1AiD37WjGyoRtnNmbnN/sKbAAIPqO/wNDRW8ltS hZJM4oDlp+lpOp9OVjjrBZWI09uTl6tEnjYVpX7eau4yoqIoiaw6BLirMj/uuAIFBWr9 Yy87D7GR1vW6AMOFYfQHEnegfWKZ3s9w/YWL98FNRb8NKQIkW1aS0lPNTXeEHxXEO+gO Qtng== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:from:date:to:subject:message-id:mail-followup-to :references:mime-version:content-disposition:in-reply-to:user-agent; bh=klZbACel9h7XYBkA6um4i/lVfnqjK1IjYHVyAhOCLI4=; b=LwJwpEOfck02g8TvjUjfq8Gd58SUJ1lnqsrF3GG1/G+gUd9yZj/bFkB4d7KyLd0jf2 5QO4s+Krzl3tvrvxMBQ7cbsaNqq9hfTkf2oFfUEKSErAqwuI3GOyiTFuWbt3zkiIFsJ3 uiMn7coT1sxwiTRFARirBP0MxJgVwAIEJbkgWLZ206MYEi1WBT2zuIiwZlxYq5aNgGjU fXwhc1LihFOOn5kE6zqdOTR/slsdWDz36eg1GOAdw47Y9+yh2q1tb5fW+7xWx75BFDpp kF1EmiDXk++7PElJcyYTV3TLMudnKLaPcZeYmTCIkLZPQ2TT+VinpFOpJqZvlHurOEPv 3uBw== X-Gm-Message-State: AN3rC/5UdC4rVXp8fceabdbJ9JjZGlub0uy+3BKhzX6hjvoOsGID24d6 PBgXz9AP40KsXDlI X-Received: by 10.223.164.9 with SMTP id d9mr9285095wra.91.1493478969315; Sat, 29 Apr 2017 08:16:09 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from workstation ([47.62.132.10]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id m185sm2261367wma.7.2017.04.29.08.16.07 for (version=TLS1 cipher=AES128-SHA bits=128/128); Sat, 29 Apr 2017 08:16:08 -0700 (PDT) X-Google-Original-From: hector Mail-Followup-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 2a00:1450:400c:c0c::244 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "help-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:112900 Archived-At: I think it is good to have something more than "why * doesn't work?" posts even if this doesn't exactly fit here. Perhaps we should create "philosophy-gnu-emacs@gnu.org" for this kind of stuff. On Sat, Apr 29, 2017 at 06:57:52AM +0200, Emanuel Berg wrote: > You know the Marxist theory of society etc. > etc.? I you apply that to technology and some > self-knowledge, it seems to click perfectly > with us and Unix and Emacs. Only thing is, > other people will end up with different > technology. Here, there is a notion that some > technology is better than the other. But then > why do people use the inferior technology? Well. You should formally define "good" and "better". Not an easy task. This is a recurrent question everywhere I look. The answer is always the same: there is no "good" but "good in this context" or "good in this case". For any task (in IT field or outside) that you have to accomplish you have a good deal of choices. They do basically the same. But they differ in the details. Some work only under some circumstances. Perhaps they are "better" (faster, easier to deploy) but they have more requirements than other solutions. So this "inferior" solution could be better because its requirements are lower. So you could say that this "inferior" solution (could be slower) is better because it doesn't require X to work. If you have X available it is good to have the faster solution but it could happen that you don't have X. If you don't have X the faster solution is worse because it could even refuse to do anything at all. So in sum, "good" and "better" are always RELATIVE. > Because they are not as good to begin with? > Why not? Here is where the theory gets shady. > But morals aside, it is a perfect match. > At least for me. But are other people who has > experienced the same perfect match the same as > me? How so? And if you do technology too much, > are you technology as well as human? I don't know if this is related to what you are saying here. I think technology is not good or bad in itself. It is the way you use it what is good or bad. As you say, "morals aside", technology is a reality. 100 years ago a person didn't have to decide if mobile phones were good of bad because they didn't exist. Now we are in a point in history where we have to deal with something radically different in our lives. Our way of life has nothing to do with that of our grandfathers. Is this good? I don't know. Perhaps many things about technology are good. But I think there it brings up a big danger: that we lose our humanity. > If yes, > how much do you have to do it? If you reproduce > yourself every day, and a good portion of that > day is technology, and this goes on every day, > where does the line go where you produce > technology and it doesn't produce you? It's inevitable. Technology is part of our world. It affects us. Let me add some thoughts here. :-) You see? Smile is not part of technology. It was there long before computers even existed. That is human. You don't need a computer to smile. But computers can make you smile or get angry. I think everybody should use Emacs. But it's not possible. Even some of my closer friends don't use (or even know) it. But I couldn't live without it :-) It's become a big part of my life. When Richard Stallman began its development about 35(?) years ago I think he could not imagine what it would become in the future. And speaking of "good" and "evil"... is Emacs "better" pr "superior" to other text editors? Again: it depends. You can do a lot of things with it. But it's becoming heavy weight. Although people try to make it modular it's inevitable that it becomes slower (starting time) and consumes more memory. Anyway in one thing it is clearly superior: freedom. Even if it wasn't as "good" as other editors (fast, featured) it still would be more free. How "good" it is depends on several factors and the weight of those factors. How much do you value freedom?