[BOI_B1]

One thing i have noticed about new technology is that it seams to be packaged differently. I'm not just talking about the technology of the last 10 years but rather that of the last 200. A lot of new technology seems to be more and more hidden. Take for example the one of the most complex machines of the 1700s, a square rigged sailing ship. Every line, stay, shroud and spar is visible to the naked eye. And they are not simple. They require a trained and disiplined crew not just to be sailed, but also to not be broken. Now look at you phone. It is a faaaaaar more advanced machine, Capable of comunicating instantly over the globe. Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advancet technology is indistinguishable form magic, and a phone would be magic to a pistol wielding, swashbuckleing deckhand of a 1700s sailing ship. But the details of a phones innards are hidden away from sight. What i'm trying to say is that modern technology is mostly hidden inside black boxes.

Another example (that i relly want to write about) is car interiors. A car has a lot of controls (more than i bother to write about). But in some cars that want to be seen as futuristic, these are impracticly hidden away.

 Look at the teslas interior and compare it to the porsches. Theese are both expensive cars and the manufacturer could do whatever they wanted. While the teslas interior may look simpler, try imagening adjusting anything while driving. On the porsche, you can use muscle memory and just do it. On the tesla you need to take your eyes of the road and use a fucking touch screen. I can just imagine an ecsecutive at tesla looking at the previous model and saying it is to complicated, like he have never ever driven a car, and making the engineers design a new, ceaner but more cluterly to use interior. A porsche is a car guys car and a tesla is a techbros car

You can also see the differance between small comercial fishing boats and pontoon boats. Comercial fishing boats are kinda ugly, but they are honest, and that honesty is kina butiful in a way. Every line is exposed, the windshield faces downwards to reduce glare and surfaces that are easy to clean. Pontoon boats on the other hand are not marketed to experienced owners. They have much of the same tech as fishing boats have but so much is hidden. I once saw one with headlights like that form a car.

What im trying to get at is that so much intresting technology seams to be hidden. Not only is this bad because it makes things more difficult to work on but i believe it makes things uglier. I don't know where this attitude that tech is about products, not techniques comes from but i hate it.

[funguy777]

Good point about the cars. Noticed it in computing, more and more panels to access fewer and fewer options.

[Aakato]

yeah, idk if it's because of minimalism or our collective vision of the future being super clean and automated. But it's an interesting thing to think about. technology has advanced exponentially and also became more hidden from people. It's harder to pick apart modern gadgets to understand what's inside. If i hadn't built my own pc i prob wouldn't understand half of the equipment.

[BOI_B1]

yeah, idk if it's because of minimalism or our collective vision of the future being super clean and automated. But it's an interesting thing to think about. technology has advanced exponentially and also became more hidden from people. It's harder to pick apart modern gadgets to understand what's inside. If i hadn't built my own pc i prob wouldn't understand half of the equipment.

I think it's a combination of minimalism as aestetic rather than minimalism as a design philosophy and our withering right to repair. Tools are in a way an extenision of the human body. When you are screwing with a screwdriver, you dont feel the plastic of the handle in your hand, you feal how the tip of the screwdriver fits into the screw. A minimalist designed tool allows you to get haptic feedback on whatever you are doing. This may look aesteticly clutered, but it's still made for use. Hiding controls away behind panels may make things look simpler, even though it makes it harder to use. On the tesla model x you need to go thrug a lot more menes than on the porsche.

Also, hiding things behid panels makes it harder to understand how it works and thusly, makes it more likely for you to take it to repair. I remember looking at my bike when i was a kid and looking at all the wires, sprokets and the chain, and intuitivly seing how it works. This makes it less intimidating to repair.

[zzalvoz]

It's good to hide technology but it's a scary trend of the powerful wielding an even more terrible power, because they know that no one will be able to check up on them. Already technological literacy is dying out in younger generations

[dionysiacarmageddon]

I think there is an emerging drive towards "simplicity" within modernity, and I think it's resulting in making technological aesthetics more non-physical than anything else, see NFT's the blockchain "The Cloud" etc and I'm not entirely sure why because I believe that the the forceful imposition of tech into physical space, the existence of tech in ways that cannot not be seen would be a strategy of corporate technophilia - the dominance of the machine made undeniable by it's ubiquity, it's inescapability. This may perhaps be a strategy of reliance - the unseen technology becomes so intertwined yet unseen that the techno-tyranny has become dominant without anybody truly knowing. This kinda seems akin to the advent of neo-liberalism over blatant authoritarianism - the chains and guns replaced with unknowable forces of economy of bureaucracy.

[awesomepal131183]

Do you guys think technology already peaked? It seems like there's less innovation or is that just market capture rather than physical reality?

[XxDirtyWart420xX]

AI shits getting wild and I don't think it's going to be a good thing for anyone. Even technology of this level has pretty much ruined me

[awesomepal131183]

[BOI_B1]

Do you guys think technology already peaked? It seems like there's less innovation or is that just market capture rather than physical reality?

I don't know if there is more innovation now than before, but it seams like we aren't made to properly engage with modern technology and see how it works. A lot of new technology seems to be made to be easy to use, rather than to relly understand it. Look at the differance between manual and automatic transimittion cars. Manuals may be more complicated to drive but you can't argue that you don't have controll. In manual cars, you can engine brake, push start and avoid specific gears if they don't work proparly and more. Not because there is a specific button for that, but because it is a natural extention of driving.

What i'm trying to say, and what i relly want you guys to understand, is that a lot of modern technology is made to be consumed, rather than to be understand. I think some of the reason that a lot of people feal like technology is out of control, is because our control of it is willfully taken away.