After some thought when and if I get into anything political I'll just spawn a new thread in the political forum. Hopefully it would be OK to provide a link to that thread within this one to direct anyone that actually has interest.

Also are there any other topics that are verboten here that I should know about in advance? I chose the Everything Else forum mainly because I intend to talk about pretty much everything.

That's way more than I intended for today perhaps tomorrow I'll go into my motivation for starting this thread.

I'm 70 and I received my first cell phone, as a gift, 7 years ago. Reason..my car broke down twice in 1 month. Could not find a pay phone and had to ask a restaurant to borrow their phone. Since then my flip phone is always in the car for this purpose. I have a land line at home and am happy to live this way. I'm also NOT on any social media as I don't need everybody to know my business.

Almost everyone I know is addicted to their cell.

That's how I feel and I'm stickin to it.  

S J N

reply 18

I'm 70 and I received my first cell phone, as a gift, 7 years ago. Reason..my car broke down twice in 1 month. Could not find a pay phone and had to ask a restaurant to borrow their phone. Since then my flip phone is always in the car for this purpose. I have a land line at home and am happy to live this way. I'm also NOT on any social media as I don't need everybody to know my business.

Almost everyone I know is addicted to their cell.

That's how I feel and I'm stickin to it.  

Good for you  . That's a very good reason.

Just to be clear the cell phone thing is my own personal thing. It's not like I'm advocating that anyone else should be the same way. I'm just explaining how I am and what events shaped the way I am. As long as you're fine with being able to be constantly tracked via cell tower pings then there's no reason not to have one. My wife has an old Motorola flip phone but the only time she turns it on to my knowledge is to call me from the garage to tell me to come and get the groceries. But given how ages ago the power switch on PC's went from a hard disconnect of the power supply to an input to the CPU to request a power down sequence that actually doesn't even power down the CPU core, can you really trust that turning off the cell phone means you can't be tracked?

I actually gave a thought to enabling both my wife's and my OnStar on our 2010 Impalas but instead early this year I bought each of us a new 2020 Impala. It really wasn't necessary, she had only 30K miles on hers and I only had 50K miles on mine but ten years is long enough. Also as far as the tracking thing goes I also know that the GPS unit in all GM vehicles (perhaps the same is true of other manufacturers as well but I don't know to a certainty) can also be used to monitor where and when you go and how fast you get there. For that matter the CPU in every modern car can be queried to tell how fast you were going, how soon and hard you braked and how you turned the steering wheel in the case of an accident.

I've thought of having the transmitters ripped out of the car but there's a limit to even my paranoia (plus the uncertainty that there aren't other methods to be tracked such as the aforementioned CPU).

I knew a handful of very sharp, young software engineers (also MIT educated) that went to work for the CIA to fight state sponsored cyber attacks after 911 that explained to me that there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent a sufficiently skilled hacker from getting to pretty much any information they want. Your only protection is your anonymity but given that MITRE has worked on data mining pretty much for the last 20 years I wouldn't really count on it.

Hey there.  I don't recall interacting with you in the past, but this is a great thread MumbleFratz.  I'm /way/ younger than you, but one of the things that I've learned during my time here on earth is that life is far too short to learn from one's own mistakes and experiences.  In order to adequately navigate the world one must be able to learn from the experiences, mistakes, and wisdom of other people as well.  So I appreciate your perspective.

I've gone back and forth on the moble-phone idea myself, as I've also seen how they (and beepers/pagers before them) became tools to tether individuals to obligations (they do not want to have), rather than tools of convenience or liberation they are originally presumed to be when their uptake by society is on that exponential curve upwards.  Already I see inklings of the protected and privileged classes (people with enough education/prestige/wealth to be able to say "no") stepping away from phones/tablets/etc because of the broad recognition of the trade-offs inherent in their dependence upon these devices (and potential harms of this dependence).  Thus, while a mobile phone was a status symbol 15 years ago, the ability to ignore calls and turn off the phone is quickly becoming a status symbol over the next 15 years. 

