Will technology replace the home? — I like sushi

Humans used to be, and many still are, nomadic hunters and gatherers, and in modern societies there are couch surfers, or business people or musicians who travel extensively and for whom a home is different compared to the home of a farmer or suburban family. The concept 'home' has never been used in only the latter sense.

For some individuals it is very important to have or own a home, for others it's less important. Perhaps technology can be a substitute for those who can't afford a home, or for those who find virtual homes more interesting.

For me personally a home is not so important, yet I have recently built a house for myself and my family. Not primarily for becoming a home owner, but because it is in my interest as an architect to learn from the experience. I might sell it after a few years, or stay there until I die. Too early to say now.

But I can say that whenever I've played computer games or visited virtual "homes" or worlds I've lost interest after only a day or two. A simulation is never a duplication.

... The home today is a kind of Platonic cave, the moral ruin of an archeological humanity. It is only by revolutionizing the way in which we give form and content to the experience of home that we will manage once again to make the world a place where common shared happiness is possible. — E. Coccia, The Philosophy of the Home, (2024)

I'd like to add to this the proverbial British saying that my home is my castle.

I don't think there could be many places one could call home. It seems that without money a person is quite home-less. So, anyway I thought that might be important to add.

...the possible reemergence of the clochard in the form of mobile devices... — I like sushi

"Clochard" is a new word to me. I had to look it up .Maybe you should, too.

Will technology replace the home? — I like sushi

Depends - per usual - on definitions and understandings. If as is said, "A house is not a home," then what is a home? Or another way, what is a home as a home when it is at home functioning as a home, so to speak? Without knowing what a home is, and for whom and how, sense is going to be elusive.

"Clochard" is a new word to me. I had to look it up .Maybe you should, too. — tim wood

It means 'homeless'. I had seen it before in Oscar Wilde I think, and again in the very book I quoted - 'homeless'. I was using it in a dystopian sense of what could come.

It means 'homeless'. — I like sushi

No. it means the person who is a bum, thereby likely homeless. But not homelessness itself. Still, I think I think I can guess what you meant.

"Clochard" is a new word to me. I had to look it up .Maybe you should, too. — tim wood

I didn't. Literal quote from book is "the homeless, the clochards."

Give me some credit for knowing the meaning of the word PLEASE! :D

Yes,the (presumably because they're bums) homeless - although homelessness not a sine qua non of the clochard. But not homelessness itself. So, no, not yet, but you're almost there. :grin:

Will technology replace the home? Is the metaverse already here in a sense and that we just simply have not really noticed that we spend our time 'at home' in the 'elsewhere' world of texting and (doom)scrolling? — I like sushi

Generally, as I understand it, a home is a physical place where one's tenure is secure, where one is safe and where one can peruse projects/hobbies without interference, where one is always welcome. Where one can have physical and hygiene needs met. There is a differnce between a home and a house. For me a home is a physical location which supports personal safety and belonging. Many people have accommodation, but no home.

Are you being annoying on purpose. You think I wrote 'the Clochard' meaning 'the homelessness'? Are you mental?

GO AWAY PLEASE. Troll some other post

Bye

Are you being annoying on purpose. You think I wrote 'the Clochard' meaning 'the homelessness'? — I like sushi

No. From what you wrote, here:

Personally, I see something of the possible reemergence of the clochard in the form of mobile devices. — I like sushi

I thought you did not know what it meant at all. And I think you still do not. Near as i can tell, it's a French word that refers to a kind of low-life rogue or ruffian who is not devoid of a certain Gallic charm. How such could re-emerge as any kind of digital device is beyond my understanding. But I agree; we should leave it.

He was making a point about Philosophy not coming from the City because people do not live in Cities, they live in homes. The only true citizens of a City would be someone Homeless.

It is a fairly interesting read and he takes his thoughts to a conclusion I was not expecting - which is always nice :)

I think he is looking at the home as a 'place apart from' rather than somewhere we go about our daily business. Where we retire from the daily events is called home (where we tend to sleep and eat).

In terms of mobile devices, I was thinking that perhaps we have, to some degree, appropriated the social aspect of home-living and taken it deeper into the 'Cave' or even removed it completely from the physical home. The digital nomad still has a home, but the permanence of their world is now abstracted in the web rather than possessing a physical existence (other than through devices that access the web).

Not sure how far this thought can be taken. It is a thought though :)

Personally, I see something of the possible reemergence of the clochard in the form of mobile devices. — I like sushi

It strikes me as just... weird to reference a mobil device as a clochard given the meaning below. I don't see how gadgets limp, sleep under bridges, are Parisian bums, or anything similar. BTW, it seems like everyone everywhere is bewitched by their phones.

clo·​chard klō-ˈshär
Synonyms of clochard
VAGRANT, TRAMP

Did you know?

