Industrial Society and Its Future, and the various influences for it? The Golden Spruce?
I mostly only pay attention to anything tech-negative at all if it's got some kind of historical or human interest.
I've read a lot of the Suckless stuff though, and the Worse is Better stuff, because I always see it on places like this and thought I should probably at least know what it is.
But it always seems like people from less technical fields have clearer writing on why they like these things, tech people are always trying to fight an uphill battle to make tech simple and logical, meanwhile encapsulated complexity is a lot of why most people like it.
Wheras swiss watchmakers, mathematicians, and DIY woodworkers are working in a medium that naturally supports simplicity, and talking to an audience that appreciates it more, they don't have as much conflict happening to obscure things.
I see that differently. Mathemticians often come into a field that's complex and filled with fudge factors and layers of engineering and make it clear and simple. See the history of electrical engineering in the 20th century.
Mathematicians come in and see the possibilities for deep innovation and making stuff work that didn't before.
Engineers take their work and figure out how to make it last 100k hours and be made of cheap pot metal and plastic and be a drop-in replacement for the previous thing, and to be safe if someone misuses it, how to make it with existing production lines, what extra features could be added cheaply, etc.
Modern tech couldn't exist without both(Even if they can sometimes be the same person), but usually neither side is all that excited about the other's work, if everyone is getting along they seem to just recognize the value in it but be glad they get to stick to their side.
When they don't get along the mathematicians are like "Wow, why are you adding this useless stuff" because they don't realize the extra feature only costs 2 cents a unit and doesn't add much weight, and the engineers are like "Why do we even need those number poets" forgetting that their whole job is using their stuff.
I mostly only pay attention to anything tech-negative at all if it's got some kind of historical or human interest.
I've read a lot of the Suckless stuff though, and the Worse is Better stuff, because I always see it on places like this and thought I should probably at least know what it is.
But it always seems like people from less technical fields have clearer writing on why they like these things, tech people are always trying to fight an uphill battle to make tech simple and logical, meanwhile encapsulated complexity is a lot of why most people like it.
Wheras swiss watchmakers, mathematicians, and DIY woodworkers are working in a medium that naturally supports simplicity, and talking to an audience that appreciates it more, they don't have as much conflict happening to obscure things.