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Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

m.nautil.us

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Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#111

Post by 52-6F-62 »

eksemplar wrote: post #84
tribune wrote: post #34

I've been coming to resent my smartphone more and more, essentially because of this. I recently quit using tobacco. I remembered all the warnings from my school health classes about how hard it was to quit once you start, how there's a physical dependence and all that. It was uncomfortable at times, and there were plenty of cravings to get over, but I was ultimately successful. I can compare this to the couple of tim…

You can ditch Facebook and not lose out socially. My life got a lot more social after I got off social media because there weren't easy fixes to my social needs. Ditching reddit or hacker news is much harder. I mean, how do you even use the internet these days?

Anecdotally, my life became less social after I quit Facebook. A lot less off-the-cuff chitchat occurs now. Funny thing, though: I don't feel like I lost a great deal. I didn't lose any lasting connections with people. I just don't have the surrogate standing in for time spent together. Though I also see people less, because I don't feel pulled to others' events.

Now, I either mean to do it or I don't go. My social life certainly feels more organic:

met my girlfriend at a former job, not social media. I get invited out with her colleagues from time-to-time or we go on a date or spend time together at home or I commit my time to studying or some other enjoyment. I'd like to think I can build a new social life in that way, but maybe it's a pipe dream now.

It does feel like there's a whole other life going on that I'm not a part of sometimes.

Without the Facebook, Twitter, etc thing, the internet is either topical discussion, news, study/research, music, or nil.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#112

Post by jah6q »

api wrote: post #5
Raphmedia wrote: post #2

Knowledge is the food of the soul. Problem is we are all binge eating. Edit : Good TED talk on this topic https://www.ted.com/talks/jp_rangaswami_information_is_food [2012]

I wouldn't put it that way. The problem is that a ton of the stuff impinging on us is not knowledge. It's propaganda, fluff, stupid memes, click bait, and systems with interfaces designed to be addictive and to act like Skinner boxes. What I really see happening is a "part 2" repeat of the spam apocalypse that hit e-mail, Usenet, and other federated systems on the early Internet. In the late 1990s spam destroyed most…

Does she know she's an ad?

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#113

Post by wffurr »

smsm42 wrote: post #99
wffurr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"voluntarily surrendering your free will to distractions brought to you by profit-seeking entities" That's one way to describe an "industry [that] employs some of the smartest people, thousands of Ph.D. designers, statisticians, engineers [that] go to work every day to get us to do this one thing, to undermine our willpower." From the article. "People's Democratic Central Party Committee" Nice straw-man that conflate…

> go to work every day to get us to do this one thing, to undermine our willpower That's ominously sounding bullshit. You decide what to do with your willpower, and if you don't like the consequences, it's your fault, not some nefarious engineers. If you don't like facebook, don't go there. If you don't like particular site, don't go there, of if you absolutely can't control yourself, install one of a thousand progra…

Not sure where to go from here. You clearly don't believe that such a thing as structural inequality exists. Without an acknowledgement of the massive power imbalance between mass media corporations on the one hand and the citizenry on the other, there's no possible discussion here.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#114

Post by mod »

eksemplar wrote: post #84
tribune wrote: post #34

I've been coming to resent my smartphone more and more, essentially because of this. I recently quit using tobacco. I remembered all the warnings from my school health classes about how hard it was to quit once you start, how there's a physical dependence and all that. It was uncomfortable at times, and there were plenty of cravings to get over, but I was ultimately successful. I can compare this to the couple of tim…

You can ditch Facebook and not lose out socially. My life got a lot more social after I got off social media because there weren't easy fixes to my social needs. Ditching reddit or hacker news is much harder. I mean, how do you even use the internet these days?

I frequently disable reddit, and sometimes HN, in my hosts file.

I'm both happy and sad to discover that I don't even know what to do on the internet when they're not available. Happy because it forces me to do something else. Sad because I remember when I truly loved the internet, before reddit or HN, and I wonder why I don't have that love anymore.

I really don't know how to use the internet these days.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#115

Post by tonystubblebine »

tribune wrote: post #34

I've been coming to resent my smartphone more and more, essentially because of this. I recently quit using tobacco. I remembered all the warnings from my school health classes about how hard it was to quit once you start, how there's a physical dependence and all that. It was uncomfortable at times, and there were plenty of cravings to get over, but I was ultimately successful. I can compare this to the couple of tim…

I commissioned a series of articles on the practical side of reconfiguring your phone and laptop for your own aims (based mostly on Tristan Harris' work). https://betterhumans.coach.me/three-articles-to-reclaim-your...