If you're interested, there is a lot of academic literature on choice, self-binding, second order preferences, etc with respect to individuals and how they choose to give-up or limit things that they like, but are potentially harmful in excess.  I would place mobile phones into this continuum myself, personally.  My phone doesn't ring if anyone I don't know calls, I get no beeps, boops, or other alerts at all.  I do not use it for personal email, I keep virtually every convenient service on it turned off, have viciously eschewed any apps or games that are not strictly necessary (for security, being the main reason, but I find the idea that any app adds much utility fairly dubious) and generally keep it tweaked for minimal addictiveness...  One thing that I will say though, is that phones are INCREDIBLY useful while traveling, although the joy of getting lost is an experience quickly on its way to extinction in the present day...

If I may.  What I feel like you're attempting to put into words, but are falling short on the specific language and terminology to succinctly do so is that there is no innate quality of technology that makes life /better/.  This is an idea that's been seeing a lot of resurgence as each subsequent generation that's followed your Boomer footsteps has found itself to be increasingly impoverished (Gen-X, the Millenials, then Gen-Z or the Homelanders (the name is still being debated, I think it should be "Generation-F" myself)).  What these generations have been increasingly questioning is the "Myth of Progress" and are increasingly coming to the conclusion that the "Progress" and the ideas of Techno-utopianism are actually just religions.  Religions both of belief ("all new technology is better than what it replaced"), as well as of practice (consumerism).  And like many Religions, many of these precepts have been hijacked by powerful interests, despite being of a questionable infallibility to begin with.  The precepts that made this belief system "work" were largely predicated upon resource abundance - which is now transitioning to resource scarcity; if not on absolute terms, certainly on a per-capita basis..

This post wasn't meant to be about religion, but rather, that this idea is so pervasive and so entrenched that the only appropriate terminology with which to describe it is that of something equally pervasive and entrenched in human history, which are religions. 

You might quite like, and find a lot of resonance in the writings of John Michael Greer - he also has a ton of book interviews on  Youtube.  For example: here is a post he wrote about razor blades and how no one can get a decent shave anymore (just like your observation that mobile phones are so convenient that you can't even hear the guy on the other end of the call anymore) https://archdruidmirror.blogspot.com/2017/06/what-progress-means.html

You might quite like a lot of his posts on this archived blog on industrial civilization. 

That's probably about enough nonsense from my end, but I just wanted to wave and say that I like your thread..

-tid242

edit: I might add.  You might really like Oswald Spengler's "Technics and Man" (recently reprinted, finally), and if you like it you could even dive into his Opus: "Decline of the West" - now that you're retired you would have time for it.  It sounds like it would resonate with the zeitgeist you're channeling 

For better or worse, a smart phone has become an indispensable tool in my line of work and I find a lot of conveniences come along for the ride.  Just wish privacy concerns didn't tag along, too.  I could probably resume a land-line-only life but it would be noticeably less efficient.  To my way of thinking, if you're willing to communicate via the internet on a computer, it's really no different using a smart phone - the computer just happens to fit in your pocket.  0.02

I cut your quote short just because to quote the whole thing would take up too much room and the original is only two posts above but your entire response is excellent and thought provoking and does indeed at least touch on multiple things that I intend to go into. However, your guess as to my reasons for starting this thread and my ultimate goal of what I'm trying to express are not correct.

What I'm doing is pretty much simply trying to describe the why and wherefore of me. How I am and how I came to be that way. Obviously a lot of different experiences over the course of many years factor into it. To this point I have only partially and perhaps not too eloquently described a single aspect of my life out of perhaps dozens.

I know I'm dancing around quite a bit here and my purpose is not really to be intentionally mysterious but it's going to take me awhile to even describe the why of what I'm doing which is what I'm going to try and attempt shortly.

I could probably expand on a number of points you bring up but I do fear alienating folks with "walls of text" but the first thing you mentioned that struck a particular chord with me is learning from other people's mistakes. That's at least a part of my motivation for starting this thread.

Here's a few more observations I've made in my life that echo this statement.

1) The intelligent mostly learn from other people's mistakes.

2) The average mostly learn from their own mistakes.

3) The ignorant generally don't from their own or anyone else's mistakes.

The thing is I doubt there is any one person that any one of these point applies to exclusively. We've probably all learned something from someone else's mistakes. We've all certainly learned quite a bit from our own mistakes and I'm sure if you dig deep enough you could probably find mistakes in your life that for whatever reason you would be incapable of repeating given similar circumstances. C'est La Vie.

