Lots of these predictions were actually quite horrible. e.g. flying cars would be so much worse than regular cars in so many ways.

I wouldn’t be so sure about that. We definitely got a lot of social progress from technology, but it’s plain to see that social media gets massively abused for reactionary propaganda (not entirely unlike radio and print have been abused to further authoritarian ideologies in early 20th century). IME, in recent years people have been getting MORE cold and brutal, more willing to assault random people for being the wrong sexual orientation, they started assaulting EMTs, firefighters and train employees in significant numbers, and people have been outright murdered for telling them that they should wear a mask.

And every appliance becoming “smart” seems to further the corporate desire for planned obsolescence and making people unable to repair their belongings, along with massively increasing security risks and possibilities for mass surveillance.

IMO, we’re moving backwards right now, with significant risk of losing the progress of the last 50 years.

Good luck ignoring social media nowadays. Whether you use them or not, you live in a society that does use them and you are impacted by its consequences.

And good luck trying to buy a new television that isn’t “smart”. Even cars are getting like that.

Yeah, and the amish aren’t exactly a positive example in terms of personal freedom, especially for women and queer people. Though those were never their goals anyway, so a more modern luddite community might be nicer to live in.

Cyberpunk authors have been introducing progress-hostile/‘go back to the past’ movements and factions since the 80s, arguably it’s older than cyberpunk-style technology itself (cyberpunk-style technology definitely being a thing that already exists, arguably since the www-internet but nowadays with VR, AI and electronically enhanced prostetics we’re definitely getting into the flashier stuff). And remember that the cyberpunk genre paints the future as bleak, in terms of how the common people live most cyberpunk worlds are clear downgrades compared to the actual 1980s.

And e.g. the amish rejected the industrial revolution.

… please don’t abbreviate that.

What’s CNS?

Most “ASMR” grosses me out TBH, I don’t like that whisper stuff and I really hate those lip-smacking sounds - to me it’s about as erotic as eating with your mouth open. Shame, since I am actually interested in the general concept.

Why do you think they encased them in glass?

But they can still produce offspring with humans (e.g. Elrond is half-elven), which is usually what defines a species.

I made a shell script titled “update”, it updates system packages, flatpaks and python packages. Too many lines for an alias for my tastes.

Vivec?

Don’t most people have Whatsapp? It’s certainly harder to spy on the content of your messages, it’s just a matter of how much issue you have with giving Meta your metadata.

The fact that most of my PC builds are generally midrange builds (i.e. about that $700 price if I reuse the case and PSU and GPU prices aren’t surging), and that midrange-build-GPU is only barely usable for AAA for one full generation. It might go for longer with games that are as well-optimized as a Doom game, but that’s not the norm.

The $700 build is definitely not keeping up with AAA games for two full console generations.

That’s cool, but most people want to keep playing current AAA games.

Do you need a new keyboard and mouse though? Even laptop users usually already have a mouse, and keyboards tend to have good longevity - mine is over 10 years old.

Many people already have a laptop and want to build a PC specifically for gaming, though. Upgrading isn’t all it’s cracked up to be IMO, it’s definitely nice to have but a console lasts the entire console generation (5 years give or take?) if you ignore then mid-gen upgrade which is usually entirely optional.

… can you actually make a PC with comparable performance these days? What does a console-level GPU cost these days?

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