When did technology last excite you?
If Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is to be believed, your own excitement ended, simply had to end, after turning 35 years old. Decades ago, at first writing privately and later having those private writings published after his death, Adams had come up with "a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies." They were simple and short:
Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we explore why technology seemingly no longer excites us. It could be because every annual product release is now just an iterative improvement from the exact same product release the year prior. It could be because just a handful of companies now control innovation. It could even be because technology is now fatally entangled with the business of money-making, and so, with every one money-making idea, dozens of other companies flock to the same idea, giving us the same product, but with a different veneer—Snapchat recreated endlessly across the social media landscape, cable television subscriptions "disrupted" by so many streaming services that we recreate the same problem we had before.
Or, it could be because, as was first brought up by Shannon Vallor, director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures in the Edinburgh Futures Institute, that the promise of technology is not what it once was, or at least, not what we once thought it was. As Vallor wrote on Twitter in August of this year:
"There’s no longer anything being promised to us by tech companies that we actually need or asked for. Just more monitoring, more nudging, more draining of our data, our time, our joy."
For our first episode of Lock and Code in 2023—and our first episode of our fourth season (how time flies)—we bring back Malwarebytes Labs editor-in-chief Anna Brading and Malwarebytes Labs writer Mark Stockley to ask: Why does technology no longer excite them?
Tune in today.
You can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, plus whatever preferred podcast platform you use.
Show notes and credits:
Intro Music: “Spellbound” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Outro Music: “Good God” by Wowa (unminus.com)
Fighting censorship online, or, encryption’s latest surprise use-case, with Mallory Knodel
What is AI ”good” at (and what the heck is it, actually), with Josh Saxe
A private moment, caught by a Roomba, ended up on Facebook. Eileen Guo explains how
Fighting tech’s gender gap with TracketPacer
Chasing cryptocurrency through cyberspace, with Brian Carter
Security advisories are falling short. Here’s why, with Dustin Childs
Threat hunting: How MDR secures your business
How student surveillance fails everyone
A gym heist in London goes cyber
Teen talk: What it’s like to grow up online, and the role of parents
Calling in the ransomware negotiator, with Kurtis Minder
The MSP playbook on deciphering tech promises and shaping security culture
Playing Doom on a John Deere tractor with Sick Codes
Donut breach: Lessons from pen-tester Mike Miller
Have we lost the fight for data privacy?
Roe v. Wade: How the cops can use your data
When good-faith hacking gets people arrested, with Harley Geiger
Securing the software supply chain, with Kim Lewandowski
Tor’s (security) role in the future of the Internet, with Alec Muffett
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Insight Story: Tech Trends Unpacked
Zero-Shot
Fast Forward by Tomorrow Unlocked: Tech past, tech future
Black Wolf Feed (Chapo Premium Feed Bootleg)
Bannon`s War Room