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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

#211

Post by zmj »

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 have to use Facebook to stay in the loop about social events because all my friends use Facebook to schedule those social events.

Facebook has an API. Script a poll on those events and push them to somewhere you'll see them? Log in once a week to see if your script missed anything you cared about, and modify the script if yes?

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#213

Post by ben_w »

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…

Similar problem. Accidentally broke my Nexus 5, got a 10 year old blackberry to tide myself over, and found I didn’t benefit from a smartphone.

Still have an iPad, but I’m an iOS developer. (Perhaps I should change that?)

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#214

Post by pbhjpbhj »

avdempsey wrote: post #157
Deimorz wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't value all users equally, ones in North America are generally worth considerably more. From a quick search, I can't find any more recent info, but in Jan 2016 a user from USA/Canada was worth $13.54/quarter [1], so that would be about $54/year. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/28/how-much-...

Also, the users who can afford to pay to remove ads may be the same ones that increase the value of their advertising products overall.

Exactly, Facebook have access to eyeballs that other media corps don't. The value is in part because of the aggregate being comprehensive, as you remove people from the sample the resulting data gets less valuable much faster.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#215

Post by ucaetano »

kunimu wrote: post #187
ucaetano wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those have the same political and economic systems as the US. With minor customizations, but they're all capitalist democracies, with varying levels of government regulation and control. The world has never been in a better place, and has never improved as fast as in the last 60 years. If that's your argument to try something different, your argument doesn't make any sense. > It might, just might, be possible…

>Every single time, over dozens of times, it resulted in bloody dictatorships. It is very much worth studying why this has happened and what kind of methods can be used to avert it. Not only is Marxism-Leninism not the only form of Socialist praxis (neither is Marxism the only Socialist theory for that matter), but it's unwise to dismiss "failures" for the reason that they were authoritarian. Allende, Sankara's Burki…

> Not only is Marxism-Leninism not the only form of Socialist praxis (neither is Marxism the only Socialist theory for that matter), but it's unwise to dismiss "failures" for the reason that they were authoritarian.

I'm dismissing failures because every single time it ended in bloody dictatorships, but no, This Time It Will Be Different®.

No, it won't. Funny how you talk about learning with the failures of history, but you keep insisting in trying again a system that again and again has proven itself to be horrible.

And again, that's when the world has been the best that it has ever been. In 60 years, extreme poverty went from ~60% to Sure, there is still a lot to be done, but the current system has worked miracles. It can be improved, but proposing a dramatic change to a system that ALWAYS results in bloody dictatorships makes no sense.

Keep your disastrous social and economic experiments to yourself. Socialism has done harm enough.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#216

Post by addicted »

submeta wrote: post #68
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…

Actually I dont' think the analogy is valid. Tobacco is addictive, true. And tobacco has only one use. A smartphone has many use cases (mp3 player, camera, compass, notebook, encyclopedia and many more). And why would you like to "quit internet"? Yes, many sites try to get your attention, try to manipulate you into buying their products. But you can avoid that. Using ad blockers wherever you can. And regarding Facebo…

I agree that the analogy isn’t valid. Only because information technologies today are a lot worse than tobacco. Unlike apps, tobacco does not have a team of PHDs constantly reformulating itself to draw in those people who have found a way out of it, and ensuring that the ones already addicted remain.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#217

Post by maneesh »

tonystubblebine wrote: post #115
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 co…

If you aren't familiar with the poster above (who I'm replying to) it's Tony from http://coach.me -- one of the best personal improvement products in the world. Tony's site provides people with a direct link to a coach -- for a very fair price -- who can hold you accountable and help you change your habits.

Tony was the founder of Lift.do which became coach.me.

His blog on betterhumans is fantastic and I highly recommend it.

Keep up the fantastic work Tony!!!

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#218

Post by SirFatty »

senko wrote: post #128
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…

Here's how I (try to) keep the Internet-based distractions to a minimum: * Uninstall twitter, facebook and other social apps from your phone; only use the computer (or other device that's not constantly in your pocket). * Even on your computer, log out of twitter, facebook and others. Only log in when you want to look into something (eg. check the social events, send a message), and use private/incognito mode for thi…

Excellent advice!

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#219

Post by standupstandup »

cracell wrote: post #81
ryandrake wrote: post #42

Ironically, the first thing you're greeted with on this site is an attention-grabbing ad, if you choose to browse without protection. If modern media a DoS attack, it's not very sophisticated since it can be easily avoided by non-participation. Install an Ad blocker. Browse the web in private mode. Turn off notifications. Treat everything you read with skepticism (assume it is trying to manipulate you). And never, ev…

> I don't buy into this victim mentality I don't think we should be thinking about this from a psychological perspective but instead a sociological one. Yes individuals can disconnect and do whatever they need to assuming adequate resources but that's beside the point. If you think of people as boxes with inputs and outputs I think it's very worth understanding how social media impacts those boxes and what the long t…

You can't really know what the impact is. You probably can't even come up with a crisp, uncontroversial definition of what "social media" actually is. Most people seem to use the term to mean Twitter, but Twitter is garbage and lots of people don't use it at all. Is Hacker News "social media"? Is Slashdot? Is the comments section of the New York Times? Is IRC?

The moment you start down the "we are weak and helpless and we need the smart benevolent geniuses in Government to help us" you're just gonna lose a whole lot of people. Because there's no reason to believe there is even a problem here, let alone a problem that needs to be solved with regulation.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#220

Post by WorldMaker »

maksimum wrote: post #195
senko wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's how I (try to) keep the Internet-based distractions to a minimum: * Uninstall twitter, facebook and other social apps from your phone; only use the computer (or other device that's not constantly in your pocket). * Even on your computer, log out of twitter, facebook and others. Only log in when you want to look into something (eg. check the social events, send a message), and use private/incognito mode for thi…

Love the 2FA idea. Do you know of an app/browser extension that lets you bookmark arbitrary HTML pages, and keeps track of how far down you've scrolled; maybe let you write notes? Or maybe one that converts an arbitrary page to PDF, and stores it locally for you?

The combination of OneNote and Edge's Web Notes gets you most of those features. There's also relatively "ancient" apps like Pocket (which Firefox presents out of the box these days) and Instapaper.
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