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The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

thewalrus.ca

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Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#171

Post by crazygringo »

threecheese wrote: post #167
crazygringo wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fascinating comment that really made me think. And I'd like to present you with a different perspective. You write that "My autistic perspective is that there is only a system of the world". But it's important to realize that the "system of the world" you've developed is from your perspective exclusively. You are modeling everybody in your system, and you may be doing your best to be 100% objective and not…

This reminds me of a quote from somewhere: All models are useful, none are correct. I (not OP) make a strong effort to be objective in my modeling of the world (even when it hurts), as it’s the only tool I have to understand and predict behavior and behavioral expectations. I wish we had access to predefined objective mental models, or could share them with each other (copy program structure and state across minds).

> or could share them with each other

Honestly, I'd say literature and fictional works generally come the closest to that. Sitting down with a novel written by someone from a vastly different background from yours is kind of the closest you can get to seeing the world through someone else's eyes.

Obviously not spy thrillers and the like, but novels that are more about real life.

Another really interesting resource is some of the podcasts that do ~hour-long interviews with famous people and really dig into their childhood, motivations, etc. Dax Shephard is particularly good at this. Discovering how vastly different people's backgrounds are, the big choices they made in life, and the unexpected factors that contributed to those choices.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#172

Post by skissane »

elorant wrote: post #26
skissane wrote: post #4

The other day I was talking to a psychologist about [difficult personal situation which I am unable to discuss publicly] and she said to me “This must be really damaging to your self-worth.” And, my honest internal reaction to her statement (although I didn’t say it out loud to her) was “Self-worth, what is that?” Because I’m not sure if I have any? I don’t mean that in the negative sense that I think I am worthless…

How about integrity? Do you find that relevant? Usually people with integrity have high self-esteem because they adhere to a certain set of ethics. I'm not trying in any way to pass judgement, just to give you a different perspective.

> How about integrity? Do you find that relevant?

I feel a very strong ethical obligation to our children. I often worry about whether I've met that ethical obligation to them.

But when I'm thinking about that, I'm thinking about our kids, and what I have done and failed to do – I'm not thinking about "self worth". I feel guilty about some things – whether I should or I shouldn't – but my mind doesn't associate those feelings with the phrase "self worth".

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#173

Post by plaidfuji »

InkCanon wrote: post #36
nemo44x wrote: post #9

What I love about these types of articles is it reminds me how fortunate I am to live in the wealthiest and most comfortable time Earth has ever seen and it’s very likely to get better. These types of existential panics aren’t possible when you’re sustenance farming as nearly every human that has existed was forced by nature to endure until a painful, horrifying death from disease or illness perished them. In order t…

Depends on what you mean by good. In Maslow's pyramid, the lowest levels are being optimised for while the highest are suffering greatly. By what are approximate proxies for high level metrics like self fulfilment and satisfaction, things are getting worse (especially in young people). Rates of suicide, depression, mental illness, self harm, addictions (drugs and alcohol), obesity, levels of social interaction, stres…

I wonder what would be the optimal balance of material comfort vs self fulfillment. I picture a typical Pareto frontier. Did we push too far to one end? Did we actually pass optimality a few decades ago? Is there a bulge in the middle of the curve where we can still regain some additional self fulfillment while maintaining our standard of living? If we just regulate away all social media for example, do we still get the benefits of technology without the burden of perfect knowledge of our own extrinsic worth? Or is the desire for perfect knowledge simply too fundamental to human nature, even if it causes us self-destructive mental anguish?

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#174

Post by carapace »

carapace wrote: post #121
InkCanon wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you mean by good. In Maslow's pyramid, the lowest levels are being optimised for while the highest are suffering greatly. By what are approximate proxies for high level metrics like self fulfilment and satisfaction, things are getting worse (especially in young people). Rates of suicide, depression, mental illness, self harm, addictions (drugs and alcohol), obesity, levels of social interaction, stres…

> The spiritual/philosophical progress of humanity has stagnated. I can't agree. It doesn't make headlines or garner clicks but progress in spiritual/philosophical progress has accelerated greatly in the last five or six decades. E.g. there's an actual algorithm for spiritual progress that was developed in 1989 from a school of psychology that is based in part on the Chomsky Transformational Grammar.[1] As Gibson sai…

s/Direct/Directed/

(how embarrassing)

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#175

Post by opo »

threecheese wrote: post #167
crazygringo wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fascinating comment that really made me think. And I'd like to present you with a different perspective. You write that "My autistic perspective is that there is only a system of the world". But it's important to realize that the "system of the world" you've developed is from your perspective exclusively. You are modeling everybody in your system, and you may be doing your best to be 100% objective and not…

This reminds me of a quote from somewhere: All models are useful, none are correct. I (not OP) make a strong effort to be objective in my modeling of the world (even when it hurts), as it’s the only tool I have to understand and predict behavior and behavioral expectations. I wish we had access to predefined objective mental models, or could share them with each other (copy program structure and state across minds).

> All models are useful, none are correct.

I have generally heard this as "All models are wrong, but some are useful" which is attributed to the statistician George E. P. Box.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#176

Post by detourdog »

threecheese wrote: post #166
detourdog wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The closest conclusion is that some people are flexible and looking forward and others are rigid and looking for reasons to be dissatisfied.

This was a very interesting discussion, and I just wanted to note that both of you are extremely articulate and I quite enjoyed reading your thoughts on this. - random stranger

I was reflecting on this conversation and since a random stranger seems to be interested….

I wish I had been kinder with my description of the less flexible. A better description I think is rigid and relates to others through dissatisfaction.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#178

Post by searchableguy »

jakubmazanec wrote: post #11

> a server tells me her manager won’t give her the Saturday-night money shift until she has more followers Does this really happen? Or maybe just in the USA? Why would I, as a customer, care about server's follower count? Is it somehow correlated with their performance?

I sometimes get hand written note to review and mention the name of the person who made my food on food delivery app.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#179

Post by [deleted] »

passion__desire wrote: post #43
InkCanon wrote: post #27

IMO the least known, yet most powerful, driver to understand the world in the next century. The commodification of everything - including deeply personal and abstract things like attention and love - have been commoditised. Not in the abstract, rhetorical sense that Marx and other such people mean, but in the engineering sense where liquid exchanges with sub millisecond latency are trading such commodities. Everyone…

I sometimes think "algorithms" understand me more than other people. Through my actions, they can diagnose me better than any doctor. e.g. meme therapy pages on facebook and tiktoks. I believe a constant stream of "best matched tiktoks/reels" to my situation" would be equivalent in value to going to a 3-star michelin restaurant and having their best dishes. It is available to everyone.

[deleted]

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#180

Post by darby_nine »

Aeolun wrote: post #120
darby_nine wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People of integrity with utilitarian leaning are often labeled amoral or unemotional. Utilitarianism is a moral concept. I think you just mean analytical.

Maybe, but some people think it’s weird when you say “of course I’d divert the train over that grandpa”

I think it's interesting that the trolley problem is so useless you could interpret this as a statement for or against virtually any ideology or moral framework. Hence my rejection of any moral implication to bare analysis.
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