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Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria

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Re: Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria

#101

Post by onion2k »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #81
onion2k wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's time for us to recognize that we (the tech community) don't have all of the right answers, and it's time for us to reach out and try to learn, and try to participate in fixing the problems we helped create. Is this like when people in the past said the postal system couldn't ever replace visiting someone, and that the telephone would never replace letters, and that chat apps couldn't beat a phone call.. People i…

have you been outside recently? I mean outside without a phone for a couple of months. Give yourself a no-data diet, and just observe what is going on in others. Wait alone at a bus-stop or alone at a pub or cafe. You can see them addicted to their screens everywhere. It's the norm now to immediately reach for the phone because god forbid they might otherwise feel 2 seconds of boredom. They are no longer human as far…

You don't "fix" loneliness with an external tool. The only solution to fix this is inside you (and it hurts if you do it right).

Thinking this way is utterly toxic. It puts 100% of the onus to resolve an issue on the individual with no room for people to help each other. You might as well be telling depressed people to "think happy thoughts more" or telling anxious people to "snap out of it and be more resourceful".

No amount of claiming "tech is bad" will change the fact that tech is a great way of connecting people. If an app is useful to bring people who need help together with people who want to help them then that is a very good thing.

Re: Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria

#102

Post by Ensorceled »

idclip wrote: post #98

“Since I left Secret I feel alive and aligned with my values and my purpose again.” - Bader, co founder What Bader learned from watching Secret’s users “do this in the dark” was the realization that “actually, we need to learn to do this in the light, to have that same kind of dialogue, but do it openly with each other.” Hell of anti workplace toxicity spot if you ask me. We need to regain this piece of our humanity…

> Im doing l my share, are you ? HN does lean towards the light from what i can see.

I think, in general, HN leans a little towards the light but that is true of humanity in general.

But, there is a boat load of toxicity in this very discussion.

Re: Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria

#103

Post by astura »

stickfigure wrote: post #7
hellotomyrars wrote: post #4

Incredibly vague statements parroting known talking points with 0 substance to show for it. I hate to be cynical but all this `tech to fix the social problems created by tech` really brings out the cynic in me. Realistically I know that we do need new solutions but the solution to a drinking problem isn't to deliver better, more mindful alcohol. Edit: To the comments below, I am not asserting that tech has actually c…

I agree with your evaluation of the article, but I'm tired of this "social problems created by tech" narrative. I grew up in the world before the internet. It was NOT better.

Same here and I completely agree.

Easy, low effort communication has allowed me to much better overcome my poor socialization/abusive childhood and make friends much easier than before. Even something as simple as having a GPS has opened up a lot of doors, as there's places I will go to now that I wouldn't attempt to go to ~10 years ago due to the fear of getting lost.

Re: Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria

#104

Post by SuoDuanDao »

1propionyl wrote: post #59
kabacha wrote: post #48

In a world where there are literal conferences on how to psychologically abuse people to spend money in your app I feel that I'd never trust any sort of app that aims "help my psychologicall health". Combined that with the fact that this whole "reveal article" has no actual substance and trying to sell me the idea and emotion rather than a feature makes feel that I'm being manipulated already and I hadn't even opened…

It never actually had any credibility for these sorts of deep and complex social problems. That was just a lie we told ourselves and investors during the heyday where we naively believed we were going to solve all of the world's problems through apps. It was never real. No one ever actually believed an app could fix loneliness or depression outside of bored investors with too much money and time on their hands and st…

Meetup has actually been pretty effective for me. Granted it's more of a website than an app, not sure the distinction is important though.

Re: Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria

#105

Post by dageshi »

1propionyl wrote: post #55
davidajackson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about whether the most successful products to solve loneliness will be ones that help people connect virtually, versus connect in person. Maybe a healthy balance of both?

"Solve" loneliness. With a "product". Try to get out of your bubble. To anyone who isn't entirely immersed in that bubble this is absolutely insane talk. It sounds sociopathic and out-of-touch. Maybe, just maybe, this isn't a problem you can "solve" by engineering. And maybe, just maybe, the solution (if it exists) isn't a "product".

For some percentage of people with that problem maybe this app will indeed solve it. Loneliness across a population not being something that can be solved with a silver bullet, but lots of lead bullets instead.

Re: Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria

#107

Post by jimhi »

willmw101 wrote: post #95
1propionyl wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I invested in Ikaria and feel like someone should speak up here. > ... but don't write the startup off before you actually try the software itself. Cool. So you want to protect your investment. I get it. But to be honest your comment reads like damage control from someone who is just realizing they might have made a bad investment. So I'm curious: why did you think this startup was ever a good idea to invest in? To…

>When you say "don't write this startup off" does that mean you believe it will actually help combat depression (i.e. are you that dumb)? How are comments like this even remotely productive or good faith?

