Lost magic

Is it just me becoming an adult, or is it really that the computing has no magic feeling in it anymore? When I was a kid I remember spending a lot of time learning whatever the puter has had in it, and I have been feeling it's cyberpunkish vibe magic. Today, I only see retards using smartphones to doomscroll through the brain rot, and if these ancient Unix philosophy driven technologies were made by wizards today's tech is driven by the satanic sorcerers of doom

>>79660 Is it just me becoming an adult, or is it really that the computing has no magic feeling in it anymore? I think it is the same as it has always been- you get the magic that you make. If you are willing to set aside wordly brainrot trash and dump an 18 hour day into computing some fun soykaf, you will probably find the magic again. If you just scroll on some trash, well- GIGO. On average, "tech" is more "accessible", so more morons will be "using" it (aka, abusing it to feed dopamine). As long as you avoid the trap, you can still find the magic.

>>79660 stop using tk, you haven't read his stuff if your attitude is this pessimistic and small minded. like, you're surprised technologies get worse over time in neoliberal democracy? do you think ted is just the funny return to monkey man?

>if these ancient Unix philosophy driven technologies were made by wizards today's tech is driven by the satanic sorcerers of doom Extremely accurate >>79665 If you read and understood it yourself you wouldnt be gatekeeping and would be glad that he is being posted about so his ideas can spread

Nothing's stopping you from spreading the old wizardry love and sagacious foresight :) Just don't be an ass about it. The masses get exploited, mangled, murdered, hated and fuarrrked over in pretty much every period of history. >>79665 It's worth mentioning that stopping at TK is doing yourself a disservice. There's a lot in his analyses that's either said better elsewhere or fails in his own peculiar biases. It's a shame because the kids who read him won't be reading, say, Heidegger, but oh well.

>>79667 Theodore is only a meme because he killed some people to get his book published. He's probably the least coherent and the least correct critic of industrial society I've ever read.

>>79669 absolutely agree, even ted states that ISAIF is meant to be a human readable remix (paraphrasing heavily) of the technological society by jaques elluli. it's an excellent read for communicating to non academics. i struggle to even get through capital and i have an extensive social science library lol. i don't blame anyone for stopping there however >>79670 >>79667 you should jump off a cliff you monkey brained idiot, posing ted along with vaguely related stuff is exactly how figures get appropriated into nonsense that aids the system

>>79660 >or is it really that the computing has no magic feeling in it anymore? When I was a kid I remember spending a lot of time learning whatever the puter has had in it, and I have been feeling it's cyberpunkish vibe magic. I think a lot of this, the way things can have a sense of wonder and possibility to them, is down to experiencing the imaginings of others about said thing. Currently everyone's projected expectation about the spirit of computers is much different than it was years ago, and that drowns out anything else. And after all by themselves they are possibly useful, but don't inherently have any spirit to them.

>>79660 Its a mix of both. If you were a kid in the 90s or early 2000s computers were new tech. They had this magic and novelty to them. Not everyone had a computer and it was like this magic box that opened up a whole world. Nowadays, everyone is lugging around a device and everyone and their mother is trying to get into tech. In the 2010s, big tech pushed this massive drive to push coding and smartphone app dev into high schools along with corpo propaganda, teaching people soykaf languages, bad habits, and the result were ignorant tech glitterboys who were writing programs or studying comp sci for their get rich quick schemes and not the love of it. The older guys were wizards because they actually cared about knowledge not just being the next Suckerberg. You can talk to a Donald Knuth about math, linguistics, psychology, they know all that stuff. Try asking Suckerberg a serious question. There's nothing going on between he's eyes. He's dead inside. Also stop reading Ted. Read Heidegger instead.

>>79665 >you haven't read his stuff I have. In fact, I find it too old for the modern day. Everything he said would happen has already happened. There is no point in reading old fantasies. You should read some modern literature about the current state. You talk about small mind but I've only seen you projecting before

>>79682 Oh, now that I have posted this I realize I've been brutally baited >>79671 >you should jump off a cliff you monkey brained idiot, posing ted along with vaguely related stuff is exactly how figures get appropriated into nonsense that aids the system You might call me an useful idiot then because the only reason I posted Ted was I had nothing more relevant in my phone. The other stuff was either my photos or brain rot pictures

>>79680 Of course they do not possess a spirit by themselves. It is us, humans who metaphysically animate the machine, it is human nature to do that

>>79681 >Heidegger Nazi or post-Nazi writings?

