Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is AA ?
Probably “Alcoholics Anonymous”
Yes, alcoholic anonymous
Doomscrolling ourselves to death
331–340 of 347 posts
Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Wake up. All default subs are left wing crazy. Worldnews bans you instantly if you disagree with Israel. That's a default sub, yeah? Left or right wing?
Now do /r/news or /r/politics , instant band for anything not leftist.
Do they ban you for opposing Israel?
Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
The real offence is posting without being a bot. The subreddit has to look a certain way, idk what they have in mind but always something, they use bots to make it look that way, you can also post if you contribute to the project but if you ever go against their unstated wishes, then bam!
All of this existed before, all the way back to BBS culture (minus the bots mostly). What Reddit did was hyperscale it. People are tribal and they enforce adherence to their chosen tribe's ways. It's pretty depressing to look back and see that one of the quickest paths to three commas was to monetize it.
BBS people weren't conspiring to create the appearance that everyone on the BBS thinks a certain way and talks about certain topics. If an operator was doing that, he didn't need real accounts to fake posts.
Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is akin to arguing that saying coffee has caffeine in it is misleading, because it's not the same amount as one might get in a powdered concentrate of pure caffeine. Yeah, but it does have caffeine in it and Coke did have cocaine in it. And the effective dose was significant. It was marketed precisely on this point; it being a "nerve stimulant", "brain tonic", cure all for hysteria, melancholy, and more.…
> I think this is akin to arguing that saying coffee has caffeine in it is misleading I don't agree. I don't know anybody snorting caffeine lines and it doesn't have all the connotations of an illicit drug either. > It was marketed precisely on this point Sure, but that was then, not today. That mismatch is part of why this outrage is misplaced.
The point is you're arguing that it was diluted rather than concentrated cocaine. Sure, but it was indeed cocaine all the same. Cocaine tolerance is also, oddly enough, based on quantity rather than consistency. And so people taking small doses over time likely had negligible tolerance contrasted against a cokehead of today going for a bump as a warmup.
Its exact potency are going to be impossible to assess because the only people that knew how much cocaine was in each serving, early on, took it to the grave with themselves. But the thing we can say is that (1) it was very non-zero and (2) consumption of said non-zero amount of cocaine was relatively widespread.
Again I think it works very well as an analog to modern times. It's fairly certain that companies have run internal studies on addictiveness since 'engagement' is already little more than a euphemism for such, kept at arm's reach. Those studies will never see the light of day, and have almost certainly been long since wiped, so we'll never know exactly how much they knew. Other than they obviously knew and know that they're intentionally creating and providing a product that is extremely addictive, and exploiting that for economic benefit.
Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death
#335I think there's an interesting middle ground between “just use more discipline” and completely blocking/deleting everything.
I've had the same thought that the real problem isn't necessarily the existence of Reddit, YouTube, etc., but the moment when you open them almost automatically and suddenly realize you've spent far longer there than you intended.
I'm actually building an app specifically around that idea called *Attention*.
It doesn't block anything or hinder you — you're always in full control. Instead, it tries to help you become aware of what you're doing during those moments, so you get a chance to consciously decide whether you actually want to continue.
The app is currently in beta testing and completely free.
What I find interesting about this approach is that the goal isn't necessarily “use your phone less” or “never use social media again.” It's more about *stopping yourself from using it without consciously choosing to*.
I'm hoping that building that awareness can eventually help people develop healthier habits rather than simply relying on increasingly strong restrictions.
Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't see how it's any different than opium During the marijuana prohibition days the resounding chorus in the discourse was that marijuana was not physically addictive like other drugs, and therefore we must treat it differently. There were problems with that argument if you got into the details, but it did establish the idea that not all drugs are equally harmful and therefore treating them all equally was not…
A long time ago on the forum I hang out with, I said something like "this is amazing, this is like heroin!" about whatever (not even a substance, probably something silly like a song or a video game). A guy who I knew as nothing but laid back and gracious scolded me in a way I remember to this day... not the exact words, but part of it was that he knew a couple who just handed off their new born baby for adoption to…
Ah I get it but you can't also just self censor for everyone left and right, and we have no right to get others to self censor. We will quickly run out of words to describe anything offensive. It's just outrage culture, I mean you can't restrict words just because things have happened to you or people around you. It's just an absurd thing to even begin to suggest.
"Yes, I know heroin is scary, but no, I am using it as a metaphor, and that couple has very little to do with me and you, so whats the problem? It's not like they sold you or me off." Is probably what I'll say.
It also brings to mind the OG of drug metaphors: "Religion is the opiate of the masses" nobody really chided him when he wrote that.
Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death
#337I think there's an interesting middle ground between “just use more discipline” and completely blocking/deleting everything. I've had the same thought that the real problem isn't necessarily the existence of Reddit, YouTube, etc., but the moment when you open them almost automatically and suddenly realize you've spent far longer there than you intended. I'm actually building an app specifically around that idea calle…
I've built something exactly like that. Beta testing going well for me.
Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death
#338On a personal level I have become more anxious and it has become more difficult to deal with my tendency to procrastinate the more screen time I have and the more I am exposed to social media. I have in essence deleted the vast majority of my social media accounts years ago, but stayed a passive and rather anonymous consumer on Reddit, X and YouTube. A few weeks ago I blocked them too. I would say in totality I read…
I personally really badly hope that the ongoing revival of 90s lifestyle will also bring back printed press.
Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a time, not that long ago, when cocaine was 100% normalized. It was a regular ingredient used in everything from basic OTC remedies to, most famously Coca Cola which was Cocaine + Kola nut. And Coca Cola itself was based on Vin Mariani, a wine mixed with cocaine that was drunk or endorsed by everybody from Popes to Thomas Edison and Ulysses S Grant. It was also regularly offered for free to laborers by empl…
> most famously Coca Cola which was Cocaine + Kola nut. That's a common misleading myth. Early coca cola was coca leaves and kola nut. Yes, the former contained cocaine alkaloids. But it's different from saying you take a soda and mix it with cocaine. The dosage wasn't comparable to a snorted line today.
If the dosage wasn’t doing anything tangible, which is what OP says, why does Coca Cola make an effort to decocainate coca leaves, making it a very expensive ingredient?
Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death
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