[HN Gopher] We need to reclaim our attention
___________________________________________________________________
We need to reclaim our attention
Author : jmfldn
Score : 511 points
Date : 2022-01-02 13:28 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| lr4444lr wrote:
| This is a major reason why I am bearish about online learning. I
| do love the accessibility of MOOCs, but I have to watch the
| videos multiple times to deeply understand the concepts, and I
| have to print out the assignments in order to really play with
| the ideas and solve them in a way that makes me grow. I prefer
| whenever possible to buy books. I'm not a bibliophile; I just do
| MUCH better when the target of my attention can't throw alerts at
| me or show me ads.
| [deleted]
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| Have you tried sitting in a classroom? That can be very boring,
| too, and there is no way to rewind.
|
| Personally I also prefer books and written articles for
| learning, but for some reason, many people seem to prefer
| videos.
| spongeb00b wrote:
| I know someone who claims to be a visual learner because he
| prefers video tutorials. But I say to him: no, I like
| pictures too, but what I can't stand about videos is the
| person talking. I want to be able to scan things at my own
| (varying) pace, my mind wanders when listening to a single
| voice talk about something. I struggled with university
| lectures because of this. But I've learnt a lot from podcasts
| and have been an avid listener since ~2005 but only for ones
| where it's a conversation between at least 2 people. I've
| tried and failed audiobooks due to it just being a single
| narration.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| I do excellently in a classroom as long as the professor is
| teaching to the upper 25%.
| literallyWTF wrote:
| This is not the flex you think it is
| roland_nilsson wrote:
| I tried to pay attention to this piece, but the website kept
| trying to open a pop-up every half minute. After five or so
| interruptions, I gave up :-/
| batch12 wrote:
| It is weird to me that someone can watch their kid (I know that
| this is a godparent) go down this path and not intervene. If the
| cause of dropping out really was distraction, it is sad that the
| parent didn't take the device from the child. The kid's parents
| paid for this conduit monthly.
| bootlooped wrote:
| I wonder what kids raised on iPads with big childproof cases
| will be like when they grow up, or even just when they get into
| high school.
| rightbyte wrote:
| I had that discussion this week end. I wonder if it will be
| any different from our Game boys? Or is the problem that
| smaller children get their hands on them?
| batch12 wrote:
| The problem is the child's mind vs the bidirectional
| feedback drip. I don't think these two devices are in the
| same class in respect to this.
| wyre wrote:
| It will be different. Playing Pokemon or Mario is much
| different than the endless scroll of TikTok, YouTube Kids,
| or a lot of the games.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye probably. I looked into what Nintendo does nowadays
| and luckely they seem to have not ditched their
| anachronistic cartridge design, even though there seem to
| be internet stores built in into "New 3DS". I guess they
| are opt in.
| wyre wrote:
| Internet store =/= algorithmically determined feeds
| programmed specifically to capture prolonged attention.
|
| Traditionally, video games were addictive because the
| game was good. The gameplay, storyline, art, music, etc
| have a part in grabbing attention.
| floren wrote:
| I grew up in the 90s. At least in my part of the US,
| Gameboys were pretty damn rare; I only knew a couple people
| who had them, and they didn't play them often, in part
| because AA batteries were rare and precious commodities for
| children.
| andersonvom wrote:
| I think there are two main factors that are different (not
| necessarily in order):
|
| * companies can much more easily weaponize their services
| and tailor them to get individuals addicted, than
| individual video games ever could. And the feedback loop
| happens much faster.
|
| * it was easier to moderate video games, because they had a
| single purpose: entertainment. since you can be in a device
| for any number of reasons: gaming, studying, catching up,
| reading,... and _everyone_ is on their devices _all the
| time_ (both kids and parents), it's much harder to
| establish good boundaries.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| I'd recommend anyone try going a week with _zero_ phone apps or
| TV. You will be surprised not only by how strong the habits are,
| but also by how strong they are in others. Its puts a depressing
| focus on how much time people around you spend mindlessly
| scrolling on their phones while you hang out.
|
| I have an ex who was so hooked on instagram that she would even
| pull it up to browse during red lights driving. We can't handle
| downtime anymore without our phones.
| nicbou wrote:
| I have experienced it and it's truly crazy. However, it's hard
| to decouple the addictive parts from the useful parts. I use my
| phone as a book, calculator and map, among others.
| _moof wrote:
| I would appreciate it if everyone commenting here would disclose
| any affiliations with companies whose business models depend on
| maintaining the environment described in the article. Thanks.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There is a veritable war going on for your attention, and the
| battlefields are your eyeballs, your ears and ultimately your
| brain. Psychologists have been enlisted, as they are in every war
| to try to win it for 'their side', be it one of the big silos or
| some dying TV or newspaper era behemoth, there is no reasonable
| way in which you can withstand that kind of frontal onslaught.
| The only way to really deal with this is to not participate.
|
| Beware or you too will be collateral damage on the balance sheets
| of these media conglomerates. Unmediated reality is still there
| for you to peruse, but 'augmented reality' will be the next big
| wave for tech and I'm pretty sure that it will end up being used
| mostly for advertising purposes.
| ModernMech wrote:
| There is a popular meme that shows the landscape of a colonized
| Mars, and the skyline is filled with McDonald's and Chevron
| billboards. I think about that a lot.
| hammock wrote:
| You ever see the movie Demolition Man?
| ModernMech wrote:
| Heh yeah. Judge Dredd comes to mind too.
| samwillis wrote:
| "The only winning move is not to play."
|
| War Games (1983)
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MpmGXeAtWUw
| jacquesm wrote:
| I don't think that the context of that fragment really
| applies here.
| samwillis wrote:
| It was more your phrasing reminded me of that quote. Agreed
| it's not really relevant, other than as yet more
| distraction.
| batch12 wrote:
| Yes. People talk about addiction to social media or other
| attention-farming software, but not many people really take it
| seriously. People think they are unicorns and while some can
| get addicted or manipulated-- they think "not me. I am too
| savvy." As long this issue just keeps getting shrugged off as a
| new version of tv-is-bad hysteria 'media' companies will keep
| making their dollars and enslaving the minds of the the
| unwitting willing.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Succesfuly quitting smoking cigarettes two years ago gave me
| some additional insight into what "addiction" meant for me,
| what my relationship with cigarettes/nicotine was like for
| me. Which led to me for the first time fully recognizing my
| social media use as addictive, not just as a metaphor.
| jacquesm wrote:
| One form this takes is that people with some regularity claim
| that 'all this advertising doesn't work on them' while having
| an iPhone, ridiculously over-priced in ear headphones,
| designer clothes with large logos on them and shoes with very
| visible branding.
|
| Advertising works, on everybody. The only way to get to a
| level playing field is to filter it out of your life as much
| as possible. The only thing I haven't found a solution for is
| billboards and radios and TVs playing in places that I have
| no control over.
| zippystrider wrote:
| >The only thing I haven't found a solution for is
| billboards and radios and TVs playing in places that I have
| no control over.
|
| This might sound silly, but I deliberately train my eyes to
| avoid looking at advertisements on posters whenever I take
| public transit (not completely successful, but it does
| reduce exposure).
|
| For radio advertisements, that's what the 'over-priced in
| ear headphones' are for (admittedly a luxury and not a
| necessity as I could achieve the same effect with earplugs
| or cheap, noise-isolating earphones, but I enjoy the high-
| quality music).
|
| TVs are the most difficult because they easily catch
| attention due to the moving picture. I also try to avoid
| looking at them like billboards when I go to the gym
| (plenty of TVs) and turn off the display whenever using the
| treadmill, but it's a conscious decision I make before
| walking in.
|
| Also, for what it's worth, I don't think the value of
| iPhones are overstated by advertising. I purchased my first
| one after reading a book by an academic about the lack of
| privacy in technology. It was a suitable option for a phone
| that's relatively private while working with relatively
| easy setup (versus most Linux phones). So, iPhone usage may
| reduce the effectiveness of targeted ads by collecting less
| data to use for advertisers.
| speedcoder wrote:
| https://www.tvbgone.com meant as a prank. And I love using
| it almost anywhere.
| slickdork wrote:
| I miss when cell phones had built in IR and you could do
| this with an app.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That looks like an excellent way to get lynched.
| barrkel wrote:
| And a large fraction of fashion items are _made_ out of
| advertising; that is, the value proposition of displaying a
| branded item comes from the web of associations generated
| and maintained amongst your social group by the fashion
| brand 's advertising efforts, which will in turn be
| associated with you by exhibiting the item.
|
| This means that it is actually possible to not be affected
| by advertising and still use fashion items, on the theory
| that _everyone else_ is affected by advertising and the
| effect you want is to leverage _that_ effect.
|
| I'm sure the most fashionable people are aware of this
| since they need to parse the fine distinctions of brand
| associations to maximize their desired effects. Ironically
| I think they may be the least affected by the advertising
| even while becoming the strongest real world advocates.
| derwiki wrote:
| Is there a way to _prove_ one is less influenced by
| advertising? I have an Iphone but several models old, and
| most of my clothes are Amazon Basics/brands with no logo.
|
| So yea, I echo the claim. But I'm probably wrong. Where's
| my blindspot? Is there a way to test how affected I am by
| ads?
| zippystrider wrote:
| A good benchmark would be your tendency to make purchases
| based on emotions, and also your tendency to make impulse
| purchases.
|
| I volunteered in several marketing positions for
| educational non-profit organizations and university
| clubs, and read books about marketing and advertising to
| try to improve at my job.
|
| A great deal of advertising tactics rely on emotional
| appeal first (e.g. identifying a human need or fear-like
| the want to belong, the want to find a good romantic
| relationship, the want to save time or money, the want to
| look smart-then selling a product or service as a
| solution. Another common tactic is to reduce friction to
| make a purchase, to make impulse purchasing easier (e.g.
| one-click purchases, very visible purchase buttons). A
| third is to use other high-pressure or manipulative
| tactics (e.g. a countdown timer to get a discount, or
| offering free gifts or books to make a purchase).
|
| You're likely to reduce the effectiveness of these
| advertising tactics on you by being aware of them (though
| there's a high chance they still have an effect). Besides
| knowledge from reading about advertising, good habits to
| reduce ad effectiveness include: delaying purchases,
| especially large ones, by writing them on a list and
| seeing if you still want them after a month; avoiding
| regular, small purchases of ~$20 because they add up; and
| holding yourself to a personal budget, where impulse
| spending comes at the cost of other life goals (e.g.
| setting up an emergency fund, saving to afford a vacation
| with a loved one, or pursuing educational training).
| hindsightbias wrote:
| My sneakers have branding because there isn't a place to
| try jogging shoes with no branding.
|
| NB also made their logo reflective, so there is utility in
| that. All these people running in black shorts and shirts,
| there ought to be a law.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| For most of the last decade I've worn sneakers shoes with
| no visible branding unless you're very close or can look
| at the sole, even though they're by major shoe companies
| everyone knows. My current daily walking around shoes
| have a logo but it's smaller than my pinkie fingernail
| and I have to squint to notice it. You don't have to be a
| billboard if you don't want to, and you can still enjoy
| the comfort of good design/manufacture at very reasonable
| cost.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Yeah, that was the point of the shill OP. Nothing to see hear
| folks...move along.
| tcbawo wrote:
| I called my Aunts and Uncles for New Year's Day, and they all
| brought up politics within ten minute conversations. It's not
| that media is forming their opinions. It's framing the topics
| of their thoughts and conversations. Conveniently, all these
| topics such as national/state policy and compliance, crime
| statistics and trends can only be fed by more media
| consumption. I worry about the permanence of the effects from
| these behavioral patterns. ADHD is a real medical condition,
| but there is also something else at play. It feels like we
| haven't developed the vocabulary to talk about these issues
| properly. I would love to tell people (like my Aunts and
| Uncles) something to the effect of "you seem a little X".
| Where X means your perspective is clouded by excessive media
| consumption.
| wrnr wrote:
| The entire way the old media reports on the new media is
| unironical scaremongering about how the internet is hacking the
| fear response of your amygdala. They should instead be positive
| and publish articles like "Here are 10 youtube channels that go
| into more depth that the master program of any university".
| krapp wrote:
| But the internet _is_ hacking your amygdala, and has been for
| years. Most of the information and stimulus you come across
| on the internet is designed to manipulate you, deceive you
| and control you in some way, and it works. This has real
| ramifications at scale, as the spread of disinformation and
| violence enabled by social media has shown us.
|
| This isn't unironical scaremongering, it's a real thing and
| it is newsworthy. "Here are 10 youtube channels that go into
| more depth that the master program of any university" is
| exactly the kind of clickbait garbage people wish the media
| would do _less_ of.
|
| Also, the "old media" no longer really exists, it lost its
| identity and was assimilated long ago. Every media outlet
| that exists is deeply invested in the web, everyone is "new
| media" now.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Sure. And then, at the end of every youtube video a whole
| slew of totally unrelated trashy videos that are perfectly
| produced to produce maximum engagement and eye candy will
| hijack your attention and steal another 3 hours before you
| even notice that they're gone because of the in-your-face
| nature of the recommendations.
|
| Wouldn't it be great if all youtube did was just store and
| replay videos? But it doesn't, it's an engagement and
| advertising dollars slot machine.
| bittercynic wrote:
| Not a complete solution, but I like to block the elements
| that are most distracting to me.
| www.youtube.com##.html5-endscreen .ytp-pause-overlay
| www.youtube.com###secondary
| jacquesm wrote:
| Thank you!
| xg15 wrote:
| Does that actually stop the autoplay or just hide the
| countdown?
| jarvist wrote:
| Could you point me in the direction of a single YouTube
| channel that goes into more depth than a Masters program?
|
| Other than occasional captured lectures, everything
| 'educational' on YouTube seems to me to be optimising for
| that TED-style sense of wonder / happy familiarisation with
| the content, which is poorly associated with learning
| outcomes.
| dento wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreasKling
|
| Kling is building an operating system and a web browser,
| and frequently relases videos about the work. Most go
| through development of a single feature. The videos are
| unedited to show all of the development steps: design,
| implementation and debugging. A Masters program usually has
| more theory and larger scope, but this is more hands-on and
| in-depth.
| howenterprisey wrote:
| The "occasional captured lectures" are still pretty strong.
| Off the top of my head, here are two lectures:
|
| https://youtu.be/5ESJH1NLMLs "Children of the Magenta Line"
| by Warren Vanderburgh https://youtu.be/YvEB05xdAy4 "Total
| Synthesis of Vitamin B12" by RB Woodward
|
| You may tell me I'm cheating by posting videos that are
| obviously not "native" to YouTube, but YouTube was the way
| I found them, how I watch them, and how I share them with
| other people.
|
| OK, so YouTube-native videos are hard mode. Try
| https://youtu.be/WHASYE2e5Xo I suppose? I like it. It has
| life lessons I'd argue are at least as valuable as the
| videos you're thinking about.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| Just search for this video will make you angry.
| wrnr wrote:
| For real, learn to abuse youtube and twitter algo's. I get
| random suggestions like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch
| ?v=vq2BxAJZ4Tc&list=PLUZ0A4xAf7...
|
| Math and art are thing I like, just keep hard blocking
| stuff you don't like and upvote stuff you do.
| Vetch wrote:
| It's difficult to find material that's a series, rigorously
| demonstrated and advanced at the same time (there's lots
| excellent material that ticks either one or the other of
| those boxes). Here are some examples I subscribe to that
| come close:
|
| Covers _Quantum Field Theory and General relativity_ in as
| approachable a manner as I imagine is possible while still
| going deep into detail:
| https://www.youtube.com/c/viascience/videos
|
| _Theoretical machine learning, Information theory and
| probabilistic inference_ :
| https://www.youtube.com/user/mathematicalmonk/videos
|
| Heavy emphasis on _analysis and measure theory_ :
| https://www.youtube.com/c/brightsideofmaths/videos
|
| While ScienceClic's coverage of differential geometry
| topics is mostly a thin vertical slice of the subject, it
| covers it with incredible visualizations and pedagogical
| approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xodtfM1r9FA&list=
| PLu7cY2CPiR....
| speedcoder wrote:
| Well, "The Biggest Rock" back when Onion talks were funny:
| https://youtu.be/aO0TUI9r-So
| criley2 wrote:
| Why would old media publish articles that people don't want
| to read? No one would read "here are 10 youtube channels that
| are more in depth than a master program". They would go out
| of business in a quarter. It's not like old media doesn't
| publish a variety of content and then evaluate which gets the
| most views already. They know we don't want to sit through
| fifty hours of academic lectures instead of reality tv.
|
| I also think it's funny to describe "old media reporting on
| new media as scaremongering" when scaremongering in the form
| of conspiracy theory and false expertise in new media (social
| media) is arguably its greatest flaw. What facebook et al
| have empowered in terms of fear and control is truly
| breathtaking. I don't think the insulated tech community of
| hacker news can truly appreciate how many people in the West
| have been led to fully distrust science and academia. How
| many reject medical science and climate science. How many
| have been manipulated into thinking collapse and violence are
| imminent and have engineered their entire lives around that
| belief, from moving to far away rural areas and stockpiling
| weapons and supplies. The breadth of the scaremongering and
| thoughtcontrol that social media enables is unparalleled in
| our history.
