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I Used to Be a Human Being

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Re: I Used to Be a Human Being

#221

Post by marmot777 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #207
marmot777 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son, like all 4 year olds I think, are fully human, in tune with the moment, developing ego but still open. I picked my son up from school and we were playing, then I reached for my phone, noticing the shift in his facial expression from happy to subtle concern and disappointment. He knows that device creates distance in real life. Then we discussed some topic that I decided could be better handled by Youtube. As…

I like your set of principles. Many people seem to polarize on their issues; either they're falling for the "digital crack", or they treat this as unnatural and will get angry if you so much as look at your phone when in their presence. Principle 1 is fortunately widely recognized. Laws and social pressure seem to be doing a good job enforcing this principle even on people who for some reason don't recognize it on th…

And by the way, on item 2, I don't care what other people do. It's not that important. It's none of my business. That rule is meant for me because I don't do divided attention well and, for example, my 4 year old deserves full attention on the moment when we're together. It's not all the time as his mom and I aren't together so undivided attention becomes even more important.

The only one I judge people on is item 1 because it's demonstrably dangerous. In the same way that I don't judge people on how much they drink as long as they don't use their car as a weapon, the same goes for people's device habits. Stay jacked in 24/7 but don't run over the mom with the baby carriage and don't plow into that car because something unexpected happened that you'd have been able to successfully react to if you'd not shifted focus. I think it's fair to say that micro seconds count and can make the difference between someone dies a violent death of convulsions and foaming mouth and someone's pissed off and goes home in a bit of a huff.

Re: I Used to Be a Human Being

#222

Post by pikachu_is_cool »

resetting wrote: post #7

I'd be interested to hear everyone's strategies to combat this, as I assume many of us that work in the industry encounter similar problems of distraction and inundation. First, I don't use any devices directly after waking up. I meditate for about 20 minutes upon waking and then try to read fiction for 40 minutes. So, all in, somewhere around an hour of no device distractions before starting my day. Slack is one of…

I'm in the process of swapping out my phone for my old iPod Touch. It creates a lot of moments where getting access to the internet requires effort (e.g. asking people for their WiFi password, finding/knowing about public places with WiFi, looking up routes in Google Maps and screenshotting it before leaving WiFi, etc).

Doesn't work for everyone, but works for me.

And also I save $50 a month.

Re: I Used to Be a Human Being

#223

Post by marmot777 »

marmot777 wrote: post #218
wutbrodo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just turn off all notifications but e-mail (or at least make them silent), and then only set audible notifications for emails that match a filter? There will undoubtedly be false positives and negatives in any such filter, but it seems like it would enable you to open the email app to check email far less often.

I like the filter idea then that woman you've been waiting to hear back from and whomever else, then that reduces the attention shifting thing except when it's worth it. Man, he's lucky his poison is email. It's the perfect medium to ignore for hours, well, unless it's something good.

Oops, I just made the assumption that the person was male posting that. Yikes. Not good. It really isn't. I didn't even look at the username to see if there was a clue there. OK, yeah lot's of other possible mistakes there, too. LOL. Fuck. Not exactly welcoming to women or others who don't fit what I said to post shit like this now is it, Marmot.

Re: I Used to Be a Human Being

#224

Post by PeterisP »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #36
Capt-RogerOver wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you already experiment with things like meditation and psychedelics, you should look more into finding out more about your psyche and feelings, and other self-development themes. Find out more about your inner being, about the structure of your (and in general, human) soul, what motivates you, what deep fears you have, in what ways are you still unconscious about yourself. There are tons of books, trainings, co…

What do you do if the situation you are in do not allow time to sit down and perform deep introspective behavior? I find myself very easily falling into introspection to the point where my mind often cries out for it if I go without for a while. However, my current work and the balancing of multiple careers (as a programmer, as a writer) and social obligations mean I often don't have time and feel intense stress/dist…

Some food for thought. I heard a very interesting answer from a meditation teacher to the simple question "How much should I meditate?" which went something like this, paraphrasing:

"Generally, if it's not a major part of your life, 15 minutes every day would be most appropriate to gain positive benefits from the practice. However, if you're extremely busy while balancing many obligations and absolutely don't have the time to take 10-15 minutes every day, then you should take an hour. Possibly two. That is a sign that you need it far more than others."

