this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Asklemmy

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Some news that would be completely mundane today but scary or shocking in the past.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

That I have a device that fits in my pocket and can connect to almost anyone else on the face of the planet, as well as tell me any fact I'd like to hear, or any story I'd like to experience. And it does all this about as fast as my thumbs can type out the request.

[โ€“] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

And yet 99,9% of the time you just use it to get into arguments with people you don't even know.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

No you don't! /s

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

The rest of it being ads, I assume

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

What do you think they'd also do with it? They were already getting in arguments over mail with people they would never see nor hear.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's also a universal translator, the device they thought would facilitate diplomacy and peaceful communication.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Paraphrasing Douglas Adams: "If you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. By effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, this has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Tears of the feeble, hands of the slaves
Skin of the mothers, mouths of the babes
Building a Tower, belongs to the sky
When the whole thing comes crashing down
Down ask me why...

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

And the government uses it to spy on you. Businesses use it to spy on you and gather basically all of your personal data. Privacy has been dead for a number of years now. A hundred years ago people would have rioted.