|
| But sure, the problem is "old media".
| annadane wrote:
| Why is this downvoted?
| jacquesm wrote:
| The scary thing about that is that if you convince enough
| people that violence and collapse are imminent it may well
| become true.
|
| Scenes in Amsterdam right now:
|
| https://www.nu.nl/binnenland/6176186/noodbevel-
| museumplein-n...
| inetknght wrote:
| For someone who can't see the pictures or read dutch, can
| you summarize?
| jacquesm wrote:
| One of our political parties has found out that by
| pressing the 'anti-government' button and piling on a
| bunch of conspiracy theories they can mobilize scarily
| large sections of society for protests, which invariably
| turn violent because there is a radical element at play.
| le-mark wrote:
| Recently my son (8) was talking about how cool his uncles vr
| headset is and made the leap to what if that was in your brain!
| I was impressed he made that connection. Then I reminded him
| how all the games on his iPad forced him to watch ads, wouldn't
| that be a similar situation, only in his brain? His eyes got
| wide then he got a disgusted look on his face. He agreed that
| would suck.
|
| I personally think there have always been distractions, maybe
| what's different now is how some people get positive validation
| from their social media interactions, certainly an author
| would. A lot of people don't though.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Funny in Mario Kart 64 there's billboards so the roads look
| like roads, for realism. They are ads that say "Yoshi" and
| such. They are just not ads.
| IHLayman wrote:
| I hate to be that person but I must point out that there are
| studies that show that children less than 10 years old using
| VR can have impaired head-trunk coordination. See this study
| for more info:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-96866-8
| touisteur wrote:
| Thanks for the link, I think modern VR's paint is still
| fresh in everyone's mind (well... mine at least) and you
| brought a scientific article. I'm now wondering if the
| effects could be made beneficial for physical therapy.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That kid will go places if he can reason like that at that
| age. Wow.
| zippystrider wrote:
| If you install and adblocking app on the iPad, your son can
| see fewer ads (e.g. AdGuard, AdBlock) on these games.
| Alternatively, you could set up Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi to
| block ads across the network.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| This isn't something you need to explain to people here.
| It's like responding to someone's comment about unpleasant
| weather by suggesting that they could wear different
| clothes.
| sneezles wrote:
| The reason that people here know about this stuff is that
| this place is full of people sharing helpful tidbits like
| this.
| mc32 wrote:
| I'd say more broadly it will be used for manipulative purposes.
|
| It's a great tool for getting eager participants and then
| "gamifying" it to achieve some wanted behavior that extends to
| real life.
| neuronic wrote:
| A Pokemon GO - like game but developed by a subversive power
| to destabilize society further and further, inch by inch,
| slowly until the strength withers from within.
|
| Would be a decent Black Mirror episode.
| mc32 wrote:
| Yep but with real life implications such as social credits
| and in game credits to influence behavior.
|
| For example we have people who forgo actual social
| interaction and instead favor synthetic relationships and
| achievements.
|
| Potentially you could maid millions happy by giving them a
| synthetic world and IRL they live off some form of UBI but
| because the made up world is most of their existence they
| don't mind nor care about their IRL standard of living
| going down, etc.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Charles Stross has this, a game called 'Spooks' in one of
| his books.
| blowfish721 wrote:
| Or maybe a Southpark episode?
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinpokomon
| jacquesm wrote:
| That is much darker, but also a distinct possibility.
| pier25 wrote:
| I've been doing 100% full stack while bootstrapping my current
| project for the past year and a half. So basically doing
| absolutely everything alone.
|
| It's really exhausting and progress is extremely slow. It's not a
| matter of skill or knowledge as I've been doing design, front
| end, and general programming for 20 years. At first I thought it
| was because I was on my own, so the workload was tripled, but
| then realized a major factor is really the cognitive cost of
| having it all in my mind. The db, the platform, the backend
| logic, the API, the frontend code, the design, the UX, etc.
|
| Now I try to not work on the whole thing at once. I focus on the
| backend for a couple of days, then on the front end for a couple
| of days, etc. This works, but there are many times where
| something doesn't work as expected and I need to switch between
| multiple projects (front, API, some other service, etc) during
| the same hour.
|
| I really don't have a solution to this problem, but I wanted to
| share my experience. Hopefully someone who has been doing this
| juggling has some wisdom to share.
| rorfm wrote:
| I've gone through a similar process. For me what you described
| of splitting it into the tangible parts helped a lot - I'd
| spend a week just working on the back-end and then a week on
| the front-end and vice-versa. Was hard to context switch
| between the two (especially as my back-end is usually python
| and front-end is usually a flavor of JS).
| LightHugger wrote:
| This is very familiar to me, I've been trying to use some
| strategies to limit cognitive load to mixed success.
|
| The most effective thing has just been taking better notes. If
| i know i take good notes, and i write something down and know i
| will go back and read it, my brain knows it's "allowed" to
| forget about it, and that greatly lessons the load. Sounds
| obvious and simple but sometimes it's not obvious that spending
| time to write down a mix of both really basic and really
| complicated stuff can make it so much easier to get stuff done.
| pier25 wrote:
| You mean like documentation? Or what type of notes are you
| talking about?
| LightHugger wrote:
| Documentation would be a part of it but not really what im
| talking about. First step would be learning to recognize
| the thoughts that keep buzzing around in your head, like if
| are frequently noticing that you keep thinking "I gotta do
| X, which requires me to do Y, and this is how i should do Y
| but im not sure about Z and whether or not i do Z or Y
| first so now im thinking about how i should do Z".
|
| Then those things need to get offloaded to some kind of
| note system. Just a text file can work, or a doc, or a
| paper notebook... It's good to write down the things you
| need to do, but also anything important about _how_ you
| wanted to do them, or any inter-depencies you might forget
| about if you "offload" them now. Any thoughts you are 100%
| confident you can regenerate trivially dont get written
| down.
|
| Once you have them stored, you need to mentally recognize
| that you no longer need to think about those things. It's
| kind of vague but thats the best i got. Then all the space
| it was taking up is free, and you're free to focus in on
| something more specific.
| cborch wrote:
| This is the key for me, but I've never heard anyone else talk
| about it. It feels like I need to get it out of my brain and
| somewhere else or my brain's 'ram' is full. I'm not sure if
| its mental of there is some physiological phenomenon going on
| there, but it really works for me.
| sabhiram wrote:
| I spend a lot of time designing the thing I am trying to build
| to be spread-out vs built-on-top. This way, I have a big list
| of fun and interesting problems to solve, after which comes the
| gluing them back together for the prestige.
|
| In reality, it never quite works out that way - but I still
| maintain it is a good way to start. Like many have said, it is
| essential to identify the path by which you multiply
| engineering as demanded by the needs of the thing you are
| building.
|
| Many projects can keep that factor to 1, but it has to be about
| the love of doing it, not the outcome. The minute the outcome
| is more important, hire, scale and delegate!
| erikbye wrote:
| Why would you try to "keep it all in your mind?" Document.
| Wiki. Code comments. Good commit messages. Etc. Use a
| task/issue tracker. Whether that is a text file, Trello, or
| whatever. Track progress.
| pier25 wrote:
| Of course I have documentation.
|
| What I meant is that when working on certain features you
| will need to understand it all to implement it.
|
| It's like when you're working on some code and you need to
| understand all the classes and abstractions involved to make
| it work.
| erikbye wrote:
| > What I meant is that when working on certain features you
| will need to understand it all to implement it.
|
| That's more or less true regardless if you're soloing a
| project or on a team. Depending on the design. It's true,
| you do sometimes, for a period of time, have to keep
| several things in your head at the same time, but how the
| code base, class, function, or whatever, is structured, can
| increase or lessen this cognitive load. There's many ways
| to skin this cat. Generally you shouldn't have to keep more
| in your head than the current module. It's all about
| encapsulation. Do you need to understand just the
| interface, or the implementation as well? That's your
| choice, as far as how you design your codebase, since
| you're a solo dev.
| aabhay wrote:
| Hire a contractor or junior dev. Even if they aren't good at
| what they do, the very act of waking up in the morning to have
| a check-in and answer questions will motivate you.
|
| Most solo devs/founders don't do this because they feel that an
| employee will only slow them down and degrade the quality of
| the product. However, this isn't true. You will wake up more
| motivated every day, learn about communicating needs, and you
| will often receive very important feedback (like when a feature
| makes no sense).
|
| If you can't afford to pay a junior dev (even off-shore), you
| should assess your business strategy because this means you are
| likely to be financially precarious or dangerously risky
| pier25 wrote:
| It's a good idea, but it doesn't really solve the cognitive
| cost I'm describing.
| philipswood wrote:
| The Shallows deals with topic.
|
| I bought a second-hand copy of 'The Shallows' by Nicholas G. Carr
| a few years ago.
|
| To be honest I bought it to read it and laugh at it, but he made
| his point very powerfully and convincingly.
| krono wrote:
| I've said it before and I'll say it again:
|
| Ad blockers and other such tools are just as essential for ADHD
| users as ramps are for wheelchair users. Their continued
| existence and unhindered operation should be legally protected.
|
| Google's plans to take away this last line of defence are
| absolutely disastrous, especially for people who lack the
| knowledge or means to implement and maintain workarounds.
|
| It is physically impossible on a biochemical or neurological
| level for us ADHD invalids to ignore whatever it is that triggers
| us. Removing these potential triggers as much as possible is
| therefore essential to prevent/reduce disorder-specific self-
| harmful behaviour, and to get anything done on today's internet.
| redisman wrote:
| Ads are only a part of it. Most news sites push ideological
| views as the core content. Most social media push memes and
| consumerism and conspiracies as the core content. Ad blockers
| do nothing for the deeper rot in the system
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I feel like the biggest evidence for the "moral panic" side of
| the debate is that the article never actually gets around to
| making the argument that attention spans were longer in the past.
| "We can see the effects all around us. A small study of college
| students found they now only focus on any one task for 65
| seconds." - how can we evaluate this without knowing how long
| they focused 25 or 50 years ago?
| EGreg wrote:
| The five aspects of HELPFUL software... we as developers need to
| build it into all our software:
|
| https://qbix.com/people
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| The problem isn't as much that social media is addictive. The
| issue is that people aren't happy with their other options of
| what to do. If you have a draining job and don't have energy to
| put into a hobby, or you don't have lots of friends to hang out
| with, you're much more likely to waste time on something
| addictive.
| nicbou wrote:
| I have a ton of time and energy, and I'm still hooked. I
| implemented a bunch of countermeasures, but I'm still not in
| control. I don't think that the lack of alternatives is
| entirely to blame.
| wott wrote:
| > if you have a draining job and don't have energy
|
| Never in modern times have we worked less. It is not that much
| the 7 or 8 hours of not-quite-daily work which make us tired,
| it is that on top of it come the 2 or 3 hours of not-really-
| interesting-but-designed-for-addiction serials watching, the 1
| hour of news article browsing, the 2 hours of reading and
| sometimes writing hundreds of comments about what makes us rage
| on whichever form of forum or social media or newspaper comment
| section, the 1 hour on social media of keeping-connected-with-
| family-and-friends you wouldn't have cared about before, the 1
| hour of wanking off to the hundreds of thousands of hours of
| free porn available in 1 click while you would never have
| bought a porn magazine before, the 1 hour of browsing online
| shops for stuff you don't really need of for which you could
| just have bought the first item at your supermarket without
| spending hours of research to get the very best one or to save
| 10 cents.
|
| For most people, at least half of this time spent connected to
| Internet would have been free 15-20 years go. Free to cook,
| free to rest, free to read, free to get bored, free to do
| something a bit more productive or interesting than indulging
| into one's vices or immediately yet falsely rewarding
| consumption, which is what the new Internet-backed face of
| consumerist capitalism excels at providing.
|
| A lot of Internet leisure now occupies many hours a day, and
| gets placed at the same level as work and duties, instead of
| being considered as one way of occupying one's free time, so
| now the free time seems to be only starting after all this
| leisure consumption has be done, thus it appears extremely
| reduced.
| birtoise wrote:
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| This. I find scrolling Reddit to be exhausting
| bpodgursky wrote:
| The default human condition is to be slightly bored much of the
| day. This is true now, this was true in hunter-gatherer
| societies.
|
| These kind of traps are addictive to even otherwise happy and
| well-connected people; there are basically no subcultures on
| earth that has produced individuals who voluntarily abstain
| from social media (only cultures where such technology is
| banned entirely, like the Amish).
| 01acheru wrote:
| I find your two concepts of boredom incredibly different one
| from the other.
|
| When you have dopamine tablets as low hanging fruit you use
| them as much as you can so to keep your mind busy, in a
| simple society you don't have those tablets all around 24/7.
|
| People are praying on our boredom in our contemporary
| society, it wasn't like that in the past.
|
| Plus, I don't think the default to be being slightly bored
| but being slightly mentally inactive, boredom is a modern
| concept of our very complex modernity.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| It's not about abstaining completely. There's nothing wrong
| spending some time catching up with what your friends are
| doing using social media. It's when you spend more time _than
| you 'd like to_ that it becomes a problem.
| ImprovedSilence wrote:
| This 100%. Consuming media is an escape from reality, an escape
| from right now.
| drawkbox wrote:
| Exactly, social media is not reality.
|
| Repeat after me: Social media is not reality.
|
| In a way, social media is the new tabloid mixed with
| popularity contests and politics. Very easy to consume,
| mostly bullshit, mostly doomscrolling eventually, mostly
| divisive and tribal in the cult-like movements.
|
| It is somewhat scary when people believe the "movements" on
| social media, they are mostly being engineered. People's
| first reactions and bad takes are what you find mostly on
| social media, those are usually worked out in normal reality.
|
| There is some good to social media, for hobbies and
| information, but it is submerged under the astroturfed and
| cult/popularity/tabloid madness.
| krono wrote:
| An individual's reality is whatever their brain decides to
| make of it in the moment. Whatever it is matters not,
| they're now living it, and only they can change it.
|
| Fighting this "metaverse" from down here is pointless.
| Showing people close to you how to recognise the
| manipulation and teaching them how to harden themselves
| against it is far more effective and worthwhile, I believe.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| In this, similar to (other) things recognized as addictions.
|
| Eg (just first thing I found googling for this commonly heard
| theory/model):
|
| > A strong belief exists among addiction treatment
| specialists that the primary reason addicts remain addicted
| is less about pleasure-seeking and more about their need to
| escape and dissociate from the pain of his or her (often
| trauma-based) emotional isolation.
|
| http://www.consultant360.com/articles/why-do-people-
| addictio...
| slibhb wrote:
| > Some scientists say these worries about attention are a moral
| panic, comparable to the anxieties in the past about comic books
| or rap music, and that the evidence is shaky.
|
| I agree with them.
|
| It's hard to pay attention to something for long unless it's
| entertaining. Reading a book, reading a paper, etc -- these
| activities take discipline that most people don't develop or
| don't often apply. This isn't new. The mistake is thinking that
| the ability to concentrate on something non-entertaining is the
| baseline. One reason so many people think they have ADHD is
| because they make that mistake.
|
| We had the same anxieties about radio and TV. Those anxieties
| were right and wrong. Technologies do change how people behave
| but it's always the same story. There will be entertainment
| freely available and you'll have to choose to concentrate on
| things that aren't entertaining that you consider worthwhile.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Both of these things can be true.
|
| What if this is a moral panic like prohibition or the red scare
| more than like comic books. Was American drinking culture in
| the early 1900s insane and were there soviet spies in the
| 1950s? Actually yes, and that doesn't justify McCarthy or make
| Prohibition a good idea.
|
| And this is the challenge. How do we respond proportionately
| without going _" OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN"_ or blending the
| actual problems with our other phobias?
| xg15 wrote:
| This is basically echoing the "you just need to be more
| disciplined" argument from the article.
| slibhb wrote:
| The ability to make yourself do something that you consider
| good but yields no immediate pleasure is real, useful, and
| can be cultivated.
| xg15 wrote:
| No one denies that. The article argues that current
| "attention economy" tech is actively making this harder or
| even impossible.
| slibhb wrote:
| Saying it's impossible is denying it...
| xg15 wrote:
| No, he is saying, it's _becoming_ impossible - and he
| goes on to argue why this is the case. That 's pretty
| much the main point of the article.
|
| What's your counter-argument?
| slibhb wrote:
| I find this incredible unless the Evil Social Media
| Companies reach into my brain and remove my capacity for
| practical free will.
| wwweston wrote:
| > One reason so many people think they have ADHD is because
| they make that mistake.
|
| Speaking of which: has anyone had the experience where they
| sought to be evaluated for ADHD and the professional they went
| to said "nope, this doesn't look like ADHD"?
