Shitty future: Bugman design versus eternal design
I was yacking with nerds recently on the reason why some people enjoy owning mechanical wristwatches. In the finance business or any enterprise sales org, wearing a mechanical wristwatch is well understood, like wearing a nice pair of leather shoes or a silk necktie. Tastes may differ, but people in that milieu understand the appeal. In tech, other than a small subculture of people who wear the Speedmaster moon watch (because we all wanted to be astronauts), and an even smaller subculture who wear something like the Rolex Milgauss (some of us work around big atom-smashing magnets), the mechanical wristwatch is mostly a source of confusion.
You can dismiss it as an expensive status symbol (many things are; nice cars, nice bags, nice nerd dildo, nice anything), but the continued existence of the mechanical wristwatch is more than that. The wristwatch became popular after WW-1, and was a necessary piece of equipment in the time of the last great explorers, from the Everest and Polar expeditions to Jaques Cousteau's undersea adventures to the Moon landing. The association with this now historic, but still golden era continues to sell wristwatches.
The geared mechanical clockwork itself is ancient: we have no idea where/when it was invented, but we know the ancient Greeks had such mechanisms. While there is no evidence for or against it, it is possible that gear trains predate recorded civilization. The geared mechanical clock, like the pipe organ and the Gothic cathedral is a defining symbol of Western Civilization. Division of the day into mechanically measured hours unrelated to the movements of the sun is a symbol of the defeat of the tyranny of nature by human ingenuity and machine culture.
As a piece of technology, wristwatches probably peaked around 1970 when quartz watches became a thing. Quartz watches are undoubtedly more accurate, and at this point you could probably stick a microdot which syncs to GPS atomic clocks anywhere. But the psychological framework, and the association with the last human earthbound age of adventure and exploration remains. Watchmakers continue to innovate; my daily beater by Damasko contains a bunch of technology you usually only see in an experimental physics Ph.D. thesis (saw them all in mine anyway); ceramic bearings, martensitic steel, preferentially etched silicon springs, viton o-rings. None of this is necessary to build a good watch; it is just a tribute to the art of mechanical things and the creativity and artistry of the craftsman.
There is still much to be said for the mechanical wristwatch as a useful object. Whether it is self winding or manual, it doesn't require batteries or plugging into USB ports, and it might keep track of any number of useful things. It's also routine to make new ones waterproof. While quartz has more accuracy, for most purposes (including orbital mechanics navigation), mechanical watches are accurate enough it doesn't matter. If it does matter, you can buy a hybrid quartz/mechanical self winding springdrive. There is also the aspect of durability: if you take good care of them and avoid mishaps, most well made watches will continue to be serviceable without a major overhaul for ... centuries. People hand them down to their grandchildren.
I expect there to be mechanical wristwatches made for as long as some remnant of Western Civilization continues to exist, if only to sell luxury products to the Chinese. It's a fundamental art form; a physical embodiment of the spirit of Western Faustian civilization.
I do not expect goofy innovations like the present form of "smart watches" to be around for as long. Smart watches are bugman technology. They tell time ... and do all kinds of other crap you don't need such as informing you when you have email/slack updates, saving you the towering inconvenience of reading them a half second later on your phone or laptop. When you dump $600 on one of these goofy things, you can't even expect it to be around in 20 years to give to the kids you (as a bugman) will never have, let alone 100 or 200 years as a $600 watch might. It isn't because new "smart watches" have amazing new features which obsolete the old ones: it's because the connectors and case will physically wear out and the operating system for your phone won't support old models.
The difference between mechanical watches and smart watches is a sort of useful test case to generalize this sort of value judgement from. Consumerist capitalism has committed many great sins. I could put up with most of them if they could get engineering aesthetics right. The world we live in is ugly. Bugman engineering is one of the forms of ugliness which makes life more unpleasant than it needs to be.
Bugman devices are festooned with unnecessary LED lights. Whether it is a smoke alarm, a computer monitor switch, keyboard, power strip, DVD player, radio: you virtually never need an LED light to tell you that some object is hooked up to power. Especially objects which stay on all the time, like a smoke alarm or monitor. If you must have an indicator of activity; place a mechanical button on the object that makes a noise when you press it with power is on. Nobody is going to notice one among the sea of stupid little lights in a room have gone out. The time when it was "futuristic" to have little led's all over your refrigerator or toaster is long past. Just stop it.
Bugman designed appliances have digital clocks you must set. There is no reason for your oven, blender, microwave, refrigerator, dish washer or water dispenser to know what time it is. Power does go out on occasion (all the time in "futuristic" shit holes like Berkeley), and nobody wants to tell their stove what time it is. If you must have a clock; make one with a mechanical clock with hands you can easily move rather than navigating a 3 layer menu of membrane switches to set digits.
Bugman devices don't use mechanical switches; they're not "futuristic" enough. Capacitative switches are terrible and never work right. Touch screens on your car's entertainment system are a horror. Membrane switches on your appliance or anything else are a planned obsolescence insult unless you are operating in a flammable or underwater atmosphere; the only reason to use membrane switches.
Bugman devices are besmirched with extraneous software and are networked when they don't have to be. Being able to control your light bulb over wifi or bluetooth is almost never necessary. It is wasteful, a security nightmare and aesthetically disgusting. And no I don't want my stove to be on the internet so its clock knows what time it is.
Bugman devices and services use invasive phone applications for payment instead of credit cards. If your device is hooked up to the internet enough to talk to a cell phone, it's hooked up to the internet enough to use a credit card, crypto currency or paypal. Bugmen don't mind the security and privacy nightmare of loading new executables on their nerd dildo phones.
Bugman devices complexify life and make people work rather than making their lives better. Every password, clock, networked device, app you have to manage, every battery you have to charge, change or replace is making your life worse. Bugman don't care though; it helps fill the emptiness.
Bugman software substitutes software for actual experiences. Not all video games or online entertainment are bugman, but most VR applications or immersive social games (looking at you, Guitar Hero) are. Bugman sexuality; well, I bet they're excited about sex robots.
Juicero, an internet equipped, phone interfacing, centrally planned/distributed subscription juice machine that costs $700 instead of a manual juicer that costs $10 and lasts multiple lifetimes.
Peloton: an internet equipped, exercise bicycle that costs $2000 plus subscription, as opposed to a $500 bike and some competitive friends.
Soylent is bugman food. It even looks like something the actual bug-man in the classic "The Fly" movie would eat. Hell, the bugmen in the media are trying us to get to eat actual bugs.
Many images and ideas from the excellent (arguably NSFW) "Shitty Future" twitter feed.