I do promise to get at least into the why of what I'm doing as quickly as possible but I still have to set it up a bit so please bear with me. This post is already too long to begin to go into it here.

I fully understand. Perhaps when and if you retire then you may have the luxury of giving it up if that's what you want to do. I've personally found retirement to be extremely freeing, I highly recommend it.  

To put to bed my particular form of Luddism; I will not enable the wireless connection to my ISP, I don't allow any programs on my PC to automatically update themselves, I will not use a debit card (although I do use a credit card) and I will most certainly not participate in online banking or in any form of online access to any funds or assets I have. I also will never put a camera or microphone on any computer I own.

That's pretty much it.

The reason I won't use a debit card but will use a credit card are twofold. The first is that it's a Federal law that your loss is limited to $50 in the case of credit card fraud. With a debit card your loss is generally limited to $50 but that is merely a bank policy that can change without notice (if you don't believe me read the small print on your debit card agreement). The second is that with credit card fraud the burden of proof is on the credit card company to prove you made the purchase whereas with debit card fraud the burden of proof is on you to prove you didn't make the purchase (also subject to bank policy, not law) and proving a negative is notoriously difficult.

I'm not going to go into the details of why I won't do any of the rest of these things because I don't want to beat a dead horse but if anyone is actually interested in hearing why I'll be happy to explain.

Smartphones are really cool devices. For entertainment. For communicating. The world in the palm of your hand. Nothing more to than that. I can do my banking. Pay Bills. I have friends all over the world and I use Facebook and MeWe to talk to them. Really cool stuff.

I use my debit card like a credit card. Don't have to use the pin. Never had a problem.

I think WiFi is fantastic. I've never had any sort of problem with it. The Router/Modem is password protected. I also use a VPN sometimes. Never had a problem.

I know people that put tape over the camera on their laptops. I would never do that.

I'll leave the philosophy lessons and social discourse to you guys. Sometimes over thinking something is almost as bad as not thinking.

I use technology to do things. It actually makes my life easier. I'm not obsessed with it. It's just another tool.

Years ago people were in awe of the radio, automobiles, electric light and TV. They all became part of our lives and now we don't even think about them. We just use them. They're just things. If they weren't there anymore people would learn to adapt.

Mumble, you and I are about the same age.  I went to high school in the Boston area and took a couple of classes at MIT as a high school senior (Special Relativity and Fortran programming).  But I went another direction and got a BS in physics from Caltech and then an MS from UC Berkeley.  Worked for 40 years as a software engineer, retired at the end of 2017.

My wife and I have used cellphones since the Palm Pilot, progressing to various iterations of Samsung Android phones.  We recently cut the cord on our land line.  We had been getting 6 to 10 spam phone calls a day on it, and hardly ever any calls from someone we wanted to talk to.  So now we're on our cells exclusively, and getting only 1 to 2 spam phone calls per day.  I do not like the fact that Google owns Android and probably tracks everything I do, but we do need our phones, especially when traveling.

Probably not a bad idea.

I retired Janurary 2017 but my last 2 years prior to retirement I only worked half time.

Caltech, MIT and Rensselaer were the only three schools I applied to and Rensselaer was really just my backup. I was accepted by all three and I really had to think long and hard between Caltech and MIT. What swayed me in the end was the impression that at Caltech you pretty much needed to know what you wanted to major in right from the start whereas at MIT you had a wider selection of potential career choices. Since I didn't really know what I wanted to be when I grew up that favored MIT. Also growing up in Detroit (which was a very nice city in my day and at the time the 5th most populous city in the US, sad how it has declined) Boston seemed to me a nice compact livable city. The final nail was I wanted to play Division II hockey which I ended up doing. Is it a coincidence that both their mascots are the beaver?

You probably know these standard MIT jokes.

There used to be an A&P grocery store on Mass Ave between MIT and Harvard. One day a college kid came through a 12 item or less checkout lane with a shopping cart full of groceries. So the checker said to him "Either you're from Harvard and can't add or from MIT and can't read."

When the bridge on Mass Ave over the Charles River was built they had an essay contest between Harvard and MIT students as to who would get to name the bridge. Of course a MIT student won but being a good engineer and seeing the shoddy construction of the bridge he said "Name it after Harvard."

