This reminds me a little of an article that was on Zen Habits Monday http://zenhabits.net/2009/03/steps-towards-a-more-sustainable-life-of-less/

I actually buy more CDs now than I did when Napster & everything was big. I think I get the majority of my music direct from the artists now, but that is probably just because I love music and indie arists.

I think (hope) that we will start seeing at least a little push from people away from the digital lifestyle. I think a generation soon will be rejecting it to rebel against a lifestyle that their parents have...I think you already see a lot of people pushing away from it just because of the stigma it's starting to hold, the new is wearing off. 

I still think there's something to be said for digital, though. If it 1) reduces resource consumption and b) is used to make life better, more efficient. But I think there's MORE to be said about sitting down with a newspaper in a coffee shop, and not a screen.

As much as I have adopted and love social networking, I think it stinks. I think it's good for staying in contact but it needs to be used less for socializing & people need to get back to human basics again & get outside.

That's all. Just my ramble.

Some of my latest thoughts on technology are about how "all over the place" it is.  

I am visioning a new website for my job the last couple of weeks and have just adopted twitter and am experimenting with it for awhile permanent instantaneous audience for my most mundane thoughts, fascinating.  I also just got a new laptop and after importing years of (mostly) legally obtained music and legally ripping it to various computer hard drives over the years I am a little frustrated that with the so called digital rights management I can't even listen to many of my own songs.  Arghh!  But that will be a double arghh if I'm trying to DJ sometime and can't get the song to cue up properly because I haven't sorted this problem out yet.    

Then yesterday I was doing a teleconference training for work.  Imagine that looking out the window at a blizzard and the training goes on where in the past it would have certainly been canceled costing folks all sorts of money and even safety problems.  But anyway, the training is mainly on this new website (mnctf.net) that will have an "old fashioned" bbs posting system for people who work in the field and some others to network, or whatever.  People were doing that back in the early 90s, but apparently they still use it, it's cheap, pretty easy and fairly effective, too.  So technology is an inextricably linked part of my life today.  But people are at all different levels with it.  

And the training is all over the map, too.  When I was a kid, c. 1982 our school got an Apple II computer and the FIRST thing they showed us (besides Oregon Trail, natch) was how to start some programming in "basic."  Now way down the road there are computers in every classroom everywhere but nobody (including me) is really learning how to do programming or design without some special training.  

Finally,

Last night after various interruptions I was sitting on the couch watching Jimmy Fallon who is not looking too good for a starter, but anyway ... back to the point I was watching TV and my wife grabs the laptop and starts chatting with a friend.  SO there we are together on the couch with a private moment, but it kind of burned me up how we weren't exactly together. Our bodies were there, but most of us (the thinking, feeling, believing parts) were somewhere else.  

None of these are unique ideas or thoughts but they are mine.  Looking forward to what others say.

I do web management at a large local University and look for ways to put new and existing information online. Some office folks have said "but we WANT the students to come to us with such and such a form because otherwise we'd never see them." Hard to argue with that.

I find I am splitting my music purchases about 50/40/10, 50% online, 40% CDs 10% records, and in reality if more bands would go the route of issuing LPs with a code for a free digital download I'd go that route exclusively. 

I think there is a strong argument for issuing books, such as textbooks, into digital format for things like the kindel but other than that I won't give up physical books any time soon, too much tactile and emotional investment and a small part of me resents having to have electricity to read.

Newspapers are seriously screwed, they are having a hell of a time making enough money online to subsidize either a physical copy, or any significant staff for good long term reporting. Too many "information should be free" freaks scared the newspapers away from charging for their content, and now they are scrapping for web-ad hits.

I love the internet and digital things in general, but it makes us more lazy in many ways, it replaces a certain amount of quality for quantity. Wonder what will happen once the Swarm virus finally crashes everything for good?

I think the biggest change with "the new digital lifestyle" will be how the current generation views past generations.

Almost everyone knows the story of Anne Frank's diary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Frank) and at this moment, historians are debating if they have the last photograph of Lincoln (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101663935). We still have photos, letters, newspapers that give us new and unique views of the past.
More and more information is being created and shared now, but almost none of it is being stored. And what is being stored, will it be of any importance to the following generations?
I think of someone reading old letters where their great grandfather recounts their entry into Ellis Island. A few generations from now, no one is going to be reading what we post to the web now. Even if they could, what would they find of importance? (We're off to the bar to get trashed - LOLZ!!!1!)

Though I consider myself a modern techno-geek, I'm also jaded by it's effect. I read 40 RSS feeds in a day, but it's been quite a while since I sat down and actually read a *book*. I write on my blog, take digital photos, but I feel like nothing I create will have an permanence or affect on the future.
Sorry for the long pessimistic rant, just in a mood today I guess...

