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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

#341

Post by hyperdunc »

xster wrote: post #293
free_everybody wrote: post #256

Stop carrying your smartphone. Leave it at home. If you must because your family/work depends on you, then delete every app. Use your laptop as your main driver. If you need to, get a laptop with better battery life. Start developing a personal philosophy of internet usage. Here is mine: Category 3 [Abstain from completely] Reddit (Yes, all of reddit), Facebook ... Category 2 [Check once every couple days ~15 min tot…

Corporate media like NYT and WashPo etc that writes things like you must be crazy to not believe there are WMDs in Iraq are not serious news sites. Rich != serious. And hegemonic news smearing all sources of independent journalism and grassroot progressive political movements is just about the opposite of the point of this article.

I see two major problems with sites like NYT and WaPo:

1. There is important news they choose not to cover, especially for political reasons. (The news they do cover is usually of better quality than most.)

2. Their opinion pieces are frequently poorly thought out.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#342

Post by cirgue »

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]

Except we're not bingeing on knowledge, we're binging on text. Knowledge requires construction and interaction.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#343

Post by ozmbie »

greggman wrote: post #326
eckza wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this, I love this, I love this. Right now, I am about a month along with no Facebook or Messenger. Previously I spent hours per day on both, running a pretty large community group and supporting its members. I disappeared; no explanation. Stress levels are down, I have so much more time to do things, and I have so much more attention for the things that really matter. Anybody that needs me, has my phone number…

interesting. I would have thought a watch would be worse because it's basically a "hey, look at your phone alarm". I spend too much time futsing around the internet but I have almost all notifications turned off. no Twitter notifications, no Facebook notifications, no Instagram notifications. I only have messenger like app notifications on.

I find the watch helps, because you distil your digital interactions down to a small number of important ones. Then go about your life without the constant pull of your phone nearby.

The new Series 3 LTE watch has enough battery to get me through the day. The only notifications I have enabled are messages, phone calls, and reminders.

I leave my phone at home but I'm still available for the important things.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#344

Post by donw »

free_everybody wrote: post #256

Stop carrying your smartphone. Leave it at home. If you must because your family/work depends on you, then delete every app. Use your laptop as your main driver. If you need to, get a laptop with better battery life. Start developing a personal philosophy of internet usage. Here is mine: Category 3 [Abstain from completely] Reddit (Yes, all of reddit), Facebook ... Category 2 [Check once every couple days ~15 min tot…

I still carry my smartphone, but have disabled all app notifications, and removed anything that isn't a tool or a direct text messaging app.

No Twitter, no Facebook, no Snapchat, etc.

It's amazing how much happier I became after doing that.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#345

Post by wffurr »

wincy wrote: post #262
smsm42 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should I read this as "solid counter to socialist propaganda is actually building socialism"? If so, I wholeheartedly agree. As somebody who actually lived under socialism (until it collapsed), I am inoculated against it forever. However, I think this is way too cruel punishment for a weak souls swayed by a false promise of socialist demagoguery about "justice" and "education" and inevitably finding themselves in abj…

Hey, I just wanted to thank you for articulating some of the thoughts I've had more eloquently than I can or have time to do. It's good to see HN not just sounding like an echo chamber and seeing someone speak up against socialism/communist sentiments commonly expressed here.

Is it really all that common? HN often feels like a techno-utopian libertarian echo chamber to me.

Maybe if we both feel this way, it's actually a balanced group? Or maybe it just comes in waves depending on the topic.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#346

Post by dredmorbius »

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…

Excellent comments, and very much on point about the Sybil attack. I should have seen that myself.

The spam relationship is a correct interpretation. More specifically: as any new medium or channel becomes influential enough, it will be sought by those who seek to use it to their ends: for commercial or financial return, or social or political power. And their means are distraction, disinformation, misinformation, and manipulation.

There's quite a body of literature on this topic, going back a few thousand years.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#347

Post by dredmorbius »

snerbles wrote: post #6

One can argue that this isn't really anything new - look back at the media hype for war surrounding an explosion of a certain U.S. warship. In 1898. Amusing, how the most vaunted prize in journalism is named for one of the most famous perpetrators of yellow journalism. Social media is merely a slimmer middle man in that frenzied feedback loop, and the legacy media is upset that their slice of the pie is shrinking.

"Not new" != "not significant".

Facebook quite literally connects more people across a single platform than any medium in history. That logo is the most-seen image in the world right now.

And the history of media change shows that it is tremendously disruptive. Something today's new-media moguls seem to be only just starting to realise. Or at least, admit.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#348

Post by jerf »

anigbrowl wrote: post #202
jerf wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People are much less prone to be swayed by that sort of thing when their health, shelter, and food are not at risk." You seem to have disproved your own thesis, then, since there aren't that many people who have their health, shelter, or food directly affected by this race for the attention economy. (Yes, I said "aren't that many" and not "zero", but it's still not that many.) What basis do you have for believing a…

there aren't that many people who have their health, shelter, or food directly affected by this race for the attention economy That seems highly questionable to me. Large numbers of people in retail and service industries disrupted or threatened by technological change are arguably impacted by it.

Tone: Honest. How does attention economy abuse impact people in retail and service especially?

(I get that the internet at large is impacting them immensely, and the list of such people and professions hardly stops there, but I don't immediately see the connection between them and attention abuse specifically.)

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#349

Post by muzani »

greggman wrote: post #326
eckza wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this, I love this, I love this. Right now, I am about a month along with no Facebook or Messenger. Previously I spent hours per day on both, running a pretty large community group and supporting its members. I disappeared; no explanation. Stress levels are down, I have so much more time to do things, and I have so much more attention for the things that really matter. Anybody that needs me, has my phone number…

interesting. I would have thought a watch would be worse because it's basically a "hey, look at your phone alarm". I spend too much time futsing around the internet but I have almost all notifications turned off. no Twitter notifications, no Facebook notifications, no Instagram notifications. I only have messenger like app notifications on.

Using a Fitbit here. I didn't buy it for the phone notifications but found it felt useful to focus. The real killer is not the calls but the other apps - email, shopping, Samsung.

A lot of deals come in from Facebook messenger for me, but I don't want to actually touch Facebook. The watch is really good at this too, and telling me who it's from.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#350

Post by pksadiq »

JoshMnem wrote: post #245
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'm in the process of cutting back (deleting apps, etc.) and will get a non-smartphone to replace my current phone soon. I plan to write some custom scripts to send me text messages when someone @-mentions me on Slack -- or they can send me text messages directly in an emergency. I was an adult before Internet use was widespread, and many things were better back then. People don't really need to be connected to every…

> I plan ....

I would recommend you to write these plans in a notebook (real notebook with pen/pencil). Write all of your plans, whenever you plan. The problem with software solutions is that once you reschedule, its history is lost.

I have such a book which has now almost run out of pages. Once a week I read them. Most of them are not yet done. But it makes me feel good, and helps me prioritize better than software solutions.

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