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BBC News - Cult of less: Living out of a hard drive

Interesting article. It starts out with people replacing physical stuff with digital, but at the end of the article, it talks about uploading your mind. I mean if a person could upload their mind to a computer, then what?

Cyborgs?

I dunno if i could manage to sell all my useless crap. theres just something irreplaceable to me about an actual dead-tree book. most other media i couldn't really give a rats ass, but i loves me my floor to ceiling bookcase.


on another note, fuck yeah transhumanism! sign me up for a foglet body.

I love technology. I love it when I can replace things, like, say, bills, with a digital version. And! I hate stuff. So I appreciate the sentiment of these people.

But there are things I am not willing to give up: Books. Praise the Kindle and its kin as you will, I love books. I love the feel, the smell, the experience of using a book. And a bed, good god, giving up your bed for friend's couches? Why? Now you're goal of minimalism becomes reliant on other people, potentially inconveniencing them.

Also I don't think I have to say this but I'm not giving up my body. Sure it's inconvenient, but uh... Look, why am I even typing this, the idea of uploading a consciousness is a flight of fancy at this point, it's not really a reasonable discussion.

I may give some things for digital version, but I would still keep my house I don't think I'll "take it to the road" to that level.

Books? yea, my wife loves them and will never get rid of them, but I might be able to start storing our 700+ DVDs

Chibibar said:

BBC News - Cult of less: Living out of a hard drive

Interesting article. It starts out with people replacing physical stuff with digital, but at the end of the article, it talks about uploading your mind. I mean if a person could upload their mind to a computer, then what?

Cyborgs?

Click to expand...

Wasn't this the plot of an Episode of Cowboy BeBop?

Yeah there is something nice about having things that you can actually touch and hold. I keep my stuff pretty minimalistic since I move around a lot and want to be able to pack everything i have in just my car. But keeping a bunch of actual things I feel keeps me grounded instead of being absorbed too much in the digital world which I guess is the opposite goal of these people.

Living a minimalist life has always been important to me, and while I do collect a fair bit of stuff, I'm not attached to a lot of it except for a few sentimental pieces and my books (as a few people have mentioned here).

In the run-up to going to Nepal in November, I've been getting rid of my stuff. I'm trying to get rid of most of my superfluous clothes, and all furniture must go (I only have a few bookshelves and one beautiful desk). I've gotten a pile of boxes, and I've been trying to find time to categorize all of my books so I can effectively store them in my father's house, but still have access to them if I email him "Dad, I need you to mail me The End of History and the Last Man as soon as you can. It's in box number 4."

But really, books are all I'm attached to. Music and Movies I rip to my computer, so I can do without the physical DvDs or CDs. I've thought about eReaders, and doing a similar thing with my book collection, but even though I'd like to have a digital copy of all my books, I would want to have the physical books also. There's something tactile and reassuring about having worn pages under your fingers, and displaying them on the shelf. And if the power goes out (or batteries die) I can still read my physical books, and that's a big difference between books and other media. If I had no access to electricity, my DVDs would be as useless as the movies on my hard drive. But my books are still usable even when dead batteries prevent me from reading my eBooks.

As far as transhumanism goes, I remember watching a TED talk on that submect. The point this guy makes is that Transhumanism is a false idea. Humans have always used creativity and invention to augment our natural abilities. We invented the spear to kill things. We took advantage of fire to expand the roster of things we could eat, as well as to compensate for lack of low-light vision. We wore the skins of wolves and bears to augment our ability to withstand the cold, and we tamed horses to cover larger distances. We invented the written word to aid with memory, and to proliferate ideas farther and longer (through time) than our own voices could carry. It's a continuing tradition, and we've become more and more 'transhuman' every step of the way ... and yet we are still human. To aspire to transhumanism, even while we fear transhumanism, is what it is to be human.

Ugh, why not just call these people what they are: "Moochers"

AshburnerX;428080][QUOTE=Chibibar said:

BBC News - Cult of less: Living out of a hard drive

Interesting article. It starts out with people replacing physical stuff with digital, but at the end of the article, it talks about uploading your mind. I mean if a person could upload their mind to a computer, then what?

Cyborgs?

Click to expand...

Wasn't this the plot of an Episode of Cowboy BeBop?[/QUOTE]

It was pretty much the entire concept behind 'Ghost in the Shell'. And a significant part of the Johnny Mnemonic-Neuromancer-Count Zero-Mona Lisa Overdrive series by William Gibson.

As for the "minimalist life" - if you have $3000 of electronic toys on your person at all times, you're not a miminalist. And this might be cool when you're young - sort of like "backpacking across Europe" - but when you're halfway between 30 and 40 and you're thinking it's time to start a family, good luck with that shit. He's not doing without stuff, he's just doing without physical stuff.

"Things like records snap and wear down over time. It's upsetting. MP3s don't," he said.
(snip)
And Mr Yurista says he frequently worries he may lose his new digital life to a hard drive crash or downed server.

Click to expand...

Uh....

Yeah, I've started moving towards digital for a lot of my media. Music is all mp3s, now, for me. Then again, I've never been much for buying CD's in the first place. Movies, I'm already on my way there, since I can now watch .avi's on my PS3. Games are starting to move towards a purely digital-only content. I mean, look at PC games, now. With Steam and others, there's no need to even bother buying a hard copy.

Books? Ehhhh, that's a different story. I can't read comfortably on a screen. I can skim, but it rarely sinks in, unless it's a short read (short articles, posts, etc). I like not having to turn anything on (aside from maybe a bed-side lamp) to read.

Doing the whole Lawnmower Man thing? I couldn't do it.

twitchmoss said:

I dunno if i could manage to sell all my useless crap. theres just something irreplaceable to me about an actual dead-tree book. most other media i couldn't really give a rats ass, but i loves me my floor to ceiling bookcase.


on another note, fuck yeah transhumanism! sign me up for a foglet body.

Click to expand...

People don't think you're smart just because you have a library in your house. FYI.


As far as my "stuff" goes.... my stuff doesn't define who I am. If my house caught fire, the only thing I give a rat's ass about is my family and my dog. The only thing that ever upsets me if my crap gets damaged or lost is the monetary value associated with replacing it.

Otherwise it's just material bullshit. Yes, my entire office stacked with four ceiling high bookshelves is included in that.

This has been the rage lately. To the point of ridiculousness in some of the posts over at lifehacker.com. Until I got married, everything I had fit in the back of a 1985 Ford Escort. Part of me would love to get back to that point, but I wouldn't go to ridiculous extremes to get there.