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Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

m.nautil.us

371–380 of 523 posts

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#371

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 don’t think smartphones are the main issue here — problem is people can’t delay gratification.

I’m sure if we ran the Marshmellow experiment again, a higher proportion of people won’t be able to wait.

Among my peers, I’m noticing an inability to study continuously for more than 30 minutes; even in my friend group, a couple can’t watch a whole movie without checking their phones.

However, keeping your smartphone at home in my opinion is a non optimal solution. My recommendation is to specially allot a time for checking your phone and reading the news; and forcing yourself to work on a single task otherwise.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done something similar with my Android phone, and it's worked out decently. One problem I encountered though - I spent a lot of time on Reddit, and would check it subconsciously, so I deleted it. Now I find that I'm using Google Now, the left swipe off the home screen. In effect I took the attention from Reddit and gave it to Google. I'm not convinced that was a worthwhile trade. Given I can't delete Google Now,…

> I spent a lot of time on Reddit, and would check it subconsciously, so I deleted it. How can you delete a website? No seriously, how do you keep the browser from hooking you? I don't have any apps installed and I often fall into a reddit-hn-local_news1-local_news2-it_news1-it_news2 cycle that I start all over when I'm done with it just to check if something new happened in the meantime! Especially on Weekend mornin…

I use Cold Turkey on my computer and the Freedom app on iOS. It works pretty well (Freedom can be buggy). I make the list of websites pretty exhaustive. Using those + meditation has helped quite a bit.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#373

Not to sound old school - because I am - but I believe that the medium effects the ability to comprehend the message (which happens before the wonky / faux message is received). That is, there is a difference between reading (e.g., newspaper or magazine) and watching. Reading is proactive (so to speak). It engages the brain because the brain must be engaged in order to complete the activity. Furthermore, pausing to d…

Reading releases dopamine at a much slower pace than something that's visually stimulating. Facebook news feed is mostly images and videos now. If you ever catch someone using Facebook, watch them for a few minutes: it's just mindless scrolling of images. It's as if there's a line of breadcrumbs laid in front of them and they're picking it up one by one and following the trail.

Visually heavy content + infinite scroll = a human trap

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#374

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…

Great advice! And I absolutely agree with the idea that this list is highly personal -- for me, I can't spend more than a few minutes on FB per week w/o feeling like it's a complete waste of time (I only have the acct to receive various announcements related to things I do). But NYT & HN are big time sinks for me. Especially since I always learn something, so it doesn't feel like a waste of time, per se, but does get in the way of actually getting stuff done. (I think PG has an essay on this.)

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#375
post #264

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…

> Previously I spent hours per day on both, running a pretty large community group and supporting its members. I disappeared; no explanation.

I'm glad you're feeling better, but I'm not sure why you'd choose to leave people in the lurch rather than even a brief message.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#376
post #203
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have free will What justifies your certainty here? If history proves anything, it’s that people are eminently manipulable. That’s no surprise: we’re biological machines at the endpoint of eons of evolution. We’re not gods. Of course we can be hacked.

> If history proves anything, it’s that people are eminently manipulable. Did you write this comment on your own free will or was manipulated into it by an invisible puppet master? If the latter, what would be the point of me trying to convince you of anything - you can't be convinced, since your actions are not sourced in you, but in the will of your puppetmaster! However, somehow you and me are discussing things. B…

Firstly most people here have been pulled by a puppet master. You too are pulled by those same strings, you just are taking the N' position to the position taken by the commenters here.

But a lot of the things people are saying here are the culmination of many other actions which have been repeated over the past many years and are finally coming to a head.

secondly - you continually make an error of generalization.

Yes, one single particular individual may be able to exercise free will. But Most dont even know that their will is being attacked.

Its not like these are telegraphed villains with evil laughs saying "I'm going to take your freedom".

This is candy crush, with its intentionally neutral and happy pictures. Its facebook, with its memmories and your friends.

WHY would anyone stop that?

Sure, someone in this thread, who is a techie and has read the past 2 months of tech news, may have an idea of what to defend.

In that very narrow, individual scenario - yes, he has a choice.

Yours is the craftsmans argument, in a world which has just seen the advent of the assembly line. Certain individuals may well craft their own will.

Those few are considered flaws in the system, and the system itself constantly focuses on those people they CAN get, and who are NOT aware, or have the wherewithal or lack the interest in stopping it.

Hell, people don't want to wear helmets when they ride motorcycles; we couldnt get people to waste less water when they shower, and instead there was an active movement to deny climate change.

Programs which never sleep, eat, and cost tiny amounts of money to execute. So even if you never log in, they just lie in wait.

The armies arrayed against an individual are far greater than what a normal person can hope to deal with - unless they drop everything and focus on beating it.

And why would a normal person do that? SO that he can keep free will? Most people would give up their free will if it would guarantee that their kids have a future, that they get food, and shelter.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Heaven forbid we don't protect our trillion dollar insurance racket.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#378
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 think this is a good point. People are social animals, and most of us need a community, but much of that community today is deeply tied into this modern distraction society. For instance, you mentioned quitting tobacco - I bet this is much, much harder to do in the places and times where smoking is/was an important social activity. It's not only that these distractions are everywhere, but that avoiding them can lead to some degree of isolation.

It would be nice to find some sort of community that's pushing back against these things. It's hard to do alone - for instance, when I tried going back to writing long e-mail to friends instead of merely liking Facebook posts, I got little response. People had moved on, and weren't interested in going back.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#379
post #373

Not to sound old school - because I am - but I believe that the medium effects the ability to comprehend the message (which happens before the wonky / faux message is received). That is, there is a difference between reading (e.g., newspaper or magazine) and watching. Reading is proactive (so to speak). It engages the brain because the brain must be engaged in order to complete the activity. Furthermore, pausing to d…

Reading releases dopamine at a much slower pace than something that's visually stimulating. Facebook news feed is mostly images and videos now. If you ever catch someone using Facebook, watch them for a few minutes: it's just mindless scrolling of images. It's as if there's a line of breadcrumbs laid in front of them and they're picking it up one by one and following the trail. Visually heavy content + infinite scrol…

Right. It's a less engaged form of engaged, more passive. Not sleeping, but not thinking either. Human trap? Or more like a rat on a wheel?

Makes ya wonder what effect more characters will have on Twitter, and those who use it.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#380

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 like (and do follow) your suggestion. However, i disagree on Twitter. Twitter is a cacophony of misinformation, misquotes, comments taken out of context, and or responses to really fringe & stupid opinions.

It truly depends on who you follow (and who they follow, lately).
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