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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

#451

Post by thanatropism »

confounded wrote: post #438
kaendfinger wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But this isn’t novel; anyone who’s read a few different newspapers in the same week (a “real reader”, in your words) can easily get a feel for differences in editorial ‘bias’/agenda between news organizations. The problem is that being a “real reader” has a time and attention cost, and it’s relatively boring compared to picking a circle of political reality stars, and gorging on “hot takes” and outrage.

Reddit is a halfway decent way of doing this though.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#452

Post by thanatropism »

intrasight wrote: post #399
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…

Abstain from Facebook? For me, that's like saying "abstain from talking to your friends". Why would you choose to be so antisocial? Besides that, your other suggestions match my usage. What I am trying to do with FB is treat it like talking to my friends on the phone - which I would not do during the workday other than by exception. I thought that I could do this with self-control but I have not succeeded. So I think…

www.messenger.com is an official interface to fb messenger that mimics the mobile apps. Doesn't load up the timeline, etc.

Most of my friends are on FB messenger but I never look at facebook itself.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#453

Post by thanatropism »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #442
intrasight wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abstain from Facebook? For me, that's like saying "abstain from talking to your friends". Why would you choose to be so antisocial? Besides that, your other suggestions match my usage. What I am trying to do with FB is treat it like talking to my friends on the phone - which I would not do during the workday other than by exception. I thought that I could do this with self-control but I have not succeeded. So I think…

I've come to the conclusion that I cannot cut out Facebook completely. It's simply too good of a tool, for keeping up to date on bands I like, upcoming concerts and similar events. But I have unliked, unfollowed and hidden as many time wasters as I possibly can, to pare down my FB experience to the basics. I am very vigilant in hiding any that still happen to pop up due to being shared by friends. If someone shares t…

You'd think Tumblr is better for following up on new artists (painters etc.) but it isn't.

I have an alt facebook for looking at artists. But frankly I wish the kind of stuff I enjoy (mostly asemic writing and related) was on reddit or tumblr. The facebook interface isn't good for looking at art.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#454

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

xab9 wrote: post #439
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…

Imo facebook is not that bad if you unfollow everyone and everything. A hassle at first, but whenever you add someone (because he or she is only willing to use facebook or communicates via a group, like a trainer, a tutor or a teacher), just automatically press unfollow. I usually check if someone tried to message me once or twice a week, but ymmv.

I'm an aggressive unfollower. Too much clickpait, virtue signaling, feel-good meaningless inspirational quotes, suspect sources, self-promotion, etc., and I unfollow.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#455

Post by eckza »

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.

That's what I told my wife for like 3 years (as she has been an Apple Watch day-one user). I finally caved and got one.

Everybody else that commented on this post beat me to the punch, more or less; but because I have to spend less mental energy digesting the notifications, it ends up being LESS of an interruption - not more.

You don't have to sit at dinner with your family, KNOWING that your phone buzzed, wondering whether it was an important work email, a text from your boss, or your dipshit best friend multi-texting you 30 photos of sick bikes that he wants to buy and / or thinks you should buy. ;)

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#456

Post by xab9 »

alanfalcon wrote: post #380
hsuresh wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Yep, but occasionally "normal" people go nuts, people with tech tweets start to talk about their newborn child or a sick dog (with pictures of course), not to mention a rare political rant from someone you wouldn't expect it from. Maybe I followed the wrong bunch, who knows.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#457

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

gkya wrote: post #277
agumonkey wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's funny, your comment makes me think.. the world has too many moving parts to follow them all, so a carefully curated summary of events would be interesting. annnnd that's the press (which got injured by the stream fad.. irony)

I dream about an AI service that can curate me a newsletter given some sources (RSS, Twitter feeds, youtube feeds, whatnot) and send it to me regularly on a given interval. It would avoid duplicates and essentially identical stuff [1], weigh and choose the most interesting ones, and present them to me in a nice, readable format. Ironically I would not use such service if it existed because it would be very anti-priva…

> "Ironically I would not use such service if it existed because it would be very anti-privacy."

Does such a service necessarily have to be anti-privacy? It could be created with open-source tools and run on a cheap low power server in your home, scouring the web for stuff that it thinks interests you based on data you feed it. You will still be in charge of your data then.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#458

Post by rimliu »

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…

Or just be responsible for what you are doing. No need in ditching your phone, Facebook or Reddit. If one is not capable of weeding out the non-productive things on smartphone I am sure he will be able to fill his day with other useless things not requiring one.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#459

Post by a_imho »

Moru wrote: post #294

Ofcourse all real hackers saw this coming already 25 years ago :) I did not get a mobile phone because I wanted to be off when I wasn't working. When mobile internet came I kept only the nokia I was forced to have, just so I could not get email when I was off work. Still do not use twitter or anything else. Recently bought a tv but nothing on so seldom used. Kids friends visiting always says "oh, what a small tv!" (3…

Different strokes. I would really like if people who prefer dumb devices (TWI - things without internet) would have more choices, but it seems like this is still a niche not really worth catering to.

Re: Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Free Will

#460

Post by KozmoNau7 »

thanatropism wrote: post #453
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've come to the conclusion that I cannot cut out Facebook completely. It's simply too good of a tool, for keeping up to date on bands I like, upcoming concerts and similar events. But I have unliked, unfollowed and hidden as many time wasters as I possibly can, to pare down my FB experience to the basics. I am very vigilant in hiding any that still happen to pop up due to being shared by friends. If someone shares t…

You'd think Tumblr is better for following up on new artists (painters etc.) but it isn't. I have an alt facebook for looking at artists. But frankly I wish the kind of stuff I enjoy (mostly asemic writing and related) was on reddit or tumblr. The facebook interface isn't good for looking at art.

Maybe in an ideal world, Tumblr would be better. However Facebook has much higher penetration, so it's the defacto site of choice.
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