Kids @ HCIS are fascinated when we begin to discuss the difference between analog and digital. IN an audio context, analog is a pure sine wave where digital is tiny frequent snapshots of the sine wave. We can extend that into our lives. Our experience of life is being captured in more and more frequent (and there for less nuanced) snapshots. Tweets and blogs and moments uploaded from our phone to our facebook. I think it's about resolution. At what resolution are we existing? With what resolution are we satisfied with our representation of the flow of life? Are we content with a collection of sequential stair step fragmentations or will we one day miss the lost bits?

Baci, I really like your take on this. It's going to impact my world view, really.

I have one question that I have wondered about a lot. Does digital actually reduce resource consumption? I would like to see the science behind that. How often do we junk/replace our electronics and how much electricity are we using to live a digital life?

When the internet first became popular people frequently referred to web content as "free." Still do, I guess, but I've always thought this: the computer's not free, the internet access is not free, that means the content is not actually free, either.

also. we are still certainly in the beginnings of an understanding of how to make money on the Internet. however, these are the early days. Second Life is one example of a vibrant online economy--one where, i think, a thousand Linden dollars is equal to less than five $US. and people spend on there like nobody's business, though it's usually for virtual sex and clothing. (ah, humans are so predictable, aren't they?) 

the lesson is this: the basic service i provide is free, but upgrades will cost you. so the basic game of Second Life is free, but in order to have a really good time, you've got to pay. so the newspaper can offer the news for free, but have upgraded services that cost. many people will have no problem forking over a few dollars for upgrades that enhance whatever experience it is they are seeking. maybe you pay a little bit to get your content without advertising. maybe it's individualization, or maybe it's personal attention--people will always be willing to pay a little for enhanced services. the problem is always that they're not thinking about how tiny costs add up. asking for too much money will make people balk right away.

Have to say I really hate the notion that technology just is, and there's nothing we can do about it. Sort of defines us as slaves, doesn't it? Nor do I think technology is neutral--it has effects, good or bad, depending on what your values are and what kind of society you want to live in. But then I also think (and quite happily, except for all the short term suffering) that we're at the beginning stage of the complete collapse of industrial civilization.

Gotta agree with hbh1. Even though past civilizations HAVE collapsed, evolution has a funny habit of...making things evolve, generally for the better, IMO. The negative, destructive, "unproductive" stuff gets weeded out, and Life moves forward toward the bigger, the brighter, the more expansive and whole. Of course, I'm a deep and eternal optimist.

It's very difficult to see the greater picture from "within the arc". I can understand how many perceive technology and "industrial civilization" as negative and anti-humanistic, but "industrial" and "technology" are totally relative. There was a time when the ox and plow was high-tech. I believe that in 100, 500, 1000 years, our techologies and industry will evolved right along with our biology and consciousness, slowly merging into a holistic continuum. Yeah, I know that's "out there", but it's what I believe.

I was cleaning a bookshelf today and found a sleeve of negatives from our family vacation three years ago. I spent hundreds of dollars buying film and getting it developed. The prints are in a photo album that's falling apart.
Last month, we went on a vacation and I had a digital camera this time — much better. I uploaded my photos to blurb.com and used their software to make a coffee-table book of the trip.

Not only have past civilizations collapsed, every single one has. Predicting the end of the world as we know it has a 100% success rate. And considering the effect of this civilization on what I value about the world, hoping for its collapse is the only hope I have.

I don't take it as an attack at all; I just don't understand what you don't understand. It refers back to comments by hbh and vicarious.

1) Every historical civilization has ended.

2) Therefore, it's no stretch to say that our civilization will also end.

3) Our ever increasing human numbers and wasteful lifestyle are rapidly causing the extinction of other species and the (temporary in the long term) destruction of the natural world. Because I value the existence of other species more than I value the addition of another billion humans, I hope that our civilization ends as soon as possible before it does more damage. And though I know this won't win votes in a topic devoted to praising technology, I honestly think humans are better off with less technology and more connection to the natural world so I think that collapse will be better for humans in the long run as well.

I completely understand Eco Eco's position about destruction of species, overpopulation, etc. It is VERY worrisome. I do take issue with his/her assertion that "every civilation has collapsed". In fact, every civilization has evolved. More precisely, HUMAN civilization has evolved, and will undoubtedly continue to do so, per my last comment.

at any rate, Eco Eco, i think most people want the diversity of our species to continue/grow and be preserved. but i think we can see clearly in places where industrial "civilization" has collapsed or devolved, it has led to further environmental degradation, not less. (Haiti, for instance, or parts of Russia or Somalia.) collapse is messy, and involves not just abstract "suffering" but a long tail of desperate resource extraction, the large-scale killing of species for food or cutting of forest for fuel. we don't want to go there. 