|
| I'm wondering if there are criteria people use to _exclude_
| ADHD as a diagnosis, or if the assumption is that if people are
| seeking diagnosis /treatment that they're experiencing
| something enough like it and should be given ADHD interventions
| (and of course, the incentive under fee-for-service would be to
| provide the intervention for a fee).
| [deleted]
| freedom2099 wrote:
| Never... I have always been capable of extreme focus! Even
| now at work I regularly zone out for hours on a daily basis
| ignoring my phone and the company chat (people learned that
| of I don't answer is because I am focusing and filtering out
| all distractions so just wait for me to answer when I can).
| Even most of my ho bows are about continuous focus on one
| single activity they leads me to ignore all the distractions!
| travisjungroth wrote:
| Yeah, usually people who lack the executive function navigate
| the healthcare system. It's like they have a lack of focus
| pathology, so they can't get an ADHD diagnoses.
|
| https://theunitofcaring.tumblr.com/post/168201153351/have-
| yo...
| sascha_sl wrote:
| Can confirm. Lost every single object I could lose, dropped
| out of school, forgot I had prescriptions to pick up for a
| year, constant messy room, spent an entire year literally
| doing nothing and still feeling nervous every day, failed
| jobs where I couldn't cherry pick interesting things out of
| JIRA and then spent 2 hours in hyperfocus, followed by 6
| hours of faking being busy because I simply couldn't focus
| anymore (but in practice, nobody minded, and I was
| considered to be overperforming. getting paid based on
| hours sucks for me).
|
| My job turned from amazing with coding every day to
| maintaining broken things last year (mostly black boxes
| others left behind). It got substantially worse. I can't
| remember the last time I managed to enter hyperfocus.
|
| So I've made a new-years resolution and made an appointment
| online (thanks, low friction tech) this week. It'll only
| be... 9 months until I figure out which side of the ADHD
| battle this doctor is on. (I've had bad experiences getting
| trans healthcare, and only got treatment through a lucky
| incident, so my expectations are rather low). I've known
| for years that this is likely what it is, but only doing it
| when absolutely neccessary is on brand for it too I guess.
| Retric wrote:
| I don't know about adults, but parents are often told their
| children don't have ADHD. Various estimates place prevalence
| at around 4% which is common, but not that common.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| Quality of the estimations is extremely shitty. I've heard
| everything from 1% to 5%. And for persistence into
| adulthood, anything from 40% to 15%.
|
| This is mostly because diagnostic criteria are extremely up
| for interpretation, and it usually comes down to the doctor
| if you get a diagnosis or not. I read one particular study
| that attempted to correlate location with ADHD incidence,
| and then it turned out that it came down to how the local
| specialists felt about it.
|
| Reminds me of the reason the DSM comittee rejected cPTSD
| from inclusion into their officially-opinionated manual.
| "If we add this, too many people would be affected, we
| simply can't pathologize this many people at once".
| bnralt wrote:
| I think many of your examples are of times we failed to counter
| problematic tendencies as a society, gave up, and then even
| worse (in this case, more addictive time consuming activities)
| things come along. It's basically the realization of a slippery
| slope, where failure to stop one problematic trend is used to
| justify an even worse trend.
|
| Society can survive with bad tendencies. Think about 50 years
| ago when American restaurants were full of cigarette smoke, and
| rivers would get so polluted they'd catch on fire. People still
| survived, even thrived. If we had ignored those problems,
| probably someone today would be saying "Opiates? Global
| warming? Just more moral panics, the way a few decades ago
| everyone was worried about the environment and smoking."
|
| The dangerous thing is that once these trends become part of
| your society, it's hard to imagine the world without them, and
| hard to see why people make such a fuss about them because they
| can become an immutable part of your reality. You become blind
| to them. I'm sure, given enough time, we'll become blind to new
| negative trends in society just as we've become blind to
| previous negative trends. But that's not a good thing.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Totally agree. When I hear the argument "People always say
| this, they said this before with TV and videogames", it just
| makes me think that people are discounting some of the huge
| negative impacts these technologies have had (or at least
| contributed to).
|
| Just look at the overall physical fitness of, say, an average
| 18 year old in 1950 vs today in the US. By loads of measures
| (obesity, muscle strength, cardiovascular fitness, diabetes,
| etc.) there is an enormous degradation in the physical
| fitness of America's youth. I'm certainly not blaming this
| all on TV and videogames, but at the same time I think it's a
| huge mistake to pretend our technological advances haven't
| had other, large negative side effects.
| tux3 wrote:
| Developped countries share the same technologies, but this
| obesity and diabetes problem you're talking about seems
| largely rooted in North America.
|
| You're a little quick to correlate screens and health
| metrics. I don't think that explanation holds up at all if
| you consider data in other countries.
| wott wrote:
| > _Developped countries share the same technologies, but
| this obesity and diabetes problem you 're talking about
| seems largely rooted in North America._
|
| In France ("the land of delicate and healthy food", as it
| is sold to you), obesity rate was multiplied by 3 since
| the 80s. Overweight rate raised by 50%.
|
| Diabetes has also been on the raise: double or tripled
| since the 90s.
|
| You know, in general all the crap that develops in the
| USA reaches other countries after a while. Depending on
| which specific 'crap', it is just a matter of variables
| delays and variable intensity, but it surely comes one
| day.
| tome wrote:
| > France ("the land of delicate and healthy food", as it
| is sold to you)
|
| Is it? I would associate that description more with
| Italy. With France I associate butter, cream, cheese,
| fatty cuts of meat ...
| wott wrote:
| To many people, Italy would first evoke pizza and (the
| huge amount of Nonna's) pasta :-)
|
| "Gourmet", "Chef", "Cuisine" and dozens of other terms:
| even in the English culinary vocabulary, the French words
| have a predominant role. It ruled the world of 'proper'
| cooking at some point. But I was more thinking about how,
| from the USA, the French are presented as having a
| balanced diet, eating a bit of everything but not eating
| too much of anything, cooking by themselves and not
| resorting to mostly ready, industrial, over-processed
| meals, how they would be a sort model in those matters
| related to food.
|
| What was very fashionable at some point in the discourse
| on healthy food (10-15 years ago, maybe), was the
| Greek/Cretan diet; which was often extended to the whole
| Mediterranean, including Italy indeed, and south of
| France. Traditionally the butter & cream you mentioned
| are associated with northern France: the South was
| supposed to be a land of oil (olive oil in the most
| Mediterranean part, other oils in other parts) and the
| North a land of butter.
| scythe wrote:
| Physical strength has declined according to simple
| metrics (grip strength) in Northern Europe:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235282
| 731...
|
| In Japan the same trend appears but it's delayed by two
| decades:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S172886
| 9X1...
|
| Obesity and diabetes have also trended upwards outside
| North America but this has been mitigated by better
| regulation of the food industry.
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| Slight tangent re: fitness. Over Christmas my dad and some
| similarly aged people (70's) were reminiscing about their
| childhood, and pointed to the lack of Doritos as memorable.
| Junk food was neither the product of decades of
| addictiveness-enhancing R&D not cheap.
|
| A poor person today by contrast has junk food as the
| cheapest option.
| redisman wrote:
| Cheapest by effort plus taste divided by cost maybe. It's
| still much cheaper to buy a bag of rice and a bag of
| beans and some frozen veggies. You can eat sub $1 meals
| jmknoll wrote:
| Thank you! This line about "unhealthy food is the most
| affordable option" doesn't really hold up in my
| experience.
|
| Some "superfoods," exotic fruits, nice cuts of meat and
| fish, and certain vegetables are expensive, and that's a
| problem, but its a problem at the margins. The basic
| building blocks of a healthy diet are all widely
| available and affordable.
|
| Some quick googling says the avg price for a dozen eggs
| in the US is $1.48. A can of tuna is $0.77. A pound of
| bananas is $0.57. A pound of potatoes $0.75. Dried
| beans/lentils/rice are even cheaper.
|
| I understand there are complicating factors. You need a
| place to cook, and a big mac probably generally looks
| more enticing than canned fish, especially if you've
| spent all day on your feet at a job you hate. But these
| are separate problems, unrelated to the food supply
| chain.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "it's hard to imagine the world without them"
|
| There is soviet sci-fi novel that features a distopian
| society where people a killed before they become frail and
| become a burdain, and its considered an honour. They can't
| imagine the world otherwise.
| greggman3 wrote:
| Sounds similar to Logan's Run
| rkk3 wrote:
| "Carrousel" from Logan's Run, is the western equivalent.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I think that was also a storyline in a Twilight Zone
| episode.
| woolion wrote:
| Technology does not respect biology. There is a mechanical
| view of man, that is similar to what hydroponics is to
| gardening. You look what are the required nutrients etc, and
| provide just that in a very sterile environment. Of course,
| the results are quite garbage. The fruits are tasteless, and
| the problems it brings (e.g. insect infestations) require a
| lot of pesticides. The technological vision is to solve these
| problems with new technological solutions. If modern life has
| become unbearable, it's not a worry because there are pills,
| wondrous cannabinoids, etc, to fix defective individuals.
| Quite a society!
| hoseja wrote:
| There is no path but mastering ourselves eventually,
| idiosyncracies included.
| vaylian wrote:
| Well put. In addition, biology can't really be patched.
| CRIPSR nonwithstanding. We are stuck with the bugs that
| developed many thousands of years ago. Our bugs will
| continue to be exploited.
| dgb23 wrote:
| But all of those things increase the GDP, so they are
| automatically an improvement.
| woolion wrote:
| Someone posted "The bicycle is the slow death of the
| planet" not so long ago. It's not meant to be taken
| literally, but this is not very far from some people's
| line of thinking.
| trwhite wrote:
| Video games are _immensely_ addictive. The burst of adrenaline
| some of the recent online FPS ' give me doesn't compare to any
| other feeling or experience I've had as a human being. They
| didn't just happen to be this way. They have been _designed_ to
| be so thrilling that normal life cannot compete.
| fullshark wrote:
| I have friends who dropped out of college to play video games
| all day and that was years ago. The games today are even more
| addictive. They eventually learned that was a dead end and
| got their lives back on track but the addiction did active
| harm to their lives in the short run and cost them/their
| parents thousands of dollars for sure.
|
| Edit: TBF this is a chicken/egg problem, people have been
| dropping out of school forever and maybe the video games were
| the outlet for their stress, but I don't think we can simply
| act like all is fine while making games targeting adolescents
| as addictive as possible.
| snerbles wrote:
| Once, after a particularly intense fight in EVE Online I
| found my hands shaking.
|
| The only other occasion I surpassed that level of adrenaline
| was in Iraq in 2007.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| EVE is a very special game. I'd attribute the rush more to
| all interactions being unscripted, fights to occur
| relatively rare and having pretty tangible value on the
| line.
|
| It definitely doesn't compete very well for attention.
| kqr wrote:
| Is adrenaline really involved significantly in addiction,
| other than in specific people who enjoy that sort of thrill?
| As far as my own experience goes, adrenaline is uncomfortable
| and something I avoid all else equal.
| pietrovismara wrote:
| Isn't for a game to be thrilling usually the ultimate goal?
| I'm not concerned about games being fun to play, that's what
| they are for. I'm more concerned about the dopamine
| exploiting patterns implemented in modern games, especially
| those targeted at younger gamers.
| freedom2099 wrote:
| I think it depends on the person. I am an avid gamer (have
| all consoles and a high end Pc) but despise all multiplayer
| games! I love RPG and strategy games... the less frenetic
| the gameplay the better! For me it's all about the story,
| the immersion in a new world and the mental challenge! I
| don't understand how people can waste time shooting around
| at random people!
| trwhite wrote:
| I find the online games very addictive but for a lot of
| the time they aren't very enjoyable and then for a brief
| period they are very exciting (the adrenaline I'm
| speaking about). The game that resonated with me most
| emotionally was The Last of Us: Part 2 but I couldn't
| play it regularly or I think it would lose its charm. I
| generally feel quite conflicted about gaming because of
| this: there are games (like TLOU) that I'm glad to have
| experienced, but the ones that I spend the most time
| playing are only enjoyable some of the time (usually when
| I win). I think this is what I define as my own
| addiction: continuing to do something that doesn't bring
| me pleasure.
| multjoy wrote:
| This isn't anything new. Degrees have been lost to the
| temptations of something as plain as a MUD.
| DeWilde wrote:
| > They have been designed to be so thrilling that normal life
| cannot compete.
|
| Maybe today's normal life, at least for us in the developed
| world. But I'd wager that spear hunting a wild animal in the
| woods with your fellow tribe-mates is far more thrilling and
| rewarding than any video game.
|
| That could be the issue, our brains don't differ from our
| ancestors who did things like those, regular life today lacks
| life-threatening thrill which could be the reason of growing
| addictions.
|
| I know of a phenomenon present among some peoples in Siberia,
| the part of the tribe that lives out in the wilderness
| following reindeer live a tough life but depression among
| those tribe-members is non-existent. While those living in
| the towns have substance abuse problems and high suicide
| rates.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I've never gone spear hunting but I did play paintball
| once. It was thrilling, and when I woke up the next day I
| was more sore that I'd ever been in my life (including
| playing varsity sports). I realized that's because it was
| the closest I'd ever come to 'running for my life'.
|
| FPS mimic the pleasure of this experience, but without the
| physical engagement. It's like the refined carbs version of
| hunting.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Really wish CQB paintball was more popular in the US. I'd
| love to play the equivalent of SWAT or Rainbow Six with
| paintball, but most of it these days seems to be "spray
| thousands of balls at large inflatable barriers on a
| tennis court hoping to mark a bit of your opponent's
| elbow". The CTF events seem fun, but I want something
| more like a Battlefield round if it's going to be like
| that.
| acrobatsunfish wrote:
| Try playing with one hopper of ammo a round. You can't
| create Lanes of fire and denial without an obscene amount
| of paint.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "regular life today lacks life-threatening thrill"
|
| The problem is not that surfing isn't exciting or life
| threatening, the problem is that most jobs in accounting,
| HR, etc. Are soul crushing.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Try rock climbing, snowboarding, kite surfing, mountain
| biking, etc...all quite popular among my friends and
| colleagues in the tech industry and all quite thrilling.
|
| Luckily, there are still tons of accessible activities with
| choose-your-own levels of risk and excitement that involve
| physical effort instead of focusing on a screen.
| com2kid wrote:
| > The burst of adrenaline some of the recent online FPS' give
| me doesn't compare to any other feeling or experience I've
| had as a human being.
|
| Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu matches up. Various forms of racing will
| also hit the same pathways in the brain.
|
| Hard to achieve for sure.
|
| One thing that happened to be though, is that once I got
| really skilled at physical things, going back and playing
| games was a lot more boring. It is like the artificial reward
| loop didn't work anymore once I'd tasted the real thing.
|
| (Either that or I got old enough that my reaction times
| dropped sufficiently so I wasn't one of the top bad asses
| playing FPSs so I wasn't having as much fun! ;) )
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| > Those anxieties were right and wrong.
|
| This opinion is respectful of nuance. _Multiple_ social changes
| are converging, it is not just one the scapegoat of screen
| proliferation among toddlers, it is a re-examination of
| existential pillars unlike anything I 've seen in my 50+ years
| (e.g., what is work? what is authority? what is worthy of
| protecting? what should one believe? how does one believe?).
|
| I wonder if the new Satanic Panic of ADHD/OCD/Screens/Internet
| is a reflection of how children (hell, and adults) are
| internalizing the shakiness of what we had been taking for
| granted for so long. This proposal fits the reams of anecdotal
| reports from parents and teachers about kids becoming more
| difficult than they were in the past decades (and it also fits
| the past decade of bizarre social and political shifts across
| the globe).
|
| Ironically, we won't be around for the historical analysis of
| WTF is actually going on because it'll take generations to
| parse it, distill it, and make a narrative out of it. Voltaire,
| Diderot, and Rousseau all saw the French revolution coming. In
| hindsight that is survivor-bias because we don't read the works
| of people who were wrong about the political state of France in
| the 18th century! So we can't even look around today and say:
| who's right? It has to happen before we can judge it.
|
| Of course, that's not to say we should throw moderation and
| discipline to the wind when it comes to child-rearing. Seems
| like the age-old cure of moderation is all we have: if you only
| do something occasionally, how can it cause long-term negative
| consequences (barring meth, of course)? Any better ideas?
| batch12 wrote:
| Respectfully, these examples- radio and TV aren't even in the
| same league as the manipulation and engagement that comes from
| the algorithmic feedback loop that backs these services. The
| comparison is dangerously dismissive.
| Aromasin wrote:
| As far as I've read, based on research around attention and
| focus behaviors, the context switching element of it is the
| most dangerous part in terms of developing ADHD type
| behaviors, and I agree that TV and radio doesn't even scratch
| the amount of switching that happens with modern social
| media. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, etc. All of them
| make you switch context every 30 seconds or less, often for
| hours on end. I think we're making the mistake of looking at
| these older technologies like TV and radio, thinking "we
| survived that, we'll survive this" and that is incredibly
| dangerous.
|
| Dr Andrew Huberman, professor of neurobiology and
| ophthalmology at Stanford, does some excellent lecture-like
| podcasts on the subject that are well worth a listen.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Conventional broadcast media such as TV or radio can't get
| real-time feedback on the user's
| attention/preferences/behavior nor can it deliver uniquely-
| personalized content to each individual user. The "best" it
| could do is provide an average form of content that is
| likely to be appealing to the majority of their user base
| and would be subject to scrutiny as everyone can see what
| is broadcast.
|
| In contrast, modern media not only knows much more about
| the user and their behavior but can fine-tune each
| individual expereince in real-time to maximize view time
| and "engagement" _per-user_ without any oversight as it is
| impossible for a watchdog to see what each individual user
| is presented with. This is much more dangerous as the
| content can be fine-tuned based on each user 's individual
| profile and weaknesses/addictions.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Documents, radio, television, internet, social media. Baby
| steps.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Towards what? The loss of individual agency and the
| creation of some kind of collective organism?
|
| Maybe there will be a time for that, but I'm thinking
| that if we let it happen now, that organism will be an
| idiot.
| jimbokun wrote:
| And TV was already considered a problem as it took up more
| and more of people's day.
|
| The modern web is the fentanyl version of TV in terms of
| addictiveness.
| [deleted]
| moonchrome wrote:
| All this talk about "algorithmic feedback loops" is
| overselling the quality of said algos (eg. I get more
| interesting suggestions when I open YT incognito then I do
| when I'm signed in, I have to scroll through a bunch of stuff
| I have 0 interest on FB when I open it, etc.) and their
| importance.
|
| It's completely missing the actual attention grabbing factor
| here - there's a huge amount of content for consumption on
| demand in those networks. Unlike TV or radio where at most
| you could have 100s of channels simultaneously available,
| there's billions of articles/videos/posts/songs/articles/etc.
| available with a few clicks.
|
| At best algos get you there faster.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "All this talk about "algorithmic feedback loops" is
| overselling the quality of said algos"
|
| So it's you agree that the villains are evil, but your
| defence for them is that they are inept?
