this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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There's definitely something to this narrowing of opportunities idea. To frame it in a real bare bones way, it's people that frame the world in simplistic terms and then assume that their framing is the complete picture (because they're super clever of course). Then if they try to address the problem with a "solution", they simply address their abstraction of it and if successful in the market, actually make the abstraction the dominant form of it. However all the things they disregarded are either lost, or still there and undermining their solution.
It's like taking a 3D problem, only seeing in 2D, implementing a 2D solution and then being surprised that it doesn't seem to do what it should, or being confused by all these unexpected effects that are coming from the 3rd dimension.
Your comment about giving more grace also reminds me of work out there from legal scholars who argued that algorithmically implemented law doesn't work because the law itself is designed to have a degree of interpretation and slack to it that rarely translates well to an "if x then y" model.
I've thought about a similar idea before in the more minor context of stuff like note-taking apps -- when you're taking notes in a paper notebook, you can take notes in whatever format you want, you can add little pictures or diagrams or whatever, arranged however you want. Heck, you can write sheet music notation. When you're taking notes in an app, you can basically just write paragraphs of text, or bullet points, and maybe add pictures in some limited predefined locations if you're lucky.
Obviously you get some advantages in exchange for the restrictive format (you can sync/back up things to the internet! you can search through your notes! etc) but it's by no means a strict upgrade, it's more of a tradeoff with advantages and disadvantages. I think we tend to frame technological solutions like this as though they were strict upgrades, and often we aren't so willing to look at what is being lost in the tradeoff.
Not to detract from your point but people have been trying to create and market free-form note taking apps for ages... I believe the latest super-expensive iPads can do it wih the pen.
yeah, I was more thinking of like my phone's notes app lol. Also, freeform computer note-taking requires weird hardware and can't search the text of my notes, so, still a tradeoff...
I believe there are apps that can translate handwriting to normal text (doubt they would be able to deal wth mine...) but the time between them arriving around now and the demise of normal people taking notes on paper is too long. An entire generation has aged out of the habit.
(you do see people extol the virtues of specific German notebooks and Japanese fountain pen, but when I do, I cross the street to get away from them)