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Dopamine Fracking

igerman.cc

141–150 of 446 posts

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#141
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guessing by your examples that you are American. Maybe you are aware, or perhaps not, that in Europe many view your culture as the one that has taken this to its extreme. Some envy it, some don’t.

Where in Europe do you find large amounts of small stores? (and for real, not fake). Or is your point that Europe has a different supermarket chain per country? Malls have the same stores across countries ... but they differ, somewhat, if you move from one country to the next. And they're fake. Every company has 3-4 store brands these days so malls have 4-5 stores that look different, but aren't. So ... what a differ…

"Where in Europe do you find large amounts of small stores?"

Im vibrant city centers of every bigger city I visited. The ugly malls are taking over much and online ordering is heavy pressure, but some are still very much alive.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure it's a millenial thing, but yes And to be honest choice fatigue also plays a part. (Also millenials seem to sell some places as "gritty and authentic" when in reality a lot of them just suck) I'm all for trying new things, but in the end you realize that a lot of those are just not for you and you go for the bland and tested thing

For me (considerably older than millenials) it's not choice fatigue or "default to bland and tested", it's "if I'm paying a small fortune for coffee / food[0], I do not want a crappy serving just because the barista/cook stubbed their toe / broke up / got bad news / etc. this morning and they're wildly off their game." Starbucks, McDonalds, Papa Johns, etc. do not make "great" refreshments but they make them of a con…

Agree

But then, once I got to certain McD locations, and got a (very) disappointing experience, then it's hard to come back to the brand.

(it might have changed, I think this was over 10 yrs ago) but still

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#143
post #22
post #3

He's right - that phrase evokes what he means better than many alternatives. But this feels like an article where you get all the useful info in the title. The rest is just a rant about the modern internet being bad for your brain.

i got much more out of it and it's intelligently written I see this structure: * introduce dopamine fracking * the wonderful strawberry analogy to what we loose, personally, by giving in to the substitue for the real thing * how they (the author) managed to in baby steps turn down attempts at fracking _their_ dopamine: through awareness of what's happening and what were missing because of it so until there is some bi…

There's an unresolved tension within the article:

* some parts of it imply it's about higher intensity, 'bigger' dopamine hits * while other parts talk about commodification, i.e. making these 'dopamine hits' as cheaply as possible, with as little other substance as possible

Not the same thing. There's a connection - reducing 'substance' make it more 'pure' dopamine, also there's some loudness war between different sources. But still, in the end people generally don't feel anything intense when scrolling tiktok, it's just enough to grab attention.

I guess more direct analogy with fracking might work better: it squeezes dopamine hit out of things which normally don't warrant attention.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#144
post #107

> The constant search for the next big thing, the next big hit of dopamine, The search itself is the dopamine hit. I think the author, if anything, meant endorphins, it's just that there's so much misleading pop science about this, that everyone blames poor old dopamine for their woes.

True. I think it's the same as everyone calling pain killers "aspirin" (where I live, maybe in the US is Tylenol? Which we call Paracetamol), they call SARS-CoV-2 AND COVID-19 "Corona", or "Corona-virus". Sending an App means sending a message via Whatsapp here, it's not "sending a link to an app-store or play-store app (or whatever)" as one would think. Some (way to many!) people mean their browser when they say "the internet". AI means LLMs, but not always, sometimes it includes CNNs (I try to use gen AI and machine learning, but people look at me weird)...

Similarly, Dopamine now just means "a short hit of instant gratification" to the average person. I also don't like it, it leads to misinterpretations of scientic texts (which are usually very strict about word usage, and consequently differ from the "popular" meanings of a word, or in this case, molecule).

¯\(ツ)/¯

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#145
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

every time someone coins a new term for these phenomena i think of how Adorno already explained it all. "enshittification" SHUT UP

There was a major campaign the last decade from many pro-capital and libertarian thinkers to label Adorno and other philosophers as the root cause of many people grievances. Remember Peterson et all all warning about "Cultural marxism" and "postmodernism"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_th... I try not be against new terms like "enshittification" or "dopamine fracking" for this reason, the…

> There was a major campaign the last decade from many pro-capital and libertarian thinkers to label Adorno and other philosophers as the root cause of many people grievances.

I feel it's still ongoing, the reactionary elements are campaigning against anything circa modern (not modernist as in art but modern as organisation of society, so also anything that can be traced back to Enlightenment) and later, postmodern etc. They are actively destroying natural sciences too, which is a part of this effort. Feels like going back to feudalism.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#146

Our one dominant model of technology-driven economic progress is the industrial revolution. Manufacturing. As Ai companies argue for market cap based on projected economic output... I'm increasingly thinking this model can be badly misleading. It's very rare that the PC Revolution and or the internet Revolution are used as a primary model to explain technology and how it affects the economy. Network enabled PCS are a…

The original sin is the idea that the profit motive on a free market will solve all our resource allocation problems, and that consumption demand should be the ultimate arbiter of social value. Markets are pretty freaking amazing things. But their efficiency relies on assumptions that knowledge economies and software break on pretty much every front. So, it's really no surprise that we're in this mess. I don't really know what would work better, though, in a way that can practically evolve from our existing systems.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#147
post #43

> Written by a human. That for some reason uses em dashes and writes in a voice that at times I find hard to distinguish from AI. Man, I'm tired. Are people just lying? Am I just seeing things? Some mystery third option? Is it meta commentary? Everything is poisoned. I suppose it feels incorrect regardless of actual AI use, because it's still the LinkedIn thought leader template with relevant current issue. Which is…

LLMS are here for >3y, enough time to shape the thought processes and language of the society exposed to its output.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't act as if the cities in Europe look any different They do look different, claiming otherwise is just American cope

I feel like they do and they don't at the same time. The buildings may look different, but city center rents driving out a lot of small local businesses, and leaving the same brands everywhere.

You are right, that the city centers are often heavily commodified to the point where they do not differ from other cities anymore. However, European cities are not just the city center, you have a lot of different districts where the commodification has not progressed to this degree as in the city centers. Case in point, you often do have small grocery stores in those districts, mostly owned by immigrants or they are some kind of organic food store.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a whole strand of German and French cultural pessimism that foresaw the convergence of mass media to the current point to some degree. > Staying with the articles example, by adding artificial strawberries flavour to everything those that could have enjoyed the natural experience never get the opportunity to do so, preventing them from acquiring the taste. I would go so far to say, that even if people tasted…

I don't know the real sauce is incredible compared to the fake stuff. It really is a massive hassle though :/

I know! But a lot of people prefer the fake stuff, because they were raised on it or harbor nostalgic feelings for it. For them, it's the real deal.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#150

How refreshing to read something not written by an LLM, unless they promoted it extensively with their own writing style first and I’ve been tricked but this felt much nicer to read than a lot of what I’ve read recently

Are you sure it wasn’t?

The vast number of commas wouldn’t fit the typical robot style though, but the — count might.

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