>>79683 You could always use some AI image generator to give you a relevant image, looks like this one is already AI anyway. >>79684 So then what are the implications of that? What can we do about it? >>79681 >Not everyone had a computer and it was like this magic box that opened up a whole world Part of this I think was all the empty space, and the fact that these changes had not yet been realized. It's easier to imagine what isn't there but could be. I remember playing videogames decades ago and thinking, if only I wasn't blocked by the edges of this level, what could be there? And then someone puts something there in the next game, which isn't a bad thing, but now the frontier is a different one. I think those frontiers are still there, but it's harder to see them because of all the disgust and disappointment and visible dead potential.

>>79681 I think you're right about all of that, but also like you said lots of people didn't have a computer which means that not everyone got online. Or, a lot of people bad access to a computer but often there was only one computer per household so everyone couldn't be constantly online all the time as they had to share the PC with their family members. Smartphones not only put the internet into everyone's pockets, but they made it so that everyone is constantly online all the time. These people didn't use the internet so much before so it was natural that they would primarily only use social media as it's all they knew, but I think the large influx of traffic towards social media made a lot of normal users move to social media and leave behind forums and chatrooms. Most people are very stupid. Not only did the average user online become dumber, but they became like eternal watchdogs to ensure that the internet would be flooded with stupidity all the time.

>>79699 >You could always use some AI image generator to give you a relevant image, looks like this one is already AI anyway. I could but I chose the low-effort way. You do it better next time. The previous post has a relevant image though I had not stumbled upon it when I created this thread >So then what are the implications of that? The mysticism is lost as I've already said. This feels empty, plain, and boring. >What can we do about it? We as the lainons could only recreate the atmosphere here, on lainchan. Which is what we do. The industry is bleak with these flat UIs and web everything.

I can't stand how unspecific and boomerish you people are itt: >In my day computers had magic! I hate tik tok and modern society! Pursuing your interests in technology, whichever they may be, is easier to do now than ever before. It really comes across like you never cared about technology in the first place and are just missing your childhood, but lack self awarness and blame others for it. Lame.

>>79703 >It really comes across like you never cared about technology in the first place and are just missing your childhood, but lack self awarness and blame others for it. Lame Cringeposting. I've burned out writing cruds and have chosen to pursue physical pleasures (read: motorcycling) because cruds are 95% of the industry now

>>79660 How I keep my interest in tech alive in current year: 1. focus exclusively on achieving personal digital autonomy and try to ignore how silicon valley is destroying the rest of society 2. don't just study how current technology works until that line of investigation is exhausted. look at technologies from the past that didn't succeed in the market, look for things they did better than the currently used technologies. look into theoretical technologies and ones under development 3. ignore AI like the plague

cyberpunk dystopia is it's own kind of magic when I have to explain to the homeless beggar that I don't use cashapp.

>>79724 ayy, get with the times, gramps!

>>79724 its probably because most people don't carry cash, and people only have a certian amount of attention they give to beggars so they have to make the most of it there is no way they wouldn't accept cash if you offered

just because the net and tech is more accessible to gonks dont mean the magic is gone. if anything the old net wizards are more powerful then ever because said sorcery is becoming a secret art form that very few people have the time or patience to master due to the dystopia we live in having to work dead end jobs and such. my advice never let that magic die inside you choom. you and honestly most of the netrunners on here are basically the real street samurai from the books. in fact id go as far as to say its rather beautiful and terrifying how real life has turned into a literal piece of sci fi art. makes me think of gods and demons and their strange vision for our world and how we fit in it

>>79660 >Unix philosophy I'll always find it funny that the people that keep talking about it as the same kind of people that push for FOSS. They are contradictory viewpoints, simple as that. Unix was not FOSS and if anything it helped to destroy the whole source code sharing community that existed in early computer users.

>>81904 You do understand that the UNIX philosophy is a purely technical concept which has nothing to do with AT&T's business practices, right?

>>81906 A technical concept isn't born in a vacuum, you know that right?

Salutations, I hope all of you are having a great day. I don't know if the person who wrote this is still here, but I hope my message will be useful to more than one web adventurer because I've felt like that a lot of times and I am sure a lot of people here have the same dreadful feeling from time to time. What is useful to me: Find something that inspires you to continue. In my case is Computer Graphics and Video Games. I aspire to create things that achieve fun for the users; that's a great way to keep me inspired. Sure, we may not be on the 'good ol' times' anymore (oh sweet, lovely BASIC!), but you can still do recreative programming. I know my applications will not be the 'new hot soykaf', but that does not stop me on creating and having fun while doing it. Also, get comfy with your tools... and by tools, I mean your selected programming language; in my case is C++. So... What inspires you? Also, make sure to not get stuck only with computers; do something else. Otherwise you will burnout. In my case, I love Mathematics and Martial Arts. Regarding this: >>today's tech is driven by the satanic sorcerers of doom It always was, but today it is more evident. Don't let that stop you, otherwise you'll get depressed with everything you try, not just tech related disciplines. I hope my rambling helps. You have my best wishes for success. As a side note: If you really wish to feel that good, retro sensation while doing nerd stuff, try this: https://qb64.com/ In their own words: Is a modern extended BASIC programming language Also, if you wish to make 'old school' 3D graphics: https://www.anim8or.com/ I hope you have fun!

