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I'm an addict

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581–590 of 602 posts

Re: I'm an addict

#581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an interpretation that disagrees with what I said, I know. Whatever I say, there will be an interpretation out there that disagrees with what I said.

Even in Buddhism. I find pretty much anytime I say anything about it online I have to add "in most lineages" because there are certainly dogmatic ones.

Random question - what resources would you recommend to someone who is interested in learning more about Buddhism?

I really like the quote you've posted. I dislike bullshit. There are many bullshit Buddhism resources out there. Where can I find the real thing?

Re: I'm an addict

#582
post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be aware of the fact that different factions/sects exist within the major religions, similar to how humans physically evolve separate traits. Some of those off-shoots will be more successful than others. I'm sure you have some great ideas about living. Let's check the reproductive rate of the people who follow your ideas in a thousand years.

I was not suggesting that evolution does not exists at all in religions but rather that is actively fight back by its participants.

Your DNA does the same. It tries to reduce "mistakes" and the mistakes are the evolution. And it's generally a very slow process.

Re: I'm an addict

#584
I'm still not convinced that the symptoms described in the article can be considered a disorder, any more than 'not exercising' can be a disorder. He's choosing to do certain things and not do other things. The consequences are bad. But is that a mental illness problem, or just that the consequences aren't bad enough, the behavior not repugnant enough, and thus he doesn't care enough? With a gun to his head, would he do his errands? Under threat of immediate termination from work? I'm guessing yes. So at what point is that a mental disorder and not just him deciding to not do things he doesn't want to do?

Philosophically, how can we say that a person's poor choices of behavior are mental disorders when they don't even lead to life threatening outcomes? Is smoking a mental disorder? He wishes he could quit, but keeps buying packs. Is being fat a mental disorder? He wishes he was thin, but doesn't exercise and keeps eating pizza. Is simply not grinding leetcode a mental disorder? He wants a higher salary, yet doesn't even practice leetcode or interview questions.

He wants to stop procrastinating his work, but he watches YouTube instead until all the work simply must be done in a long all-nighter. Is this a mental disorder? Apparently to a lot of people, yes, this is ADHD! You need lifelong medication now; your brain doesn't work right! No, this doesn't sound quite right to me.

Addiction is real, and he likely really is addicted to the internet. That's a real problem he should fix. And it may be that ADHD medication helps him fix it; I've taken Adderall for a period of time and it certainly fixed any procrastination tendencies I had as well (I don't have ADHD). But if we're going to make the case that medication helps and thus it should be taken, why do we need to pretend it's about a mental disorder? It helps me focus and perform better at work, so it should be available to me, no? Or does its help have to meet an arbitrary level of helpfulness to be permitted?

Basically, I'm not convinced ADHD is anything more than a label delineating one end of a spectrum of self determination. The cutoff seems arbitrary, and there is a lot of reverse engineering to arrive at the end result of medication: He would be helped by Adderall, thus he must have ADHD, thus his procrastination is actually a mental disorder and not just being lazy. We can go down that road as a society, but I prefer the road where we just collectively admit, "Yeah I'm lazy so I take a pill and it helps," without the veneer of noble medicine curing Real Disorders.

Re: I'm an addict

#585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, or mostly just mixes that go on for an hour or two which I can put on so I don't end up distracted clicking through tracks and discovering shit I want to get. I also have to remind myself to set time aside for checking tracklists on tracks. Helps I got a side gig playing music haha but my bookmarks on that are gargantuan. The dancehall reggae section alone is massive. I never listen to that and get stuff done,…

Lucy Stoner on Soundcloud has been good for me. I've been putting https://soundcloud.com/lucystoner/bangface# on pretty much on loop. Before that it was DJ Sharpnel's Youtube channel. It's an open question for me what the best ratio of beats to memes is; I like when the music makes me smile a few times over a track, but is mostly fast, melodic rhythm without voice - or voice without content; remixes with japanese sam…

Holy crap, someone knows about DJ Sharpnel—who are of course in fact a duo and are producers, not DJs. The music is truly a ‘cure for ADHD’, though (in the spirit of https://youtu.be/DDFNgs7gp8M). Plus they have a whole label of friendly producers with similar taste and were around actively for more than a decade, so there's plenty of goodness.

Re: I'm an addict

#586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High BPM music does it for me.

Same, or mostly just mixes that go on for an hour or two which I can put on so I don't end up distracted clicking through tracks and discovering shit I want to get. I also have to remind myself to set time aside for checking tracklists on tracks. Helps I got a side gig playing music haha but my bookmarks on that are gargantuan. The dancehall reggae section alone is massive. I never listen to that and get stuff done,…

> hard techno shit out of Europe lately

I'm gonna need names.

Re: I'm an addict

#587
I have a bit of the same problem. I "solve it" by removing all video recommendations and blanking out the Home page. My YouTube watching is now constrained to the Subscriptions tab! I feel this lets me get the positives from YouTube, and limits my potential for misuse.

I don't use the YouTube app on mobile (instead using Firefox), so I'm able to use UBlock's cosmetic filters to remove the 'dangerous' elements. Recently the filter changed and I got sucked into recommended videos again (with significantly increased watchtime the last month or so). This post made me fix it again!

Also, my phone's Wellbeing settings allows set time restrictions on specific apps. It's a bit too easy to "game", but at least it gives me some feedback on how much time I spend on things.

But honestly, we're only animals: slacking off is a desired trait. We just need to put in some guardrails to avoid overindulgence. Good luck! :-)

Re: I'm an addict

#588
post #15

This hits hard. I recently counted hours watched on YT (via history export) and OH MY GD, it averaged around 3 hours daily throught the year, for several years. I just imagined WHAT IF I have spent this amount of effort and time on ANYTHING else: playing an instrument, learning a new language, coding a side-project. The thought scared me so much, aka the difference between current me and "potential" me that I have ab…

Did you estimate the hours by summing total video lenghts in history? As I recall there was no time spent stat, just video history eothout watchtime indication.

Ackshually, the mobile apps have statistics on watching, which seem to include what was watched on the desktop. Here's the support page about the feature: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9052667

Apparently videos watched on the desktop aren't counted correctly, but I imagine it's not worse than summing the durations.

Re: I'm an addict

#589
post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lucy Stoner on Soundcloud has been good for me. I've been putting https://soundcloud.com/lucystoner/bangface# on pretty much on loop. Before that it was DJ Sharpnel's Youtube channel. It's an open question for me what the best ratio of beats to memes is; I like when the music makes me smile a few times over a track, but is mostly fast, melodic rhythm without voice - or voice without content; remixes with japanese sam…

Holy crap, someone knows about DJ Sharpnel—who are of course in fact a duo and are producers, not DJs. The music is truly a ‘cure for ADHD’, though (in the spirit of https://youtu.be/DDFNgs7gp8M ). Plus they have a whole label of friendly producers with similar taste and were around actively for more than a decade, so there's plenty of goodness.

Their VRDJ vtuber stuff qualifies as DJ work, surely? (Even if it sounds very different than their album stuff.)

Anyway, my pet theory is that the fast music acts as a stimulant, raising activity in every part of the brain - including executive function. Same principle as amphetamines.

Re: I'm an addict

#590
post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else?

People are motivated by many things. They don't need fairy tales. Religion and superstition has ruled over people for thousands of years. Let's give evidenced-based approaches a few millennia before we go back to that garbage.

So far evidence-based approach seems to end up as YOLO-style approaches.

Overall culture seems to be more and more nihilistic and individualistic after dropping religion. Few people may be doing the right thing and say that we have to care about future generations. But wast majority, looking at their actions, doesn’t care.

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