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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

#361

Post by vlunkr »

devmunchies wrote: post #336
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…

> Reddit (Yes, all of reddit) ... Twitter (Follow helpful people only) I swap those. I only follow a few helpful subreddits to pick up things that don't make it to HN and I don't use twitter.

I was going to say this. The most useful parts of Reddit are way more useful that the most useful parts of twitter imo. And if you only visit once a day or week, you can sort by the top posts in that range. With twitter, you kind of have to be there all the time to see the good stuff.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#362

Post by TheCoelacanth »

dqpb wrote: post #359

Billboards and all other public-space advertising out in the real world are so much worse than modern digital media. At least when it's confined to a device the user has the ability to turn it off. That said, I do think the end of humanity will be via a primitive AI optimized to hold our attention at all costs. I just don't think we're there yet.

Billboards can only be targeted to a general area. Digital ads can be targeted to more or less a single person.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#363

Post by davidivadavid »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #306
smsm42 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. This is simply a fallacy. You can’t decide to switch off selective psychological mechanisms in your brain. Facebook, Snapchat etc. are weaponizing and exploiting these against us/humanity in ways similar to Vegas casinos. It is easy to not drive to Veg…

What? It's incredibly easy to avoid social media. If that's the kind of hardship our generation is facing, we're doing pretty good.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#364

Post by freebooter »

zamalek wrote: post #71
yosito wrote: post #9

As someone who works in tech, I like the analogy of a DoS attack. The root of the issue is attention capitalism. Our attention is essentially a resource being exploited for profit. In that scenario, we're effectivley no longer in control of our own free will as long as someone else can profit by controlling it. On an individual scale, we can give it relatively benign labels like "distraction". But when you look at it…

Attention as well as free will is a scarce resource on a personal level. I used to seriously question why anyone would buy almost identical Apple devices year-after-year; where-as I'd spend at least a day researching which Android devices were available. The truth is that it's a bloody phone. I was expending all my free will on trivialities and wasn't making choices that actually matter. I think this problem is more…

You make good points. I've been in IT now 20 years, and while I need a phone to text and make calls, I do nothing else with it. I'm thinking of ditching my iPhone for a flip phone.

I served in the military years ago. Just one tour. I got out with good memories but also some ideas. For example, I have standardized on Levi's 501 jeans, button down shirts of the same brand, and desert boots. I wear this daily. I don't have to think about what I wear. All my clothes fit as I expect, all the time. This frees me up to think about what matters--my family and job.

I made a comment further down about freewill you might find interesting, as freewill is now going to cost those of us who care about it.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#365

Post by annotatedobj »

freebooter wrote: post #356
Rapzid wrote: post #351

The biggest shocker is anyone actually believes in "free will" anymore. Although, the desire to limit a particular stimuli's influence over our actions seems valid. In a way, the hyperbolic title seems to be an prime example of its own thesis..

Freewill exists, but it now comes with a cost. Let me provide a personal anecdote that is happening now with my job: - What with "rising" health care costs, my employer has decided to "force" everyone into getting a series of physical tests, to include those for high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, and a fecal occult blood test. Failure to comply by year's end results in a financial penalty taken from your che…

is this in the US? I don't understand how a company is allowed to even think of penalizing employees for not taking physical tests.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#366

Post by annotatedobj »

addicted wrote: post #223
unholiness wrote: post #86

I personally haven't found the same effect in long-form media, such as: - Non-fiction books - University-centered online courses - Documentaries - Some of Netflix's original programs - Wikipedia's monthly news summaries - The "Great Courses" on Audible These media aren't thoroughly monetized on a pay-per-attention-stolen model. They're more optimized around having good reviews from friends and online. It makes me won…

Such a site would suffer from 2 major disadvantages. In the absence of advertisement driven revenues, it would have to charge money, raising the barrier of entry compared to the current alternatives. In addition it cannot provide regular dopamine hits (because that’s the whole point) so it even feels less appealing than the alternatives. More expensive and less appealing is a hard combo to succeed with.

maybe it's an opportunity to go back to the old recipe of paying with money for things you want to acquire. I'd gladly pay for a news service like that.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#367

Post by [deleted] »

asteli wrote: post #313
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 nuked my Facebook entirely. I don't miss it. Took about 2 weeks to stop reflexively typing in "fa" in the address bar when bored. Everyone worries about event discovery and getting invited to things. Turns out, the people that you actually care about (and who care about you) will tell you regardless. Additionally, I suspect that I'm influencing my social circle toward using email for event coordination. Facebook's…

[deleted]

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#368

Post by freebooter »

annotatedobj wrote: post #365
freebooter wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freewill exists, but it now comes with a cost. Let me provide a personal anecdote that is happening now with my job: - What with "rising" health care costs, my employer has decided to "force" everyone into getting a series of physical tests, to include those for high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, and a fecal occult blood test. Failure to comply by year's end results in a financial penalty taken from your che…

is this in the US? I don't understand how a company is allowed to even think of penalizing employees for not taking physical tests.

Yes. Texas. Legal, sadly. The first thing I did after receiving the email from HR, was to look up the legality. There is actually SCOTUS precedent, so it is legal, and the practice is growing.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#369

Post by caconym_ »

eckza wrote: post #264
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 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…

I have been considering the Apple Watch with LTE for this reason. I don't want to supplement my phone; I want to largely replace it with something that's less intrusive and offers less potential for wasting time. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#370

Post by intended »

smsm42 wrote: post #191
wffurr wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You clearly don't believe that such a thing as structural inequality exists I have no idea what the thing you call "structural inequality" is, so I can't say whether I believe it exists or not. It could be you call by this term some well-established phenomenon, and then I'd agree it exists, or it could be that you call some imaginary bugaboo like engineers taking your free will with their evil algorithms, and then,…

for all your effort to type those words - you forget that people had to be forced to wear seat belts even though their very lives hang in the balance.
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