>>79660 poor you who does not synchronize well with today's tech. there is always "magic" especially when we're dealing with an interconnected system with emergent and mystical systems occurring within the general system. there had always been this thing that leads me to the depths of the internet to find the information or people that have the useful information. I think your timeline/for-you mostly depends on your overall behavior. you definitely get brainrot when you entertain the brainrot. the algorithm is so smart that my parents find their interests without having to ever "search" for such interests. there are complex algorithms in place that tech companies use to reflect your "mind" to your timeline/for-you page. maybe you were an opsec nutjob which I was before but still the magic of the system still occurred which I call the "Lain figure" in the interwebs. my mainstream socials have similar content and they're not brainrot and I put not much effort to get and learn information I need. my X account literally guessed all my weird interests and I've already stumbled upon the artists that I used to look for on "imageboorus" and then my anonymous side which is the opsec nutjob+imageboard stuff I still get synchrophrenia though it's much weaker than like say 2018 when I would stumble upon same anons from similar pseudonymous groupchat/servers which was fun. the point is if you're looking for the magic you gotta go to the roots. it's just the poor aesthetic part, the prevalence of brainrot (as algorithm defaults) I think are the two problem. aesthetic-wise I feel like 2008 was perfect, there was still like 4 browser giants at that point in time, more optimized console and PC games, mobile games and flash games, none of the anti-practices like surveillance/datamining, gacha systems on games/mmos, less gimicky FPS games, dark-patterns in game matchmaking or social media algorithms. it was a different beast to the monstrosity that is now but it's not like all is lost, the entire retro stuff are archived and forever lives, there are pet projects like old discontinued mmos with fluorishing economy (not profit-based and not gacha), there's still non-streaming scene on content out there. though there is some kind of a "learning curve" things like downloading streamed content is kinda hard for today's people and it's not as simple as telling them to "use youtube-dl", it's a lot more complicated vs back then I'd just inspect element and download the non-blobbed mp4 content that is not hls encrypted lol. you should be greatful if you've lived the early 2008s. >Today, I only see retards using smartphones to doomscroll through the brain rot, and if these ancient Unix philosophy driven technologies were made by wizards today's tech is driven by the satanic sorcerers of doom that's just black-and-white thinking. in the first place the "forgiving and free" internet only lasted for so long. people are broke and they can't just buy TLDs for cheap like before, and then there's the ddosing data center mafia who want you to buy their protection. sure the old internet where sharing/seeding is a must is nice but it was over. there's not even that much dl sites that are actually no-fuss like zippyshare. I guess all things come and go but if you're mad about stuff just focus on the past bliss and maybe promote/meme it in a way. maybe you're referring to the lost "magic" in cyberpunk culture. really not that great and I don't consume that media outside of maou 2099, I'm more mad that the search engines regressed after Russian war. and that hacker forums are slightly reclined.

>>82113 I honestly feel this "the thing I do lose magic" sensation is more burnout of doing it everyday than being picky, arrogant or something like that. I had a friend who is a Physicist and more than once she told me that “she had already lost interest.” But it was mostly because she devoted almost 24/7 to it. One of my favorite hobbies is Chess, so I invited her to play several times; the competitive factor helped to distract her. It happened to me too, and in fact I also had a feeling of “technology has no more spark to it”. But when I started to vary my activities, it stopped. What I'm trying to say: Staying stuck on one thing is not good. You are not some one-dimensional character from some shonen manga; real human beings are far more complex than that. You may or may not like them, but the most successful people of this generation do more than just technology. Yes, computers are exciting, but getting caught up in this field can be overwhelming (especially when you learn the negative aspects about it).

>>82113 frankly the reliance on tools that feed you information are largely the greatest reason for a 'loss in magic'. that there is a something spoonfeeding you information makes most others not need to actively engage with their computers. this is of course simply preeching to the choir, >when I would stumble upon same anons from similar pseudonymous groupchat/servers which was fun. this is still possible to this day, at the end of the day it is human habits which determine how you choose to interact with the internet and the world at large. unfortunately people can also hijack these things, which is well documented. >>79701 netcafes are a really cool phenomenon, unfortunately they never really took off in the west. going in, getting a drink and logging in to a netgame was what really got me into computers.

kinda, but it's more like hr problem. They keep employ dead ppl on management and rnd area in most of tech giants and buy dead startups. Not to mention philistiine state tangerines everywhere. Magic is still there around, what u lost is sense of waiting. What r u waiting the most?