Ba dump bump.

P.S. One more Harvard denigration joke.

A new Harvard freshman from Texas sitting in the University commons asked a passing upperclassman "Excuse me can you tell me where Harvard Square is at." The upperclassman replied "At Harvard we don't end our sentences with prepositions." So the Texas freshman replied "OK, can you tell me where Harvard Square is at, asshole."

Back to my narrative. This is actually a kind of a funny story about how one day I skipped work, drove all the way down to the Foxwoods casino and within about an hour had a heart attack.

Anyway I had played poker starting in my fraternity and years after at a weekly home game of one of my friends. In later years I didn't play all that much but once Foxwoods opened I would sneak down 2 or 3 times a year and play poker. My wife didn't really approve but what the heck. Anyway one Friday sometime in September 2002 I skipped work and drove down to Foxwoods (an hour and half drive if you drove 100 which you could in those days on 395).

In those days I smoked, had 200+ ldl cholesterol and was about 30 pounds overweight. Plus I had just turned 50. I had pretty much just sat down at a poker table when I started to feel funny. Didn't have the left arm or chest pain or any other overt sign of a heart attack but I just felt something was wrong so I got up to get to my car which, if you're at all familiar with Foxwoods parking, was way, way far away down this long corridor that was at least a half mile long. I started walking and I got about 40 feet before I felt lightheaded and had to sit down. I rested a bit and got another forty feet and had to sit down again. I repeated this a couple more times until I finally realized I really probably shouldn't get in my car a try to drive to Emerson Hospital 2 hours away in Concord, MA around the corner from where I live to this day.

At that point there were no longer any nearby benches to rest on so I just laid down on the floor knowing that every foot of Foxwoods had security cameras and I would probably get at least security to come by shortly. As it turned out Foxwoods was a really good place to have a heart attack as they had an ambulance parked near the back entrance of the casino. The EMT's were with me within a minute or two and they took me to nearby Backus Hospital (wasn't Jim Backus the voice of Mr. Magoo).

Backus Hospital couldn't deal with a heart attack so they bundled me up and put me in a helicopter and sent me off to Yale-New Haven Hospital which was an interesting trip in and of itself. Anyway before I left I asked the doctor to call my wife because she didn't know where I was. I later found out that he had tried to call multiple times but she just hung up saying that I was at work 10 miles away so there was no way I could possibly be in Connecticut.

At some point I nodded off (they had given me 5 mg of IV morphine by that point so it was no surprise). The doctors woke me up and I found myself sitting on some kind of radioscopic chair and looked to my left and saw a clear image of my heart pumping with four bright lines of radioactive dye in my arteries that all stopped dead before reaching my heart. When one of the doctors asked if I would like for them to try to save my life I said I thought that would be a good idea. They still wouldn't proceed until I signed some form which I couldn't read and could barely sign but I scribbled something and that seemed to make them happy and let me get back to sleep.

The Yale-New Haven doctor finally made contact with my wife later that evening by which time she realized that something must have happened.

I woke up the next day and the doctor explained that all four major arteries were blocked and they were only able to clear the three most important ones via angioplasty. The least important artery supplied a small section of my heart about the size of a quarter and that muscle tissue had died and would scar up and become pretty stable. They said that it was likely to be more damaging to have to go in and try to clean it up than it would be to leave it as is.

My wife called me on Saturday and she drove down on Sunday and she was definitely not happy but also wasn't going to tear into me while lying in the ICU. Anyway my wife stayed with an old friend and their family in nearby Cheshire, CT. She came and saw me on Sunday and Monday and by Tuesday I was ready to go home. Besides being mad about the whole Foxwoods thing she had wanted me to stay in the hospital another couple days because as she said she hadn't had time to go to the ocean or the museum. Anyway she grudgingly drove me back to Foxwoods where I picked up my car and we both drove home in separate cars.

At the time there was nothing funny about it but in later years it did make a funny story. We joke about it to this day.

I guess the moral of the story is if you're going to play hooky from work try not to have a heart attack.

It also has some bearing on my continuing narrative.

Hey Mumbles, long time no see.  It's really good to see you back in the forums again, especially since many of the old-timers have either stopped coming or have passed on.  Anyway, here's to looking forward to your continuing narrative.