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I Quit Social Media for a Year

joshcsimmons.com

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Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#191

Post by danans »

hackermang wrote: post #164
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, as I said, it is legal to discriminate against LGBTQ people in much of the country and the federal government had recently rolled back protections for LGBTQ people. Lawyers are not going to take pro bono cases because LGBTQ status is not constitutionally or federally protected.

Should we change the constitution for you?

I'm curious where in the US Constitution you think it states that discrimination on the basis of LGBTQ identity is legal.

The question is about changing federal law to make LGBTQ identity a protected class, under the same principle that race, gender, religion, etc are currently protected.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#192

Post by BurningFrog »

GhettoMaestro wrote: post #131
tempsy wrote: post #55

My biggest issue with social media is less that it's distracting (IMO not necessarily an unhealthy thing) but that it has, for me, more than anything else seemed to make all aspects of my life a competition with others. On Instagram, you're competing with others on who has the happiest life. On LinkedIn, you're competing with others on who has the steepest career trajectory. Even on Twitter, perhaps more acutely in c…

It is all shit. Everywhere you go it will be shit, just a different flavor. That is what I have taken away from life. Social media is simply white-washing shit experiences and pretending they are gold. Life is not always positive, otherwise you are fooling yourself. I am not cynical. I am just a realist. We need to drop this total farce of a behavior and stop conning each other if we hope to rise above it. Life is ha…

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."

   -- George Bernard Shaw

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#193

Post by [deleted] »

hackermang wrote: post #164
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, as I said, it is legal to discriminate against LGBTQ people in much of the country and the federal government had recently rolled back protections for LGBTQ people. Lawyers are not going to take pro bono cases because LGBTQ status is not constitutionally or federally protected.

Should we change the constitution for you?

[deleted]

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#194

Post by darepublic »

tempsy wrote: post #55

My biggest issue with social media is less that it's distracting (IMO not necessarily an unhealthy thing) but that it has, for me, more than anything else seemed to make all aspects of my life a competition with others. On Instagram, you're competing with others on who has the happiest life. On LinkedIn, you're competing with others on who has the steepest career trajectory. Even on Twitter, perhaps more acutely in c…

Its easy for me to control my social media usage because I am unpopular.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#196

Post by agotterer »

pkamb wrote: post #150
agotterer wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I like social media and I’m capable of controlling my usage. I’ve developed some ground rules to ensure a good healthy experience. To start, I have an iOS rule that prevents more than 7 minutes of each social media app per day. I pretty much only use Facebook. After the timer is up that’s it for the day. I honestly enjoy seeing picture of my friends, their kids, their vacations, and the…

> To start, I have an iOS rule that prevents more than 7 minutes of each social media app per day. But when you open the app at minute 8, there's a prominent "Ignore Limit" button right there. Are you relying on mere self control? Or do you have some way to actually prevent app usage?

Most of my usage is in a single session or two short sessions. Once I hit the limit I close the app and I usually don’t come back for the day. I have pretty good self control , but more importantly I want to use my time on other things. If I’m killing time I’d much rather read hacker news, work through my 800 article Pocket backlog, listen to an audio book, or flip through some pictures / memories of my kids.

The limit was a choice I made up front to be a reminder not to waste too much time and to stop and do something else. But honestly, I try not to put too much thought into it. If I’m really enjoying what I’m doing in that moment I’ll give myself an extension for a few minutes. But it’s rare I do that more than once.

I don’t think about it as an addiction that I’m trying to break or a habit I’m trying to avoid. I’ve made the conscious that social media is something I enjoy but don’t want to spend too much time on. So I put an arbitrary limit that reminds me to stop and do something else. My general mindset about most things is that doing it to excess isn’t good. Is wasting your day on social media that much worse than binging Netflix all day? Sure, if social media is causing anxiety, depression, or [enter any other issue here] then it’s something that should be managed. But if you are using it responsibly, not in excess, and are healthy about it, it seems fine to use from time to time with it without arbitrary limits.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#197

Post by c0nducktr »

hackermang wrote: post #164
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, as I said, it is legal to discriminate against LGBTQ people in much of the country and the federal government had recently rolled back protections for LGBTQ people. Lawyers are not going to take pro bono cases because LGBTQ status is not constitutionally or federally protected.

Should we change the constitution for you?

Dude fuck off, you've got a new account with -6 points. Go be an asshole elsewhere.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#198

Post by rjf72 »

adventured wrote: post #167
GhettoMaestro wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is all shit. Everywhere you go it will be shit, just a different flavor. That is what I have taken away from life. Social media is simply white-washing shit experiences and pretending they are gold. Life is not always positive, otherwise you are fooling yourself. I am not cynical. I am just a realist. We need to drop this total farce of a behavior and stop conning each other if we hope to rise above it. Life is ha…

> I am not cynical. I am just a realist. I agree with your broad premise about social media frequently being a poor representation of day to day life. The it's all shit part probably implies you're at least somewhat cynical. It's clearly not all shit, plenty of it certainly is. People frequently live different quality of lives vs their peers in fact; some people live amazing lives, some people live horrible lives. In…

I'm sure you probably know why Coca-Cola is called Coca-Cola. If you don't - cocaine. It was one of the key ingredients in coke's initial product. A less well known example is Vin Mariani. A French wine that was made with a mixture of 6 milligrams of cocaine per ounce of wine endorsed by numerous historical figures including Thomas Edison and Ulysses S. Grant. Edison claimed it helped him stay awake. Oh indeed Mr. Edison.

The reason this is relevant is because the dates for these things start in the mid 1800s. Vin Mariani was made in the 1860s, Coca-Cola was inspired by Vin Mariani and came a decade or two later. Suffice to say the coke craze spread pretty quickly. And it's not like this was coke-lite or anything like that. It was genuine cocaine, same as we have today. And you had similar mental and physical consequences atop raging addiction.

It wouldn't be banned until 1914 and even that was due more to racism than concern for its effects. The New York Times ran a story in 1914 decrying "negro cocaine fiends" [1] which is what finally started the push to it getting banned. The only reason it took so long is because people were addicted and tried to ignore or set aside the negative consequences of it all, or even deny they existed. And that was pretty easy to do - Edison and Grant don't exactly rank near the top of your list of famous druggies. Nonetheless, the consequences were real and widespread.

The point here is that if you go back to the times before 1914, it'd be easy to imagine a future full of an ever larger chunk of the population degenerating under the influence of an ever increasing number of cocaine driven products. And in fact it would have seemed odd to predict anything else. Because when you're predicting the future you never predict 90 degree turns, because they sound absurd. Yet it's paradoxical because one of the few things you can guarantee about the future is that there will be countless more of these 90 degree turns.

[1 raw text] - http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/Negro_cocaine_fi...

[1 New York Times paywalled version] - https://www.nytimes.com/1914/02/08/archives/negro-cocaine-fi...

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#199

Post by allthecybers »

I ditched Facebook long ago, Twitter has waaayyy to much politics and I’m leaning toward closing down LinkedIn because it has gotten bad lately with too much news and ads... it’d already be closed if I hadn’t gotten my last three or four jobs from it.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#200

Post by c0nducktr »

hyperdunc wrote: post #175
istjohn wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slave labor built this country.

I don't see how such sweeping statements about the nature of a country are useful. Slave labor was only one component of practically all great countries/empires. The West was the first to outlaw it. The US in particular was built upon the hard-earned lessons of the past, including the moral worth of individual liberty.

How is the US in particular built upon the hard-earned lessons of the past. Because it is younger?

This just sounds like more American exceptionalism that most of the world is tired of, and that includes many Americans.

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