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| So they will destroy attention even further once the bugs
| in the algos are tuned out?
| redmaverickclon wrote:
| I am not sure. This is just a data point of 1.
|
| I used to browse Instagram casually. Like, once is a blue
| moon. I would see updates from my network and spend a few
| mins here and there. This was probably like over year or
| two back. (not 100% sure)
|
| And then a few months back I just could not take my eyes
| off of Instagram reels. This feature wasn't there before I
| think. I was just completely hooked. It was pretty
| interesting. I had to delete my instagram off of my phone.
|
| They definitely are figuring out the formula to retain
| people's attention.
|
| Again, this is just a data point of one.
| moonchrome wrote:
| >And then a few months back I just could not take my eyes
| off of Instagram reels. This feature wasn't there before
| I think. I was just completely hooked. It was pretty
| interesting. I had to delete my instagram off of my
| phone.
|
| Sounds like they started showing you different kind of
| content. I never got into Instagram because I'm just not
| into the kind of content that gets published there. Not
| arguing that content presentation isn't a factor here,
| but I would argue it's the content that's addicting and
| even if you remove the suggestion algorithms and just did
| social sharing/recommendations you'd still end up with
| similar results - viral stuff got shared in
| chats/groups/mail chains/etc. now it gets served up to
| your feed directly.
|
| Not saying suggestion algorithms don't improve the
| experience if they work, but I wouldn't really attribute
| that much value to them, ultimately we have an industry
| of influencers trying to create content that will grab
| your attention.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I go on Facebook about once a month. I've noticed that
| Facebook's friend recommendation engine now sprinkles in
| some beautiful women, with whom I have no friends in
| common. I don't know if someone tuned the algorithm this
| way, or if it tuned itself. It feels like the desperate
| move of a platform that realizes it's losing control of
| someone.
| simplestats wrote:
| Perhaps you just got lucky. Mine suggests tons of people
| from India and the middle east who I couldn't possibly
| know. I also check it very rarely. Presumably the
| algorithm must be picking the (very-slightly) best from
| many many low-probability guesses.
| 300bps wrote:
| Did you see that movie about Facebook? According to that
| movie, what you described is literally what they do.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Inconsistent reward is more addictive than consistent
| reward. This has been known for a long time. That's how
| they make it addictive.
| simplestats wrote:
| This doesn't require algorithmic feedback loops. People
| simply would seek out (and create) content which provides
| inconsistent rewards. A slot machine simply needs a
| random number generator with a certain small chance of
| jackpot. The null model here is what can be achieved
| without individualization.
| guerrilla wrote:
| That doesn't mean it can't be optimized with algorithms.
| Obviously that's what they think they're measuring and
| doing, otherwise it would be random.
| simplestats wrote:
| I'm not sure "randomness" is the general property, but
| rather unexpectedness. The content-provider may well be
| following a "formula" like with fiction plots, that give
| the protagonist setbacks and victories. Facebook uses
| approaches which try to profit within the constraints of
| a relatively small group of programmers trying to make
| money off billions of users. It doesn't mean these
| approaches are the best overall at serving the most
| desirable content to any given niche of users. Or even
| the best at making money qwithin those constraints. If
| are to believe in "network effects" (the other popular
| basis for calling for a breakup of Facebook) Facebook is
| simply succeeding because it is there first. Rather
| independent of this claim that they are winning by being
| the most competant.
| moonchrome wrote:
| It has the opposite effect on me, I barely open facebook
| anymore because of how irrelevant it is and I skip the
| landing page on YT and just search what I'm interested
| in.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I'm not sure how that's relevant. I'm sure it's a giant
| Bell curve
| wongarsu wrote:
| Have you tried TikTok? In my experience their algorithm is
| phenomenal, strikinga good balance between delivering
| extremely relevant content and trying new content you might
| like
| ddxxdd wrote:
| On the other hand, TV, radio, the printing press, and rock-
| and-roll music have all been called a "monumental change",
| "unlike anything before it", in the past.
|
| An "unprecedented new thing" comes around every generation,
| and every time, there are fancy arguments touted about why
| this unprecedented new thing is unlike all the other
| "unprecedented new things" in the past.
|
| For what it's worth, I'll say this: when I watch TV or a
| movie, it appears that the producers, writers, and set
| designers work hard to make sure that my attention is
| captured during every moment of the theatrical event. Movie
| studios perform A/B testing to see what kind of cinematic
| techniques are more engaging to audiences. Music studios use
| computer software to mathematically model what kind of music
| the masses will enjoy. Newspapers engage in yellow
| journalism.
|
| All I am pleading for is a higher standard of proof and some
| contrarianism when people claim that whatever modern thing
| nowadays is unprecedented even among all the other
| unprecedented things of the past.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Right, I think addiction is probably the bigger story rather
| than attention.
| freeflight wrote:
| I'm not sure how much that actually changes about the
| discussion, for the better.
|
| If this is an addiction, then it will be one that's gonna
| be very difficult to break for most people.
|
| In most places it's nowadays near impossible to go about
| your day without some kind of online activity or
| interaction. Especially as during this pandemic a lot of
| "in person" alternatives for it have been phased out of
| use.
|
| So in practice the addicts are regularly forced to interact
| with their source of addiction. How are we supposed to fix
| that?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| More transparency around algorithmically prioritized
| newsfeeds seem like an obvious place to start. According
| to what little insight we have they're mostly prioritized
| for "engagement" which in some cases has intentionally
| come at the cost of people's moods (according facebook's
| own internal reporting).
|
| Large companies have psychology/sociology experts working
| on this stuff in favor of the respective companies, but
| any consumer advocacy on the same level is hampered by
| lack of access and lack of funding.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| More liability is the answer.
|
| Social media went from a communications platform where
| people could post content and subscribe to receive other
| people's content (in a chronological feed) into something
| where the social platform decides what content you
| receive (via the algorithmic feed) in order to benefit
| the platform by maximizing engagement and ad views.
|
| Conventional newspapers did the same for decades and have
| been bound by some laws and regulations as a publisher.
| Social media should be bound by the same laws since
| they've long ago switched from a "neutral communications
| platform" model.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| > Conventional newspapers did the same for decades and
| have been bound by some laws and regulations as a
| publisher
|
| Oh yes, the notorious No Law, made by Congress -- as
| directed in the First Amendment.
| batch12 wrote:
| Yes, though these are linked. Attention is the goal while
| addiction is the means.
| Nathanba wrote:
| Surely TV and radio also have algorithms behind them
| determining how to increase viewership. Facebook and
| Instagram do the same but in realtime with more knobs to
| turn. I personally don't quite understand how somebody can
| get addicted to social media but I understand video games and
| I would support some kind of government bureau that
| determines the addictiveness of a game and puts a label on
| it. For example games that are story driven, you play them
| for 15h and then you're done and there is no cliffhanger
| should get a very low addiction rating. You play them, you
| finish them, you liked it and then you can stop with no
| problem.
|
| Then the addiction rating should get higher if there is more
| endless endgame content, more multiplayer content, boxes to
| purchase, etc.
|
| You get the idea, if the industry is so determined to find
| the bliss point of a game/food item then the governments need
| to evolve with that challenge.
| batch12 wrote:
| Yes absolutely TV and radio use algorithms to boost
| engagement. These are still dangerous, just less. The
| difference is the speed at which these sources collect and
| use information and the volume of data collected. It isn't
| just that these new mediums have more control, but that
| they can exercise the control in real-time.
|
| With your video game idea, what's the difference between
| this and other software? Some social media seems like the
| game that never ends.
| V-2 wrote:
| Chess is very addictive, and certainly endless. Same with
| cardgames. I'm sure your government bureau would quite grow
| fast, coming up with ever more warning labels.
| zentropia wrote:
| Do we have an epidemic of chess?
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| You're getting downvoted for a perfectly reasonable
| question.
|
| No we don't - because chess is a super-minority niche
| interest. The danger of social media is that it's social
| _mass_ media - designed to be as addictive as possible to
| as many people as possible in as many different ways as
| possible using as many different techniques as possible.
|
| And that's before getting into the dangers of targeted
| micro-niche ads used for political ends and/or individual
| belief and behaviour modification.
|
| Without regulation it's an absolutely toxic medium.
| simplestats wrote:
| But isn't chess one subset within that network, which
| would indeed be covered by any law regulating
| addictiveness of social media? Or will you allow people
| to be caught up on their own "otaku" like obsession with
| whatever niche area, but it is simply verboten to notify
| them of the existence of a different niche?
|
| I also don't see how people can separate "optimizing
| addictiveness" (e.g. making your junk food too yummy or
| whatever) versus simply trying to make a better product
| that gives your customers what they want. The main
| criteria for who gets described in this way seems to be
| the corporate structure of the seller.
| philipswood wrote:
| In the late 18-hundreds Chess was considered a bit of an
| undesirable epidenic.
|
| Check out this gizmodo article:
|
| https://gizmodo.com/chess-was-once-deemed-a-menace-to-
| societ...
| drewcoo wrote:
| A century ago in the USSR there was a comedic film about
| chess addiction.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015673/?ref_=ttls_li_tt
| Mezzie wrote:
| Novels and bicycling were as well, particularly with
| women.
|
| People are weird.
| nomadiccoder wrote:
| This is a fascinating argument. I like the perspective of
| a game like poker having greater similarity to true war
| than traditional war games like chess or go due to ever-
| increasing information. This adds another dimension to
| the game.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| Ahh yes Chess, well known for destroying concentration ..
| /s
| dahart wrote:
| > Surely TV and radio also have algorithms behind them
| determining how to increase viewership
|
| What do you mean by this? Until very recently, TVs and
| radios never had the ability to report feedback on what
| people were consuming or whether people were watching ads.
| There were some surveys like Nielsen ratings that involved
| a small sample of people installing special hardware. TVs
| and radios have never served personalized results to
| individuals, even if there were "algorithms" involved --
| the targeting was toward the entire population at once, not
| to each an every person viewing. For most of TV & radio
| history, the "algorithms" were people and not computers,
| people manually sifting through data for weeks just to see
| if a show was popular.
|
| It's pretty odd to suggest that TV & radio was historically
| similar to what's going on with today's social media.
| Serving personalized results and gathering instant
| personalized viewing habits ("engagement") is what's
| fundamentally different than TV & radio, the feedback cycle
| fundamentally changed from a slow group feedback to a fast
| individual feedback, and that's precisely why social media
| is more engaging and more dangerous.
| abledon wrote:
| whenever the power goes off in my house for long periods, its
| as if some super power hits and i can read books with a new
| found attention span
| sascha_sl wrote:
| That wouldn't work with ADHD. You'd probably sit down and
| think about all the things you could do with that time
| without actually doing them while continuously scolding
| yourself for not doing them, and then get up 5 hours later, 3
| of which you felt hungry and 2 of which you felt like going
| to the toilet.
| wott wrote:
| Yeah, when we are lucky to have a several days long Internet
| breakage at home (we don't use cellular Internet), all of a
| sudden things which had been 'not possible' or 'so hard' or
| 'so tiring' for months or years suddenly become possible or
| normal or even obvious. We even manage to do things together
| with family members. Imagine!
| watwut wrote:
| Is that really so? Because I do find myself at situations
| when I don't turn on internet and none of that happens.
|
| Books are as boring as with internet, I just don't like
| them anymore. I don't end up doing something all that great
| as a result.
| freedom2099 wrote:
| TheN you are probably reading the wrong books!
| selfhifive wrote:
| Except every UX decision in every big social media app is
| research backed attention harvesting.
|
| Interactivity changes the equation. Limitless options change
| the equation.
|
| Radio and TV couldn't tailor themselves to an audience of one,
| your ML powered social media feed can.
| nabla9 wrote:
| > but it's always the same story.
|
| This is the reverse slippery slope fallacy.
|
| There is no threshold, no effect size where this tuns net
| negative, etc. We took these 10 steps, were worried and nothing
| happened, we can do more steps.
| slibhb wrote:
| Fair point, it may turn negative at some point but we're not
| there yet. It's a moral panic. We're not talking about war or
| genocide, we're talking about the young people staring at
| their phones too much.
| nabla9 wrote:
| That's another type of fallacy. If there is no obviously
| horrific consequences, there is nothing. Either/Or
| Reasoning.
|
| My position is that we don't know yet. Some harms may be
| transitory and people adult. Making arguments for or
| against without good data and reasoning is not helping.
|
| Making your mind up prematurely makes it harder to change
| the opinion when the evidence comes in.
| slibhb wrote:
| The author of this article (and you) think one thing. I
| think another. Calling my thought a "fallacy" because
| I've made up my mind prematurely makes no sense. You (and
| the author) have made up your mind too. We can't
| endlessly defer our opinions, that's epistemic nihilism.
|
| To me, this seems like just another old vs. new turf war
| and I predict it will turn out like the previous ones.
| "Everything must change for everything to remain the
| same".
|
| I'm not saying "it couldn't possibly" be a problem, I'm
| describing what I see, like you, and like the article.
| Mezzie wrote:
| What drives me nuts personally is how nobody is asking
| the adults that ALREADY grew up online as kids what
| impact it has.
|
| This is hardly the first time we've had a panic about
| kids on the internet; the first one I remember is the
| freak out that led to COPPA in the late 90s. At the time,
| perhaps people could be forgiven for not asking us since
| we were the first generation of kids who had unrestricted
| Internet access and we were still kids (nobody wants
| children's opinions), but now there are plenty of
| formerly Too Online Children that are adults.
|
| If having unrestricted information/internet access at an
| early age does change your brain, why aren't we comparing
| people in their 30s who grew up online with people in
| their 30s who didn't? That would be super interesting,
| and there are many aspects of growing up online that
| definitely did change my experience. (E.G. being able to
| pretend to be an adult and be addressed as an equal based
| on my ideas online made it very hard to function in the
| real world where acting like an adult's equal was
| inappropriate, I had access to information that many
| adults did not and that caused problems, I had access to
| information that my local culture considered
| 'inappropriate' but was acceptable online [information
| about female puberty is one], etc.)
|
| Lots of people deciding what our experiences did to us
| without asking us.
| [deleted]
| zcw100 wrote:
| Thank you. Some perspective is warranted. If society can cope
| with crack and meth without completely falling apart it can
| survive Facebook. What I do think is that this is covering up
| for more fundamental problems, like people being worked to
| death and have no time to form meaningful bonds with people
| in healthier ways than Facebook. It's like fast food for the
| soul. People are not eating Taco Bell rather filet minion
| because they like Taco Bell better. It's because they don't
| have any money and need something quick that they can eat in
| the car on their way to their second job. People are
| extremely isolated. Social media is the shit alternative to
| being completely alone.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Does this fallacy have a name? The rough incline fallacy?
| ropeladder wrote:
| The "there is no cliff" fallacy?
