Could You Disconnect Your Mac?
Our fearless leader, Hadley, caused a bit of a stir in the last week by offering a theoretical situation of having to choose a life on a desert island with either a Windows PC with the internet, or a Mac without the internet.
The assumption is that we’d all choose the internet equipped PC and all those who railed against him, called it a stupid question because essentially, they wanted an internet equipped Mac which proved his point about our internet dependence.
As one astute reader, tundraboy, said “We Macbots are just incapable of dealing with a question that forces us to choose a PC over a Mac. We get system overload and our logic circuits go into meltdown. In our world there is just no way in hell that a PC could be preferable over a Mac.”
But I wouldn’t have taken the internet even if you offered it with the Mac. If the question was a desert island with a Mac and with the choice of internet or not, then the real conundrum emerges.
I really would choose not to have the internet. Having just spent a few days down the beach and disconnected, I know I don’t need the internet. Sure I couldn’t write for AM any more, nor have blogs, nor communicate by email nor do a plethora of tasks I take for granted, but those aren’t core to my happiness, and I can live without them.
Having an enjoyable computer to use (the Mac) is much more appealing than a Windows computer and the internet. Both those are time wasters.
If I was on a deserted island with a computer without an internet connection, I could finally get on and do the things I’d really want to do with a computer, like write books and make cool music in Garageband. The whole appeal of a desert island is the escape from the stress and hassle of our technologically dependent lives. (Bear in mind of course we are being a bit idealistic and assuming that survival has been taken care of.)
In fact what Hadley’s question offers is akin to a ball-and-chain job. The Internet has become a ball-and-chain in our lives. Some of us have become as dependent on it as we are food, water and oxygen.
This is the whole premise of Castaway. A man dependent on a 21st century lifestyle, revolving around work, success and communication, has all that torn away from him. Eventually he discovers he doesn’t need any of that for happiness. Likewise many of us with the internet on our Macs.
Have you ever had the internet drop out on you for any length of time? Initially it’s like a worst nightmare; you feel so lost and incapable of doing anything. But slowly as the hours roll by, you start to feel a weight lifting off your shoulders, a pressure relieved. You don’t need to check your email every 15 minutes, your RSS feeds, things you’d like to buy on eBay.
If you can’t live without the internet, then you might also understand Hadley’s original question which was really about the ubiquitousness of the internet. And if you think it’s hard to choose between an internet-equipped Windows PC and a disconnected Mac, you want to try asking yourself to choose between a connected or a disconnected Mac.
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all those who railed against him, called it a stupid question because essentially, they wanted an internet equipped Mac
All those? Did you read anything that I wrote?
(NB it was long and pedantic so I will I suppose forgive your over-generalisation.)
The fact is that I use my mac PREDOMINANTLY for staying in touch - as “connectivity tool” if you will. The fact that the internet is important is unquestioned.
But this does not mean that the OS is unimportant. It is very important to me, and this is the reason I have chosen to use Macs, because I prefer OS X, and that is merely my subjective experience.
But my beef with that article is that it brazenly and arrogantly declares that the OS is now totally unimportant without discussing any of the issues surrounding the current state of internet applications and the totally obvious necessity for and crucial nature of the OS as providing the entire computing experience within which, and as only a part of which, connected applications function.
Had Hadley discussed appropriately the issues involved with necessary examples and discussion and surmised that perhaps at some stage in the future the situation MIGHT arise that the OS, which so differentiates Macs currently, becomes unimportant, and then postulated what this might mean for Apple’s business if it does happen, that would have made a great article. Indeed the only appropriate and honesttreatment of this subject would include all these things and present them tentatively as speculation informed by careful analysis. But Hadley did none of them and presented his ideas as fact.
I can only categorise the article as both Troll and Flamebait (i.e. to get hits by making spurious, outlandish claims and not backing them up). And I’m sorry to be so harsh but I cannot stand it when this kind of thing is published and then given so much unwarranted attention that translates as “success” in terms of hits.
(^^hypocritical i know)
Apologies, Ben. There were so many there just railing, I missed your opening that you didn’t think it a stupid question. (having been away I came late to the discussion)
I don’t at disagree with Hadley’s suggestions and I’ve written similar here myself. But I don’t want this discussion to get into the merits of Hadley’s piece. That argument can stay over there.
I really want people to focus on my question “Can you disconnect your Mac?”.
If the answer is no, discuss the issue. i.e. are we too dependent on the internet? As I said, it seems to rate up there with “food, water and oxygen”.
If the answer is yes, we’d love to hear your secret!
A. I don’t think people were “railing” as much as you seem to and I was really just using myself as an example. But that’s the nature of the medium I reckon.
B. I’m sorry for getting sidetracked.
Personally I would find it a real shame to disconnect from the net. Having recently left uni I have lots of friends in what are by british standards far-distant lands. The internet is what’s largely responsible for my keeping in contact with them.
