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How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

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Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#411

Post by jamesblonde »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #302
djsumdog wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so glad you mentioned Edward Bernays. It's interesting how he was very helpful in promoting his uncle's book in the US, bringing Freud some much needed cash. At the same time, Sigmund hated Bernays, and Anna, for using a lot of his psychological work to change the face of advertising into what it is today. Bernays created the very first _Public Relations_ office (he made up the term because "Propaganda" was a bad…

Well yeah, that was basically his argument: propaganda is too effective to be left in the "wrong" hands, so the "right" people better get on it, and quick. I'm sure it dawned on him that it wouldn't take long until everyone was using it and there would be no discernible difference between the good or bad. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."

And the usual reference to Adam Curtis' history of consumerism, based around Edward Bernays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#412

Post by ArkyBeagle »

gaia wrote: post #378
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dangerous doesn't mean too dangerous. Nuclear energy is dangerous but any projection of energy use that accommodates growing population and energy usage AND expects carbon reductions AND doesn't include growing nuclear use is simply impossible. EDIT: Also worth noting that there is a clear correlation between the increase of electronics/battery recycling in the West and lead poisoning cases in Kenyan children where t…

What about the absurd amount of water, an increasingly scarce resource, used by fracking?

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150915135827.h...

250 B gallons in, 210 B gallons out. So net-net 40B gallons for the entire industry between 2005 and 2014. Call it 40,000 swimming pools worth.

The "out" is completely treatable.

"Large though those numbers seem, the study calculates that the water used in fracking makes up less than 1 percent of total industrial water use nationwide." - FTA.

"Gasland" is a bad movie.

Now, in some places, the available water is sufficiently short that it probably should not be used for industrial use at all.

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#413

Post by ArkyBeagle »

illumin8 wrote: post #129
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give you an example. I live in Ithaca, NY, not far from some of the richest shale gas deposits in the United States. This town is also ground zero for fracking hatred. Post something awful about fracking, and people will eat that shit up whether it's true or not. I know, because I was one of them. Then I started dating a hydrogeologist. As luck would have it, her very MS thesis was on fracking. She dispelled rum…

> Point is, it's fair to be scared. Improper fracking CAN cause earthquakes, it CAN poison groundwater, but it is very obvious where and how it happens, and it can be regulated and prevented. Everywhere I've seen fracking it's been almost completely unregulated. The US MMS (Minerals Management) has been called a "culture of corruption" by whistleblowers: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/14/oil.whistleblower/index.htm...…

Nearly all frack sites involve two types of landowner - the people who own surface rights and the people who own mineral rights. This doesn't address injection wells but that triangular ( surface, mineral and fracker ) relationship "regulates" things pretty well.

Since the film "Gasland", all manner of untrue things are flung at fracking. IMO, a grain of salt is in order.

The stuff down the hole is much more dangerous than the fracking process - there is (maybe) HS gas, possibly radioisotopes, pressure, other stuff. Fracking is simply a part of the completion process of drilling.

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#414

Post by ArkyBeagle »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #289
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that driving a car will result in your hurtling through the windshield at 70mph and wrapping your spine around a tree... ... if you drive very fast and don't wear a seatbelt? As I have said exhaustively (because I am getting quite tired of repeating myself), the process of fracking - which has been done hundreds of times to no ill effect - is not inherently dangerous or error-prone. No more so than deep-…

> driving a car will result in your hurtling through the windshield Specious. > I am getting quite tired of repeating myself You're missing my point. You're claiming that fracking can be done safely, but I'm not arguing that in the way that you think. What I'm saying is that there are frequently externalities brought about by the manner in which the fracking industry actually operates vs how you claim they could oper…

It is both cost-effective and desirable to have it done safely. There's risk of EPA, of the well owner and of the surface landowner. The whole process is extremely technical and among its practitioners, safety is a key consideration.

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#415

Post by ArkyBeagle »

dredmorbius wrote: post #166
facetube wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd wholeheartedly support wealth taxes if I trusted the social safety net and health care system in my country. Until then, I'll hoard money out of fear: I don't have anything I'm intending to spend it on and hopefully never will. Fix health care and there'd be a high probability of the chains coming off off, at least for me.

The trick to taxes is in getting them right. Taxes are, to a rough analog, like the vacuum hose system within an automobile engine. (Hrm: I'm thinking that this may be a bad analogy if there aren't many auto gearheads here.) An internal combustion engine is essentially a self-powered air pump. It has a low-pressure end (intake) and high-pressure end (exhaust). It's got various bits and pieces which need powering. Cha…

The economy views taxation as an outage and routes around it. IOW, prices adjust.

