Digital detox
This weekend I'll be heading off on vacation. I've elected to leave my laptop at home, although I still intend to bring everything else: phone, Steam Deck, headphones, and VR headset among them.
Welcome back to Futurism, the only solarpunk gemlog in Geminispace. There are apparently multiple less-than-ideal things Futurism shares its name with, so I apologize if that misled you.
On Retreat
My laptop facilitates the bulk of my computer-related activities; it is both my programming device and my writing device. It's also my chief browsing, learning, and social media device. Leaving it at home is a great way to help me disconnect.
I also have a Librem 5, which I wrote a first impressions review[1] about. I unfortunately won't be leaving my normal phone at home, since it has RCS, a better camera, a WAY better battery life, and all of my music. I'll bring it with me though, maybe just to use around the house while I'm there.
At an annual church retreat I used to go to, we were not allowed to bring our normal devices -- I think cameras were allowed. The adult chaperones kept their devices on them and those would be used to keep families updated and contact them when necessary. There was of course plenty to do there: Fort Caswell is a pretty sizeable campus, with the fort you can explore when it's not just been hit by a hurricane (we went in the fall so it always was), a gym you can go to if you have a membership, a gift shop, a walking trail, and a lot of open space you can play football or something in.
Aside: You can't swim in the water or really be on the beach at all. I don't remember why.
It was also one of the earliest experiences I have of somewhat communal living. We were all assigned some time in the kitchen, it was every camper's responsibility to help out wherever they were needed, be it taking out the trash, cleaning, or cooking. The big shared dining area was also used for a few games, including the traditional big crazy youth group games, but also Uno -- I think they played Spicy Uno and never invited me; I only learned that one a couple years later with a few people from that group.
I think I have more thoughts to share on my experiences at church but maybe that's best shared privately.
After I left the church, last year I decided to bring the no-devices tradition to our now-annual summer visit to Grandma's. Okay, only partially. But it's a start and man, is it a huge difference.
In a situation where there are things to do other than sit around and play video games or code or whatever it is you like to do on your personal devices, people tend to do those other things. Introvert or not, we're still social beings.
Why don't we try to bring some of that vacation digital detox home with us? Maybe piece-by-piece.
Going low-tech
I know I'm not ready to give up my devices just yet. My laptop isn't going anywhere, apart from changing what laptop I have, eventually. I'm not switching to the Librem 5, probably ever. I've said it before but I think I want to eventually switch to a standalone smartwatch, maybe a dedicated pocket-sized digital camera¹, and an e-paper tablet. Inspired by the reader in Peace and Violence, I think I'll end up trying to use the e-paper tablet as my coding device eventually.
There are a lot of strictly-defined terms going around for technology that fits into more or less the same category. We want our devices to be simple, repairable, long-lasting, probably not omni-purpose, definitely not selling us or trying to sell to us, which work offline, and a lot more things. Our modern systems, particularly capitalism, prompt manufacturers to make devices that are the polar opposites of these values: ad-displaying tracking devices that cost a fortune, don't last a year, do way, way more than they should, addict you, and force themselves into your life at every possible opportunity.
There are many names for the kinds of tech we really want: low-tech, quiet tech, calm tech, humane tech, smol web (hello!).
The Luddites
Named after a legendary weaver, the Luddites were a clandestine group of textile workers in England who, starting in 1811, resisted the employment of machines that would replace them and make inferior quality products. They did this by, guess what, breaking those machines, and sending threatening letters to people who supported the use of those machines. They were violently ended by the British military and police in about 1816.
Today, the type of machine the Luddites rebelled against have a new name: "Artificial Intelligence." If you're the kind of person who'd read a Gemini log, you and I are on the same page about this machine that companies want to replace workers with, which also spits out terrible quality product.
According to Wikipedia, there's also a semi-official "neo-Luddite" movement now that declared its opposition to "consumerism and the increasingly bizarre and frightening technologies of the Computer Age." And as a few paragraphs down notes, the benefits of automation are NOT equally distributed.
Even Mastodon
Social media kinda sucks. On the one hand, it enables you to enlighten others, and be enlightened. On the other hand, especially if people are sharing about their personal lives or are talking about the world or politics or some other hard topics, it can take a tremendous toll on one's mental health. That's the basis of the argument that social media is bad for kids. It is, when used incorrectly.
Mastodon is no exception to this phenomenon. Even without the algorithm, once you've found your footing (and this is a lot more difficult to do on the Fediverse due to its decentralized nature, and Mastodon-and-friends due to the complete lack of discovery algorithms), it's still hard to tear yourself away, to stop sharing and reading. It's just so addictive and time consuming. Combine that with heavy topics and the "other people are having a better life than me" phenomenon, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Here's an idea: a slow email-based public sharing medium, where you can share your notes with the world (maybe one per day) and it gets collected, some top 20 or so picked somehow, and sent to you daily or weekly or whatever. I think the network effect would make this impossible, or it could be attached to ActivityPub. Then there's the problem of _how_ would such a top-20 filter work.
Browsers; and closing thoughts
The Web as we know it today is a huge, bloated mess that's impossible to build new browsers for. That's part of why Gemini exists and a great part of why I'm using it.
I think we should have an app platform that's Web-like, probably built on top of a set of Web technologies like a canvas API and WebAssembly, and pluggable so that different features can be provided separately or even by different vendors (like a potential WASM-USB). I think it would be wise to make these plugins have to fit into well-known, standardized "slots" so that only publicly-specified APIs can be built.
Such an app platform could replace the Web's role as an app platform, and allow even for browser independence. Yeah this is a lot like Java Applets but it's made a lot better (WebAssembly >>> Java), and hopefully it's a lot lighter-weight, too. The one disadvantage is that it's not open-by-default the way the Web is, although with most Web apps that advantage is already compiled away. Hopefully we can figure out forwards-compatibility for it too, and better updating, because Java runtime version maintenance is STILL a hassle in the year 2024.
As is everything else in our modern consumerist-capitalist world.
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