Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 411 posts

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#161

Post by hyperdunc »

vonnik wrote: post #47

This excellent article fails to mention artificial intelligence. Facebook has recruited one of the world’s top AI teams, led by Yann LeCun. Their work and Google's are the equivalent of tobacco companies engineering cigarettes to ensure that nicotine hits a smoker's brain more quickly. Facebook and other social networks are the cigarette companies of the mind. Cigarettes blackened our lungs with tar, and social media…

Playing to our biological urges is what makes most economies function. Only the details have changed: last century it was tobacco, today it's social media.

Will we transcend the instincts that got us here, or will we become perpetual slaves to a finely tuned techno-capitalist system we don't understand?

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#162

Post by apatters »

kyledrake wrote: post #143
dreeves wrote: post #137

This seems like a good excuse to plug Beeminder but I'll try to be at least slightly less self-promotional and point to our collection of all our competitors who offer commitment device apps of various kinds: http://blog.beeminder.com/competitors We call this the granddaddy of first-world problems.

> We call this the granddaddy of first-world problems. I think you're right, Dan. It seems like a pretty existential problem at this point. What is the alternative here? Is there such a thing as an ethical "news feed", and how would I make one ethical? (PS: HN: Beeminder is awesome and you should try it).

Why not just:

- A subscription requires explicit opt-in (not "oh, yeah, I met that dude once in college," or, "oh, yeah, I eat Cheerios and 'Like' them")

- A subscription is easy to cancel

- The filtering/sorting algorithm is "show the newest items first"

That seems like an ethical news feed to me, and it's basically what you get with any RSS reader, right?

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#163

Post by dreeves »

kyledrake wrote: post #143
dreeves wrote: post #137

This seems like a good excuse to plug Beeminder but I'll try to be at least slightly less self-promotional and point to our collection of all our competitors who offer commitment device apps of various kinds: http://blog.beeminder.com/competitors We call this the granddaddy of first-world problems.

> We call this the granddaddy of first-world problems. I think you're right, Dan. It seems like a pretty existential problem at this point. What is the alternative here? Is there such a thing as an ethical "news feed", and how would I make one ethical? (PS: HN: Beeminder is awesome and you should try it).

Hi Kyle! I'm a fan of Aaron Swartz's timeless advice to avoid news altogether: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

If you can't help yourself and want to find out about a big news event, check Wikipedia. Wikipedia is updated in pretty much real-time for major events, which can defeat the point, but at least it's filtered down to accepted facts rather than endless, time-sucking speculation.

But I don't follow my advice that well. Like I've gotten kind of sucked in by Twitter because I think patio11's tweetstorms are brilliant and don't want to miss any. And pg's tweets about his kids are just delightful. But then I end up sucked in by news.

So, yeah, I could use help too!

Oh yeah, Beeminder+RescueTime is always a good place to start for forcing yourself to spend more or less time on certain things, but that's not quite the same question as how to just make one's newsfeed less self-destructive.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#164

Post by alansammarone »

fortani wrote: post #160
apatters wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's not the smartphone that's the problem. The smartphone is just the delivery system. It's remarkable how well some of Richard Stallman's quotes have aged. "With software, either the users control the program, or the program controls the users..." The idea of a program controlling its users must have seemed very esoteric when that quote was first penned in 1985, at a time when home PCs (let alone ones with GU…

Agreed. The problem here is not the smartphone per se, but our increasing dependence on it and the "outsourcing" of our thinking and desires to our smartphone. Imagine the follow scenario: * Need to get to a place? Just ask Google Maps, no need to think. * Need to decide what and where to eat? Don't need to think, just use an app that optimizes for health/variety/preferences/budget and you don't even need to leave th…

I don't think all of these are a problem per se. The problem is (and probably always was) people with empty minds. Sure, now they can fill it more easily with junk, but the whole point of technology is to make life easier after all.

If you're learning or working on something you love and you want to have more time to do, its a perfectly reasonable choice to outsource "what I'm I going to eat next" or "how do you I get from A to B". The problem is not having anything that you love to learn/work on.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#165

Post by nicolimo86 »

hodgesrm wrote: post #152
firebones wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many wikipedia articles have you read on your smartphone vs. ones you've read on your laptop/desktop? "In your pocket" represents a world of difference.

More on my laptop but that's only because I work on a laptop and have to look up (mostly) work-related stuff. I read a lot of 18th/19th century lit. Wikipedia is like having footnotes for anything you are reading. I use it regularly, almost exclusively on my iPhone.

The thing is that people like you are just a little minority respect to the whole. The vastly majority is destroing their screens by tapping here and there on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat....

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#166

Post by amazingman »

hodgesrm wrote: post #144

I don't buy the idea that smartphones are extinguishing the life of the mind. Sure, smartphones provide access to almost unlimited trash. But they also provide access to Wikipedia, perhaps the most successful encyclopedia ever developed by humans. They can show you newspapers from across the planet. They let you read Latin histories of the Norman conquest of Southern Italy in the middle ages. [0] C'mon folks, this is…

Your comment contains great content, but it’s also fairly non sequitur. It appears that you didn’t read the article, and instead are responding to the (silly/stupid) headline.

