Althouse: "Is this the way you're meant to interact with other people? It's kind of emasculating."

February 27, 2013

"Is this the way you're meant to interact with other people? It's kind of emasculating."

"Is this what you're meant to do with your body?"

10 comments:

David said...: Social networks are anti-social.

Now that Brin says it, the notion may become respectable.; 2/27/13, 10:02 PM
Astro said...: The following is a comment at the LA Times website. I think I agree 100% with his (her) analysis and conclusions:

"P McKann at 5:46 PM February 27, 2013

The Apex of narcissism is almost here. I've seen the actual demos of this product, as opposed to the cool psuedo-demo from last year, this product is more a Social Media portal. "Ok, Glass, take a picture;" "Ok, Glass, film me doing this thing." In other words, "look at me, daddy! Daddy look at me!"

Sadly, "Daddy" is actually "Big Brother," And strapping on one of the devices is doing the government's work by actually spying on yourself."

I will never wear one of these devices."; 2/27/13, 10:11 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Heh. That's funny. Since the dawn of smartphones I've been telling my husband that men mincing around on tiny screens seems effeminate.; 2/27/13, 10:13 PM
Nonapod said...: So looking directly at someone while talking to someone else through these AR glasses is less weird?

I hate those bluetooth earpieces. I was in a store the other day and there was this guy who was talking very loudly to (apparently) nobody. I thought he was a lunatic talking to the voices in his head, until I noticed the earpiece.; 2/27/13, 10:14 PM
edutcher said...: Call it Mirror.; 2/27/13, 10:23 PM
traditionalguy said...: My new HAL 9000 is telling me that I need to relax and trust him to meet my needs.

They have several used HALs over at Amazon (on Althouse portal of course)that were returned and refurbished after the owners went missing.; 2/27/13, 10:44 PM
Revenant said...: I'll pick up a pair when they come down to $300 or so.; 2/28/13, 3:35 AM
Bob_R said...: The emasculating nature of the smartphone is only a single instance of the emasculating nature of information age jobs. There is an attempt at masculinity 2.0 that TED is very much a part of. Macho 2.0 has existed for decades in pure information disciplines such as math and theoretical physics. There's lot of "my theorem is tougher than your theorem" that goes on internally. The information age has put a lot of people in the social position of mathematician (despite the fact that their most technical skill is the use of Google.)

I don't think Macho 2.0 will ever replace Macho 1.0. Hollywood can try to make working at laptops cool with all of the science geek detective dramas, but don't we all expect Mike Hammer to slap the geeks around and say, "get your head out of the screen Poindexter!"; 2/28/13, 4:08 AM
Moose said...: Emasculating? "I don't think that word means what you think it means."; 2/28/13, 8:37 AM
Henry said...: No, it's not what you're supposed to do with your body. What you're supposed to do is look like a hipster pirate. That's totally masculating.; 2/28/13, 8:46 AM