After a streak of infatuation with an e-reader, I rediscovered, with great pleasure, paper books, and their margins to scribble in. Tangible volumes, which pages are much nicer to the touch than a glass screen, and fonts are much nicer to the eye.
Listening to the music from a record, and turning an inert volume knob in a stereo amplifier adds another layer to a superb sonorous experience. Streaming is enough for podcasts.
Taking notes, on a device does not work, they end up lost and forgotten, while hand written notes leave longer lasting marks in memory.
Finally, most of the iPads and the likes will end up under a press for garbage, and we will come back to tools, instruments and devices designed for their sole purpose. But there is never too much reminding people about the usefulness, and charm, of things which Apple would like to replace.
Thank you, Hadden, for your kind inclusion of my piece.
It’s pretty unsurprising that there is a variety of responses, but I admit to being surprised at the volume of repulsion! I assumed far more people would be happy. Maybe the algorithm just has me pegged and knows which reactions to show me?
It was a clever ad, but it was certainly (intentionally or not) apocalyptic.
Hadden, I really appreciate you speaking to the “addiction that comes with artificiality” here. Anything that professes to contain something as soulful and alive as a piano or a guitar in 5mm of glass is deeply untrustworthy. I had avoided the video, but watched it before reading. It was predictably stomach churning, but I hope that it provokes revulsion in enough people that they turn towards the real.
Thanks for this beautiful and important piece of writing.
Thanks Chloe for your kind words. The addiction of artificiality is something I am becoming ever more aware of, and I think partly explains the TikTok phenomenon (and the crazy amount of blatantly made up videos I see on YouTube that pertain to the natural world).
I don’t disagree at all with your analysis of the advert and Apple’s intentions, but at the very least they are attempting to do this primarily on the physical device in your hands, instead of the cloud (this is what the M4 chip is designed to do)
All the other Powers (Google, Microsoft, Meta) want to do this in their Clouds so that the actual device in your hands doesn’t matter and they have complete knowledge of all of your activity and information. Apple wants primarily to sell you expensive hardware so doesn’t care as directly about holding onto all of your information.
Which is better? 🤷♂️
I guess it’s something like the difference between worshipping an idol of your local god vs worshipping Caesar in far off Rome
"let this advert remind us of the vital importance of real/physical things and under what immense pressure makers, creators, and artists are already suffering. Commit to buying physical books. Learn a physical instrument. Create art that can go into a gallery. Buy and make real things.
And don’t bite into the Apple."
YES! Thank you for suggesting some actionable points of resistance Hadden. I think too often we read and write about these things, shake our heads, and never actually DO anything to effect change...
I too am typing on a macbook, and honestly I'd like to chuck it into the street after seeing that ad. But I'm left with the dilemma that the alternative products are produced by companies with the same ethos as Apple... I wonder if there is a market for "responsible" or "minimalist" tech? One product that comes to mind is the Light Phone I recently replaced my iPhone with. Is it an ascetic act to downgrade one's devices? Yes, but it's worth it...and I love the ethos I sense with Light Phone. Now I wonder who makes laptops with a similar motive....? I'd become a customer immediately if I could find them.
Ha! Yes another reader reached out to say this too. I am glad they retracted, but fear its not from a changed heart but from a fear of financial backlash...
Great piece, Hadden. We (my husband and I) find ourselves eschewing technology where we can. One of our goals this year is to buy more physical books, so that we don't need to consult the Internet as often. What do the questions we ask most circulate around? As we pinpoint answers to that questions, we buy up books.
This is great Mary. I am doing the same - especially with books concerning natural history. Often, I find older books contain information that cannot be accessed on the internet. They are a wealth of treasure.
Thanks for this. It's so good to know there are communities out there who still love and care about what's real. This note from Caroline Ross beautifully articulates (and echoes) your thoughts: https://substack.com/@uncivilsavant/note/c-55729022
It is all a bit of a con I think. Apple is a highly physical obect - and to be profitable just now must be made and sold continually in many millions. The mounds of ore and fuel and wastes of its making would make an interesting advert. We know that it took a civilisation to make a piano; there is even a limit to pianos, and books. Profitable digital realities though require continual unconstrained electricity, which is the product of a civilisation relying on an abundance of ancient sunlight. When the carbon pulse dies down, as any candle must, certain delusions are likely to die with it. There will be music though for those with ears to hear. On top probably of youthful industrial injury, old age has made me increasingly deaf to critical frquencies of sound. Digital hearing aids have their uses but cannot replace the reality. There are very physical constraints.
Agreed Phillip. There are many inevitable and intractable physical constraints that these companies that are embracing virtuality will run up against. We live in a physical, material world - trying to escape that has been the cause of many ills and wayward philosophies.
Jeremy Naydler has written usefully of the struggle for a human future and has made a study of the intellectual steps that emerged in the form of mechanised intelligence in the race to industrialisation. The shadow side emerged perhaps a lot earlier than we realised. I started my substack last year with reviews recommending his two later books. I was lucky to have got to know a friend of Jeremy's, and then the books popped up in Paul Kingsnorth's writing a year or so ago.
Ad always has something to gain our attention to their product and Apple has made their ad more provoking to us. Your analysis of their latest video is truly thought-provoking and I agree with some of your point including the addiction of artificiality. Thank you for sharing hadden.
After a streak of infatuation with an e-reader, I rediscovered, with great pleasure, paper books, and their margins to scribble in. Tangible volumes, which pages are much nicer to the touch than a glass screen, and fonts are much nicer to the eye.
Listening to the music from a record, and turning an inert volume knob in a stereo amplifier adds another layer to a superb sonorous experience. Streaming is enough for podcasts.
Taking notes, on a device does not work, they end up lost and forgotten, while hand written notes leave longer lasting marks in memory.
