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Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think
151–160 of 332 posts
Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think
#152Additionally, take action to shape your feeds to your desires rather than Big Tech's desires. Block buttons exist for a reason, as does the "don't recommend this channel" button on YouTube. Clickbait? People raging about politics who clearly have no desire to seriously consider the other side? Stupid memes that will do little to benefit your time? All of them get the chopping block. As a space fan, I necessarily see…
World can be a very futuristic experience, or it can be (almost) as it would be say 2005 or even earlier.
My parents and most of their generation experience it in a very similar way. I would say even despite missing out few cool things overall their life experience is better. Simpler, more positive.
I am aiming desperately for similar position. I dont care about coolest new tech unless i can/have to use it directly at my work. I stopped watching most of politics since there is no win there, just mental abyss. I know its sort of giving up, but I cant win this fight so why bother, just wait it out.
One effect I can see that comes with massive power - dont let orange man drag you into his pit of unstable misery, its like a black hole. Engaging with any related info has this effect. He is not exceptional in this, had exes with similar 'skill', but his power is a massive multiplier. Be stronger than him, for yourself and your closest ones.
Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think
#153Ironically this post is #1 on my hackernews feed
Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because before people had a concern and were wrong, doesn't mean if we have the same concern now we'll be wrong again.
I think the opposite, just like we used to tell people to "go read a book", now we'll tell people to "spend some time with an AI" to get cultured. The more AI time the better for your education.
If someone told me to “spend some time with an AI” I just wouldn’t spend any more time with that person. What a nightmare.
Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because before people had a concern and were wrong, doesn't mean if we have the same concern now we'll be wrong again.
I think the opposite, just like we used to tell people to "go read a book", now we'll tell people to "spend some time with an AI" to get cultured. The more AI time the better for your education.
My kids read plenty and I am indeed always telling them to "go talk to the LLM". It's more work than reading (I suspect), they have to engage more with the topic - ask good questions.
Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think
#156There is a simple method not to kill FB's algorithm but to use it for your own good. Unsubscribe, unfollow and unlike every page or group. Fb will start showing you the best posts of some groups and, by your choices, you can 'drive' which groups are arriving on the feed. In the end you will receive the best posts from your favorite group of groups
Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So yes, totally. Turn it off and go read a book. For what its worth, 500 years ago people were just as worried about books as we are today about newsfeeds. But it took a long time for books to ultimately decentralize enough to become a more egalitarian, community knowledge. But even that's not entirely the case now. Books can be propaganda just like everything else.
Books can be propaganda, certainly. However, books promote long attention span. Social media generally removes that aspect and focuses on dopamine hits. It’s hard to condition critical thinking when jumping from one truth sentence to another truth sentence without context.
You can brainwash yourself with some wild sh*t if you spend too long in the wrong heads/books.
"Go consume this form-factor because it's better" has always bothered me.
Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think
#158Yes totally! I like Reddit because you can pick your own subreddits but even that can be flooded by ragebait/clickbait
Most subreddits tend towards complete bubbles, where anything that goes against the prevailing opinions gets down voted into oblivion or outright deleted by mods.
This might be obvious, but to me, it was an important realization that a lot of subreddits that deal with, say, chronic health issues, are going to skew towards people who have extreme conditions. People who get better aren't necessarily going to want to be hanging around in such spaces.
Even subreddits that don't deal with health conditions are going to skew a certain way over time just as a result of who hangs out there all the time and who is accepted, so the "reality" you see in a subreddit is not necessarily the true reality of the greater population. (Again, this should be obvious, but it's easy to forget this when you start reading a reddit post and thinking, "I don't agree with all these people, but there are many people with this opinion. Should I be thinking more like they do?")
Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think
#159If you're a longtime YouTube consumer, you know that the platform has become just as enshittified as Twitter or Instagram, jumping on the micro-attention infini-scroll band-wagon with YouTube Shorts.
My solution to the horrendous algorithmic recommendations that YouTube tees up these days is DF Tube (Distraction Free YouTube). It's a plugin available on the Firefox & Chrome app stores, perhaps others. As with all browser plugins, decide whether you're willing to trust the developer.
DF Tube goes the full mile by attacking the YouTube DOM and eliminating (with extreme prejudice) anything other than a search bar, a video, and core menu functions. That means the following are gone:
- Notification Bell - Feed - Autoplay - Trending - Comments/Live comments - Related videos
Here's a link to chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/df-tube-distraction...
Here's a link to firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/df-youtube/
Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think
#160I’ve turned off all my social media feeds and use Tapestry now which presents posts from some of them in pure chronological order. This include this site, Bluesky, RSS feeds, YouTube and more. I am enjoying it a lot. I no longer see Facebook, Instagram or X and I’m okay with that.
Is this what you're talking about?: https://usetapestry.com/
Yes that’s the one.