The thing that should be taxed is rents, Ricardian rents as written about at length by Adam Smith.

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#416

Post by ArkyBeagle »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #398
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the more apt metaphor is lead in Roman pipes. They knew lead exposure made you crazy but they still used it in their pipes, on their plates - and it drove them mad. After the planet has warmed beyond a point of no return, after antibiotic resistant bacteria make routine surgery a life-or-death decision, after we have squandered away our resources and used what little we had left to wage futile wars, we will f…

By definition, profit is the only thing that matters to corporations. A moral corporation is a profitable one, and vice versa. Everything else is a lower priority than profit and growth. Thus, we turn everything that exists into what we measure as profit. We are the indigenous people selling our lives and attention and time and land/planet for shiny trinkets without value.

The problem is that there are good profits and bad profits. "Good profits" create consumer surplus. "Bad profits" are rents.

I don't know if you've looked lately, but corporations do a lot of things differently than simply maximizing short terms profits now. Besides, that's mostly an artifact of mutual fund style public stock financing. In addition to going private, there is emphasis on dividends, stock buybacks, that sort of thing.

At its simplest, a thing is profitable if it can be done efficiently and people want it. That's not a bad thing.

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#417

Post by arh68 »

greggman wrote: post #284
bikamonki wrote: post #18

Does anyone else feel the slot machine effect here on HN is the karma displayed on the top-right? After a submission or comment, is that number the first thing you check when you come back to the site?

I have wished for a way to turn that number off. (yes, I could make an extension to hide it I guess)

You could set your topcolor to #222222.

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#418

Post by floatboth »

ljk wrote: post #161

Very eye-opening read. few random thoughts: > Hijack #7: Instant Interruption vs. “Respectful” Delivery... By contrast, Apple more respectfully lets userse toggle "Read Receipts" on or off Unfortunately iPhone has a new feature to reply to messages immediately even in the lock screen, looks like everyone is guilty of this > “now that you know I’ve seen the message, I feel even more obligated to respond.” always tried…

Replying from the lock screen is good though?? You reply from the lock screen, so you don't unlock the phone, so you don't start doing other things than replying?

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#419

Post by tunap »

antognini wrote: post #281
kefka wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Milk in the back or side makes sense though. The milk and dairy area is usually front-facing doors from the huge walk-in refrigerator. It wouldn't be smart to put a huge walk-in fridge in the center or front of the store, given the recurring shipments from cold storage trucks to fridge. ... However locally, our Kroger(s) has a small case that holds 15 gallons of milk, and a shelf of common bread up front and center.

There was an interesting episode on Planet Money a little while back about why milk is in the back of a supermarket. They had two people give very different explanations: Russ Roberts (an economist) argued that it was just simpler to maintain the cold chain with milk (and meat) in the back of the store since that's where trucks unload, and Michael Pollan (a food writer) argued that it was a behavioral economics trick…

Former merchandiser here. Staples are always furthest from entrance and then separated(ie: bread one back corner, milk opposite) to make most people walk the entire store to get what they need. And that 'convenience' case in the front... take a look at the expiration dates on the products in said case, that product needs to be sold faster than the stock in the back.

Edit: PS: That economist, it's his job to rationalize the action monetarily. I/we/most people realize, if returns could be increeased, hamburger would be in a cooler next to the checkout.

Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

#420

Post by JoeAltmaier »

tunap wrote: post #419
antognini wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an interesting episode on Planet Money a little while back about why milk is in the back of a supermarket. They had two people give very different explanations: Russ Roberts (an economist) argued that it was just simpler to maintain the cold chain with milk (and meat) in the back of the store since that's where trucks unload, and Michael Pollan (a food writer) argued that it was a behavioral economics trick…

Former merchandiser here. Staples are always furthest from entrance and then separated(ie: bread one back corner, milk opposite) to make most people walk the entire store to get what they need. And that 'convenience' case in the front... take a look at the expiration dates on the products in said case, that product needs to be sold faster than the stock in the back. Edit: PS: That economist, it's his job to rationali…

Its startling to see how evil insinuates itself into normal people gradually so they don't even notice. The store managers probably think this is a standard practice so its ok. Not a pointless waste of customers' time and energy in the cynical hope to manipulate them into buying what they don't want. I plan on resenting my local mega market in future every time I make the hike to the back of their block-long store for a half-gallon of 1%.
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