Re: defining offline

So there's been a lot of good discussion over the past few days about what is and isn't "offline" and what various "offline" challenges and goals really amount to.

ew's good summary post

But, basically, the whole discussion was launched by StackSmith pointing out that "offline" seems like a misnomer when you're still getting information from the internet to read and respond to you're just not *always* online.

And I get the point! In fact it was interesting because I think I had just internalized immediately the sense of "offline" being used without realizing that it isn't literally the meaning of the phrase: it's about *bounded* online time.

So the other day I was talking about how good I thought the book Make Time was and, well, one of the terms they coin is "infinity pool" for anything online in which there is always *more*. Things like social media are the most obvious example because of the infinite scrolling and sheer volume of content visible at any time. For any amount of time you devote to consuming it, there is more information being generated in that time than you were able to take in. In this sense it is infinite, a potential infinite that can keep being forever expanded producing more output.

My musings on the book

So, really, when people are talking about being offline what they're saying is that they're trying to experience a finitary version of the internet, one that is bounded and can be finished, and rejecting the systems that try to lure us in with gadgets that are the informational equivalent of the soup bowl being refilled from the bottom without you noticing it.

A blog post on the history of the infinite refilling soup bowl experiment

So, I don't know, is there a reason to stop calling it being "offline"? Maybe not. I think the meaning of it is kind of clear, but I do think there's something interesting in thinking of all the different ways we can create a bounded-internet for ourselves

As always, I'm left_adjoint@rawtext.club