Why such a fancy French word for a bum? The truth of the matter is, nine times out of ten, you will find clochard used for not just any bum, but a French bum - even more specifically, a Parisian bum. And, sometimes, it's even a certain type of Parisian bum - a type that has been romanticized in literature and is part of the local color. Nevertheless, as "français" as this word (which comes from the French verb clocher, meaning "to limp") may seem, its regular appearance in English sources since 1937 makes it an English word, too.

Examples of clochard in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In summer the clochards like to live along the quay, sleep under the bridges.
—Bruce Dale, National Geographic, 17 Apr. 2019

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'clochard.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History / Etymology
French, from clocher to limp, from Vulgar Latin *cloppicare, from Late Latin cloppus lame
First Known Use
1937, in the meaning defined above
Time Traveler:
The first known use of clochard was in 1937

Portable, computer-enhanced electronic gadgets (phones, pagers, tablets, etc.) are a decidedly mixed blessing--not because of the hardware--after all, a mobil phone is a radio device, which technology is well over a century old. What makes them a mix of blessing and curse is the software of corporations (Google, Facebook, Apple, X, TikTok, Byte Dance, etc. etc. etc.who have found yet another way to make a lot of money off our eyeballs. The critical pieces are the algorithms which are designed to hook us, exploit our attention, into ever more engagement with stuff that is mostly surface-y rubbish, and while we are wandering around in a zombie haze, we are being fed the advertisement which produces income that used to support "the press" which kept us better informed than social media.

I don't know whether Plato's Cave is an apt image when talking about phones and algorithms or not. It seems like a bit of a stretch. As for home, does the zombie haze lift when the wasted wanderers, the clochards, get home? Not if they all are sitting at the dinner table eyes still glued on the screen.

Personally, I see something of the possible reemergence of the clochard in the form of mobile devices.
— I like sushi

It strikes me as just... weird to reference a mobil device as a clochard given the meaning below. I don't see how gadgets limp, sleep under bridges, are Parisian bums, or anything similar. BTW, it seems like everyone everywhere is bewitched by their phones. — BC

That was not what I was doing. Clochards are the people with devices NOT the devices themselves. This should be apparent enough:

Personally, I see something of the possible reemergence of the clochard in the form of mobile devices.I noticed many years ago when I was in Bangkok that everyone I looked at had a phone in their hands or were actively using some kind of electronic device. Even the people conversing did so whilst browsing online or unconsciously clutching their prized phones to the chests.

Will technology replace the home? Is the metaverse already here in a sense and that we just simply have not really noticed that we spend our time'at home' in the 'elsewhere' world of texting and (doom)scrolling? — I like sushi

Please don't turn this into dictionary corner. I just had to check my own sanity with ChatGPT and it understood well enough what I meant. Case Closed!

Reemergence of the Clochard:

The mention of the clochard (homeless person) is intriguing here. The speaker might be suggesting that, just as a clochard has no physical home, modern people could be becoming metaphorical “clochards” by being mentally and emotionally “homeless.” The constant use of mobile devices could be seen as replacing or displacing a sense of groundedness or "home."
The clochard could symbolize disconnection from a traditional sense of place and physical presence. Mobile devices may give us access to virtual spaces, but those are temporary, fleeting, and lack the permanence and stability of a home. — ChatGPT

I would add to that that mobile devices can make it seem like your Home is in your pocket. You are anchored to it and it to you. Remove it and a piece of you seems to be missing.

I don't know whether Plato's Cave is an apt image when talking about phones and algorithms or not. It seems like a bit of a stretch. As for home, does the zombie haze lift when the wasted wanderers, the clochards, get home? Not if they all are sitting at the dinner table eyes still glued on the screen. — BC

I was thinking more or less along the line of the city is cut off from the natural world, the home from the city and then the mobile device from the home. We have retreated further into the Cave. That kinda thing :)

When people start talking about 'revolutionizing the home' I get chills down my spine. It smells of authoritarian tendencies that have often assaulted the home, and that the home was often the last bastion against. (Though you haven't added Coccia's thoughts on what this 'revolution' should entail)

When intellectuals and (god forbid) politicians start making claims about what the home should be, we are on a dangerous path. There is no greater 'We' when it comes to my home.

The home isn't anyone's business except of the people living there. A fundamentally human castle, indeed, against the clutches of the inhuman mass hysteria that goes for politics these days.


