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by csallen 39 days ago
List of things that the public despised when they were new:

- Cars (expensive toys for the rich that endangered normal ppl and spooked horses)

- Recorded music (similar complaints about it not supporting artists)

- Bicycles (commonly called the devil's work)

- Novels (morally dangerous)

- Headphones / Sony Walkman (anti-social)

I remember when chatting online was nerdy, anti-social, and uncool. Now celebrities casually talk about sliding into each other's DMs.

The initial "it's unfashionable" backlash to new, useful, and threatening technology has been so repetitive and predictable throughout history that it's almost passe now. Most people aren't students of history of course, so history will repeat itself.

But that also means the second act will repeat, not just the first act. And the useful technology will almost certainly become fashionable and accepted once it's more commonplace.

4 comments

Please, please stop with the AI analogies. Just make your argument on its own terms.

"It's different from X" is no more meaningful than "it's the same as X".

> It's different from X"

The post doesn't even say "it's different from X". It just says "it's unfashionable," with no comparison or mention of history at all, as if this is the first time a new technology has ever been unfashionable immediately after its release.

> Just make your argument on its own terms.

I feel like my argument is obvious? The "unfashionable" period for useful-but-jarringly-new consumer-facing technology is common, predictable, and short-lived.

You can't predict culture, you can't predict fashion, you can't predict the course of history, you can't predict innovations, you can't predict any of this creativity-mediated stuff.
Yes you can, in many cases. Go read a book about culture lol
OK, I choose "The Poverty of Historicism". Which book did you have in mind?
The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Secret of Our Success, almost any book about patterns in human history.

Anyway, my point isn't about predicting historical or cultural changes at some hugely complex scale. My point is that it's simple and predictable that useful new technology is most hated when it's new, but eventually tends to be adopted and embraced and normalized when it's had some time. That is, assuming it's affordable and truly useful.

If you want to bet against that happening in this case because you believe culture can't be predicted, then I would gladly take that bet, any amount of $ you want to wager, and let's meet back here in 5 years.

Ironically, nothing makes me question my stance of human supremacy over AI more than the weakness and triteness of human defenses of AI.

Or maybe the defenses are AI generated, who knows.

When you ask me, headphones are for much people the sign for beeing antisocial, especially for the people that want to be antisocial. Online chats and online dating are now so much monetized and hyped that I would be happy when we would back to the old times where it was a nerdy thing or when we could remove it from the history completely.

So yes, all things that I accepted first I hate now. The others I was born in, can't tell much about them. Maybe the people are right but accept the shit later.

They were right about cars, to be fair
Only cars? I would extend the list with bicycles, online chat/dating and at least headphones.
Okay but sometimes people despise things and then they go away or get stigma'd into a corner. There is selection bias in that list.

But either way, I'm talking about *the present* which is the time we all live in. Opining that in the future maybe it will be different is like - sure? Not super relevant though.

> Okay but sometimes people despise things and then they go away or get stigma'd into a corner.

Sure, but has that ever happened to a technology that was useful, convenient, affordable, etc.? Definitely gotta be rare. I think the utility tends to win in the end.

> But either way, I'm talking about *the present* which is the time we all live in.

Yeah that's why I didn't disagree with you. I think you're right about the present. But I wouldn't call my response irrelevant. It's pretty normal in a conversation to carry things forward and respond with your own thoughts.