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It’s Toasted

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Re: It’s Toasted

#21

Post by graemep »

praptak wrote: post #14
cermicelli wrote: post #8

Can we just, I mean just stop using and caring about most social media. Especially facebook, it offers no meaningful value. It's slow, obtuse and haven't made life better for anyone in the last decade I suppose. Maybe whatsapp has some use, but otherwise what's even the point. I don't even have ads on whatsapp not yet anyways, I will get my family to switch when they do. I don't care about you Meta/Facebook or whatev…

You could make a similar noble call for everyone to just stop using cigarettes in 1950. It would not work. What ultimately worked were laws designed to curb tobacco use combined with public education campaigns.

I think attitudes mattered more than law, but some laws (e.g. advertising restrictions, and packaging requirements) may have helped change attitudes, but growing awareness of the health issues was the key.

In 1950 tobacco was cool. By 2000 it was very definitely not. In western Europe at least, sales of premium brands were falling sharply and volumes shifting to cheap brands - a lot less profitable even for the same volume. Long before UK law changed to ban indoor smoking most offices started banning smoking indoors, and pubs started doing so too (a major chain, Wetherspoons, gradually banned smoking at all its pubs).

The manufacturers tried to grow in other markets - one tobacco company investor relations person showed me some beautiful pastel coloured cigarettes in a very fancy box aimed at Eastern Europe. It did not work in the long run as attitudes changed globally.

Re: It’s Toasted

#22

Post by lelanthran »

ramon156 wrote: post #16
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is it that it has a helluva lot of momentum from normies. Easily enough to outweigh the resistance of the likes of you and me. The only thing will break it is a better / easier alternative. And with enough success that will probably turn into the next big bad.

> normies I would argue that it's more or less that humans don't like change, and that boomers get upset about change. It seems that the older you get, the more egotistical/selfish you become. I'm not saying my grandma is selfish for not wanting to switch away from WhatsApp, but I am saying that it'd be hard to convince her to switch, hence I don't try.

> I'm not saying my grandma is selfish for not wanting to switch away from WhatsApp, but I am saying that it'd be hard to convince her to switch, hence I don't try.

Ever considered that you may be the selfish one for even wanting her to switch?

You want to make your life more convenient at the expense of her convenience because switching from whatsapp is a huge inconvenience.

Re: It’s Toasted

#23

Post by holmesworcester »

nsowz wrote: post #20
Kiro wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easier said than done. You're still here, which is understandable since Hacker News is by far the most addictive one.

Hacker News is a forum, not social media.

Good luck finding any objective distinction between HN, Reddit, WhatsApp, Signal, or email + listserv and "social media"!

Or finding any one of "social media's harms" that could not, in some world where Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok did not exist, be delivered in just as socially harmful (and beneficial) a form by sufficiently-accessible versions of the apps and protocols you value and use every day.

I met someone recently whose primary addiction is Wikipedia.

For me, Signal and Hacker News are the most addictive pieces of software I still use.

Serial television (best delivered by WebTorrent and The Pirate Bay) is by far the most addictive, for me, so much so that I had to quit.

And you can definitely run successful social movements and political campaigns (for both very good and very bad things) over HN or WhatsApp/Signal, given sufficient adoption.

Re: It’s Toasted

#24

Post by pllbnk »

They are investing big fat 0 in safety features. The only money they spend is on facade of safety. I have reported many times obviously fake scam bot accounts that would send me private messages and at best I would receive feedback that they didn't remove the account.

Re: It’s Toasted

#25

Post by lelanthran »

wiseowise wrote: post #19
shevy-java wrote: post #2

I understand the comparison, and if it were up to me, Facebook (aka Meta) and so forth should be disbanded and chopped up at once. But ... > Recent research shows that social media design features like infinite scroll and algorithmic feeds may encourage compulsive use and contribute to anxiety, depression, and social comparison. So their design is addictive; not disagreeing. I think most of us know that, even as adul…

Social networks in the current form are, what, 10 years old? We already see collapse of attention and mental effects on people of different ages, full impact will be seen only in 20-30 years when current generation grows up. > And the common lie is "but but but think anyone of the kids!!!". I’m the first one to call out “think about the kids” bullshit, but this is directly applicable here.

