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The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

stephendiehl.com

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Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#281

Post by s1artibartfast »

noir_lord wrote: post #63
stillpointlab wrote: post #31

One thing people go through as they age is an elevation of cynicism and general misanthropy. After decades of being disappointed when naive idealism and speculative optimism fail, one can just get down on it all. It is really hard not to succumb to this. It requires active effort and sometimes even a willful ignorance. "turn a blind eye" is the idiom here. Monty Python's "Always look on the bright side of life" kind…

I think that's why historical education is so important (or just liking history as in my case), looked through the lens of history all of the current shit as bad as it is, is really nothing all that new either, the only constant is change after all. As the aphorism goes: History may not repeat but it sure does rhyme.

And I think history provides some prophylactic counterbalance to the cynical narrative. To hear some people talk, people are inherently evil, and the US has been a downhill project to oppress since the days of the founding.

History shows that things can and do improve when people try. The overall trajectory has been positive, even if bumpy.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#282

Post by busymom0 »

dominick-cc wrote: post #128
linster wrote: post #81

Ok article, and has similar points to “You should quit Reddit” (which was a pretty good book). About 2/3 in, the sentences got choppier and shorter, and you could tell some context rot was setting in.

I did not pick up on this being ai generated. I guess this was the first time I am realizing I can no longer tell, and it doesn't feel good.

This below example of "it's not x, it's y" often seems to be a giveaway of LLM:

> The platforms did not invent fear, greed, loneliness, or status anxiety. They industrialised their extraction.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#283

Post by card_zero »

II2II wrote: post #272
akudha wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most dangerous part of this addiction is that it doesn't feel like addiction. Suppose we spend 4 hours in an afternoon consuming random content - starting somewhere on a Google search, landing on Wikipedia, end up reading dozens of articles on various topics in that 4 hours. Unlike alcohol or drugs, this is knowledge addiction - afterall, we learned about a bunch of things in those 4 hours, didn't we? We didn't s…

> The most dangerous part of this addiction is that it doesn't feel like addiction. I've started framing addiction as something that we feel compelled to do even when we know it has a detrimental effect on more important aspects of our life. In that respect, yes, it does feel like an addiction. > Unlike alcohol or drugs, this is knowledge addiction - afterall, we learned about a bunch of things in those 4 hours, didn…

For the purposes of apocalyptic fiction, I wonder what the overlap is between people who have an offline copy of Wikipedia and people who have only casual security or no password. I can imagine a survivor hunting around for it for a very long time.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#284

Post by card_zero »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #244
hypfer wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah tbh my sea lion warning light turned on on the first reply. Right now it is flashing, so I will pull over and call AAA

Too bad, I was genuinely curious about how you viewed cynicism, and thought I was being clear and polite in my questions. Self-deprecating even. I think your reaction is rather ironic given the context. An example of how people can't even talk to each other anymore.

There's Diogenes, the original cynic with a dog's lifestyle, and there's the Diogenes Club in Sherlock Holmes. In this classical context it's about being unconventional and challenging (challengingly silent, even). You can say "that's just skepticism" but it comes with a certain sulky refusenik flavor, and yet it's defensible as a form of individualism, and presumably positive, at least because it's one form of diversity and critical thought.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#285

Post by 99954bb63ccc »

stillpointlab wrote: post #31

One thing people go through as they age is an elevation of cynicism and general misanthropy. After decades of being disappointed when naive idealism and speculative optimism fail, one can just get down on it all. It is really hard not to succumb to this. It requires active effort and sometimes even a willful ignorance. "turn a blind eye" is the idiom here. Monty Python's "Always look on the bright side of life" kind…

> One thing people go through as they age is an elevation of cynicism and general misanthropy. After decades of being disappointed when naive idealism and speculative optimism fail, one can just get down on it all. > It is really hard not to succumb to this. It requires active effort and sometimes even a willful ignorance.

I feel this very strongly over the past couple of years. As always, hackernews is full of extremely smart, well read people so I'd really appreciate any good reading material on this so I can better understand it. Tips are appreciated as well (healthy diet and regular exercise, good extended blood labs (think like Function health), good consistent sleeep habits).

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#287

Post by orand »

inigyou wrote: post #163
dweekly wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last thing my father said to me before he passed was to keep people looking forward to the future. It's easy to romanticize the past and it can seem intellectually sophisticated to despair about the future, when in fact the overwhelming evidence is that things have gotten much much better for nearly everyone on just about any objective axis you can pick.

Except they haven't.

Good one. Refute an unsubstantiated claim with an unsubstantiated rebuttal. I'm sure we can all learn from that. /s

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#288

Post by negura »

I started using the Internet because of the convenience it offered. Now that convenience is gone. Due to ads, surveillance, toxicity, misinformation, slop.. It just isn't worth being online anymore. So instead, now I read books, meet with people, attent talks, go to a museum. It's not complicated when you think about it...

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#289

Post by j13k »

stillpointlab wrote: post #31

One thing people go through as they age is an elevation of cynicism and general misanthropy. After decades of being disappointed when naive idealism and speculative optimism fail, one can just get down on it all. It is really hard not to succumb to this. It requires active effort and sometimes even a willful ignorance. "turn a blind eye" is the idiom here. Monty Python's "Always look on the bright side of life" kind…

Source for Mr Rogers quote:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100125201022/https://www.pbs.o...

‘Fred Rogers often told this story about when he was a boy and would see scary things on the news: "My mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of 'disaster,' I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers-so many caring people in this world."’

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#290

Post by [deleted] »

dominick-cc wrote: post #128
linster wrote: post #81

Ok article, and has similar points to “You should quit Reddit” (which was a pretty good book). About 2/3 in, the sentences got choppier and shorter, and you could tell some context rot was setting in.

I did not pick up on this being ai generated. I guess this was the first time I am realizing I can no longer tell, and it doesn't feel good.

[deleted]
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