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Please take with a grain of salt because I am no expert here:
| IIRC, ADHD is caused by brains that have too many dopamine
| transporters, resulting in dopamine being transported faster
| than normal, causing increased anxiety and impulsivity.
|
| But then there's addiction, which can hijack one of your brain
| systems like your dopamine or endorphine systems. In the case
| of internet addiction disorder, reading endless feeds must be
| related to dopamine for sure.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| It's less about entertaining, and more about interesting, which
| is how I know you completely misunderstood ADHD. Discipline can
| only compensate shitty neurotransmitter levels for so long,
| eventually it becomes painful to even start trying to focus and
| it'll even cut into your productivity with things where you'd
| usually get hyperfocus without issues.
|
| I really hate how contentious and polarizing ADHD is. Reminds
| me of being trans. There are people who benefit greatly from
| being medicated, much more than the risk they take. That should
| really be the end of it.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > Reading a book, reading a paper, etc -- these activities take
| discipline that most people don't develop or don't often apply.
|
| Except some of the past moral panics were about _reading books_
| , they worried that kids were reading the _wrong_ books,
| voraciously!
|
| Reading popular fiction didn't used to be considered something
| that took discipline, it used to be considered escapist
| entertainment, people did it because it was entertaining.
|
| Millions read books and newspapers (not sure if that's what you
| meant by 'papers'), only a couple decades ago. On the subway in
| NYC for instance, you would be surrounded by people reading
| both paperbacks and newspapers. Not very long-ago, in the
| adulthood of people currently middle-aged! It's not true at all
| that this was a rare thing undertaken only by people applying
| discipline.
|
| It might be no big deal that this attention has shifted to
| social media, just another shift in the particular mediums used
| for cultural production and consumption. Without even getting
| into that debate -- just the fact that you believe that reading
| things on paper is something that takes discipline that few
| have ever developed -- is astonishing to me. It has definitely
| not always been that way. It was not that way literally only 20
| years ago, not very long ago at all -- it is remarkable that
| things have shifted so quickly you now believe reading books
| has always been a thing only for those with discipline, to be
| done distastefully like eating your veggies.
|
| (It could just be a shift in mediums, but the essay tries to
| illustrate the deleterious effects on our lives of the new
| mediums, which I recognize from personal experience and
| observation, myself).
| zippystrider wrote:
| The ease of access of today's distractions leads me to
| disagree.
|
| It's so easy to take out your phone to check a social media
| app, or open a tab on your laptop to a social media website
| like Reddit, versus turning on a radio or getting up to turn on
| the TV.
|
| A comic book doesn't fit in your front pocket, but a phone
| does; there's just so much less friction for distraction today.
| watwut wrote:
| And still, very few people read social media till they sleep
| deprived themselves. Very few people end up yelling at
| everyone around when something does not work out in game.
| Both of these are fairly common for gamers, but computer
| games are always defended here.
|
| So yeah, it is pure moral panic, except about something
| average HN commenter does not think he do.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Tiktok is the most accessed web resource in 2022, with only
| a small number of people using it. Worst of all, it is the
| teenagers that lose their lives there. A grandma playing
| candy crush - sad but not a societal problem. Teenagers
| that miss out on school, or young moms that don't anymore
| look at their kids, or young workers that can't focus -
| enormous societal problem.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Computer games have had a counter-backlash for the past few
| decades against moral panics such as they cause violence.
| But with the advent of loot boxes and the like, the new
| angle of addiction and games might turn that tide. The old
| inapplicable moral panic has come and gone, and one based
| on more easily-quantifiable reality will give way to a more
| broadly acceptable moral panic.
|
| As for your point on social media, the past year's spate of
| articles on revenge sleep procrastination would seem to
| refute that suggestion.
| speby wrote:
| Yep, agree. And as an example, things shift (i.e. transfer
| attention from one "account" to another another "account") such
| as TV consumption:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-televisio...
|
| tldr: It's down. But why? Did everyone wise up and decide
| watching as much television was not good for them so they
| started to do more productive things? No, of course not. Time
| was simply shifted to other entertainment mediums, like
| Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, and so on.
|
| In another 10 or 20 years, it wills surely shift several more
| times, too. And so it goes...
| fullshark wrote:
| Another possibility: the moral panic about comic books / rap
| music / low brow culture was justified and its ubiquity has
| done active harm to our society.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Certainly without comic books, comic book movies wouldn't
| have eaten Hollywood
| fullshark wrote:
| I don't necessarily mean a problem as a matter of taste,
| more a destruction of shared cultural values, in particular
| those that are good for "society" like a belief in the
| value of work, family unit, deeper concerns than material
| wealth (e.g. god/spirituality) etc at least in the west /
| America.
| andrewzah wrote:
| I will never understand how people can suggest a specific
| musical genre or a medium is responsible for ruining
| society or "destroying values like the value of work"
| with a straight face. When I ask for empirical proof of
| such things, there never is any, just anecdotal
| statements.
|
| As if country music never touched upon these sorts of
| topics. Or books. Or ...
|
| Moral panics come from old people who don't like anything
| that's different from their youth. "Kids these days!" And
| in America, especially so if that thing happens to be
| dominated by black people.
| fullshark wrote:
| How do I provide empirical proof? Survey data or
| something over a 30 year time span? Gallup has some
| interesting confidence in institutions data you can parse
| but doesn't really strengthen my point IRC in case you
| are interested.
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-
| institutions.as...
|
| I didn't get into porn even which I thought of after the
| fact, the lowest brow culture possible and it seems
| likely its pervasiveness and how future adolescents will
| learn about sex through consuming it will have profound
| impacts no?
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Moral panics also come from normal people who have felt
| the effect on their and their families' lives. For
| instance I am neither a prude nor a tea-totaler but I can
| see how many hours or my own life porn and alcohol have
| taken, hours that I sure enjoyed but that would have been
| better and as pleasantly invested in other activities. I
| know people that have sunk into porn addictions and lost
| their lives, including any ability to enjoy normal sex.
| And we all know what an alcoholic looks like. So is the
| ubiquitous availability of porn a good thing or a bad
| thing or something with nuance?
|
| If you had a loved one disappear in world of Warcraft or
| a porn spiral you will start to question whether those
| are normal things that should remain so openly available
| without limits.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The spread of low brow culture might potentially come at
| the expense of traditional local cultures, but any
| cultural expansion means the creation of a new shared
| culture, no? In which case the issue then becomes what
| the values does this culture valorize.
| fullshark wrote:
| Yeah and it's not all bad for sure, I think the general
| acceptance of homosexuality has been a good thing and
| large cultural shifts certainly made it happen. I do
| wonder if these shifts are universally good or a mix of
| positive and negative developments, and the people
| warning us years ago had some good points.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| How?
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| To take an example - one of the most popular songs of my
| childhood glamorized smoking weed (literally had the lyrics
| "smoke weed everyday"!).
|
| Stripping away all the justified opposition to prohibition,
| it's really not good for most people to smoke weed
| everyday. Pointing out any potential harms became deeply
| uncool. It's not difficult to imagine people probably smoke
| weed regularly as a result.
| fullshark wrote:
| I expound in a conversation with Apocryphon attached to
| that post
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| > more a destruction of shared cultural values, in
| particular those that are good for "society" like a
| belief in the value of work, family unit, deeper concerns
| than material wealth (e.g. god/spirituality) etc at least
| in the west / America.
|
| This is what conservatives have been crowing about since
| the 40/50's when black music started dominating the
| airwaves. It's a really old argument that is literally
| moral panic with no proof. I thought maybe you had some
| new thoughts to add, but you don't.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| If you think only 50s Conservatives find some parts of
| rap questionable I propose an experiment. Show some NWA
| lyrics without attribution to a young, progressive
| audience, there's some interesting takes in there about
| homosexuals, jews and women.
|
| Of course we don't even play 90% of that stuff any more
| because any radio station would be cancelled within five
| minutes and not by conservatives.
| fullshark wrote:
| Thanks for adding a subtle accusation of racism or at
| least guilt by association to the discussion.
| erikerikson wrote:
| I don't know about "low brow culture" but comic books and rap
| have some fantastic material in them. Consider works like
| Promethea from Alan Moore or In Her Magic Box by Atmosphere.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Or in pop culture, all the Marvel movies.
| woolion wrote:
| Anecdotal evidence etc. I have been having a feeling that my
| attention span is generally lower than before. I don't have a
| smartphone, no TV since more than 10 years ago, but there's the
| internet. Unfortunately working as a programmer requires
| constant connection (at least to be available to colleagues on
| chat, even non-remote). We've been experimenting with cutting
| off internet entirely for some days (e.g. yesterday), and I
| feel much better already. It's really magical how the nagging
| compulsion to check notifications disappears. No need to do any
| complex software setup, you go to the router and turn it off.
| So I think that quite clearly even with some mental fortitude
| and knowledge of the issue, you cannot really be immune to the
| attention-lowering effect.
| praveen9920 wrote:
| > ... It's when you are doing something meaningful to you, and
| you really get into it, and time falls away, and your ego seems
| to vanish, and you find yourself focusing deeply and
| effortlessly...
|
| Oh. Have I missed "the flow".
|
| I have been trying to get back into the mode from a while, with
| lot of self doubt in mind, " you are just lazy", "you are too
| distracted by Twitter ", "were you like this all along"..
|
| It hit me hard when I realised that.. it's been a decade and I
| still not able to achieve this.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| You may be working on something that isn't really one of your
| interests.
|
| Can you get into it while playing a game?
| praveen9920 wrote:
| I tried many things.. playing games, drawing, hardware,
| sales.. etc.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| I'm glad that the article specified that individual effort is
| important. Too often, people act as if a collective solution is
| exclusive of the ability to improve your personal situation in
| the meanwhile (this accounts for probably 95% of usage of the
| term "victim-blaming" that I see online, including on HN)
|
| But I'm also a strong believer that raw willpower is a poor
| substitute for a supportive environment. I've had great results
| the last 15 years from identifying rough edges in my computing
| workflows and sanding them off with scripts and OS tweaks.
| Between the rise of the Internet attention ecosystem and my own
| higher bar for focus as I get older, more and more of this
| iteration loop has been consumed by optimizations to improve
| focus and prevent distraction. "Automating willpower" like this
| has borne some pretty fantastic results when it comes to my
| ability to focus and thus both my productivity and mental
| health.
|
| Sadly, most people don't use a proper general-purpose OS like a
| Linux distro[1], and are locked out of the ability to change
| much of their environment. Mobile devices remain a stubborn
| challenge: While I'm considering getting back into rooting my
| devices after a decade, this is a pretty poor substitute for a
| proper OS, so I'm also trying to build habits that shift usage
| from my phone to my laptop.
|
| In the event that you haven't tried scripting up guardrails
| against attention hazards (or are still using an OS that
| prohibits you from using your computer fully), I strongly
| recommend taking a serious look at this approach.
|
| [1] I'm explicitly excluding Windows due to my familiarity with
| the severe limitations it puts on the user, all smartphone OSes
| are the most egregious offenders, and my familiarity with OS X
| is lower but I gather that it falls between Windows and a Linux
| distro in terms of how much it babies/limits the user.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I'm curious to know what percent of people read this article in
| one go, without checking social media or other interruptions. (I
| tried to do so but small children make uninterrupted work even
| harder...)
| amelius wrote:
| Yeah, it makes sense. If we can have "intellectual property",
| then attention can be "stolen", no doubt.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| I believe that once we reach a post-scarcity phase of
| civilization, the attention of other human beings will be the
| last, zero-sum scarce resource. And the competition over it will
| be no less intense and brutal than historical conflicts over the
| basics of life.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > I believe that once we reach a post-scarcity phase of
| civilization
|
| That may never happen.
|
| > the attention of other human beings will be the last, zero-
| sum scarce resource
|
| It doesn't have to wait for it to be last for that battle to
| get underway.
|
| > And the competition over it will be no less intense and
| brutal than historical conflicts over the basics of life
|
| Depending on where you live, you may already be there. It's the
| downside of the future not being equally distributed, you also
| get the downsides of that future early.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| We were promised a future of replicators and starships where
| the zero-sum scarce resource of fame was given to explorers
| like Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
|
| We were given a present of increasing inequality and supply
| chain shortages where internet thought leaders fight it out
| for likes, subscribes, and RT's.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Science fiction is usually nice for entertainment purposes
| but I wouldn't take it as 'promises for the future'.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| https://som.yale.edu/blog/peter-thiel-at-yale-we-wanted-
| flyi...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Peter Thiel is usually full of shit. If you ever find
| yourself on the same side of an argument as him I would
| suggest to check your premises.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I was referencing/satirizing a well-known quote and am
| not a Thiel fan, please calm down
| mayregretit wrote:
| Yes, even post-scarcity not everyone can be famous, unless
| you're willing to delude yourself with follower bots.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| I suffer from severe ADHD, and the only thing that has helped me
| is a better understanding of my personal dopamine production. I
| follow a TikToker who talks about his ADHD in terms of "follow
| the dopamine." It reminds me of the montessori programs, where
| you let the brain decide what it wants to do.
|
| Allowing my brain to follow the dopamine - essentially auto
| rotate when attention goes off the rails - has finally helped me
| to implement some of the other ADHD tricks. All that to say, I
| think dopamine plays a significant role in attention and wish
| this article explored that a little. Social media is a dopamine
| spike. I think it's why we swipe, we're in a Skinner Box of
| sorts. Swipe. Reward. Swipe. Reward...
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| Arguably the iPad technology for viewing plastic plants in VR is
| more interesting than plastic plants in a room.
|
| The author also seems to be very "unlucky" to have a relative who
| supposedly can't cope with normal live because of all the
| distractions.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Ah, the ol' Simulacra and Simulation.
| mypastself wrote:
| Yeah, the man was clearly impressed by the tech, and the
| author's comment was uncalled for. He was lucky the man didn't
| deck him.
| mayregretit wrote:
| It's not my fault, if in God's plan He made the devil so
| much stronger than a man
|
| (Source: the best Disney villain song
| https://youtu.be/U3NoDEu7kpg)
| stevebmark wrote:
| One thing I believe to be true: If you have a device near you,
| there is no amount of habit or self control you can enact to
| change the habits of using that device. The same with the _type_
| of device. If a device has internet capabilities, no amount of
| self control or habit forming will make you _only_ use the
| reading app on that device. You will always lose the habit at
| some point.
|
| A requirement for changing habits is changing the physical world.
| Picking a device with no internet browsing capabilities, like an
| e-reader or a physical book. Or going for a walk where you
| physically don't have your phone. Even putting a phone in the
| next room isn't enough, you have to be somewhere where you
| physically can't access the phone.
|
| Humans are not capable of fixing attention habits in which the
| physical world is set up to make it feasible to lose your
| attention.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| A few years ago Matthew Crawford wrote a fantastic book about
| this, "Head The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual
| in an Age of Distraction". I recommend it every chance I get. The
| part that changed how I feel about these things for ever was
| about how the slot machine companies have been rigorously testing
| how to make them maximally addictive to the point that it's now
| normal for players in casinos to piss themselves and just keep
| playing.
|
| Psychologically addictive substances are real, and they can be
| digital, and they can wreck our lives just as well as
| psychologically addictive drugs.
| [deleted]
| erikbye wrote:
| I bet 90% came back here to comment before finishing the article,
| and will probably never finish it.
| jmfldn wrote:
| This for me is key, these sorts of problems cannot just be solved
| on an individual level. They are systemic.
|
| "Individual abstinence is "not the solution, for the same reason
| that wearing a gas mask for two days a week outside isn't the
| answer to pollution. It might, for a short period of time, keep
| certain effects at bay, but it's not sustainable, and it doesn't
| address the systemic issues." He said that our attention is being
| deeply altered by huge invasive forces in wider society. Saying
| the solution was to just adjust your own habits - to pledge to
| break up with your phone, say - was just "pushing it back on to
| the individual" he said, when "it's really the environmental
| changes that will really make the difference"."
| tomjen3 wrote:
| > It might, for a short period of time, keep certain effects at
| bay, but it's not sustainable
|
| And yet we have worn masks for months at least. If the price of
| a free internet is the equivalent of wearing a gasmask then I
| would rather do that, at least until we we have the equivalent
| of the nano-robot immunesystem from the Diamond Age.
|
| If we let the government make the rules here we will lose the
| last place where we can play freely, and will almost certainly
| not solve the problem we wanted to be solved.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Regardless if the solution is government intervention, it
| seems rather funny to say the modern internet is a place that
| all entrants can play freely. It's changed quite a bit since
| when _The Diamond Age_ was first written.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| We can play freely, invent new solutions and approaches
| without having the government test their safety, without
| having to get special approval by anybody.
|
| I am aware of the bias of large companies that stops
| certain people from building, which is why I wrote play.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The antitrust left says large companies prevent people
| from building freely, but doesn't the free speech right
| also claim that large companies are preventing from
| playing- or rather, speaking- freely?
|
| Seems like different activities are falling under
| corporate purview.
| telxosser wrote:
| I just don't agree really. That analogy is pretty absurd.