> Social networks in the current form are, what, 10 years old? We already see collapse of attention and mental effects on people of different ages, full impact will be seen only in 20-30 years when current generation grows up.

Any doomscrolling effect on mental faculties in 20-30 years would be completely dwarfed by the effect of AI. It won't even be a rounding error.

I just posted on another thread where someone was proudly showing off a piece of software that they vibed. Even a single minute of googling would have shown them that their goal was already achievable on current linux distros without any extra software, but now we have someone who could have learned something instead remain completely ignorant.

Doomscrolling has nothing on the +ignorance that all-in AI users are experiencing, especially since they can't tell that they're getting objectively dumber.

Re: It’s Toasted

#26

Post by wiseowise »

lelanthran wrote: post #25
wiseowise wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social networks in the current form are, what, 10 years old? We already see collapse of attention and mental effects on people of different ages, full impact will be seen only in 20-30 years when current generation grows up. > And the common lie is "but but but think anyone of the kids!!!". I’m the first one to call out “think about the kids” bullshit, but this is directly applicable here.

> Social networks in the current form are, what, 10 years old? We already see collapse of attention and mental effects on people of different ages, full impact will be seen only in 20-30 years when current generation grows up. Any doomscrolling effect on mental faculties in 20-30 years would be completely dwarfed by the effect of AI. It won't even be a rounding error. I just posted on another thread where someone was…

> I just posted on another thread where someone was proudly showing off a piece of software that they vibes. Even a single minute of googling would have shown them that their goal was already achievable on current linux distros without any extra software, but now we have someone who could have learned something instead remain completely ignorant.

What makes you think they’re ignorant instead of just not giving a shit? There’s no money to make in “achievable on current Linux distros without any extra software”. The hustle culture that permeates this is another consequence of social networks.

Re: It’s Toasted

#28

Post by nsowz »

holmesworcester wrote: post #23
nsowz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News is a forum, not social media.

Good luck finding any objective distinction between HN, Reddit, WhatsApp, Signal, or email + listserv and "social media"! Or finding any one of "social media's harms" that could not, in some world where Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok did not exist, be delivered in just as socially harmful (and beneficial) a form by sufficiently-accessible versions of the apps and protocols you value and use every day. I met someone…

> I met someone recently whose primary addiction is Wikipedia.

I met someone recently whose primary addiction is whisky. Therefore, whisky is social media.

Re: It’s Toasted

#29

Post by xigoi »

holmesworcester wrote: post #23
nsowz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News is a forum, not social media.

Good luck finding any objective distinction between HN, Reddit, WhatsApp, Signal, or email + listserv and "social media"! Or finding any one of "social media's harms" that could not, in some world where Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok did not exist, be delivered in just as socially harmful (and beneficial) a form by sufficiently-accessible versions of the apps and protocols you value and use every day. I met someone…

> Good luck finding any objective distinction between HN, Reddit, WhatsApp, Signal, or email + listserv and "social media"!

Hacker News:

• doesn’t have a personalized feed

• encourages intellectual discussion rather than brainrot

• doesn’t support images or videos

Re: It’s Toasted

#30

Post by lelanthran »

wiseowise wrote: post #26
lelanthran wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social networks in the current form are, what, 10 years old? We already see collapse of attention and mental effects on people of different ages, full impact will be seen only in 20-30 years when current generation grows up. Any doomscrolling effect on mental faculties in 20-30 years would be completely dwarfed by the effect of AI. It won't even be a rounding error. I just posted on another thread where someone was…

> I just posted on another thread where someone was proudly showing off a piece of software that they vibes. Even a single minute of googling would have shown them that their goal was already achievable on current linux distros without any extra software, but now we have someone who could have learned something instead remain completely ignorant. What makes you think they’re ignorant instead of just not giving a shit…

> What makes you think they’re ignorant instead of just not giving a shit?

They said so. They didn't know how to do this, and they said so.

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