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Engineered Addictions

masonyarbrough.substack.com

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Re: Engineered Addictions

#211

Post by generativenoise »

dehrmann wrote: post #138
alephnerd wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The company is the product. If you've ever dealt with Investor Relations at a public company, this becomes very apparent very quick. Core fundamentals as a business can be strong, but if you cannot craft a unique story or thesis (which does not have to be tangentially related with active initiatives) about your company, you will not succeed. Usually, the onus should fall on PM, EMs, and Sales Leadedship to drive cu…

> if you cannot craft a unique story or thesis...about your company, you will not succeed. Halfway true. There's a famous quote: > In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it is a weighing machine. At some point, strong fundamentals will catch up with you.

In the limit that might be fine, the problem is the amount of damage caused in the meantime and the constraints that puts on future trajectories.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#212

Post by CPLX »

klik99 wrote: post #20

> Then it raised venture capital, hit scale, and needed to hit growth numbers and meet quarterly metric goals. The focus shifted from “authenticity” to “daily active users.” Having spent a few years in the VC world I have been increasingly convinced outside investment is the biggest reason why companies lose their morals. The legal obligation to represent shareholders erodes morality. When the people running these co…

It’s probably somewhat relevant that VC’s are the planet’s most rapacious sociopaths at this point.

I admit I don’t really know the cause and effect dynamic here. Is that what makes VC’s successful, or the reverse?

Re: Engineered Addictions

#213

Post by carlosjobim »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #190
carlosjobim wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most famously they did it by a "great leap".

Can you explain how that model isn't generalizable while avoiding describing the consequences? I want to know why it can't work not how it fails.

After Stalin's death, the Soviet union wasn't a total failure. And few can argue that China is a total failure today. But they paid a much higher price than what's acceptable. To make a somewhat successful "common good" society you first need to exterminate large swatches of the population. (This includes Scandinavian countries, which is less common knowledge). Then you can build on the new generation which won't resist - for a while. And the results are still lack luster, depending on your measuring stick.

There's no general way to model, only empirical evidence. Unless I'm supposed to enter the mind and soul of people and see their motives and reasoning.

But I'll give a one word answer: pride.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#215

Post by DaveZale »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #198
DaveZale wrote: post #196

Are we overthinking this? Old school specialty sites are still around, with topics, categories, and discussions around the whole site emphasis. As someone who likes to grow a little food in a semi-rural area, I enjoy permies.com - every day, a volunteer posts a new question or reposts a relevant topic, depending on the season or recent interest or whatever. But they're not trying to make a billion dollars. Or even a…

I use tildes.net quite a bit. It’s not for everyone but it’s great to have for those that like it.

looks good. old school discussion sites were just fine. The larger corporations are big scams, ripping off your personal details, your relationships, your photo library, and who knows what else, and up to 99% of users have no clue. Nothing to be gained, everything to lose.

Even facebook emojis can be entered into the record in a court of law during a divorce proceeding. A fleeting moment of trying to make someone feel better, or more likely, to get a thumbs up, becomes a permanent electronic record completely removed from fleeting circumstances. That nonsense is potentially very dangerous

Re: Engineered Addictions

#216

Post by fragmede »

Avicebron wrote: post #205
fragmede wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the article is about digital addictions, and not gambling or drugs. The point of saying it's complicated isn't to dismiss the problem, but to invite a deeper understanding of the problem itself so as to be better equiped to help solve the underlying issue, rather than show up, guns blazing, and then not actually fix anything.

Well maybe we can agree that addiction is a form of escapism, and the question then becomes why do people want to escape their current situations?

which you'll bring back to "in general, it's about wealth inequality", except that plenty of poor people aren't addicts.

> For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

-H.L. Mencken

Re: Engineered Addictions

#217

Post by _1tem »

It’s not just social media. Externalized financialization ruins everything. Private equity firms quickly gut everything they buy from plumbers to health clinics (and you still have no choice but to buy their services because they “consolidate” the competition). It’s capitalism gone mad: financial incentives disconnected from any other considerations.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/opinion/private-equity.ht...

Re: Engineered Addictions

#218

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

klabb3 wrote: post #181
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #163

> Every attempt to “fix” social media eventually becomes part of the problem because the economic structure creates inevitable corruption of the original mission. Which is why we need a social medium that is not controlled by anything more centralized than "all the users". Anything else will present high values targets for corruption and is doomed to fail. You're not going to get investors in such a thing, because th…

> Which is why we need a social medium that is not controlled by anything more centralized than "all the users". Right, which is impractical, and after direct democracy comes representational democracy. Eventually you get things like libraries or public parks, public goods managed by government employees. The main difference this time is the need for more transnational cooperation. Other than that, it should be relat…

This is about determining which content a user wants to see and showing it to them without having influence over that selection be susceptible to influence by third parties.

I'll concede that there aren't heterarchical solutions to all of our problems, but it does not follow that there isn't a heterarchical solution to this one.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#220

Post by dostick »

No matter how you slice and regulate it, the problem will always be there as long as its capitalism, which makes businesses exploit anything they operate upon.
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