I believe moderation is more relaxed when it's anything somewhat related to YC. It's a good policy.

Re: Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria

#108

Post by amelius »

onion2k wrote: post #67
1propionyl wrote: post #51

Oh good. Another app. When will people learn that more technology is not only not always the answer, but often the problem? The biggest fallacy of the 21st century is the idea that the shortcomings and collateral effects of the advance of technology can be addressed with more technology. I'm not against technology. I'm not a neo-Luddite. But at the same time, the conception that all of the problems we've created or e…

It's time for us to recognize that we (the tech community) don't have all of the right answers, and it's time for us to reach out and try to learn, and try to participate in fixing the problems we helped create. Is this like when people in the past said the postal system couldn't ever replace visiting someone, and that the telephone would never replace letters, and that chat apps couldn't beat a phone call.. People i…

> That's what tech is.

You cannot hide behind what tech is; you should always consider the context in which tech is used, because both go hand in hand.

Re: Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria

#109

Post by rofo1 »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #81
onion2k wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's time for us to recognize that we (the tech community) don't have all of the right answers, and it's time for us to reach out and try to learn, and try to participate in fixing the problems we helped create. Is this like when people in the past said the postal system couldn't ever replace visiting someone, and that the telephone would never replace letters, and that chat apps couldn't beat a phone call.. People i…

have you been outside recently? I mean outside without a phone for a couple of months. Give yourself a no-data diet, and just observe what is going on in others. Wait alone at a bus-stop or alone at a pub or cafe. You can see them addicted to their screens everywhere. It's the norm now to immediately reach for the phone because god forbid they might otherwise feel 2 seconds of boredom. They are no longer human as far…

Well, it seems like it's not popular to actually say what you can witness with your eyes and near you. I've noticed the same exact thing myself, and I have been observing it for years already.

I wonder if people have noticed similar behavioral things in the past. Something like an exaggeration of Emperor's clothes, where we collectively disregard what is absolutely evident, and then we reason about what the reality should be like, and we believe that just by reasoning/talking/thinking about it, reality will somehow magically change to our liking.

That's my best attempt to not offend anyone while discussing this. Being blunt, I would simply say it's delusional behavior if you haven't noticed the same exact thing. And it's not just in rich countries, either; people in third world countries do the same thing (with phones, digital life, obsession with social media, etc.)

In my opinion, boredom and being alone is not that big of a problem, really. Everyone is alone in this world. There are very few true friendships. Most people just hang out together in the same vicinity, but they are not really friends. There's a lot of envy, hatred, jealousy, you name it. Even Blaise Pascal noticed the same thing: If everybody knew what everyone else says about them, there would be hardly any friends left.

I think only time can create friendship bonds. My friends are people that I know like 1-2 decades. But sharing the same moral values is a prerequisite. Otherwise, it's all fake and a mask and usually it's because one of the "friends" needs something from the other.

It might be a moral decadence/degeneration problem, rather than tech-specific problem. I find it absolutely puzzling how more people aren't aware of this, since it's so simple to witness and there's ample evidence, just go out once in a while..

Re: Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria

#110

Post by andrewzah »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #81
onion2k wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's time for us to recognize that we (the tech community) don't have all of the right answers, and it's time for us to reach out and try to learn, and try to participate in fixing the problems we helped create. Is this like when people in the past said the postal system couldn't ever replace visiting someone, and that the telephone would never replace letters, and that chat apps couldn't beat a phone call.. People i…

have you been outside recently? I mean outside without a phone for a couple of months. Give yourself a no-data diet, and just observe what is going on in others. Wait alone at a bus-stop or alone at a pub or cafe. You can see them addicted to their screens everywhere. It's the norm now to immediately reach for the phone because god forbid they might otherwise feel 2 seconds of boredom. They are no longer human as far…

> They are no longer human as far as I'm concerned.

Well, yeah. We’re cyborgs now and have been for a while. Smartphones have basically become an integrated extension of ourselves.

> It's the norm now to immediately reach for the phone because god forbid they might otherwise feel 2 seconds of boredom.

Probably because I have a wealth of information in my pocket. I can utilize my idle time and study flash cards or chess theory or get back to someone. Sometimes I just meditate or think about things instead.

I do agree that apps can’t possibly fix social issues like people no longer having communities to fall back on. However this comment is an unnecessarily pessimistic take in my opinion. I’m pretty sure people have tried to douse their loneliness with external sources for millennia.

Edit: to be clear, internet / smartphone addiction is a real issue that isn’t seriously discussed as far as I’m aware. However this is different from simply using your phone. In any case being antagonistic and referring to people as not human is probably not a great method of spreading one’s ideas.

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