The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now • Hacker News Board

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#331

Post by robocat » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 3:20 AM UTC

99954bb63ccc wrote: post #285

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 extre…

Terrible domain, but okay article:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/trust-games/202111/t...

Or search HN for "cynical genius"

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#332

Post by lesostep » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 8:30 AM UTC

lofaszvanitt wrote: post #150

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…

Good luck nurturing a garden, when every day someone tears down a tree inside or robs you of the fruits.

The thing is you have to imagine a better garden in order to build one. Maybe you have to imagine bigger fence, or a guard, or moving house to a better part of town, or even a social change that would provide food for the hungry so they wouldn't feel the need to steal

(You might think the last point is the most naive one, but in my experience the economic growth was the only thing that actually worked)

Hopelessness has it's own self-fulfillment. In order to change a thing you have to wish for something, and if you can't imagine a better future, then you can't get one

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#333

Post by tremon » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 10:53 AM UTC

mindwok wrote: post #306

watwut wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont want to go through ANY of that crazy shit. And I dont want my kids to go through it either. And based on hostory, violent, cruel, oppressive shit can take looong time a hit huge amounts of people.

Nobody in history wanted to either. Unfortunately we don’t get a choice.

If you're in the traditional West, you did get a choice. And many actively voted for violent, cruel, oppressive predator shit. And I don't just mean MAGA, that's equally true for AfD, FN, FdI, SSZ, Spartans, ReformUK, Likud, etc.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#334

Post by Valakas_ » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 12:26 PM UTC

Biologist123 wrote: post #24

> People increasingly behave like addicts because addiction is the business model. I sense my internet addiction got a lot worse in recent years. I don’t use social media, but I consume news, blogs and newsletters - and comment threads - voraciously. I think the addiction began as soon as I started to work at a desk behind a computer which had internet access - 20+ years ago. Like putting an alcoholic to work behind…

It's not you.

This is the result of a simple equation:

The more time you spend on an online website/app the more ads they can show you. And with that, the more info they make from you, the more relevant the ads become, and the more money they make.

Keeping you glued to their website or app is the goal of "free to use" social media apps.

If i had no ethics, and corporations as naturally amoral entities don't, i'd hire PhDs in psychology in order to try to employ tactics to keep you engaged and spending as much time in the app as possible. This, btw, is exactly what they have been doing.

Tiktok became super big in western world around the time of covid, and that one was the first app i immediately noticed how stupidly addictive and "brain rotting" it was. Soon after Instagram introduced Reels, Youtube Shorts, and Facebook their own shorts.