Ehhhh no.
I can get behind “ban spying on me.”
I can even get behind “ban social media, especially the kind that makes you sell yourself, though pseudononymous link aggregators are less the issue.”
But “no more torrenting at work, no more reading digitally while pooping, no more encrypted chats, now have to carry a book, a camera, an mp3 player, my GBC, and a dumb phone, just to make up for the phone?”
No.
Perhaps the actual answer is for people to learn self control.
That will never work, nobody has discipline anymore
Ok buddy Marcus Aurelius
I’m just making commentary bud. Multiple times in the city I’ve seen people nearly get hit by busses because they cross the street nose deep in their phone without looking up. Some people can’t come unglued for 10 seconds to look both ways before crossing a busy roadway in a bus plaza, it’s kind of crazy!
No. Smartphones convicted the murderer of George Floyd. Smartphones have shown to the world the police brutality that happens at peaceful protests. Technology isn’t inherently evil, it’s how its used.
Smart phones are just pocket computers. Up to you how their used, good evil neutral it’s all at ur fingertips.
How about no. I’ve been wanting a pocketable “do everything” device since I got a Tiger Electronics PokeDex as a kid. Don’t take this away from me.
How about better regulations on the obscene amount of data collection going on behind our backs? I can’t count how many times I’ve come across even just websites that have a giant “accept all cookies” button, but in order to reject any, you have to dig through layers and layers of “settings”. The most I’ve seen was 80+. And that’s just websites.
I’m about to wipe my phone and go all-in on Calyx OS.
Ban social media and advertising/marketing. Smart phones are just a small computer.
The problem is with planned obsolescence and capitalist drive to always make more. The device itself is not inherently bad, it’s a glorified calculator.
I’m pretty far down the luddite/makhaevist wormhole… But this is just a garbage idea.
Me who has a disability which prevents me from speaking and hearing people and renders me bedridden.
“Okay, guess I’ll die then”
Author admits smartphones are ubiquitous, and doesn’t at all consider, in a hypothetical situation where everyone unanimously agreed to stop using them, where all this e-waste will go?
Also, how do you disillusion the millions of people that use them religiously?
I get the sentiment, but only a significant technologically literate society would really appreciate the need for greater control over their devices and actually possess the skills needed to modify and configure them.
Current smart phones will become e-waste either way. On that front, the benefit would be forcing all manufacturers to stop creating more e-waste for the future.
Author admits smartphones are ubiquitous, and doesn’t at all consider, in a hypothetical situation where everyone unanimously agreed to stop using them, where all this e-waste will go?
Pretty much every single smartphone in use right now will be ewaste 20 years from now, and most of them will be within 10. So we have that disposal problem already regardless. Hypothetically, if everyone were to get rid of their phones, we’d at least stop creating even more future ewaste.
Hey David, can you guess how many people are reading your article from a smartphone? Convenient, isn’t it.
Want to complain about smartphones? Write a book… or something that can be published on fucking paper.
Bad take.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Moscrop
Journalists tell themselves they can make their ends meet by publishing a book pretty frequently.
Turns out that’s rarely true. He seems to be mainly a podcaster though? Those lines can get blurry.
Also, the Jacobin is a magazine that still sells a printed version…
So, can you guess which percentage of people prefer using an smartphone to read these kind of anti smartphone articles? Do you see the issue? The irony?
This is just trash ragebait dude.
Is Jacobin just garbage or am I just seeing only garbage articles?
Idk why don’t you go directly to the site?
Looks fine to me but they’re preaching to the choir. You’re certainly right that people have only been posting their shit takes here.
Like some kind of engagement or rage bait or something
And then what? Go back to the stone age?
Kids waiting to get picked at school and their parents have emergency, how are they gonna inform the others to get picked up? Are they gonna just let that kid suck it up and wait for hours, just like the good old times?
What? Corded phones exist, and most schools and offices have at least one in each room. Dumb phones exist. Pagers exist.
Smart phones are not the only singular solution for easy, quick contact.
The stone age = any time before 2005 apparently 🙄
1-800-collect
so much bullshit
Why is the left so intent on becoming Luddites? What the fuck is this timeline?
I don’t think it’s “the left” as a whole but the literal Luddites would definitely have been considered part of it.
There’s just going to be some overlap in the anti-capitalist Venn diagram on these issues.
Because luddism is good. But this article aint it.
No it isn’t. Technology is the evolutionary adaptation of humanity. It would be like a tiger cutting off its claws, or a rabbit breaking its own legs.
This left wing Luddite attitude is simply fueled by fucking tribalism because it wasn’t really anywhere to be found until the tech bros turned republican.
Ban smartphones makes about as much sense as ban drugs or ban guns. It does nothing to address root causes and will do little to change anything for the better. Societal issues take more than “make X illegal”.
If USA banned guns, they might have a few less shootings.
Counting the civil war or no?
Do counts with and without the civil war.
This is obviously true in the strictest sense, but I don’t think it’s going to have the desired effect you want in the long run. How’s the War on Drugs working out? It’s been going for 54 years, so I assume it’s about wrapped up now, drugs aren’t an issue, black market is choked out, and society is better off.
Firearms restrictions will be enforced unequally; it will be used as a pretense to further persecute minorities. Those with money will simply hire private security contractors who can jump through the legal hoops to get whatever they want. The majority of shootings in the US are related to drugs and other illegal activities that have logistics channels to get guns just as easily as drugs or exploited people. Guns are durable and the demand exists. They’re not going anywhere.
The gun problem in the US is not the cause of our woes, it is the symptom. “Make X illegal” is the laziest form of government and it’s just granting them more power which will be abused eventually.
Appreciated, but do you think the authorities want to win the war on drugs?
Battling anything is built of two parts, making it immoral, and making it illegal. Making it illegal makes it easier to argue that it’s immoral, because many people take cues for their morality from legality, but if you want to keep it illegal you have to maintain the cultural belief in its immorality. Each reinforces the other.
