A Tome of Forbidden Technologies

John Michael Greer’s post starts as a broadside against blind faith in “progress,” arguing that some older tools and devices may have worked just fine—and in some cases better—than the shiny replacements that sold us the future. His big crowd-pleaser example is music: vinyl records good, compact discs bad, with the claim that newer formats often gave people pricier, flatter, less satisfying sound while being marketed as an obvious upgrade.

But the real fireworks erupted in the comments, where readers instantly split into camps. One side was basically, “Hold on, are we really doing this?” with skeptics drilling into the audio claims and asking whether the supposed downgrade was the format itself or just bad equipment. Multiple commenters pushed back hard on the idea that compact discs were inherently worse, with one openly baffled that anyone could think the standard was too low. Others were even less patient: the second the post wandered near homeopathy, several readers hit the brakes and announced they were out, accusing the article of platforming discredited ideas.

That’s where the thread turned from nerdy nostalgia to full-on culture-war energy. Fans of “forbidden old tech” saw a needed reality check on endless upgrade culture; critics saw romanticized contrarianism wrapped in a sermon against modern life. The vibe was part record-store argument, part science-fair showdown, with a side of “grandpa was right” memes and a lot of eye-rolling over the word upgrade.