A quote that resonated with me today about tech

This resonated hard with me today. I'm being pressured to upgrade my tech, and I'm trying to find my own lines of what's acceptable to me, and how to stay where I am comfortable, but able to do what's required of me.


“I don’t want to connect my coffee machine to the Wifi network. I don’t want to share the file with OneDrive. I don’t want to download an app to check my car’s fluid levels. I don’t want to scan a QR code to view the restaurant menu. I don’t want to let Google know my location before showing me the search results.

I don’t want to include a Teams link on the calendar invite. I don’t want to pay 50 different monthly subscription fees for all my software. I don’t want to upgrade to TurboTax platinum plus audit protection. I don’t want to install the Webex plugin to join the meeting. I don’t want to share my car’s braking data with the actuaries at State Farm.

I don’t want to text with your AI chatbot. I don’t want to download the Instagram app to look at your picture. I don’t want to type in my email address to view the content on your company’s website. I don’t want text messages with promo codes. I don’t want to leave your company a five-star Google review in exchange for the chance to win a $20 Starbucks gift card.

I don’t want to join your exclusive community in the metaverse. I don’t want AI to help me write my comments on LinkedIn. I don’t even want to be on LinkedIn in the first place.

I just want to pay for a product one time (and only one time), know that it’s going to work flawlessly, press 0 to speak to an operator if I need help, and otherwise be left alone and treated with some small measure of human dignity, if that’s not too much to ask.”

~ Robert Sterling

I don't need infotainment in my vehicle, I want a vehicle that is reliable and repairable.

I don't need a touchscreen the size of my desktop screen on my fridge.

I do not need my toilet to play music while I do my business, but I admit that would be pretty neat!

Technology is a wonderful thing, but we don't have to stick computers into everything.

Ted Kaczynski talked about how all technology seems optional at first, but eventually becomes mandatory, at least if one wants to participate in society in any way. A simple example is the automobile.....back when cars first came out they were just an impractical novelty. Now modern society is structured around vehicular transportation (whether it's your own personal car, trucks shipping goods, mass transit, etc). We don't really have the choice not to use vehicles in some way in our lives any more.

It'll be the same way with connected devices, eventually. Right now, it's still just a novelty. 100 years from now, everything will probably be "connected".

I wish people were more willing to push back against unwanted technologies.  It seems like Americans, at least, just accept it if they don't outright embrace it.  I really, really need to learn more about repairing machine-type things, or make lifestyle changes I don't necessarily want to, because I'm very unhappy with being spied on by my toaster and don't want the next one to brick itself if I don't pay the monthly subscription (ala Unauthorized Bread by Cory Doctorow).

The tech serves me, at my convenience. There is always a way to push back on, or limit, encroachment. I note this is deliberately made as inconvenient as possible. How dare you not submit your personal data! Pfft. Get stuffed.

I want clocks that I can reset without having to look up the instructions!!!

Actually, I'd be happy simply with many fewer clocks - I do *not* need a clock in my microwave, I already have one in my stove. And they *really* don't need to do double duty as nightlights. (In other words, they don't need to be so bright as to shine all the way down the hallway.)

Hear hear. I'm not interested in any of that stuff, either. Every new tech fad is just a way to part you with your money, or your information!

Oh dear I agree!
My farm has no electricity, not even solar. I charge my mobile at the library and guard the power jealously. I have stripped my mobile to the bare minimum.

It works fine. I am totally glueless as to pop stars and popular movies or fashion. I never see ads. But I can easily search for information, order books from the national library system, do my banking and access our national healthcare.

Yep. I don't own a smartphone, neither do I want to. They seem to take up an awful lot of people's time. I guess I'm an oddity for my generation (I'm in my early 30s) but I notice how easy it is for me to get stuck in the digital at the expense of the physical, and how much worse I feel when I do. There might come a time, even though I sincerely hope not, when I'll be forced to get a smartphone in order to keep interacting with society. I'll put that off for as long as possible. Personally, I think it's a bit limiting to assume that things can only ever move in one direction, that there is some inexorable law of nature that forces us to have more flashy tech tomorrow than we have today. After all, humanity is made up of a lot of individual humans, each supposedly choosing their own way through life. Why, then, does it seem so inconceivable that some of us might at some point want less technology in our lives, rather than more?

I don't want to spend more time than I already do looking at a screen. I want to spend more of my time gardening, building stuff and fishing. And talking to people I like, face to face. And listening to the wind in the trees. And sitting for half an hour watching a toad trying to climb the tent to get at one particular fly that's always just out of reach. And about a million more things which aren't, and can never meaningfully be, online.

(Also, when I am online, I want to spend more of that time here, with all you lovely people, talking about how to live well on this planet, and less idly doomscrolling the news!)