i used to be the sort of person that hoped for an industrial collapse, wished for a sort of green anarchy. but the more i think about it, i think there really is no going back to the (original or mythical) garden. we needed to go through industrial progress in order to come to where we are now, where it is possible (nay, necessary) to restructure society using what knowledge and science we have to become a reasonable planet-dwelling race. or die, as you say. i'd rather not die. and i'd rather that millions" of people who are apparently not me do not die horrible deaths involving starvation and further devastating environmental degradation. wishing for such a thing is mind-bogglingly cruel, and very pessimistic. 

not to mention the fact that standing in the middle of the river and holding out our hands to stop it doesn't work very well. the river goes where it will. 

i think the mechanism of "collapse" isn't what we think it is. i also know that the technology of all those past civilizations didn't generally disappear. some of it was dropped when it wasn't useful to the specific people who remained, sure. (because of course a civilization "collapse" doesn't involve large-scale death or the disappearance of the people--this isn't Ripley's Believe it or Not, you know. they just move on. evolve. the Roman government might have collapsed, but the people went on with their lives. they married the Barbarians. invited them into the tavern.) 

there is far too much usefulness to the Internet for it to suddenly be abandoned on a large scale, even if the big factories that make computers for some reason can't make any more. it's like saying we'll all go back to depending on herbs for our healing, instead of combining our knowledge of both natural and man-made medicine. we keep what's good, and we abandon what doesn't work. 

you surely don't think that industrial collapse is the sort of things where all of a sudden one day the computers stop working and we all start gardening and being good neighbors.

This post and it's comments are why I love PDD.

Yes, vicarious, we're not likely to see this conversation on DNT or whatever that other site is. 

My last long comment was replying to hbh if it's not obvious; edgeways snuck in there.

Kevin Kelly author of Out of Control predicts something like Socialism 2.0 in the coming decades. Everyone with ANY thing intellectual (or other) to share will be on the web and anyone not on the web will suffer from withdrawl. With people currently sharing exponentially more video and music consisting of themselves sitting at home and making noise into rudimentary rhythms I am reminded of Marcel Duchamp and John Cage. Cage and Duchamp were proponents of experiencing the everyday world as a work of art, an arrangement on a chess board or the sound of traffic not to mention nature. Of course you don't have to be plugged in to experience that kind of art. So I hope if we all must be plugged into the web it won't just be a virtual reality of a mundane reality.

1) I am really becoming a fan of the "Amazing Alonzo" paperback exchange.  After decades of just driving by I stopped in one day last month looking for some books for one of my partner's classes in college.  Amazing Alonzo had a few of the books and much cheaper than the embarrassing used book prices charged by her school's library.

What's more, I got a couple of books and some dvd's myself.  Later, when I was doing some book shelf cleaning I just brought them to amazing alonzo.  I think paper books are here to stay for a long time.  They may be on the way out, but not quickly.  Too many old used, worn and notated old books out there in the world.  

2) But besides actual books, I think Calk may is probably right about the new reading stuff.  I got a subscription (weekends) to the DNT mainly out of a sense of loyalty to the community and a to the people I value who WORK for the DNT. But I often wonder what is the point.  Everything is online, anyway.  And the new and local content is getting scanter and scanter.  I like magazines, but with this new laptop I can read web-magazines in bed or on the couch or anywhere.  I'm sure it's even more convenient with a kindle or book-ready pda.  

3) To the "civilization" debate when I was an RA in college, the history professor who was the resident on my floor was amused by the fact that his three staff were respectively officers in the student clubs for Young Democrats, College Republicans, and Young Socialists (gasp, that was me). We were politically and economically diverse, but not all that diverse culturally and even though I was the super broke one, all of us where enfranchised enough to land ourselves in a nice, private college where people debated these things.  The professor was an expert on Russia and "the east" (Asia minor, The Balkans, Byzantium, etc a real tinder box at that time).  He said that political systems last only about 250 years (max)on average worldwide.  I have looked around and tested that and it seems pretty true.  

If that is true, this civilization is done.  And, my opinion, it already started.  These governmental falls can nearly always be seen as gradual, slow transitions that you might miss if you were living through them.  And I believe we are living through one of those shifts right now.  In fact, we may have already entered the new age.  Technology is part of the shift, sure, it always is.  But the true decay comes from the same things they all do, bloated bureaucracy, corrupt oligarchies, and indifferent/ineffective leadership occurring simultaneously with unsustainable economic, military and economic practices. The rebirth comes from empowered citizenry and revolution.  And no, I am no longer a socialist, but I sure sound like one here, don't I, lol

50 years from now it will be obvious whether I was right or wrong.   (Whew, this may be my longest post ever, agreed with all that this was an excellent topic and discussion)

I talked to a guy last summer and he wrote software writing software for hoNe Ywel and he said, "If we only had a dictionary for all this code"... ha ha ha