I’m trying to decide whether I would rather give up my mobile phone or my internet connection. Really can’t decide at all! But it might be better for my life if I chucked the computer!
At least as Mac users we would have the wit to take the PC and make it as Mac like as possible while waiting to be rescued (assuming we wanted rescued! - If we don’t . . that might be a different answer!)
If you were to throw a Mac at a PC user they would sit and grumble about it for a year not wanting to touch it even if it HAD the internet.
(I know, because it took me a year to think Mac-like!)
Try asking PC users the other question - a PC without internet or a Mac WITH - that would be fun to watch too.
I think we should stress the positive aspects of deserted islands more.
I’ve sort of done this with my career, going from being a marketing guy who couldn’t survive without the Internet to being a bartender, which is about as analog a life as one can find. Yes, the cash register is networked, but other than that the chances of my job ever being marginalized by digitization or lack of access are about zero.
Simplification is a beautiful thing.
I depend on the internet for my work as well as for communication and entertainment. Disconnecting would be a crippling adjustment.
But to get away from deserted island metaphor, Hadley could have just as easily (and probably should have) set his scenario in an empty grey room with no door. Could you live without the internet then? Would you want to?
I also thought it was a silly premise. The O/S still has a huge impact on the experience of using the net.
As for giving up the net? Sure. And my mobile phone, and the landline… And even my Mac perhaps… I escape from the world at least once a year - and silence truly is bliss…
Yeah, Beeb, maybe both his and my question should simply have been: If you had to choose either a Mac with applications but no internet or a Mac with internet but no applications, which would you choose? (and you can’t add the other)
He and I would both think most folks would tend to the connected but applicationless Mac. Which, if so, then highlights my concern about our over-dependence on the internet.
It certainly proves that access to the internet, for better or worse, is more important than the OS. The dependency issue is a whole other matter and certainly OS agnostic.
Personally, I don’t think it’s a “concern” any more than telephones, telegraph, or any other form of two-way communication. It can be abused, sure, but so can anything else. I don’t communicate any less with real people because of the internet than I did before, but I do have access to MORE people and MORE information. I don’t think we should throw out the baby with the bathwater, as the saying goes.
“Try asking PC users the other question - a PC without internet or a Mac WITH - that would be fun to watch too. “
Consider your request granted. I’m a PC user. Don’t own a Mac, don’t have a urge to get one. Regarding that question, I would choose the Mac with internet. Yes of course I wouldn’t be as comfortable as I would running around Windows, but I’d get used to the Mac. Not really a big deal.
As for the internet vs no internet, I would obviously choose having the internet. Just because I would have the internet doesn’t mean I HAVE to use it while on the island.
“I really want people to focus on my question “Can you disconnect your Mac?”.
If the answer is no, discuss the issue. i.e. are we too dependent on the internet? As I said, it seems to rate up there with “food, water and oxygen”. If the answer is yes, we’d love to hear your secret!”
I’ll rephrase this for me personally “Can I disconnect my computer”? Where i am now, no. I am dependant on the internet just like i depend on my car indirectly for food. I need a car to get to work, to make money, to buy food. Could i live without my car? Plant my own food? No, i live in an apt with no yard. Now put me on a deserted island (preferably tropical
) Can i live without internet? Hell ya! It’s a deserted island! I don’t have to pay for a thing! I don’t have to be anywhere or report to anyone. Communication would not be necessary for survival or entertainment. For me and i’m going to guess most people, communication is manditory. Use it or get left behind. I think it’s just another choice that drastically depends on where you live and what you do.
Ben hit the nail on the head (which I also addressed in my comment in the previouse article).
The reason people objected to the premise is that it was stated as a Mac vs PC hypothesis… not just an internet vs no internet thing.
You also draw a parallel to Castaway stating, “Eventually he discovers he doesn’t need any of that for happiness.”
I’m no so sure that was the overall theme of the story. A bit of the reverse, actually. I would say that the need to human contact was the overall theme. He “invented” Wilson to keep him company and there’s more than one reference to attempts to commit suicide left all alone on the island.
The desert island premise suffers the same problem. Do we want to be alone on an island with no contact with the outside world? Hell, no. Give me the internet, a satellite phone, or whatever the f#$k to get me rescued.
Now, if you say the island is Bali or Fiji or some other example, where you have contact with the outside world and other people, but just no internet… I think most of us could live pretty happily without it, assuming we had a reasonable form of income for our food/shelter needs.
But I don’t think anyone wants to live in isolation with only their computers for company… Except perhaps for World of Warcraft players.
; )
I would take the PC, so I can go onto Apple.com and order me a Mac which I would then hookup to the internet. Or I would just use the net to call for help, and then get off the island (leaving the windows box) and get back to my Mac. Easy.