|
| It is hugely powerful to not get caught up in all this nonsense
| at the individual level.
|
| I know so much more than what I knew in early January 2021
| because I spend my time reading books, doing tutorials or
| taking MOOCS instead of wasting my time watching TikTok. I
| literally don't even know what the user interface to TikTok
| looks like and never will.
|
| If anything the exact problem is people are giving up agency at
| the individual level. As if there is absolutely no choice other
| than to be helplessly addicted to your phone. That implies then
| that it is not your fault that you check your phone or txt
| while driving.
| 37 wrote:
| It's both. Yes it is good that you spent early 2021 not
| mindlessly scrolling TikTok, and yes it is true that as
| individuals we do have some agency in the matter.
|
| But, it is also true that in this 'attention economy' the
| large companies are hiring psychologists to try to break your
| agency, to try to take it away from you. And they are doing a
| pretty damn good job, and aren't going to stop any time soon.
| "Stolen" in the title of the OP is not really an
| exaggeration.
|
| >It is hugely powerful to not get caught up in all this
| nonsense at the individual level.
|
| I mostly agree with this, but in the same token think we
| should be aware of "this nonsense".
|
| >As if there is absolutely no choice other than to be
| helplessly addicted to your phone.
|
| Don't think anyone is saying that. Think what we are saying
| is more along the lines of something like 'the problem is
| systemic, essentially baked into the business model of
| advertising/marketing, and it should be addressed'
| shukantpal wrote:
| > "Stolen" in the title of the OP is not really an
| exaggeration.
|
| Theft can happen only when it's involuntary.
|
| > the problem is systemic, essentially baked into the
| business model of advertising/marketing, and it should be
| addressed
|
| That's not the root cause. It is just a choke point for
| blame.
|
| The root cause is the choice people make, which we've
| established exists. If people want help, there are plenty
| of mitigations for social media, like alternative front
| ends.
| 37 wrote:
| >Theft can happen only when it's involuntary.
|
| I suppose I am arguing that it is involuntary. Social
| media addiction is a real thing. "Stolen attention" seems
| to fit here. But I guess the line does get blurry. When a
| true heroin addict shoots up, is that completely
| voluntary or completely involuntary? Probably neither.
|
| >The root cause is the choice people make, which we've
| established exists. If people want help, there are plenty
| of mitigations for social media, like alternative front
| ends.
|
| So the root cause is not that these companies are being
| manipulative for financial gain, the cause is that users
| aren't choosing alternative front ends to social media
| (or some other mitigations). Hmm... Not sure I agree.
|
| Yes, it is true users have some sort of agency or choice
| in the matter, but that doesn't mean these large
| companies aren't still doing the sneaky things that we
| know they are. Even you including the word "mitigation"
| in your response speaks to the fact that the problem is
| deeper than the users choice. Mitigation is secondary.
|
| Also, I think this is a great discussion that is well
| worth having. The 'root cause' of all of this... (I tend
| to think it's just greed.)
| jacquesm wrote:
| The only way that you can solve it is on an individual level
| unless you are in a position of power. You have far less agency
| over the systemic issues than you have over your individual
| choices.
| parkingrift wrote:
| How are those two examples even remotely comparable?
|
| Uninstall social media from your phone, delete your social
| media accounts, put your phone in a box when you get home, etc,
| etc, etc.
|
| These "problems" are trivially easy for an individual to solve.
| They are so easy to solve that I disagree with the basic
| premise that we even have a problem.
|
| I think we could rewrite this article from the perspective of
| any generation. Just replace the phone with whatever hysteria
| was happening in that era. Music, video games, comics, or
| whatever.
|
| The author of this article seems to just throw her hands up
| without having tried even a single thing.
|
| "No, I cannot manage my own behavior. It is society that must
| change!"
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Well, in same vein, you can tell addict to 'just drop that
| needle', yet few do. Or cigarettes. Addictive behavior is,
| well, addictive, and few in population have the mental will
| to shed it off themselves once they get hooked.
|
| Tobacco clearly kills you (and people around), ruins you and
| make you stink like pile of old crap. We still allow it, but
| regulate it heavily since bad effects are out there,
| everywhere. TBH I don't mind some regulation on too-powerful
| social media, they've enjoyed their free pass for way too
| long and so far they definitely didn't make the world a
| better place, in contrary.
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| HN and many tech-minded forums struggle the most with
| arguments that require empathy. For people who probably
| don't consider themselves religious, their outlook is
| extremely Puritanical.
|
| "I see you explaining why x is difficult for most people,
| but I don't struggle with it so the difficulty is invalid."
| parkingrift wrote:
| It's not an empathy gap. It's collectivism vs
| individualism.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I'd start by questioning why you think addicts should
| discontinue their habits? Why do you think you know what's
| good for someone more than they do? If an addict says "I
| like my addiction, thank you very much", what gives you the
| right to intervene?
| bllguo wrote:
| the societal cost is why intervention is justified. you
| know, the basis of all laws? we don't live in an anarchy.
| unless you live completely sustainably with no dependence
| or impact on others' resources, society has a right to
| intervene.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I don't think mitigating societal cost is source of the
| government's authority. It seems to be more about
| defending our inalienable rights.
| parkingrift wrote:
| Do you have any links to share that would corroborate your
| suggestion that social media is as addictive or hard to
| quit as heroin or tobacco? That's quite a statement.
|
| I find these two examples particularly interesting because
| the regulations have done absolutely nothing. Heroin has
| never been more popular or more regulated. Tobacco is
| lightly regulated and the declines in usage are almost
| completely attributed to campaigns against smoking, not the
| regulations themselves.
| 37 wrote:
| Correct. It is baked into their business model, to monetize
| your attention. And they have gotten very good at it. A "race
| to the bottom of the brain stem" as Tristan Harris likes to put
| it[0] is the correct way to look at it, AFAICT.
|
| To me, it's also a problem of "Moloch does it". Scott Alexander
| describes it well and gives a handful of great examples in Part
| I of his Meditations on Moloch.[1]
|
| [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-10-01/why-
| social-...
|
| [1]
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditation...
| neuronic wrote:
| Of all the examples, reddit is the scariest to me. People
| think it's a bunch of nerds talking about geeky topics (or
| whatever) but as soon as a subreddit has a sizable user base
| it will be targeted by PR firms posing as normal users. More
| political subs are likely subject to propaganda ops bu8t Im
| not even going there.
|
| Some things on the frontpage are clear advertisments, there
| has been evidence of shilling about certain topics by using
| post templates etc etc. but still somehow the impression
| persists that some dude from Idaho just posted his awesome
| BBQ recipe and the perfectly framed and well-lit tech
| equipment in the background is just coincidence.
| 37 wrote:
| In my eyes, the worst is probably Facebook or Instagram or
| TikTok (none of which I use) but yes, I also understand the
| Reddit example as well (which I do use). And yes, even
| without speaking to the larger politicized subs like T_D, I
| do completely agree. Quite scary.
|
| And it scares me 'PR firms' exist and are named as such
| because the term 'propaganda' started to take on a negative
| connotation. Kinda like how Google became Alphabet, or
| Facebook became Meta. Advertising, marketing, public
| relations, propaganda, manipulation.... where does the
| distinction lie?
|
| Do you care to give a couple cases/examples on the Reddit
| front? Like proven scandals where people or groups have
| conspired to deceive? You mention a dude from Idaho, but
| I'm not in-the-loop enough to get the reference.
| mypastself wrote:
| Except I have no choice but to walk through an area which might
| be polluted. I do have a choice to not read news sites for four
| hours a day.
|
| The article fails to define both the problem and the solution.
|
| How exactly this "attention theft" causes significant negative
| societary consequences is defined extremely vaguely, and almost
| exclusively through personal anecdotes.
|
| The offered solutions, forcing employers to respect working
| hours and forcing social media companies to change their
| business models, are borderline non-sequiturs to the article's
| thesis.
|
| There is a comment about this possibly being a new "moral
| panic", which the author dismisses out of hand. Yet in the same
| article, he implies his son dropped out of school at 15 because
| of WhatsApp.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| "Choice" really needs to be well-defined here. We know you
| can influence people to change their behavior because we
| invented the term "attention hacking". Sheer willpower will
| not overcome this on anything but an individual level. And
| just like obesity has other dependents like the cost of food,
| there is also cost/disincentives to "disconnecting". Social
| interaction is almost exclusively happening online now,
| especially during a pandemic. There is a very limited set of
| circumstances in which individual action will not have other
| severe consequences to your life - so while it might work for
| you, there's no way it'll work for everyone. Systemic issues
| require systemic solutions.
| mypastself wrote:
| The article describes a far broader group of culprits than
| just social media. However, the author only calls for
| forcing social media companies to change their business
| models and not, say, news sites that publish articles
| trigger-happy about declaring crises and emergencies.
| jacquesm wrote:
| And they never will. There is just too much money in it.
| That's why ultimately the responsibility lies with us.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I'd say "choice" in the conventional sense - the exercise
| of voluntary control over one's body. If sheer willpower
| can overcome this on an individual level then it can
| overcome it on a societal level, society being nothing more
| than a collection of individuals.
|
| It seems as though you're suggesting that we use authority
| to "solve" these "systemic" issues - which really are just
| individual issues for a subset of the population. This
| suggests that you are comfortable deciding what's good for
| others. How would you respond to obese or social-media-
| obsessed people who are content with their lives and not
| interested in your "solutions"?
| sascha_sl wrote:
| You're acting like corporations aren't enacting control
| over large populations right now either.
|
| Everything the market does as a byproduct of maximizing
| profits is fine, but all other intervention with provably
| better mental and physical health outcomes is
| authoritarian. Did I get that right?
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _provably better_
|
| First we have to _all_ agree on what this means, which I
| 'm quite sure is impossible. Everything the free market
| does is voluntary by definition. Every "intervention" is
| by definition not. That is exactly the basis for my
| opposition to authoritarian paternalism.
|
| Also I disagree that corporations are "enacting control"
| - they are merely exerting influence. There is a world of
| difference.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| >Everything the free market does is voluntary by
| definition. Every "intervention" is by definition not.
|
| I think we're going to have to disagree for good here. I
| much prefer living in a country where radically free
| markets are substantially toned down.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I'm sure you do. I'm questioning the basis for your
| imposing this view onto others who would disagree.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| This presupposed the "voluntary" part of capitalism,
| which I find objectionable, but I didn't want to go on a
| tangent for too long.
|
| FWIW, I wouldn't want to prescribe a particular habit of
| eating healthy or not binging media, but I also don't
| consider the current status quo neutral. It is true that
| it is simply a product of profit incentives, but that
| doesn't mean the outcomes are good, desirable or natural.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| My point is that "good, desirable or natural" are not
| _real_. They are not concrete things that we can derive
| from observations about the world. They are akin to
| religions beliefs. Reasonable people can hold opposing
| views, and there is no oracle to divine the one truth.
| Given this situation, the only reasonable way forward
| seems to be tolerance of the full diversity of belief,
| and refrain from imposing one 's own beliefs onto others.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| This is why I wanted to avoid this discussion. Because
| philosophically, I really don't disagree with this
| statement, but the discussion has pivoted past the
| important part, where we talk about whether total
| economic freedom is itself ideology (or "an imposition of
| belief"). It doesn't exist in a vaccum. It is a way to
| maximize one particular aspect of freedom, but at the
| expense of other aspects. You will always have to make
| this trade off somewhere, paradox of tolerance and all,
| and I don't think this is the one we should make.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I'm curious how you would categorize total economic
| freedom in any sense an "imposition of belief". It is
| simply absence of any imposition into the economic realm.
| What other aspects are being sacrificed in order to
| maximise this aspect? I'm not sure the paradox of
| tolerance is a statement of fact.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| What if total economic freedom resulted in the reduction
| of other freedoms
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Which other freedoms are you referring to? How would they
| be reduced by total economic freedom? I don't see how
| economic freedom would lead directly to violence.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I agree that the maintenance of the common physical
| environment we live in should be regulated, but that's
| not what we're talking about here is it? We're talking
| about regulating interaction between people, which is
| inherently paternalistic.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| - We already regulate interaction between people (e.g.
| you can't throw a rock at someone when you disagree with
| them). Even if it's paternalistic, surely you're not
| proposing we should do away with those regulations.
|
| - The internet is a common shared environment, so its
| maintenance should be regulated like other environments
| to manage externalities.
|
| These points seem consistent with your philosophy and
| also permit regulation of social media companies.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| If it wasn't clear, I'm suggesting regulating nonviolent
| interaction is paternalistic, as is weaseling around it
| by expanding the definition of violence.
|
| I agree we shouldn't let people physically destroy
| internet infrastructure. I don't think this is
| controversial. I don't think we should regulate how
| people peacefully interact.
| dTal wrote:
| Why is "violence" your boundary? Most people agree that
| lots of things can be "bad" besides violence. There's a
| pretty broad consensus on that. You're going to need some
| pretty strong arguments to justify legalizing theft and
| fraud.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I'm not trying to justify legalizing theft and fraud -
| these are most generally justified by property rights,
| which are somewhat tangential here. Neither of them set a
| precedent for the government intervening in honest
| interactions between people. Lots of things are widely
| considered "bad", that doesn't mean it wouldn't be
| tyrannical to make them illegal.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| We're talking about the concept of total economic freedom
| in general, which would inevitably lead to negative
| externalities of any kind, including to the physical
| environment, not merely interactions between people.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I'm not strictly in favour of total economic freedom and
| wasn't the one to bring it up. Namely I am in favour of
| regulating the physical commons - rights of way, air,
| water, etc. that we all must physically interact with.
| I'm against the paternalistic regulation of how free
| people should peacefully interact with each other, with
| the view to steer outcomes to some random idea of good.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| What ensures the parties involved are free? Many of these
| issues being discussed deal with consequences experienced
| by one party that were never disclosed by the other.
| Information asymmetry makes such contracts un-free and
| thus the legal framework should permit nullification and
| redress.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _What ensures the parties involved are free?_
|
| The prohibition by the government of the physical force
| requisite to deprive people of their freedom.
|
| > _the legal framework should permit nullification and
| redress_
|
| It does already. Contracts have disclosure clauses all
| the time.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| _Contracts have disclosure clauses all the time._
|
| To bring it back to the article at hand, did social media
| and other tech companies disclose the negative effects of
| the use of their products in their EULA?
|
| _The prohibition by the government of the use of
| physical force requisite to deprive people of their
| freedom._
|
| If a distributor of an addiction-forming substance
| engenders an addiction in customers, is that not
| utilizing physical force to deprive them of their
| freedom? Especially if the addictive properties were not
| disclosed ahead of time.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _negative effects_
|
| What do you mean "negative"? Why do you consider
| captivating people negative? Do you think this view is
| universally held?
|
| I think people should be able to distribute any
| substances or provide any services "as is", without
| implied warranties of any kind. Offering such goods and
| service does not constitute physical force.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Negative, in this context, can constitute enough for
| whatever grievance that enough users are unhappy with
| their customer experience. To take this discussion from
| the normative to the practical, I do not believe the
| appropriate government role here would be to act as sole
| regulator but rather aid those users who are aggrieved by
| these businesses in more precise actions, such as filing
| amicus briefs in class action suits by users who feel
| that their captivation has proven to be personally
| detrimental. Or perhaps for the FTC to provide guidance
| and support to consumer watchdog groups to form and issue
| PSAs on said detrimental effects. Empowering individuals
| and independent groups to come together. These
| supportive, assistive, incentive-based actions would not
| be utilizing the state's monopoly on violence, and thus
| does not violate your views on the proper place of the
| government.
|
| _without implied warranties of any kind. Offering such
| goods and service does not constitute physical force._
|
| Then there simply should be more powerful NGOs rooted in
| civil society that can advise consumers on potential
| negative effects, to protect against information
| asymmetry, and so users will understand the full freedoms
| they have at their disposal for redress if a business
| happens to provide poor, injurious service.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _These supportive, assistive, incentive-based actions_
|
| All of these actions are done with the threat of fines
| for noncompliance, and the threat of imprisonment for
| noncompliance with the fines. They are also financed by
| taxation, which is involuntary and redistributive by
| nature.
|
| > _Then there simply should be more powerful NGOs_
|
| If these NGOs do not occur naturally, then there's
| clearly not enough demand for them. This is supported by
| your proposal to use authority to force them into
| existence. I'm opposing the use of authority to intervene
| in peaceful interaction between citizens.
|
| Instead of forcing the issue, why not just be content
| with the fact that most people are not interested in
| forming voluntary collectives, even when it is in their
| interest, and in spite of the fact that they are free and
| entitled to, and allow them to suffer the consequences?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > All of these actions are done with the threat of fines
| for noncompliance, and the threat of imprisonment for
| noncompliance with the fines.
|
| How is filing an amicus brief or funding third party
| groups in danger of anything like that? There's no
| regulation involved.
|
| > If these NGOs do not occur naturally, then there's
| clearly not enough demand for them.