The concerns addressed in the article make it much more difficult to take the posture you’re taking here.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#167

Post by deepGem »

apatters wrote: post #149
hodgesrm wrote: post #144

I don't buy the idea that smartphones are extinguishing the life of the mind. Sure, smartphones provide access to almost unlimited trash. But they also provide access to Wikipedia, perhaps the most successful encyclopedia ever developed by humans. They can show you newspapers from across the planet. They let you read Latin histories of the Norman conquest of Southern Italy in the middle ages. [0] C'mon folks, this is…

Well, it's not the smartphone that's the problem. The smartphone is just the delivery system. It's remarkable how well some of Richard Stallman's quotes have aged. "With software, either the users control the program, or the program controls the users..." The idea of a program controlling its users must have seemed very esoteric when that quote was first penned in 1985, at a time when home PCs (let alone ones with GU…

If the program controls the users, and the developer controls the program, then the program is an instrument of unjust power.

I'd modify this statement as the program can potentially be an instrument of unjust power. I like to believe that the opposite of this will most likely occur. What if such a program manipulates people's minds towards the good, what if it can turn terrorists against terrorism. Whenever we think of something outside our brain taking control of our lives, we only think of negative outcomes. Why not positive ones ? Sure distraction is bad, but how bad ? I don't buy the argument that the short doses of of social media engagement is equivalent to consuming heroin or smoking. It is an addiction for sure, but why is addiction bad ? All through history, we have always looked for means of getting high - from alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana and what not. Ever since we discovered that we can get high, we have embarked on finding new means that can give us that high. Why do people want to be rich ? So that they can show off. Showing off is an addiction. Social media is just making that addiction available to every one. To use some silicon valley terminology, social media is democratizing showing off and we are just getting started :). I say this because, Whenever we friends got together for a beer or a social hangout, most of the conversation, at least 50% drift around to showing off. So I've realized that social media has just become an extension of our behavior. It has become just a tool to express our collective narcissism. The root cause of the addiction is not social media, it's our own self. I am generalizing, and there are many many exceptions to the above stated collective behavior.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#168

Post by kwhitefoot »

ekianjo wrote: post #157
apatters wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's not the smartphone that's the problem. The smartphone is just the delivery system. It's remarkable how well some of Richard Stallman's quotes have aged. "With software, either the users control the program, or the program controls the users..." The idea of a program controlling its users must have seemed very esoteric when that quote was first penned in 1985, at a time when home PCs (let alone ones with GU…

Control at the time of the quote is not at all what you interpret it to be now. Control for RMS was control on how you can modify the software or share it. It had very little to do with mind control per se. Context matters.

I think that misrepresents Stallman's concerns. See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html for instance. It is clear that free software is a tool for political ends not merely an end in itself.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#169

Post by musage »

apatters wrote: post #149
hodgesrm wrote: post #144

I don't buy the idea that smartphones are extinguishing the life of the mind. Sure, smartphones provide access to almost unlimited trash. But they also provide access to Wikipedia, perhaps the most successful encyclopedia ever developed by humans. They can show you newspapers from across the planet. They let you read Latin histories of the Norman conquest of Southern Italy in the middle ages. [0] C'mon folks, this is…

Well, it's not the smartphone that's the problem. The smartphone is just the delivery system. It's remarkable how well some of Richard Stallman's quotes have aged. "With software, either the users control the program, or the program controls the users..." The idea of a program controlling its users must have seemed very esoteric when that quote was first penned in 1985, at a time when home PCs (let alone ones with GU…

> The first thing most of us do when we wake up is roll over, grab our phone, and look at some software

The danger of computers becoming like humans is not as great as the danger of humans becoming like computers.

-- Konrad Zuse

I recall Joseph Weizenbaum mentioning something like that in an interview before his death, too, about the difference between using technology to empower people, or to exploit them.

But hey, Wikipedia so what do they know... ask the mediocre for permission to learn from the great at your own peril, that's my motto.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#170

Post by gcvbvghb »

alansammarone wrote: post #164
fortani wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The problem here is not the smartphone per se, but our increasing dependence on it and the "outsourcing" of our thinking and desires to our smartphone. Imagine the follow scenario: * Need to get to a place? Just ask Google Maps, no need to think. * Need to decide what and where to eat? Don't need to think, just use an app that optimizes for health/variety/preferences/budget and you don't even need to leave th…

I don't think all of these are a problem per se. The problem is (and probably always was) people with empty minds. Sure, now they can fill it more easily with junk, but the whole point of technology is to make life easier after all. If you're learning or working on something you love and you want to have more time to do, its a perfectly reasonable choice to outsource "what I'm I going to eat next" or "how do you I ge…

> The problem is (and probably always was) people with empty minds.

And of course you think you’re in the other camp, don’t you? How cute.

Post reply on HN