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Making the Internet Boring

cemrehancavdar.com

41–50 of 78 posts

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#41
post #28

YouTube's only goal is to make more money. Most YouTubers' only goal is to get more views. Sure it can be useful but that's a perfect excuse to live on forever. People were fine before YouTube, and you can learn anything from words an images. I recommend taking a page out of the FSF's book and just straight up not using it, because it doesn't respect its users.

>, and you can learn anything from words an images. A lot of info on Youtube is not available in alternative forms such as books or blogs with just words and images. E.g. A random person uploads a video on how he repaired my particular washing machine by isolating the relay that broke. It's not in blog form because the guy is not an HTML expert or WordPress user. Instead, he simply used his smartphone to record a 10…

>So I would end up paying a guy $150 to tell me to pay another $1000 for a new washing machine...

I agree that there's a huge difference between $2 and $1150, but you're absolutely positive that only this Youtuber knew how to do it and that no repair man would've been able to?

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#42
Here are some things I try:

Turn off Notifications.

Turn off location services except when navigating or calling the taxi.

Uninstall as many apps as possible, use browser.

Use adblocking anti tracking browser (I use Duck, alt suggestions welcome).

Report unknown / unwanted senders as spam.

That said, I am a NEWS ADDICT. There are four world leaders whose downfall I eagerly await, and frequently check the news for this ;-) .. you might be able to guess three but not the fourth.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#43
None of this has ever worked for me. I still struggle.

What does help is understanding that the problem is often me. Not that the internet isn't a hellscape of addicting design, or that I've not been flex to screens of some sort or another since childhood, but that my level of engagement with it scales with my general wellbeing.

In the recovery world, they talk about HALT: hungry, angry, lonely, tired. I'm worst on my devices when I'm one of those. Oh, or hungover.

Content blockers and greyscale and whatnot are all fine, but I've had most success looking away from technology to help.

I still suck at this, I bet a lot of us do, but knowing myself has been most helpful. Being able to understand why I'm doing it helps me break the circuit and engage more with other things.

It's an ongoing battle though, I hate it.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#44

Here are some things I try: Turn off Notifications. Turn off location services except when navigating or calling the taxi. Uninstall as many apps as possible, use browser. Use adblocking anti tracking browser (I use Duck, alt suggestions welcome). Report unknown / unwanted senders as spam. That said, I am a NEWS ADDICT. There are four world leaders whose downfall I eagerly await, and frequently check the news for thi…

[deleted]

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#46
post #41
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, and you can learn anything from words an images. A lot of info on Youtube is not available in alternative forms such as books or blogs with just words and images. E.g. A random person uploads a video on how he repaired my particular washing machine by isolating the relay that broke. It's not in blog form because the guy is not an HTML expert or WordPress user. Instead, he simply used his smartphone to record a 10…

>So I would end up paying a guy $150 to tell me to pay another $1000 for a new washing machine... I agree that there's a huge difference between $2 and $1150, but you're absolutely positive that only this Youtuber knew how to do it and that no repair man would've been able to?

Well, I'm reasonably certain there are dozens of YouTubers who figured it out. I wouldn't be surprised if I could figure it out myself, although it's unclear. But yes, repairmen, they would not be replacing a single relay. They would replace the whole board if it's available. Otherwise, the whole thing is scrapped.

Repairing a relay is something that's easy for someone to do by themselves. However, it is not worth it for repairmen. By the time they get the relay, which means a second trip for another $150, plus spend the time to unsolder it and re-solder it, so a bit more of their time, so now we're up to $400. Worse, they replaced the relay and sometimes it turns out the relay failed because something else is broke and another thing is just going to break the new relay right away and now they have to spend another $150 on a repair trip to figure out what was wrong that caused the relay to burn out, replace that part and replace the relay. We are very close to the cost of a new washing machine right now and that is assuming whatever is wrong is easy to repair and not the result of something else that is also broken. Thus, the right answer for a repairman is you make the simple, cheap, quick fixes you can or you just sell them a new one before you end up wasting more of their money than it

Modern factories are very efficient at making things, however, that only works when the assembly line is there. A repairman working alone doesn't have all the advantage of a factory. I was recently talking to one of our factory engineers at work and they said this part, whatever it was, took two 'man hours' to build in our factory. But a repairman just taking it apart to replace one cheap seal and putting it back together would be at 10 man hours. This is why more and more things are going to modules that can be replaced. If a repair person can come out and look and say, this module is broken, grab a new one, shove it in, and it works, they can be in and out quickly and it's cost-effective. If they have to tear down to the relay level and diagnose things if you're at why it really broke, that quickly becomes more labor and thus more cost than it's worth.

Your devices in the 1960s did work and they were worth repairing because they were a lot simpler. Those devices also didn't have nearly as much automation in the assembly line and so there were many more man hours to build in the first place. They were also, although this is less true depending on what we're talking about, but very often had unreelable parts that because they were broke often, they specifically designed those for your parable. You fixed a 1960s TV by replacing all the tubes, something that was not very hard to do because they put more expensive sockets under each tube to make it easy

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#47

The internet is a rich tapestry of human knowledge and experience. When I scroll Instagram, I often discover incredible new artists who present in human form. Once you start tapping like on things, the journey of discovery is almost biblical. The secret is learning to use your tools to bring joyful moments of surrender into your otherwise mundane existence.

Satire? Edit: looking at your other comments, the answer is yes

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Re: Making the Internet Boring

#48
post #40
post #10

Putting in blockers and the like helps, but what I've found worked best was to consider this quote by Anthony DeMello: "When you fight something, you're tied to it forever. As long as you're fighting it, you’re giving it power." When I learned to stop feeling bad/guilty/thinking this was a problem to solve and just let my mind drift, I found that my mind naturally learned when it was disciplined work time vs. browse…

as fun as that sounds, my experience has been the polar opposite. if I let my mind drift, it's going to get cheap dopamine kicks from stupid YouTube videos all day. You have an army of behavioral psychologists at Alphabet and Meta working against you; it's only fair to fight back.

Yeah, the problem with "not fighting it" is that you'll naturally do what feels the best in the moment, and having fun will always feel the best in the moment over doing something boring.

The fall only comes later when all your having fun leads to a lot of not having fun (work piles up, relationships sever, projects fail etc.) I find living in a certain amount of fear of fun is healthy. If I feel like I've been having fun for too long, I've probably been neglecting something important that is going to really ruin my fun later.

I say all this, as I scroll through HackerNews looking for hits of dopamine instead of continuing trying to fix the CI issues that have been paralyzing my work for almost a day now. That's not good to be a fun conversation in my 1-1 if I ignore it for much longer...

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#50
I used to start the same place the author did with total blocks but kept overriding for real purposes then getting sidetracked. Identified the real problem as feeds which choose what to watch for me instead of me choosing. So I use custom apps and extensions to remove all the feeds but keep the search and messaging functionality (Feurstagram). Sometimes I catch myself opening the page out of habit but then realising I have literally nothing I actively want to watch/search for ...
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