|
| They already do, e.g. https://www.ofsms.org/
|
| > why not just be content with the fact that most people
| are not interested in forming voluntary collectives
|
| Why are you insistent on claiming the nonexistence of
| information asymmetry?
|
| > They are also financed by taxation, which is
| involuntary and redistributive by nature.
|
| Ah if we go down that route of normative woolgathering
| then we can next call property theft and even land (or at
| least rent) theft, and continue this endless wheel of
| rhetorical Samsara.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| But that economic system is built on barely 2 century old
| philosophy you take for granted. It is not "human
| nature". If you could argue for any political system to
| be "human nature" it would be feudalism or anarchism-
| without-adjectives.
|
| What is being sacrificed? Equal starting conditions to
| start with. Wealth in capitalism tends to concentrate.
| Social mobility exists, but it is severely limited.
| Exploitation through holding capital is mandatory. I'm
| feeling this right now, I am in the top 25% income
| bracket overall and much better if accounting for age,
| yet I will never be able to do such trivial things
| regular workers could do just a few decades ago such as
| build a house, thanks to the freedom afforded to the
| absolute top end to turn housing into a speculative
| commodity. If I lived in the US, a considerably "freer"
| society than mine, my entire wealth would be consumed by
| healthcare, a result of the freedom of hospitals and
| insurers to charge arbitrarily high fees for maximum
| extraction.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I'm not arguing that it's "human nature". I'm arguing
| there's no such thing. I'm arguing that we are
| fundamentally decision-making agents.
|
| > _Equal starting conditions to start with_
|
| Equal conditions are not a prerequisite for liberty. They
| are in fact impossible to define and impossible to
| impose. You can be destitute and free, and you can be
| pampered and enslaved. The Darwinian nature of a free
| economic system isn't imposed, it's an emergent property
| of any system where scarce resources are competed for by
| living beings. As in any Darwinian system, the optimal
| behavior for the successful is to maximally exploit their
| success, to pull-up the ladder, so to speak.
|
| Everything else you've said just betrays your religion:
| "Workers should be able to build houses". "Healthcare
| should be regulated so people can afford it". I don't
| think it's unreasonable to disagree here. In my religion,
| I'd prefer to die in agony rather than pry greedily into
| the pocket of an unwilling stranger. Why is your religion
| better than mine?
| dTal wrote:
| Ethical nihilism is no basis for public policy. Your
| argument successfully justifies legal murder, for
| instance. Who are we to say that it's wrong?
| andersonvom wrote:
| > Everything the free market does is voluntary by
| definition. Every "intervention" is by definition not.
|
| In some ideal world, where both parties of an exchange
| hold equal bargaining power, the "free" market might be
| "voluntary".
|
| This is certainly not the current state of affairs,
| though. Being able to "choose" between a crappy option
| and a horrible option is anything but voluntary: "you can
| choose to work for me for little to no money... or you
| can choose to starve to death. it's your 'free' choice."
|
| The very premise of what would make a free market
| efficient in the real world simply doesn't exist, but we
| keep trying to convince ourselves that it does because we
| don't know or aren't used to anything different.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Being able to choose between horrible options is exactly
| the definition of freedom. Believe it or not many people
| would choose free destitution over pampered slavery. It
| is exactly the ability to make this choice, at the most
| extreme level, that should be respected. To take an
| maximal example: you should be able to sell your kidneys
| to fuel your heroin habit, for no other reason than
| because no one can claim more ownership over them than
| you.
|
| To protect people, against their will, from the
| consequences of their own misfortune or inadequacy is
| fundamentally paternalistic. The goal isn't efficiency,
| but the primacy of agency and consent.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| What is wrong with paternalism?
| thegrimmest wrote:
| The authoritarian and condescending nature of it.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Why is paternalism within the family not authoritarian or
| condescending?
| thegrimmest wrote:
| It absolutely is! In the context of raising a child, it
| may be appropriate. When interacting with an equal it is
| not.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| What determines equality?
| thegrimmest wrote:
| It is a moral axiom:
|
| > _We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
| are created equal..._
| Apocryphon wrote:
| And how are children, as men, not also created equal, yet
| still subject to paternalism?
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I think children are excluded from the definition of
| "men".
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Surely not by the above moral axiom.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Surely by it. I would struggle to find a precedent where
| children are considered equal to adults, and not subject
| to their authority. In fact my whole point is we
| shouldn't treat adults the same way we do children.
| andersonvom wrote:
| If the two horrible options were free from context, sure.
| But that's hardly (if ever) the case. It is very
| convenient to start from a place where A has power over
| B, then say "B is free to choose whatever crappy options
| A offers, because... freedom".
| moffkalast wrote:
| Sure you have a choice. But much like with wearing a gas
| mask, people will think you're weird and you'll end up alone.
| mypastself wrote:
| I'm not sure I see a connection with doomscrolling, which
| is what I used as an example in my comment, referring to
| the article.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| My attention has collapsed in recent times, but it's not because
| of mobiles. It's because I have three young kids. You literally
| have to keep your eye on them at all times so you stop them
| killing themselves.
|
| Also, going from 8 hrs of sleep a night + 1 hr of intensive sport
| a day to 4-5 hrs of sleep a night and 1 hr of sport a year is an
| absolute mind killer.
|
| When I was younger I could never imagine going into management,
| as I'm "not a multitasker". Turns out all I needed to do was to
| never focus on anything for more than 1 minute..
| lacerus wrote:
| This 100x! I am in the same boat, ours are 4 and 2. I recently
| installed rings and a super sturdy pull up bar next to the kids
| room and hope to do some basic calisthenics there with the kids
| before putting them to bed. Wish me luck. So far they really
| like it and I get at least a mini-workout out of it. Nothing
| like an hour at a real gym, but better than nothing.
| jacquesm wrote:
| One family member I have uses his kids as weights for
| exercising, they get a huge kick out of it and he gets his
| workout.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| I did the same two years ago :)
| jacquesm wrote:
| We'll see how you fare when they're twelve :)
| radicalbyte wrote:
| I was lifting > 160KG before COVID, I'll get back there
| again, it'll just take a year of training :-)
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, that hits the system. I was more or less back to
| normal then got a second round :( But this time recovery
| was swift, no more than a week or two, the only thing
| remaining is the cough.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I would say that your attention has improved rather than
| collapsed, it is now again focused on the real world around you
| instead of on a virtual window into a world that isn't really
| there.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| I'm talking about during work. I work from home and the covid
| restrictions here (NL) mean that I've had the kids at home an
| average of two days a week. I also have a high pressure +
| important job (the NL COVID apps the last 6-7 months one of
| the key technical people driving the EU-DCC and other
| vaccination credentials).
|
| I've had to stop coding because of it; finally admitted
| defeat (I love coding) and have essentially 10x'd my
| effectiveness. So there's that.
|
| Before COVID my screen time with the kids was when sitting
| waiting for them to go to sleep, or feeding during the night
| (or staying up with them).
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| Same story. Having kid completely turns my life around.
| watwut wrote:
| For me it was exact same. Even when kids were safe, they wanted
| my attention approximately every 10 minutes. That destroyed my
| attention span quite seriously.
|
| It got back after a while and effort, but social media were not
| to blame.
| dominotw wrote:
| > 1 hr of intensive sport a day to 1 hr of sport a year
|
| did you make this tradeoff by choice( vs religious reasons ect)
| . I've never been that active but you sound like someone who
| enjoyed sports and being active.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| As a parent with a 3 and 4 year old who was only a functional
| adult if I worked out intensely at least 4 days per week, and
| now is struggling desperately to get that back, its not by
| choice. Children are just really demanding. I think a big
| part of the problem is that humans were not meant to raise
| children in isolated family units. You were meant to have a
| small village where they could go bother different adults and
| older children and learn from everyone to find a little niche
| for them, and everyone just kind of kept an eye on the kids
| so that the parents could do normal survival things like
| cook, work, and make.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| This. I loved lifting and felt fantastic before our 3rd was
| born (just before Corona), the last time has felt like
| being in jail.
|
| Luckily once the youngest kid starts school is gets 100x
| easier. Only two more years to go :)
| freedom2099 wrote:
| Or maybe 3 kids are just too many to handle! I'm my first
| is coming an can already tell you is going to be the
| last!
| watwut wrote:
| They used to die in accidents a lot more then now. They
| used to be independent significantly sooner too. Like, 5
| years olds herding gooses next to river with no adult
| independent.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| COVID. I've also been working 80hr weeks for nearly two years
| now; first building the NL Contact Tracing (GAEN) app and
| then building the EU and NL vaccination credential systems.
| Both of which I'm proud of - our work saved lives - and it's
| worth having a couple of hectic years.
|
| Honestly it wouldn't have been much different if I had been
| on a normal project; with the COVID measures the kids were at
| home (so no day sport) and by the time they're asleep the gym
| is closed. We moved during COVID - I even built my house gym
| - but it's covered in boxes which we've not had time to sort
| out (and they're from my wife's crap, so I can't touch them).
|
| My wife owns a group of pharmacies and has been as busy as I
| have been - they've been running on emergency mode for almost
| two years, same thing as in most of the medical industry.
| 50 wrote:
| "There is something in our soul that loathes true attention much
| more violently than flesh loathes fatigue. That something is much
| closer to evil than flesh is. That is why, every time we truly
| give our attention, we destroy some evil in ourselves. If one
| pays attention with this intention, fifteen minutes of attention
| is worth a lot of good works." (Simone Weil, _Waiting for God_ )
| kiliantics wrote:
| Brilliant quote, thank you. This book has been on my reading
| list so I think I'll go ahead and get it now.
| amoorthy wrote:
| I built a news app (The Factual) that sends only 1 notification
| per day for a morning briefing. And the newsfeed is consolidated
| by topic so that you can easily finish browsing what's
| newsworthy. The app has a small subscription and zero ads so we
| don't care how long you view or what you click on. I don't know
| if we'll succeed but trying to solve this problem.
| Proven wrote:
| r00tanon wrote:
| It's become more clear to me that pushing content based on past
| content consumption promotes harmful effects to both individuals
| and to society.
|
| The data collection needed to provide such feedback is inherently
| prone to privacy violations and exposes safety risks (see what
| China is doing to monitor social media activity.) Secondly, these
| feedback algorithms can pull people into echo chambers of
| disinformation and amplify all sorts of negative feelings and
| behavior.
|
| Not sure throwing more technology and regulation at the problem
| is a solution. In the end it will probably require a social
| shift; a realization that "social media" makes us less social at
| a deep level while providing the illusion of being social. Paying
| attention to the person in front of you used to be considered
| polite. Now it's considered old-fashioned?
| 300bps wrote:
| I've said for years that the 20th century saw humanity for the
| first time having to learn to live in a world of infinite sugar,
| fat and salt.
|
| The 21st century will be about learning to live in a world of
| infinite information.
|
| We will all have to be mindful of whether we are consuming the
| mental equivalent of broccoli, donuts or anthrax.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Yes, this. Humans as a race have evolved to be able to short-
| cut our own motivational and behavioural control systems. Or
| more precisely, for _one group_ to manipulate _anothers '
| motivators_ to serve the interests of the manipulator rather
| than the party served by those factors.
|
| _Wants are a means to an end. They are not the end itself._
| That is, wants are evolutionarily-derived (or sometimes
| culturally-instilled) drives or motivators which should result
| in improved fitness.
|
| Think of these in terms of emotional drives, tastes and our
| responses to them, favouring aesthetics (symmetry, balance,
| smoothness, etc.) Those evolved in an environment which was
| itself not counterevolving to feed those drives faster than
| they could emerge.
|
| That's not to say that there isn't co-evolution occurring:
| fruits, say, evolve to be sweet to attract animals which will
| eat it and spread seeds. But *there is no "fruit sector"
| specifically engineering high-sugar fruits with a response
| cycle of days or weeks or months. Even human breeders typically
| take years or decades, and natural selection generally takes
| much longer.
|
| Motivators evolved to find things in the environment which
| improved overall fitness.
|
| "Give them what they want" is engineering rapidly to appeal to
| psychological behaviours in ways that exploit them specifically
| to the interests of the engineer. (Or more likely: the
| investors / shareholders / VC behind them.)
|
| If you're gaming the want itself directly, you lose the
| argument that what you're providing is at the choice of the
| target, because you've coopted that choice to your own
| interests.
|
| https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/107453533345126190
| 300bps wrote:
| Very insightful response. Taking your fruit analogy further -
| some fruit evolved to be poisonous to mammals because birds
| spread their seeds further.
|
| Also liked the manipulation point you made. It's why you have
| things from the 20th century like soda companies and
| McDonalds and all the other organizations just "giving people
| what they want".
|
| Now in the 21st century we have Facebook, Instagram and the
| like similarly low-level poisoning people.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| HFCS, fat and salt
| jacquesm wrote:
| Good stuff, really. I like the analogy between sugar, fat, salt
| and information, though infotainment may be a better term for
| the stuff we are addicted to.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Yes, just as some cultures have very specific meanings for
| concepts (like the famous German compound words, or the
| variety of words the native Inuit language uses to describe
| types and formations of snow), we should probably develop
| more specific words than just the generic all-encompassing
| "information" or "data".
|
| Infotainment is a good one, but we will need many more!
| Zak wrote:
| I want a digest system for notifications on my phone.
|
| This used to be common for mailing lists and web forums with
| email notification systems. I could get an email daily or weekly
| with the replies to my posts and subscriptions instead of real-
| time. The temptation to poll manually was reduced because I knew
| I'd be notified eventually.
|
| I want to be able to tell my phone to do the same with its
| notifications, preferably with fine-grained control. For
| messaging apps, it would be extra nice if the sender could mark a
| suggested priority so I could let certain people I trust not to
| abuse the privilege interrupt me when they think it's urgent
| enough.
| sbolt wrote:
| iOS 15 added something like what you are describing called
| Scheduled Summary. Notifications are snoozed and delivered at
| set times throughout the day (twice per day is the default). I
| believe there is also an API for developers of messaging apps
| to allow notification privilege escalation.
| Zak wrote:
| That is, indeed the feature I was describing. I hope iOS
| doing it means Android will follow suit soon.
| drawkbox wrote:
| Doomscrolling caused by "engagement" metrics. When engagement is
| all that matters, the most engagement comes when people are
| divisive, mad/angry or even pushed to extremes. That tabloid-
| esque reactionary content does engage people, but not in a good
| way. Information of all types give a dopamine hit though and it
| is sometimes hard to pull away.
|
| When you feel yourself getting bothered, angry and you have to
| prove someone wrong on the internet, step away. Or if you are
| wasting too much time on it. You are taking valuable time from
| your own projects and quality of life.
|
| People can have different opinions and that is ok, your ideas and
| opinions are what make you, see that as your unique tool to
| success. On top of that many "organic opinions" are actually
| astroturfing and PR designed to promote or get you to "engage".
| 37 wrote:
| >When you feel yourself getting bothered, angry and you have to
| prove someone wrong on the internet, step away. Or if you are
| wasting too much time on it. You are taking valuable time from
| your own projects and quality of life.
|
| Everyone, please do this. Time is basically the only resource
| you can't get more of.
| Bud wrote:
| One of my antidotes to this: I perform large-scale musical works!
| The Bach St. Matthew Passion takes around three hours. Messiah is
| nearly that long. The flow state from performing or rehearsing
| these works is really quite wonderful.
|
| Reading (books, not short articles) a lot also helps, I believe.
| tomxor wrote:
| > wearing a gas mask for two days a week outside isn't the answer
| to pollution. It might, for a short period of time, keep certain
| effects at bay, but it's not sustainable, and it doesn't address
| the systemic issues.
|
| I don't think this is the most accurate analogy.
|
| The most attention draining parts of the web/internet are some
| kind of social platform. I needn't list them, you know what they
| are... they are not analogous to air. Perhaps they seem that way
| when you've fully integrated them into your life, but they are
| not.
|
| Keep your phone, your laptop, and keep the tools you need to
| create and work. But whatsface and spacechat are not part of that
| toolkit, those types of platforms are psychological crack
| cocaine.
|
| Taking a full break from all tech can be good, but when you
| return to it, make sure you delete those accounts or uninstall
| those apps. Don't worry about friends, the ones that count will
| be happy to communicate with you through less toxic channels -
| the rest aren't really your friends anyway.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Air surrounds us.
|
| Social media --- those site which we don't need to name because
| we all know what they are --- _surround us socially_. I don 't
| _use_ the F, or the T, or the IG, or the YT, or the TT. But I
| sure as heck live in the world they create. In most of the West
| they 've permeate politics and culture. It's often difficult to
| engage with businesses, or governments, or your own job,
| without having a presence on these systems. And in parts of the
| world they've played a major role in insurrection, revolution,
| and genocide. Sometimes celebrated for that role, increasingly
| looked on with a sense that something's gone horrifically
| wrong.
|
| So no, disconnecting personally is not the solution.
| tomxor wrote:
| I think you're correct to point out they indirectly affect us
| all through their impact on society as a whole.
