24 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown
24 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown
# Modern
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*"Everything that modern culture hates is good, and everything that modern culture loves is bad."* --fschmidt from [reactionary software](reactionary_software.md)
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So called *modern* [software](software.md)/[hardware](hardware.md) and other [technology](technology.md) might as well be synonymous with [shitty](shit.md) abusive technology. In a [capitalist](capitalism.md) [age](21st_century.md) when everything is getting progressively worse in terms of design, quality, ethicality, efficiency, etc., newer means worse, therefore modern (*newest*) means *the worst*. In other words *modern* is a term that stands for "as of yet best optimized for exploiting users". At [LRS](lrs.md) we see the term *modern* as negative -- for example whenever someone says "we work with modern technology", he is really saying "we are working with worst technology we know of".
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The word *modern* was similarly addressed e.g. by [reactionary software](reactionary_software.md) -- it correctly identifies the word as being connected to a programming orthodoxy of [current times](21st_century.md), the one that's obsessed with creating bad technology and rejecting good technology. { I only found reactionary software after this article has been written. ~drummyfish }
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## Modern Vs Old Technology
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It's sad and dangerous that newer generation won't even remember technology used to be better, people will soon think that the current disgusting state of technology is the best we can do. That is of course wrong, technology used to be relatively good. It is important we leave here a note on at least a few ways in which old was much, much better.
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(INB4 "it was faster and longer on battery etc. because it was simpler" -- **yes, that is exactly the point**.)
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- Old technology was simpler and **better engineered with minimum [bloat](bloat.md)**. Fewer incompetent people were present in the field and capitalism wasn't yet pushing as hard on extreme development speed and abuse of the user, products still tried to compete by their quality.
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- **Old computers were faster** and astronomically more efficient. Computers with a few MHz single-core CPU and under a megabyte of RAM booted faster to [DOS](dos.md) than modern computers boot to Windows 10, despite [Moore's law](moores_law.md) (this shittiness is known as [Wirth's law](wirths_law.md)). Old tech also **reacted faster to input** (had shorter input latency/lag), e.g. thanks to shorter input and output processing [pipelines](pipeline.md). { I've heard this confirmed from [John Carmack](carmack.md) himself in a talk on his development of [VR](vr.md). ~drummyfish }
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- Old devices such as cell phones **lasted much, much longer on battery**. The old phones such as Nokia 3310 would **last long over a week** on stand-by.
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- **Old software was shipped finished, complete and with minimum [bugs](bug.md)**. Nowadays newly released "[apps](app.md)" and [games](game.md) are normally released unfinished, even in pre-alpha states and even "finished" ones have [bugs](bug.md) often rendering the software unsuable (see Cyberpunk 2077, GTA: Definiteve Edition etc.), user is supposed to wait years for fixes (without any guarantees), pay for content or even subscriptions. Old software was difficult or even impossible to patch (e.g. on [Gameboy](gameboy.md)) so it had to work.
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- **Old tech had minimum malicious features**. There wasn't [spyware in CPUs](intel_me.md), **[DRM](drm.md) was either absent or primitive**, there weren't ads in file explorers, there weren't [microtransactions](microtransaction.md) in games, there weren't [autoupdates](autoupdate.md), there weren't psychologically abusive [social networks](social_network.md), technology was **designed to last**, with replaceable parts; not to be [consoomed](consumerism.md), there was much less [censorship](censorship.md).
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- **Old tech was much easier to repair, modify and customize**, thanks to not being so overcomplicated and not containing so many anti-repair "features". Old software wasn't in the [cloud](cloud.md) which makes it impossible to modify.
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- **Old tech was much more independent and freedom friendly**, did not require Internet connectivity, subscription etc. Thanks to its simplicity and better hackability it was possible for people to partly control their devices, even if the devices were [proprietary](proprietary.md).
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- There was **minimum [bullshit](bullshit.md)**. True usefulness was more important than killer features and marketing.
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- Old tech was **simpler and more [fun](fun.md) to program**, allowing direct access to hardware, not complicating things with [OOP](oop.md) and similar [shit](shit.md), and so **old programmers were more [productive](productivity_cult.md)**.
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- **Old "look n feel" of software was objectively better**. Just compare the graphics of [Doom](doom.md) and any shitty soulless "modern" game. |