Finally, most of the iPads and the likes will end up under a press for garbage, and we will come back to tools, instruments and devices designed for their sole purpose. But there is never too much reminding people about the usefulness, and charm, of things which Apple would like to replace.
They are happy to destroy culture, only to then sell you a pale imitation of it at a premium.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Hadden, for your kind inclusion of my piece.
It’s pretty unsurprising that there is a variety of responses, but I admit to being surprised at the volume of repulsion! I assumed far more people would be happy. Maybe the algorithm just has me pegged and knows which reactions to show me?
It was a clever ad, but it was certainly (intentionally or not) apocalyptic.
Very thought provoking, almost scarey ! I knew we lived in a throw-away world. Your article adds a new, awful, dimension to” throw-away” keep writing!
Hadden, I really appreciate you speaking to the “addiction that comes with artificiality” here. Anything that professes to contain something as soulful and alive as a piano or a guitar in 5mm of glass is deeply untrustworthy. I had avoided the video, but watched it before reading. It was predictably stomach churning, but I hope that it provokes revulsion in enough people that they turn towards the real.
Thanks for this beautiful and important piece of writing.
Thanks Chloe for your kind words. The addiction of artificiality is something I am becoming ever more aware of, and I think partly explains the TikTok phenomenon (and the crazy amount of blatantly made up videos I see on YouTube that pertain to the natural world).
Stomach churning is exactly how watching that felt for me too.
I don’t disagree at all with your analysis of the advert and Apple’s intentions, but at the very least they are attempting to do this primarily on the physical device in your hands, instead of the cloud (this is what the M4 chip is designed to do)
All the other Powers (Google, Microsoft, Meta) want to do this in their Clouds so that the actual device in your hands doesn’t matter and they have complete knowledge of all of your activity and information. Apple wants primarily to sell you expensive hardware so doesn’t care as directly about holding onto all of your information.
Which is better? 🤷♂️
I guess it’s something like the difference between worshipping an idol of your local god vs worshipping Caesar in far off Rome
Just to be clear: that really is an awful ad 😞 but maybe we should in fact appreciate the clarity
Which is better? Neither. Ecologically probably the M4, but it's splitting hairs and largely missing the point.
It's important that we recognise the brutality of this and reject it, no ifs or buts.
No, you are right Kennon. That is a very helpful (and somewhat encouraging) clarification abut the M4 Chip.
And the clarity of the advert was crystal clear indeed. I'm glad for it as now the world view is plain!
"let this advert remind us of the vital importance of real/physical things and under what immense pressure makers, creators, and artists are already suffering. Commit to buying physical books. Learn a physical instrument. Create art that can go into a gallery. Buy and make real things.
And don’t bite into the Apple."
YES! Thank you for suggesting some actionable points of resistance Hadden. I think too often we read and write about these things, shake our heads, and never actually DO anything to effect change...
I too am typing on a macbook, and honestly I'd like to chuck it into the street after seeing that ad. But I'm left with the dilemma that the alternative products are produced by companies with the same ethos as Apple... I wonder if there is a market for "responsible" or "minimalist" tech? One product that comes to mind is the Light Phone I recently replaced my iPhone with. Is it an ascetic act to downgrade one's devices? Yes, but it's worth it...and I love the ethos I sense with Light Phone. Now I wonder who makes laptops with a similar motive....? I'd become a customer immediately if I could find them.
They heard ya! Ad has been withdrawn and apology issued (albeit you can still watch it, no doubt for reference purposes, on YouTube).
Ha! Yes another reader reached out to say this too. I am glad they retracted, but fear its not from a changed heart but from a fear of financial backlash...
I rather fear you're on the money...
went back to buying real books this year.
Great piece, Hadden. We (my husband and I) find ourselves eschewing technology where we can. One of our goals this year is to buy more physical books, so that we don't need to consult the Internet as often. What do the questions we ask most circulate around? As we pinpoint answers to that questions, we buy up books.
This is great Mary. I am doing the same - especially with books concerning natural history. Often, I find older books contain information that cannot be accessed on the internet. They are a wealth of treasure.
Thanks for this. It's so good to know there are communities out there who still love and care about what's real. This note from Caroline Ross beautifully articulates (and echoes) your thoughts: https://substack.com/@uncivilsavant/note/c-55729022
It is all a bit of a con I think. Apple is a highly physical obect - and to be profitable just now must be made and sold continually in many millions. The mounds of ore and fuel and wastes of its making would make an interesting advert. We know that it took a civilisation to make a piano; there is even a limit to pianos, and books. Profitable digital realities though require continual unconstrained electricity, which is the product of a civilisation relying on an abundance of ancient sunlight. When the carbon pulse dies down, as any candle must, certain delusions are likely to die with it. There will be music though for those with ears to hear. On top probably of youthful industrial injury, old age has made me increasingly deaf to critical frquencies of sound. Digital hearing aids have their uses but cannot replace the reality. There are very physical constraints.
Agreed Phillip. There are many inevitable and intractable physical constraints that these companies that are embracing virtuality will run up against. We live in a physical, material world - trying to escape that has been the cause of many ills and wayward philosophies.
Jeremy Naydler has written usefully of the struggle for a human future and has made a study of the intellectual steps that emerged in the form of mechanised intelligence in the race to industrialisation. The shadow side emerged perhaps a lot earlier than we realised. I started my substack last year with reviews recommending his two later books. I was lucky to have got to know a friend of Jeremy's, and then the books popped up in Paul Kingsnorth's writing a year or so ago.
Ad always has something to gain our attention to their product and Apple has made their ad more provoking to us. Your analysis of their latest video is truly thought-provoking and I agree with some of your point including the addiction of artificiality. Thank you for sharing hadden.