I felt this too recently and I linked it to excessive passive information grazing exacerbated by AI. Symptoms of this are being in a daze or mental fog, and not being in touch with the feeling of curiosity. Reading doesnt help since for me, reading is passive process of meme gathering. What helps in my view is effortful creation in the form of writing code, hand writing essays, creating music etc.
De-Brainrot Vacations
171–180 of 218 posts
Re: De-Brainrot Vacations
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have another suggestion which doesn't contradict yours. When I was younger I used to get bored way more often. I had to wait regularly during a week (e.g. for a bus, friend, appointment) or even at work as a software dev (e.g. compilation which used to take more time). This was also the case when doing some physical activities which didn't require lot of thoughts. Back then, before mobile phones with internet acces…
I doubt that's the only factor, but I agree that it's almost certainly a factor. The modern "tech" industry has filled our waking hours with unceasing demands to do something . Buy this product, watch this video, listen to this podcast, react to this social media post; even "practice self-care" has somehow turned into an obligatory virtue-cultivating task. We obviously had advertising before, but this is a different…
Re: De-Brainrot Vacations
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
> just sleep and wake up This is my default experience. Falling asleep, then waking up an unknown amount of time later as if nothing happened. Maybe I don’t pay attention to my dreams
If that's the case, you are missing the most important aspect of your life.
Re: De-Brainrot Vacations
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think the „my brain isn’t the same anymore“ sensation is pretty universal. One would hope so, but there are countless people that believe this can't ever be the case, and it's just lack of personal motivation that's the problem.
>> I think the „my brain isn’t the same anymore“ sensation is pretty universal. Another pretty universal thing is that we compare to younger versions of ourselves. That might explain the gap.
And often it's also just "compared to 5 or 10 years ago" not 20s vs 40s or 50s.
Re: De-Brainrot Vacations
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
If AI at work is rotting everyone's brain then it should be like a superpower to be unemployed. But that doesn't seem to be the case...
That's because the folks who are unemployed, unfortunately, are largely those who already were further down the curve. We're destroying the minds of those who were supposed to move society forward and gaining nothing elsewhere.
Re: De-Brainrot Vacations
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be the greatest irony if failing to manage the economic fallout of the coming AI revolution had a larger negative impact than the benefit it brings We might just run into the worst recession in history as the heavily skewed service economy quickly runs out of customers who can afford to pay for it
We're already several years into the worst economic depression in history. People aren't having children because they cannot afford a home. But it can get worse of course.
You need to touch grass, friend. I am as concerned with the direction of things as anyone, but this is extreme hyperbole.
Re: De-Brainrot Vacations
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quick example which just happened, my adult son is starting a new job and was looking at the bus schedules to work out what time he would need to leave the house. One bus runs "every 15-20 minutes" and he has to transfer to another bus that runs on a schedule. So he wanted to know what time he had to be at the first bus stop to be on time to work in a worst-case scenario. This problem he presented to Gemini because h…
For public transit in my city they have an official website where you can type in where you are and where you want to go and it plan it all for you. Can choose from arrive asap to picking a time when you want to depart or a time you want to arrive. This has been operational since 2002 . More recently Google Maps has the same functionality and it will work in many cities across the world.
Re: De-Brainrot Vacations
#178Around 2005 it became obvious that consumer software licensing for operating systems was no longer profitable. Nothing like Windows 95 sold again. Apple coupled the OS cost with the high margin hardware. The “profitable” Linux distros catered to high margin enterprise contracts. Windows pivoted toward ads.
When consumers complain about ads on software products, are they offering a viable alternative? Would you pay $250 for Windows Pro Ads Free? To Microsoft’s credit they’ve tried many different ways to package the software, and settled on the ads model.
Re: De-Brainrot Vacations
#179Re: De-Brainrot Vacations
#180I think the „my brain isn’t the same anymore“ sensation is pretty universal. Between addictive online media in our personal lives and AI at work, I think we’ve made mental effort largely optional. That must be a horrible thing. One of my favorite theories is the physical activity transition. In my grandparents‘ generation, physical movement became more optional as work shifted from manual labor to knowledge work or o…
I have another suggestion which doesn't contradict yours. When I was younger I used to get bored way more often. I had to wait regularly during a week (e.g. for a bus, friend, appointment) or even at work as a software dev (e.g. compilation which used to take more time). This was also the case when doing some physical activities which didn't require lot of thoughts. Back then, before mobile phones with internet acces…