On the topic of mobile/electronic devices - I think in time societies will start to regard these with caution, as we do alcohol and smoking. Not just due to physical and mental health risks, but also due to them increasingly infringing upon people's privacy through mass data collection.

I do not think he is suggesting anything like a revolution. He is more or less assessing how the revolution of Home has already happened.

One interesting point he makes at the start is how when we move house we expose ourselves. In the process of putting stuff into boxes and seeing the house stripped bear of our trappings, we also experience a sense of uprooting of self. We bring ourselves into focus as a 'being' apart from the world rather than as grounded in it to some degree.

I believe people have much the same feeling, of a loss of orientation, when they lose their phone as they have when moving house. There is a feeling of 'loss' as if part of ourselves is left behind which brings into question what we are in and of ourselves in the first place.

The Home is a refuge. A castle. Also, it could be the prison of Plato's Cave too perhaps? At least for some ... maybe?

Perhaps the most basic sense of 'home' refers to what gives us shelter against sunlight, extreme temperatures, wind, rain, predators etc. A hermit crab needs to find something, anything, that it can use for sheltering its soft exoskeleton, or else it's someone else's lunch.

It takes energy for an animal to stay alert and move around in the environment. A hiding place enables it to rest, save energy, store food, reproduce etc. Solitary bees dig nests in the ground or use hollow twigs etc. Individual fish can use caves, others use their membership in a group and form a shoal that can distract predators.

A human digital nomad can be a member of an electronically connected community where the members can inform each other about the weather, current events, and share knowledge. But unlike fish the digital nomad is dependent on service provides. In this sense the digital nomad is as helpless as plankton that floats around wherever ocean currents take them.

..we are wandering around in a zombie haze... — BC

Yes, and some cause car accidents because they've been texting instead of focussing on the here and now.

When people start talking about 'revolutionizing the home' I get chills down my spine. It smells of authoritarian tendencies that have often assaulted the home ... The home isn't anyone's business except of the people living there. — Tzeentch

A self-built home is not necessarily a good home. During the Industrial Revolution workers lived miserably, but in the latter half of the 20th century most people could afford mass produced yet healthy and functional homes. It was arguably a benign authoritarian tendency to revolutionize homes.

Nowadays revolutionary ideas for homes are seldom motivated by a demand for better homes. Their primary function is to catch people's attention for the sake of marketing. In worst case, at the cost of what makes a home better.

Case Closed! — I like sushi

Gavel down! Got it. 100 lashes with a wet noodle.

There's a song by Tom Paxton (old folk singer), "Home is anywhere you are" which speaks in a very warm way about what home means to him, and in this case it's portable but specific.

There are those who never really know their minds
They're confused and they're not the stayin' kind
They don't know who they're really lookin' for
I don't suffer from that problem any more

You could send me away and I would go
I would go but I would not go too far
You could send me home but you would know
Home to me is anywhere you are

When I left home#1 for college, I have lived in many places, around 20 places over 30 years, some of which were temporary perches, some were "home". Jobs and partners tend to settle us down, and where we live means more, as we make refuges from working and homes with the people we want to live with. For the last 30 years I've lived in the same place--I used to think that would never happen.

"Home" is a place of arrival and duration. We 'come home', we 'get home', we we 'are home', we 'make home', we 'stay home'. OR NOT. We also 'wreck home', 'break home', 'leave home', and are 'homeless'. Whatever our relationship to 'home', it's a present or missing center point,

Most people in the world are "home". It's our 'natural state'. Migrants, refugees, nomads, travelers, the homeless, the bums, vagrants, tramps, and hobos, are not. The evicted and dispossessed are the exception--for good reason. People need a substantial amount of stability to flourish. Homelessness means not being able to accumulate much of anything that makes life more efficient, effective, and pleasant. Starting over every day is expensive.

There is home; there is also community. "Community" has been over used for the last 30 to 50 years, coming to mean any vaguely similar group -- like the "community" of science fiction fans. But real 'community'. a web of relationships, is as essential as a 'home'. Home without community (in the way that new suburban tracts were denigrated in the beginning) were not thought of as happy places. They were just well-housed units of alienation. Of course, it isn't just raw suburban tracts that are bastions of absent community. Old neighborhoods can be exactly the same.

So, stable individual, stable home, stable community.

Thanks for your thoughts. I think of 'home' as being a place of memories, usually with other people.

Coccia actually seems to be arguing that now the Earth has become our home. Previously we would create a refuge from nature but now we have gained so much control over what was previously unknown and mysterious that home is literally anywhere humans are able to live (which is everywhere!).

I imagine a space station even feeling like home, but in the vacuum of space no one feels at home ... yet!