121–130 of 145 posts
This feels like such a pandora's box. On one hand, it's important we get a better understanding of what makes us tick, on the other hand, I fear what such understanding might enable us to do to each other.
That's the exact same way I feel. There is definitely a end game here where everyone has more autonomy and dignity, and that's the one we're fighting for.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Happy to answer any questions you have! It's all of our job to be transparent about the new tablestakes of design, because that transparency builds exact dialogues like this! It would be more audacious if we didn't publicize what we're doing and these techniques remained the dark patterns that keep people hooked to social apps that have poor alignment to what people actually want out of life!
This is how I understand what you're saying: We are building something evil and reprehensible, but we are open about what we are building, and therefore we are better than the other guys who are doing it surreptitiously. Fine, but in that case your product is basically performance art. Bravo, you did a good job raising awareness: now go actually work on fixing the problem instead of pretending like you aren't part of…
We're actively working on all of those. I don't think it's possible to pretend that these techniques don't exist. So instead we're flamboyantly advertising that they can be used for good.
What behaviors do you wish you did more of or did more regularly?
If everyone in the US has on average 5 apps on their phone which use your service, and it makes people on average engaged for one extra minute... What would the cost be of all the lost productivity? Does the extra engagement lead to more revenue? How do the 2 compare? Also, if this is designed to release dopamine or any other neurotransmitters, is there a risk that this will ever be classified as a drug? Or at least…
What if it was a productivity app that you were spending more time in or interacting with more efficiently. Or what if it was a fitness app that got you to do extra stretches throughout the day? Is that just economic dead weight?
Disclaimer - I'm the CEO of Dopamine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Contrarian, not evil, is more of the motto. You don't get anyone to listen if you just talk about an AI SaaS platform for long-term habit formation. It comes off as wonkish. Trust me, we tried ;)
Well first of all thank you for your reply and actually getting involved in the thread. I have to say, I'm not convinced. Yes of course if you say that your product is similar to a what a drug dealer would offer, then people are going to get interested because of the potential for returns on their money. You're just confirming my suspicion that branding things this way was in order to help get investment. I don't see…
Dopamine is about learning, and learning only matter because it changes us. The same brain mechanisms and technologies that make facebook captivating and can be used to make fitness, a good diet, and spending time with people who love you engaging too. When we're done building this tech-stack, it will be possible for people to learn themselves in to whoever they want to be.
Disclaimer - I'm the CEO of Dopamine
The same company sells an api to help make your applications as addicting as possible [1] and a service for users to help control their addiction to applications [2]. This organization is disgusting and is evidence enough that our industry has no sense of ethical responsibility. When massive regulation lands on Silicon Valley and we whine about the impact it has on innovation, remember companies like Dopamine Labs wh…
CEO of Dopamine here. We make cars with both gas pedals and break pedals because sometimes you want to go faster and sometime you want to go slower. There are some behaviors that you want to see yourself doing more frequently, and others that you want to see yourself doing less frequently. So we make products to serve both of those use cases. It can be unnerving to see yourself programable; it affronts our sense of f…
>Dopamine’s founders argue that they reserve the right to deny service to specific companies whose work seems to be off the level... Just "trust" us. There are obviously many teams working on doing this, but never so audacious. These things are definitely not a value add to society, yet very profitable, like e.g. heroin if that doesn't sound too hyperbolic.
>Dopamine’s founders argue that they reserve the right to deny service to specific companies whose work seems to be off the level... Just "trust" us. There are obviously many teams working on doing this, but never so audacious. These things are definitely not a value add to society, yet very profitable, like e.g. heroin if that doesn't sound too hyperbolic.
A casino is usually more profitable than a hospital too. It's probably the central problem of capitalism. Monetary systems draw no distinction between wealth creation and wealth extraction, and the second law of thermodynamics guarantees that the latter will always be much easier. When you design chips, cure diseases, or build rockets you are fighting entropy. When you addict, misinform, and con people entropy is on…
I've never quite heard 'entropy' used as an argument, and though you might be a little bit correct in some sense of the word ... I don't think it holds true either physically or as an analogy :)
But bon-bons for trying.
That's my favourite 'most HN comment of the day'.
This feels like such a pandora's box. On one hand, it's important we get a better understanding of what makes us tick, on the other hand, I fear what such understanding might enable us to do to each other.
Disclosure - CEO of Dopamine That's the exact same way I feel. There is definitely a end game here where everyone has more autonomy and dignity, and that's the one we're fighting for.
This feels like such a pandora's box. On one hand, it's important we get a better understanding of what makes us tick, on the other hand, I fear what such understanding might enable us to do to each other.
Disclosure - CEO of Dopamine That's the exact same way I feel. There is definitely a end game here where everyone has more autonomy and dignity, and that's the one we're fighting for.
It's not like you are doing anything new here, the only new thing here is your approach of being dead honest about what you are doing, kudos to that.
But besides that I don't see how any of what you are doing there results in an endgame of "more autonomy and dignity for everybody", it rather seems to be reinforcing the current trend where such knowledge and practices are sold to anybody who can afford it, leaving those who can't out in the rain.
When's the last time you said more than 'hello' to a neighbor?
The only substitute for Social "Media" is a Social Culture. The reason most mature adults are checking their phones all the time is nobody interacts to any significance anymore in the public sphere. When we're in public we are: A. trying to get somewhere else, and frustrated at being impeded by other people, B. Trying to buy something to consume or C. trying to sell something.
The best way to fight the screens and the apps is to provide a better alternative, IRL.