|
| However what I meant (but failed to say explicitly), is that
| it is unlike _breathing_ air (which is impossible to avoid),
| because partaking in these platforms personally is still
| optional for most people in the world - Maybe it 's different
| in the US but you certainly don't need any of it for your job
| or government purposes in the UK and I expect most of the EU,
| and of course none of the east.
| jb1991 wrote:
| I've been worried about this for many many years now:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9883769
| EGreg wrote:
| The internet has given us opportunities to connect with one
| another like never before. Yet, most sites we use today have
| barely tapped that potential. We believe in the power of well-
| designed tools to improve people's lives and bring about positive
| social change. They are characterized by five main aspects:
|
| Time: Instead of priding ourselves on how much time people spend
| in our apps, we want people to get in, get out, and get results.
|
| Utility: Help people get things done in the real world, rather
| than building an online persona.
|
| Notifications: Let people control which updates they receive
| about things happening in their life, instead of getting them
| addicted to notifications like a slot machine.
|
| Organic: In every context, pre-compute useful information and
| present it to the user, enabling them to do more in less steps.
|
| Business Model: Make money by helping people accomplish useful
| things as a group, not just by selling advertising.
| calebm wrote:
| The gunpowder in a bullet is useless unless the explosion is
| focused in a single direction by a gun barrel.
| mwattsun wrote:
| I had a dream last night that expressed my recent concern that
| Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are Pied Pipers leading our kids into
| virtual worlds where Meta controls everything including allowable
| expression and thought, where even certain concepts are banned
| with no allowable word for them [1]. My concern is that kids are
| getting VR headsets and going to a place where there is no
| parental control because adults don't understand VR or how to
| join their kids there. In my dream, and unseen voice is telling a
| young brother and sister how to secretly steal money from their
| grandparents and send it to them.
|
| [1] Yeonmi Park: North Korea | Lex Fridman Podcast #196
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usDqSEKDVsA
| Swizec wrote:
| > kids are getting VR headsets and going to a place where there
| is no parental control because adults don't understand VR or
| how to join their kids there
|
| Sounds like early social media. Hanging out without parents was
| the crucial feature.
|
| I'm 34 now and having parents on social media still feels like
| an odd concept
| mwattsun wrote:
| I had to ask myself why VR was different and it's because
| there's no screen that a parent can monitor. Once a child
| puts the glasses on, who knows where they go are where they
| are? I think parents will demand a screencast feature built
| in so they can at least watch what their kids are doing.
| ectopod wrote:
| I don't think parents will demand anything. They will
| continue to assume that somebody else is making it safe for
| their children.
| hackingthelema wrote:
| I often wonder what the world would be like if the Buddhist
| sciences of the mind (e.g. mindfulness) were taught at all levels
| of society, as a priority, and TFA mentions it near the end, to
| say it's not enough:
|
| > Meditation is a useful tool - but we actually need to stop the
| people who are pouring itching powder on us. We need to band
| together to take on the forces stealing our attention and take it
| back.
|
| I'd argue the 'attention stealing' -- the 'itching powder', as
| the article called it -- is all in your head. It does exist,
| concretely, of course, in the form of social media, video games,
| etc. but their power over you -- the itchiness -- is something I
| find is seen for what it is through mindfulness. If we teach
| people proper control over their own minds, we put the power in
| their hands to evaluate new technologies and services
| _mindfully_.
|
| I would sooner fight for teaching proper mental hygiene to people
| than trying to regulate every possible idea under the sun (as it
| suggests at the end). You DO own your own mind, as TFA says at
| the very end -- so take control of it!
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I'm sure every blue collar worker and mother of two has the
| time and temperament to sign up to the Bene Gesserit school
|
| It's amazing how far the ideology of the unfettered market
| economy has seeped into our lives to the point that the idea
| that we should retrain the entire human species to fend off
| media manipulation seems somehow more practical than simply
| putting an end to the unethical business practices of an
| industry.
|
| Imagine if a local company was pouring waste into the river and
| someone argued the solution was to offer anti-poison resilience
| training rather than stopping the problem at the source.
| hackingthelema wrote:
| 'Bene Gesserit school'? How hyperbolic. I am talking like
| 10-15 minutes of meditation a day. I used to do it in the
| break room for 10-15 minutes twice a day while working at
| Walmart or elsewhere. It is no issue at all. I'm not sure
| what you have in mind that would be more complicated than
| that!
|
| > retrain the entire human species to fend off media
| manipulation
|
| Mindfulness assisting in opening one's eyes to media
| manipulation is just one of the benefits, not the only one.
| There are many benefits to teaching it to all.
| xwdv wrote:
| One way that would really help achieve better mental hygiene
| for the masses would be if we had some sort of sensors that
| could detect when a person's attention is being diverted away
| from the task at hand, and remind them to refocus. A person
| could then see a sort of screen time type summary of how long
| they are being productive and when they are wasting time on
| mindless garbage. Perhaps even employers could provide bonuses
| to those workers who maintain the highest productivity times,
| which over time would encourage people to improve their
| mindfulness in day to day life.
| hackingthelema wrote:
| I wouldn't mind knowing more. Do you have any links to
| research or work in progress in this area?
|
| The Buddha had a lot of great ideas, but it was over 2000
| years ago. If, perhaps, we can teach mindfulness in a way
| that is more consistent and available to all (like a focus-
| detection feature in devices), I would definitely support it
| if it results in the same changes in the brain. Since changes
| induced by meditation (both acute and long-term) are
| detectable with brain scans, this seems like something easy
| to test and compare with traditional mindfulness teachings
| and practices.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > One way that would really help achieve better mental
| hygiene for the masses would be if we had some sort of
| sensors that could detect when a person's attention is being
| diverted away from the task at hand, and remind them to
| refocus.
|
| I suspect that no, constant nagging wouldn't improve "mental
| hygiene", in any useful definition of that term.
|
| I also suspect it wouldn't improve productivity, only stress.
| curun1r wrote:
| I've done a bunch of Buddhist trainings, 10-day retreats and
| such and, for me at least, the saying "no plan survives contact
| with the enemy" seems to apply. I've yet to be able to carry
| what I've learned forward into a modern lifestyle. I'm able to
| keep some amount of discipline for around 2ish weeks following
| my period of isolation from the world, but I eventually find
| screen time and work pressures overwhelming my ability to
| resist. I get the feeling that meditation is an artisanal
| solution to an industrial problem. And teaching people to
| survive in a dysfunctional society rather than addressing that
| dysfunction directly isn't the right way to deal with it.
| hackingthelema wrote:
| 10 minutes of meditation, consistently & properly performed
| once or twice a day over time does a lot more good than any
| temporary boost like a retreat. In Mindfulness in Plain
| English, Venerable Henepola Gunaratana says:
|
| > When you first start meditation, once a day is enough. If
| you feel like meditating more, that's fine, but don't overdo
| it. There's a burn-out phenomenon we often see in new
| meditators. They dive right into the practice fifteen hours a
| day for a couple of weeks, and then the real world catches up
| with them. They decide that this meditation business just
| takes too much time. Too many sacrifices are required. They
| haven't got time for all of this. Don't fall into that trap.
| Don't burn yourself out the first week. Make haste slowly.
| Make your effort consistent and steady. Give yourself time to
| incorporate the meditation practice into your life, and let
| your practice grow gradually and gently.
|
| The way 'mindfulness' is taught and the business of retreats
| and training gets in the way of the real work, which takes
| place every day and in normal life, a little at a time. It
| doesn't need to be complicated.
| smokey_circles wrote:
| I had to read the whole thing to make sure I didn't miss
| anything.
|
| You don't need to read this article, it's adding nothing new to
| the conversation except for a whole bunch of "i'm so smart, use
| my wisdom" type stories dotted neatly around the "i don't like
| that i'm getting old" lamentation going on.
|
| > Some scientists say these worries about attention are a moral
| panic, comparable to the anxieties in the past about comic books
| or rap music, and that the evidence is shaky
|
| Who gives us a toss what some scientists say? What does the
| friggen data say?
|
| Is this really what passes for higher tier journalism these days?
| Pathetic
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| I think it's more about existential crisis than electronics.
| People don't have focus because they don't have focus in their
| life. They drift along the trend and only have occasional focus
| when it is forced upon them (e.g. deadline tomorrow morning).
| They don't really need focus, IMHO, because most of the things
| they work on don't require that. Social media and other things
| just feed them the phantasy that they are "focused" and "have
| something meaningful to do". I kinda agree a previous commenter
| that there will always be entertainment (and those entertainment
| are trained to grab your attention) around and removing some from
| us won't fix.
|
| I also found that lack of energy plays a role. Whenever dealing
| with a difficult topic (e.g. studying something difficult), my
| energy level drops fast and in maybe 20-30 minutes it's totally
| gone and I cannot force my eye balls to fall on the reading
| material any more.
|
| As mentioned in another comment, I believe I also fell victim of
| "juggling", whenever I'm learning online (i.e. without a book), I
| tend to multitask if the material is not very challenging (i.e.
| does not need focus). That brings me the conclusion that modern
| web learning platforms such as edX and modern course designers
| tend to simplify/gamify the material by cutting the material into
| very small chunks (most of the videos are sub-5 minutes). I would
| like to fall back to the traditional learning experience in which
| we read physical books, working on real electronic components and
| have to make appointments to ask questions (or grind in library
| for hours, even days for one single issue).
| champagnois wrote:
| Consider what this does to opinion and independent thinking.
|
| Most attention grabbing platforms are designed to use a variety
| of reward mechanisns to reinforce the politics of the platform.
|
| Some easily botted platforms (like reddit) will constantly
| bombard people with anti-civilizational content promoting "anti-
| work" or very toxic identity politics that further isolates the
| users, and, in turn, strengthens their addiction to reddit
| because they will have no friends or family.
|
| I wonder if the platforms are complicit in this or if they are
| passively incompetent and this terribleness is just being
| exacerbated by foreign adversaries trying to poison western
| dialogues and minds.
| spicyusername wrote:
| Absolutely agree. I see anecdotal evidence of this everywhere.
| Its most noticicble with people who spend a lot of time
| "online" browsing placing like twitter, reddit, and tiktok (or
| even older folks who watch too much "mainstream" cable tv
| news). They tend to hold derivative and thoughtless "stock"
| worldviews that are clearly directly borrowed from the feed
| they subscribe to and not a result of deciding for themselves
| how they think things based on their lived experiences or
| research. This is as much a "liberal" problem (e.g. Capitalism
| is bad) as it is a "conservative" one (e.g. Universal
| healthcare is communism).
|
| A particularly striking example for me recently was when I
| happened to compare the content on my TikTok feed to the
| content on my 60 year old parents. There were completely
| different sets of propaganda being peddled to both of us that
| were essentially incompatible with each other.
|
| We are all drowning in so much propaganda on these platforms
| its almost impossible to separate fact from fiction or to find
| a perspective that has the proper level of nuance. Its no
| wonder everyone is so divided.
| champagnois wrote:
| The anti-work content on reddit should be analyzed by the
| feds a bit. It is promoting illegal sabotage of workplaces
| much of the time.
|
| It is also very similar to an organic movement from China
| that got banned and censored just before it suddenly became a
| top three thread on reddit every day for all of this year.
|
| I suspect movements and divisions that are studied and
| analyzed in (adversarial nation) are then exported,
| translated, and weaponized by their information warriors.
|
| What I have noticed about anti-work is that the insane
| opinions are amplified and encouraged. They promote and
| advocate for digital sabotage of your own work places.
|
| This all has numerous effects down stream that would slightly
| benefit an adversary.
| kiliantics wrote:
| Have you considered that there are just a lot of people
| whose work lives are so horrible (because they don't have
| cushy tech jobs for example) that they might completely and
| utterly despise the work-worshipping society we live in?
| Many Americans, let alone people in poorer places, are
| forced to work like dogs, often under inhumane conditions,
| for compensation that barely earns them a dignified
| standard of living. It's a far simpler explanation than
| believing there must be some coordinated effort to topple
| America via propaganda on a little subreddit. Sometimes the
| lack of empathy shown by commenters on hackernews with the
| living conditions of their fellow humans is really jarring
| to me.
| champagnois wrote:
| The sentiment exists in every society because society and
| civilization is always hierarchical.
|
| That is the root of a simple division that a coordinated
| state actor will exacerbate, amplify, meme-ify, and
| repeatedly upvote with bot armies.
|
| Taking as fact that social media platforms program the
| brain of their users via dopamine rushes obtained through
| the upvotes, likes, and user engagement. Thus and
| therefore we can conclude that this is the easiest attack
| vector in the history of state versus state psychological
| warfare.
|
| Adversaries use benign divisions as a tool to cause
| discord. This has always been the case, but social media
| is a tool that has been weaponized to tremendous effect
| and now you can see it being leveraged as a weapon by
| simply opening Reddit and seeing what divisive was botted
| to the top.
|
| Maybe you refuse to believe this is happening and you
| assume this is all a paranoid fiction. That is fine. How
| then do you explain the legions of PHDs and psych
| researchers and language experts working at Chinese and
| Russian information warrior farms and leveraging machine
| learning empowered bot identity generators? Do you just
| assume Russia and China are pissing money away?
| champagnois wrote:
| Further, I would add, it seems pretty scarey that many of the
| platform leaderships trend toward thinking toxicity in the
| leftwing direction is somehow not bad or censorable due to
| some absurd logical fallacy of victimhood hierarchies and
| such that allow leftist groups to claim their toxicity isnt
| toxic because they are "victims".
| 37 wrote:
| >This is as much a "liberal" problem (e.g. Capitalism is bad)
| as it is a "conservative" one (e.g. Universal healthcare is
| communism).
|
| Bingo.
|
| >A particularly striking example for me recently was when I
| happened to compare the content on my TikTok feed to the
| content on my 60 year old parents. There were completely
| different sets of propaganda being peddled to both of us that
| were essentially incompatible with each other.
|
| This is kinda scary and makes me glad I've never had a TikTok
| account. Also kinda makes me think that you and your parents
| shouldn't have one either. But hey, "to each their phone"...
|
| >We are all drowning in so much propaganda on these platforms
| its almost impossible to separate fact from fiction or to
| find a perspective that has the proper level of nuance. Its
| no wonder everyone is so divided.
|
| Isn't that the way ""they"" want it though? Divide and
| conquer? So busy fighting each other that we can't see the
| real enemy? Or is that just some crazy shit I picked up
| somewhere?
| redisman wrote:
| Do you have a Google, FB, Twitter, snap, YouTube, Reddit,
| any other social accounts? TikTok is exactly the same
| 37 wrote:
| Of the platforms you listed, I only have a Reddit
| account. And I don't consider it to be "the same" as a
| TikTok account, but I think I understand what you mean.
|
| Yes, I understand that everyone is grabbing for my
| attention, it's just that some companies do let the users
| have a little bit more autonomy or agency. Eg; sure,
| Twitter can be a cesspool, but AFAIK they don't have
| 'streaks' where you get a dopamine hit for signing on
| every day or messaging with your friends every day.
| (That's an example of a thing I'm pretty sure exists on
| either TikTok or SnapChat. Like I said, I'm not a user of
| those platforms.)
| CyborgCabbage wrote:
| This is why I think we should ban ads on the internet. Ads are
| inextricably tied to the abuse of our attention; they turn
| attention into money. Ads shift the incentive away from providing
| value, replacing it with an incentive to consume our time. I
| think all currently ad-driven platforms would be less harmful
| with a donation or subscription model. Not to say such a ban is
| the perfect solution, but I think it is 75% there.
| mt_ wrote:
| Delete social media. Simple as that.
| [deleted]
| daemonhunter wrote:
| I feel my attention at work has gotten worse, the ability to
| focus has decreased. Sure, part of it is caused by my phone
| (gotta keep the music/background noise going oh and might as well
| glance at reddit) but ALOT of it is being a senior engineer.
|
| It is my place to be asked questions throughout the day and I'd
| rather be asked questions than not. It takes me out of the zone
| and Sometimes it feels as though my mind is juggling 3+ tasks at
| once because of the questions I've been asked. I've learned
| through interaction with reality that some programmers need a bit
| more guidance when it comes to tasks, some will dig down the
| correct paths, some will dig down the incorrect paths, and some
| will just stop and wait for help (which is ok). I feel that at
| times I've done a poor job of guiding some people.
|
| There have been days where I might actually start work on my
| individual tasks 5-6 hours into the day and staying late after
| everyone leaves is key to getting back in the zone and solving a
| problem.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Here's a protip that helps me.
|
| Return yourself to the 1990s: Keep your mobile phone plugged in
| at all times when at home. Make it like a home phone line - turn
| on phone / texting notifs and disable all else. If you want to /
| need to check it, force yourself to walk to it to see that text
| or look something up. Print out things you need (like recipes,
| etc). Similarly, dock your laptop, and keep it docked when at
| home.
|
| Not 100% possible, but it is a way to try and reduce the
| temptation to always check.
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