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0 pointsdbgrman2h ago0 comments

Mad respect for his work. Love his writing. But no, i'm not buying the story of going offline, especially not with a trending hackernews post and a typewritten letter to the internet. When one is done with something, they're done. Cold turkey. like "Fck this sht, i'm out". If someone notices that you are missing, they'll ask, and you can give them your spiel about being AI-Amish or whatever.

Even if you ignore all that, I think you just need a break, rest, recover, find something else in life and move on. The whole thing about "life was better in the past" is just plain non-sense, simply because the past, for all we know, extends to infinity. Why 1980 and not 1890? or 1590? the inquisition? maybe the crusades? or maybe the pharohs? If you believe in biblical tales then how about being in the great flood? or being one of the pharoh soldiers that die after the sea moses split closes on them? or one of the skulls in gengis khan's tower of skulls?

You can read Steven Pinker's "Better angels of our nature" and get a good sense of how far along have we come.

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asdfman1232h ago

This was well written but it does sort of read as a guy bragging about his wealth and creativity. Good for him but when I leave tech I'm going to be a little less bombastic about it.

latkin2h ago

100%. I get it -- I'm _also_ burned out on social media, AI, screens, the treadmill of the tech industry, etc.

But you can just stop doing those specific things. Delete your social media accounts. Put a screen time timer on your phone. Continue to work on your hobby projects or work projects without AI. There is a middle ground without going full "1980s tech Amish life conversion". Email, text messaging, Maps, basic websites, etc are all still super useful and generally non-harmful. You can still perfectly-well enjoy analog hobbies like typewriters, vinyl, film photography, etc _alongside_ common-sense modern tech.

And you look dumb to anyone paying attention when you launch a multi-pronged social media moment to tell the world that you don't think social media is worth using. It's kind of sad, like someone making a huge deal about "this is my L A S T cigarette everyone!", "this is my L A S T drink!" but all their friends are kind of cringing inside.

Also sad that he feels the need for online promotion of his paper zine about fully offline life.

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