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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

#401

Post by intrasight »

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…

The smartphone is no problem at all. Hardly anybody "calls" anymore, and the only time I look at the thing is when I'm sitting on the crapper (and in that case I'd say I'm not wasting time but multitasking). It could be because I was very late to the smartphone party and never got addicted.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#402

Post by intended »

intended wrote: post #370
smsm42 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Since this is HN I will make an effort to not just make a sharp one liner.

The best version of the OP’s arguing is for individual ability and choice, and the ability of a person to make a difference of their own volition.

This is a fundamentally important right because without it, we are all automatons.

The issue is that in many cases we humans make bad choices, on a truly unimaginable scale.

This is also very much a part of being human - good choices exist only if bad choices exists.

The issue is that sometimes we can agree that people will consistently make poor choices, for a variety of forgiveable reasons.

While we could conceivably go after each individual, explain and educate them in precisely the way required to convince them that they should wear seat belts - it’s is often practically impossible to do so.

Which is why we introduce laws and regulations. All cars must have seat belts - and you must wear them.

Because as a species we are able to make meta cognitive calls or simply- decisions about decisions.

As a species we don’t want our people dying, for something as trivial as not wearing a seat belt.

It causes families to lose parents, parents to lose children - often because they were just at the wrong place and time.

Getting people to wear seat belts causes large scale good, over an individuals choice to put themselves and others at risk.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#403

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

Jach wrote: post #247
kunimu wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

The criticism is that it leads to "bloody dictatorships", not necessarily that authoritarian systems are bad. Before the 20th century there were many authoritarian systems (empires and monarchies) that oversaw some of the best governed periods of human history. I'm sure you believe if you controlled a country, you would do a much better job and not make the same mistakes that lead to a bloody dictatorship and worse o…

So sure, there are a few benevolent dictators here and there... but what's the ratio of benevolent to malevolent dictators/authoritarians? Is there such a a stat?

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#404

Post by [deleted] »

xster wrote: post #327
jmcgough wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like them or not, the NYT and WashPo do some of the best, factual investigative journalism in the world. Have they been wrong? Sure. But they have extremely high standards for publishing a story, so you can generally assume that they're accurate. They also are the ones who break a lot of the biggest, most impactful stories. I think a better criticism of them would be wash po turning a blind eye to Bezos and others th…

Maybe another way I'd frame the issue is that there are 2 orthogonal themes. 1, whether the structural incentives of the institution is altogether aligned with the interests of the common working people ( http://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories... ) or with the financial elites ( https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/cia-funded-washington-pos... ), and 2, whether the publication follows scientific r…

[deleted]

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#405

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

ako wrote: post #46
genzoman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea why so many people choose to give any government more and more power. This is similar to a cultural nuclear weapon. Maybe it will work in the right persons's hands for an agent of good, but really, over the course of time, is limiting what people can hear going to be a good thing for them? How can you tune your personal BS meter, if you never hear any BS? Who watches the watcher? There is no singular p…

Given free hand, corporations can be just as dangerous as governments. I don't know why you would trust corporations more, since their only goal is to make money.

I agree. The danger isn't simply "Big Government" or "Big Corp.". It's the concentration of power, whether by private or public entities. Private entities will abuse/buy/influence any power structure that happens to exist, to server their interests.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#406

Post by nomadic_09 »

freebooter wrote: post #364
zamalek wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

> I'm thinking of ditching my iPhone for a flip phone.

That reminds me of my college days back in 2011 when I decided to go for a flip phone instead of a smartphone. Most of my friends thought I was peculiar for my insisting I use one and to do this day I still have that same flip phone, but not in use; just as a memento... sort of.

At the time, I wasn't really thinking about how my attention was a valuable resource or that most smartphone apps were major distractions. I just simply didn't like how inundated with features smartphones were. I always thought my laptop as my primary place of "getting-work-done" and my gaming laptop for entertainment (i.e. helluva lot of StarCraft II) and to have a phone that competed with that, but far worse, never sat well with me.

Looking back, I'm glad I did that and wish I could continue with a phone that could only text/call.

edit: Formatting

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#407

Post by kaendfinger »

briga wrote: post #398
rorykoehler wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They practice the worst type of disinformation. Correct most of the time but when it really counts they publish incorrect propaganda (eg wmds in Iraq).

Care to name any large news publications that don't do this? I can't think of any.

Breitbart has an interesting theory on this: Present your bias, and admit your publication has a world view, because even NPR has a world view.

Nobody is unbiased, so stop trying to be unbiased, and present how you see it. Then, a real reader will go to multiple "view points" and gather their own opinion.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#408

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

smsm42 wrote: post #203
Veen wrote: 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…

Can people be manipulated, or tricked to do things that they would, when sound of mind, otherwise choose not to do?

Let's just assume you answer "yes" (because to answer "no" would be unimaginably absurd)... lets also imagine that billions of dollars are up for grabs to the people/companies who can manipulate/trick sound of mind people better than anyone else... What would that world look like?

Well, we're living in it.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#409

Post by jholman »

free_everybody wrote: post #338
devmunchies wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If that works for you, then cheers. I get so sucked into Reddit's front page that I just need to avoid it all entirely. With Twitter, I'm less inclined to explore.

What's a "front page"?

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#410

Post by acobster »

QML wrote: post #371
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 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…

I agree with you on some level, but tech has no small part to play in this phenomenon. It's not just the presence of the technology itself, it's the technology's essential design and purpose. The article's thesis, as I see it, opposes your point head-on:

> That kind of rhetoric implicitly grants the idea that it’s okay for technology to be adversarial against us. The whole point of technology is to help us do what we want to do better. Why else would we have it? ... I don’t think personal responsibility is unimportant. I think it’s untenable as a solution to this problem ... It’s not realistic to say you need to have more willpower. That’s the very thing being undermined!

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