>>79660 Perhaps because it's all being constrained by nefarious goals, nipped in the bud when it strays off course? Everything is being tainted nowadays. It felt far more adventurous when there was a feeling of some wild west in the world of coding but now that everything has been assimilated by big corpos, the only magic you may find is either sticking in your bubble and working on isolated projects nobody gives a soykaf about, or going rogue and translating that mind-magic into hacking, like bank account hacking. In the end you may now wonder if all that world of code and computers wasn't just one clever Trojan horse to bring about a terrible reality by, at first, exploiting the naivety of gifted people who couldn't know what could come to them at a later date? >>79671 >i struggle to even get through capital and i have an extensive social science library lol. It's confusing on purpose because it's full of soykaf but it would be too obvious if it weren't obfuscated under layers upon layers of muh socio-economics soyence. >>79681 >Its a mix of both. If you were a kid in the 90s or early 2000s computers were new tech. They had this magic and novelty to them. Not everyone had a computer and it was like this magic box that opened up a whole world. Nowadays, everyone is lugging around a device and everyone and their mother is trying to get into tech. That's why the new frontier is pagan esoterics. Which you can eventually attempt to mix with machines, the heresy if there were any, but at least you know that you'll be few amongst billions. >>79697 Why not both? >>79699 >I remember playing videogames decades ago and thinking, if only I wasn't blocked by the edges of this level, what could be there? Picrel

>>82113 >2008 >mobile games Please, no. >none of the anti-practices like surveillance/datamining You were just not aware of them. >the entire retro stuff are archived and forever lives Stuck in time. What OP felt was the rush of being drawn into the bright future and the elating feeling of opening new paths, not the somber necessity of retreating into a castle to survive the decrepit utgard outside. But I agree, follow the roots to find the magic.

Same. There was a magic and now it's gone. Almost. I work as programmer, often don't sleep at night, live alone. As a kid I dreamed about such lifestyle. But devil is in the details. I'm Thomas A. Anderson without Neo. No nightclubs, no hacking, nothing special. But I still can feel that something exists, something in the periphery of my eyesight; time to time I can catch glimpses of it. Hope, one day I will see it again.

"Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available." - Benford's law of controversy You know more about reality now, therefore you have lost the glory of innocence, that passion you once had when looking the world through the eyes of a child.

>>79660 I've had a similar opinion technology for a while. I think you touch on the reason with your comments on doomscrolling/brainrot and oldschool Unix guys. I don't think it has anything to do with becoming an adult. After-all, it was the Unix wizards (adults) that invented everything and regular people (also adults) who still continue to consume new technology despite everything that is wrong with it. For me, modern computing (and all consumer technologies) have failed at their distinct underlying purpose which is to make our lives easier by freeing up time so we can enjoy meaningful activity. How have the advancements in cars, washing machines, lawnmowers, desktop computers changed meaningfully or improved your life the last year? The last decade? Have these things saved you time at all, disregarding the explicit attempts to steal our attention through hostile user-interfaces or force features behind a login or subscription? Despite computers being exponentially faster, manufacturing techniques and global supply chains being more efficient, and materials cheaper than ever, our fundamental interactions with appliances, vehicles, computers and homes aren't any different than what they were a decade ago. And this isn't to mention the pseudo-religious behavior around tech brands, programming languages, frameworks, websites (things that are superficial in the realm of computing and consumer technology that, in and of themselves, don't solve the engineering challenges we originally invented the technology to do) that help perpetuate this. I think the solution is what >>79662 said: you have to step outside the confines of "modern technology" is and work on projects and participate in places that ignite that passion again.

LLM are incredible and nobody really knows how they work. Don't talk to me about parrots or vector math, nobody knows how they work. It's you

>>84949 you really cant hold back the brewing soykaf for a single day huh

>>84899 Not true, things used to be better.

>>79660 I find it even more magical to be honest. The fact that we managed to turn sand into a thinking machine is nothing short of literal magic.

>>79660 I was feeling like this until I fully switched to Linux around 5 years ago. Makes you rediscover freedom, tinkering and magic. Commercial OSs have locked and dumbed down things so much that they've killed its magic.

I think a lot of it has to do with how programming has become increasingly high level. This is one of the criticisms of capitalism. I'm a capitalist myself, but this is an unfortunate side effect. Making a chair from start to finish and selling the final product can be incredibly fulfilling. Working on an assembly line where your job is to screw in the front right legs is not. The chair made from the factory was produced in a more economically efficient manner, but the worker's were robbed of their fulfillment. We rarely start from nothing anymore. Luckily in my line of work I have been forced to do so again, and that has been good, but generally that is not the case. The majority of programmers are web developers, which really mean React developers. They slop CRUD every day and rarely get the opportunity to build something new, something stimulating. I think that is where a lot of the magic has been lost.