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Making the Internet Boring

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Re: Making the Internet Boring

#71

Post by cindyllm »

tancop wrote: post #61
getpokedagain wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people not guessing Putin Trump Xi Modi

Replace Modi with Netanyahu and maybe Xi with Kim. These two are dictators but don't really care about things outside of their region (other than Chinese exploitation in Africa). They want to stay in power not take over the whole world. Israel is abusing Holocaust guilt in Europe to get away with genocide and massive cyber ops against their own allies and open bribery in US elections. And North Korea is so insane tha…

[dead]

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#72

Post by carlosjobim »

Gecko4072 wrote: post #30
jasode wrote: 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…

How did that person who uploaded the YouTube video figure it out? They didn't have a video to watch. So why couldn't you? I'd say it's more of specific hypothetical, and I don't understand how one couldn't read about a fuse on a forum or in a manual and diagnose with a DMM. Sure, YouTube is convenient because we are all out of time, all the time. It's also a further reflection of how helpless we have become with rega…

> They didn't have a video to watch. So why couldn't you?

You can of course say the same thing about reading books, instruction manuals, asking somebody for advice, and so on.

Why should there exist any instruction manuals, when you could figure out everything in them for yourself. You aren't a stupid idiot, are you? Then why would you need a manual? And why would you ever ask other people for advice? That's only for stupid idiots who can't figure out things for themselves - not for hackers.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#74

Post by yndoendo »

endemic wrote: post #70
rglover wrote: 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…

The mantra I've heard is "resist and replace." It's not enough to fight a bad habit, you have to (learn to) replace it with something constructive (i.e. fill the void).

Alice Cooper did this. He replaced his addiction with drugs for an addiction for golf.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#75

Post by EvanAnderson »

Sha1rholder wrote: post #12

I uninstalled some of my additive apps and enabled gray scale after reading this... Hope it helps - from a phone addict

I've been doing grayscale for about a year now. Sadly, I've discovered most of my wasted time is spent reading, which works fine in grayscale.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#76

Post by yauneyz »

I had the exact same problem with LeechBlock override, so I built talysman.app, which is basically Brick (the phone app) but for desktop. If your problem is solely on your phone, just use Brick, same principle but on the phone.

The key point is that you can only unblock when a physical usb drive (paired with the app) is inserted.

I've found this is the "just right" amount of friction. Too much friction (like impossible to override) and you have to be careful about when you turn it on, in case you genuinely need Reddit or YouTube or something. Too little friction and you just always override. But having to walk over to the next room to override is perfect.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#77

Post by -0_0- »

The trick I started using for those infinite scroll apps (that are basically digital crack) is that I made a pact that I had to close the app the moment something appeared that was obviously trying to make me angry, upset or indignant.

It was initially an attempt to train the algorithms away from emotionally exploitation, but for the most part that was never fixed while my screen time dropped to almost zero.

As an upside I'm now also much more aware when a post is trying to manipulate my emotions, and I've come to realise how a majority of reddit posts are designed to undermine basic faith in society and your fellow humans. Horrifying to think about the implications, but glad I at least have a personal handle on it now.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#78

Post by zlokki »

Liftyee wrote: post #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…

The feeds and recommendation algorithms are the real time-eaters for me. The things I tried: - chrome extensions: unhook, stayfocusd, news feed eradicator - deleted youtube watch history and forbid to collect data for recommendations, which effectively disabled yt shorts - grayscale display for my phone - switching from news aggregators and social apps with recommendations to basic RSS feeds

But even I consume information now only from my carefully curated subscriptions I realized I still need to filter out most of the articles. E.g https://news.ycombinator.com/best has ~20 articles per day and this is only one RSS source. So, I just LLM-filter them.

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