And I'm 100% with you. It was a huge revelation for me personally when I realized new technology doesn't necessarily make me happier. Probably like a lot of us, I grew up obsessed with new tech, new computers, new gaming consoles, new phones.

2 years ago, I traded my iPhone plus in for an SE (the smaller one). Then I moved all slot machine apps either off my phone or at least into a folder on the second screen. Primarily, my phone is for maps and camera. Everything else is suspect.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#116

Post by johnvonneumann »

emodendroket wrote: post #10
Raphmedia wrote: post #2

Knowledge is the food of the soul. Problem is we are all binge eating. Edit : Good TED talk on this topic https://www.ted.com/talks/jp_rangaswami_information_is_food [2012]

I don't think "knowledge" is necessarily what we're getting. I learn a lot more reading a single nonfiction book than I do in an equivalent amount of time spent on Twitter and Facebook.

This. I have been staunch anti-social media for a while now, but not long ago I heard someone from a community I'm involved in say that the conversation on twitter was actually pretty intelligent so I signed up. You hear about how it's good to use these sites because you occasionally get pearls of wisdom, Nassim Taleb (funny because he actually has a twitter account) referred to it as digging through mountains of shit to find diamonds, sure, you may find a diamond, but you'll also be covered in shit.

EDIT: Deleted my twitter account after a month, wanna nerf LinkedIn as well but that decision has professional impacts.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#117

Post by rokhayakebe »

tribune wrote: post #34

I've been coming to resent my smartphone more and more, essentially because of this. I recently quit using tobacco. I remembered all the warnings from my school health classes about how hard it was to quit once you start, how there's a physical dependence and all that. It was uncomfortable at times, and there were plenty of cravings to get over, but I was ultimately successful. I can compare this to the couple of tim…

I just ignore my phone sometimes. Nobody will ever call to give you money. I got off FB in 2010. Don't use Twitter. These things are a lot less hard than people make them to be. If some news is important it will arrive at some point.

I agree for those with children it becomes a different story.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#118

Post by dingaling »

tj-teej wrote: post #63
tribune wrote: post #34

I've been coming to resent my smartphone more and more, essentially because of this. I recently quit using tobacco. I remembered all the warnings from my school health classes about how hard it was to quit once you start, how there's a physical dependence and all that. It was uncomfortable at times, and there were plenty of cravings to get over, but I was ultimately successful. I can compare this to the couple of tim…

A simple first step, which changed a lot for me: Keeping your phone on Do Not Disturb permanently. It (AT LEAST) frees you to decide when to check the phone, rather than letting these companies, (through notifications) decide for you when you're going to check your phone.

And once it's in DND mode, I trained myself to only unlock the phone when I saw a notification.

I still pull the phone out of my pocket several times an hour, but a quick push of the home-button and a confirmation that there's nothing of interest leads to it going straight back into the pocket. It's liberating!

Step 2 was removing the browser shortcut from the main screen, so there's less temptation to just 'fire it up and check HN quickly'.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#119

Post by anigbrowl »

rado wrote: post #61

Yes. Media has been dead since the Kuwaiti girl testimony in 1990. It's done, it's over, today's scandals are just aftershocks of that turning point.

This hyperbole isn't helpful, with the implication that this never happened before in history. I'm guessing that's just the specific incident that led to you being more cynical.

Deception and manipulation of public sentiment by either wholly fabricated or suddenly-scandalous news (ie digging up some old incident and setting up a great hue and cry like it just happened) is an old, old propaganda technique:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins%27_Ear

I'm sure there are similar examples from the Roman Republic when it was operating as an actual Republic rather than an appendage of empire.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#120

Post by HoppedUpMenace »

"The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, but it doesn’t necessarily protect freedom of attention."

Are you suggesting that people's free will is so easily lost that we needed to have, in the First Amendment, a clause stating "freedom from external thought influences"?

"Modern Media is a DoS Attack on Your Free Will"

Only if you allow it to be, just like with any other compulsive activity, if it starts affecting your life negatively, you should probably make some personal life changes.

This reads like a call for government regulation of advertising or how content is served to people because people cannot defend themselves from this media onslaught.

I believe something similar to China's regulation of the web may be what you're looking for, but I'm old enough to vote and go to war so I'm old enough to decide how often my "free will" is attacked.

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