Comment by tristor

This matches my own feelings strongly. I think a lot of it has to do with what some other commenters have mentioned, in that I no longer feel in control of the computers I interact with, not really anyway. Some of that is simply that I have a better understanding now of all the factors involved.

I started working with computers when I was very little (4yo), and have really had this as part of my life and career since. Now I look around and other than the computer given to me by my employer, my next newest machine was the last gaming PC I built 11yrs ago, which I don't even use anymore. Outside of work, I'd much rather spend my time in the garage working on cars or spending time with friends or my wife doing something out of the house than stay home on a computer. I haven't completely eschewed computers, I still keep my website reasonably up to date, and I still occasionally play video games, and of course I read HN in my free time. But for the most part, once work is over, I don't even want to touch a computer. I feel like electronics have infected every part of modern life in a way to surveil and manipulate us as a a society, and I feel like if I share my thoughts about it publicly I'd sound like a Luddite. But I've learned most of what there is to know about computers in my life, and it didn't reassure the idealist views I had when I was younger, it shattered them.

Maybe I'm just getting old (I'm nearly 40), but I think we're starting to get to a point as a society where our computers no longer do what they're told, and the computers make decisions most people are forced to follow without any opportunity for their own judgement. It's frankly dystopian, and I desperately try to avoid it outside of work.