[yumiris]

You are absolutely right! We expect all information to be given to us, instead of us seeking the specific information we need.

The solution is to - like your maxim implies - reverse the paradigm, by treating technology like it was initially designed: a tool for us to use with intent.

Even the apps and websites which have been optimised for engagement can be valuable. The value is what we make of it, just like how the websites make value out of us.

Advocating for quitting technology unfortunately becomes more and more of an impractical advice, as technology is further ingrained into our lifestyle.

What matters the most is being mindful and honest with ourselves. The moment we lose sight of how we use something, it starts using us.

It seems like your book focuses on a similar mindset. I've stumbled upon it before, but now I'll definitely be giving it a read! :)

[rektide]

> The solution is to - like your maxim implies - reverse the paradigm, by treating technology like it was initially designed: a tool for us to use with intent.

I agree strongly on logical, emotional, & spiritual levels with this assessment. Ursala Franklin's lectures on Holistic enabling technologies versus Prescriptive directing technologies[1], or her Work versus Control technologies distinctions, is a good perspective to assess by, to view tech by. They define this struggle for what lets us work with intent, versus what molds it's intent upon us very strongly, very sharply, & very smartly, & are essential readings for socio-technology today in my view.

It is all very complicated right now. Technologies like Instagram or Tiktok are both highly creative & enabling, presenting a rich ability to craft, but extremely limiting & process/control oriented in terms of distribution/viewing/engagement, as fixed as can be. Understanding how walled & limited we are on some fronts while enabled on other fronts presents a serious challenge of understanding, and this challenge is far heightened by the severely limited alternatives and options we have in the world today. Even if someone can set up or gain access to a good PeerTube instance, they'll have less creative tools available & face a myriad of other distribution/engagement challenges. The tech may be less limiting, especially if they run their own instance, but at other great costs.

Genuinely trying to create a technology which can be engaged in & learned of requires not just good teaching intent, but a software ecosystem which is learnable & explorable. We need technology which is capable of being engaged in. The web, here, is remarkably strong & powerful, with userscripts being a powerful demonstration of how some small tidbits of common knowledge can give us wideranging power over most every corporate/institutional property on the planet. There's nothing like it! It's purely incidental though- few web sites are specifically implemented to enhance understanding of how the site itself functions. There's a big-ball-of-mud/complexity under the covers, in a variety of different programming languages/libraries as we travel about, & almost none of it is designed for external use. I like to imagine a web where components could more clearly state their intent, be poked & prodded & understood by outsiders using common devtools. To me, this is one of the latent & most inspiring hopes of could-be web platform systems like WebComponents, that they could help make the web more broadly understandable & explorable for everyone, that it could make the hypermedium itself rich not just in what it expresses, but internally as well. This idea of making the technology open & exposed & engageable is a precondition for a society capable of growing a healthy, non-poisonous, non-treacherous, resillient relationship with technology.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Franklin#Holistic_and_p...

[nonrandomstring]

Thanks for a thoughtful informative reply.

> They define this struggle for what lets us work with intent, versus what molds it's intent upon us very strongly

I often couch this struggle as the relation between IA (intelligence amplification) and AI (artificial intelligence). I am not the first to draw the lines that way, and I don't literally mean AI (machine learning) in the sense that most of us techies would understand. But I think it's a good demarcation to show the way computing is splitting/polarising along socio-political lines. For BigTech, it's a means of control, not discovery.

> Ursala Franklin's lectures

Thanks for this. I've heard of her I think, but obviously have some more reading to do.

> Work versus Control technologies distinctions, is a good perspective

In Digital Vegan I talk some about the transformation of digital technologies from enabling tools to instruments of enforcement.

> The web, here, is remarkably strong powerful, with userscripts being a powerful demonstration of how some small tidbits of common knowledge can give us wideranging power over most every corporate/institutional property on the planet. There's nothing like it! It's purely incidental though- few web sites are specifically implemented to enhance understanding of how the site itself functions.

Ted Nelson (and some of the other WWW pioneers) had similar visions of a "lisp machine-like" queryable distributed structure.

> imagine a web where components could more clearly state their intent, be poked & prodded & understood by outsiders using common devtools. To me, this is one of the latent & most inspiring hopes of could-be web platform systems like WebComponents, that they could help make the web more broadly understandable & explorable for everyone, that it could make the hypermedium itself rich not just in what it expresses, but internally as well.

Web1.0 carried that hope but failed. Web2.0 tried (at least brought interactive participation) but was usurped by commerce. Is Web3.0 trying again? Is the arc of web history on the side of your vision? I hope so.