Smartphones manipulate our emotions and trigger our reflexes • Hacker News Board

Re: Smartphones manipulate our emotions and trigger our reflexes

#161

Post by AlecSchueler » Wed, Oct 29, 2025, 9:03 AM UTC

timschmidt wrote: post #153

AlecSchueler wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again I'm not making a moral argument here. I'm not talking about good and evil. I'm talking about violence and non-violence. A gun being used for "a good purpose" doesn't make it less violent.

So to you a flare gun is violent? It's a gun. Takes 12ga cartridges / shells. It can certainly be used to kill someone, but is designed and intended for saving lives. Is a knife violent? How about a letter opener? What about rope? Does it become violent only when certain knots are tied in it? How does this violent / non-violent object dichotomy work for you? Violence, to me, is a verb someone can do to someone else,…

> Violence, to me, is a verb someone can do to someone else, very specifically

That's fine, I already shared several dictionary definitions which differ from what it is "to you." To answer your questions above I would refer you again to those definitions.

Re: Smartphones manipulate our emotions and trigger our reflexes

#162

Post by lijok » Wed, Oct 29, 2025, 9:58 AM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #157

idle_zealot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, it's not crack. Not chemical, just social. It's like a hyper-optimized version of gambling. Slot machines in everyone's pockets. Or am I not allowed to make that comparison either, because the government regulates that too? Wouldn't want to accidentally call for government violence.

You can compare it to gambling disorder, certainly. Just stop comparing it to chemical drugs. That's dangerous misinformation.

> That's dangerous misinformation.

Can you elaborate?

Re: Smartphones manipulate our emotions and trigger our reflexes

#163

Post by timschmidt » Wed, Oct 29, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

AlecSchueler wrote: post #161

timschmidt wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to you a flare gun is violent? It's a gun. Takes 12ga cartridges / shells. It can certainly be used to kill someone, but is designed and intended for saving lives. Is a knife violent? How about a letter opener? What about rope? Does it become violent only when certain knots are tied in it? How does this violent / non-violent object dichotomy work for you? Violence, to me, is a verb someone can do to someone else,…

> Violence, to me, is a verb someone can do to someone else, very specifically That's fine, I already shared several dictionary definitions which differ from what it is "to you." To answer your questions above I would refer you again to those definitions.

I see no answer in your comments to my question about the knife / letter opener dichotomy, or about when a rope becomes violent or not. That's why I asked a direct question about your system of thought, your perceptions. They are common tools, they should be easy answers.

In the system of thought I've expressed, this is easy: all are tools, all have potential violent and non-violent uses. Depends on the intention and choices of the user.

In the system of thought you've expressed, I'm asking about these specific objects, because the words you've provided aren't sufficient for me to tell if they are violent objects or not. I'd like to know how it works for you. How you perceive it. If you're referencing a previous comment could you quote it? I'd like to understand what you're trying to say.

Re: Smartphones manipulate our emotions and trigger our reflexes

#164

Post by kmeisthax » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 3:41 AM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #20

hooverd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just makes it So the big boys who are making all this money can continue to operate while small platforms can no longer afford to comply with the new regulatory environment.

I don't buy it. The internet existed before the carve out and was in fact less centralized and less shitty

So, do you remember the Wolf of Wall Street? AKA Jordan Belfort. Huge fraudster, did shittons of financial crime. People on Prodigy and Compuserve forums were talking about it, and so Jordan Belfort decided to sue the shit out of the companies in order to take the speech down and censor the users talking about him.

The resulting caselaw we got out of this mess was that Prodigy's moderated servers were treated as publisher and assigned defamation liability; while Compuserve, being unmoderated, had no such liability. CDA 230 was written specifically to overturn the Prodigy verdict. So repealing it would put us in a place where Internet forums are either totally censored and sanitized, or completely unregulated messes of spam and garbage. No middle ground.

Re: Smartphones manipulate our emotions and trigger our reflexes

#165

Post by AlecSchueler » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 8:55 AM UTC

timschmidt wrote: post #163

AlecSchueler wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Violence, to me, is a verb someone can do to someone else, very specifically That's fine, I already shared several dictionary definitions which differ from what it is "to you." To answer your questions above I would refer you again to those definitions.

I see no answer in your comments to my question about the knife / letter opener dichotomy, or about when a rope becomes violent or not. That's why I asked a direct question about your system of thought, your perceptions. They are common tools, they should be easy answers. In the system of thought I've expressed, this is easy: all are tools, all have potential violent and non-violent uses. Depends on the intention and…

Sure. Would you usually describe a letter as having been "violently opened?" The regular magnet of using a letter opener doesn't involve violence, even while the object itself has the potential for a violent use.

But a loaded gun can only be fired violently. A clay duck can't explode non-violently when struck by a bullet. Nothing can be struck by a bullet without violence.

Re: Smartphones manipulate our emotions and trigger our reflexes

#166

Post by timschmidt » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 4:16 PM UTC

AlecSchueler wrote: post #165

timschmidt wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see no answer in your comments to my question about the knife / letter opener dichotomy, or about when a rope becomes violent or not. That's why I asked a direct question about your system of thought, your perceptions. They are common tools, they should be easy answers. In the system of thought I've expressed, this is easy: all are tools, all have potential violent and non-violent uses. Depends on the intention and…

Sure. Would you usually describe a letter as having been "violently opened?" The regular magnet of using a letter opener doesn't involve violence, even while the object itself has the potential for a violent use. But a loaded gun can only be fired violently. A clay duck can't explode non-violently when struck by a bullet. Nothing can be struck by a bullet without violence.

> The regular magnet of using a letter opener doesn't involve violence, even while the object itself has the potential for a violent use.

This sounds like you agree with my assessment, that violence is not inherent to the object, but a function of it's user's intent.

> But a loaded gun can only be fired violently. A clay duck can't explode non-violently when struck by a bullet. Nothing can be struck by a bullet without violence.

And yet you're back to assigning violence as an inherent property of an object here. Seems you are using two different and opposing systems of thought simultaneously.

Sometimes in my area of the US, people will fire guns into the air in reverie. Which most people would not describe as violent. Rather, celebratory. Rescue flares don't strike me as violent, but are fired from guns. Spin launch's projectile is another great example of something fired from a gun without violence.

On the other hand, if a person stood in the path of any of those while firing, the results could be quite gruesome, energetic even. But I wouldn't describe them as violent unless there was associated ill intent. Accidents are not typically described as violent.