Others may generally get similar other "recharging" introspective activities during their less frantic day. It's like asking how much water you should drink - drink a glass. But if you're so dehydrated that you can't lift the glass to your mouth, then you need far more than that. Feeling intense stress at inability to commune with yourself is just as severe symptom as dehydration; in the first world far more people die from that than from thirst.

Having many obligations doesn't necessarily mean that the best way to fulfill them is to spend all your time directly on them and no time on yourself to be able to do them effectively - especially in intellectual creative work. As in the classic parable of "sharpening the saw" (e.g. https://betterlifecoachingblog.com/2010/10/11/sharpening-the... lists it). If you have 8 hours to write an article or a software feature, then spending 3 hours to catch up on sleep debt, 1 on exercise and medidation and 4 hours on actual writing can easily mean more and better results than just working through that. I certainly have my share of late night work that was extremely unproductive due to tiredness and ultimately had negative value due to the unreasonable rate of introduced bugs - with hindsight, doing that work was a mistake, and simply sleeping to recharge for the next day would be more productive.

Also, if you say that you're suffering, that indicates that a change is needed. Much of our obligations are ultimately self-imposed and can be adjusted in long term. When the world demands something that you cannot sustainably give, saying 'no' is not a possibility, but a necessity.

Re: I Used to Be a Human Being

#225

Post by marmot777 »

marmot777 wrote: post #214
stnmtn wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's almost a crabs in the bucket type thing that is really obvious to see when a person becomes successful. People start to dredge up all the shitty things in their past. MLK was an adulterer, Mother Theresa was a dick, etc etc. I hope you understand what I mean. I really enjoy thinking about this stuff, because while it obviously doesn't apply to people at an individual level at all, it's really interesting to s…

I do get what you're saying but I think it's not a useful place to focus your attention. I'm not a fan of being a dick, though I sometimes am one, nor a fan of adultury, that said I devote no bandwidth to hand wringing about MLK's personal life, Mother Theresa's temperament. Under that much scrutiny, you can find a lot of dirt about any human being. Not useful. Yeah, irony has amplified the whole nihilism thing. I'm…

I know you weren't talking about politics specifically but this is likely part of the reason there are too many douche bags in public office. How many earnest, smart people want to subject themselves to that kind of scrutiny?

I don't want a president who hasn't smoked pot, fucked on a trampoline, swam laps while tripping, and traveled to at least one other country other than the U.S. and Alaska.

How do we get real people elected if the footage of every time they shoplifted a snickers bar is going to be compiled into a montage for an unfair attack ad? Sure, it seems like a lot of shoplifting but to be fair it was spread out over 20 years.

Re: I Used to Be a Human Being

#226

Post by marmot777 »

stnmtn wrote: post #212
marmot777 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's new to me then why should I care? Why is new ipso facto good? And what are some examples of theme parks? I know a lot of people who go out in the wilderness any chance they get but if that's not your thing, there are plenty of ways to get right to the basics even in day to day life. And if novelty is what you're seeking, anything new to you is novel. You're not the first person to climb a mountain but if it's…

You're right, I was born with the Internet and grew up with it as a constant. Some of my earliest memories are literally of those ugly gray 90's computers. It's not about quitting the internet to get 'back to basics' (although doing that is incredibly beneficial for me), it's about this weird feeling where you are forced to accept that the enormity of human knowledge is available in your pocket at all times, but it's…

What was different now you have me curious. I don't doubt it as every generation is different. Fuck, does this make me old if I ask questions like that? If some of your earliest memories are of those ugly gray computers then I was likely college when you were a small kid or something like that.

For the indoor part of life: Apple IIe, television, and music. That's pretty good. I could only dream about jacking in to cyberspace. I was limited to the other kind of jacking. Just sayin'. Only the Star Trek crew had cell phones. Kung Fu reruns taught me all I needed to know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_(TV_series)

I'd like to hear what it was like to grow up in the age-of-the-sf-fantasy-coming-true-but-with-soul-crushing-side-effects?

Re: I Used to Be a Human Being

#227

Post by thunder_cougar »

Osmium wrote: post #143
resetting wrote: post #7

I'd be interested to hear everyone's strategies to combat this, as I assume many of us that work in the industry encounter similar problems of distraction and inundation. First, I don't use any devices directly after waking up. I meditate for about 20 minutes upon waking and then try to read fiction for 40 minutes. So, all in, somewhere around an hour of no device distractions before starting my day. Slack is one of…

> I'd be interested to hear everyone's strategies to combat this For me, it's all about latency: I try to introduce a barrier for being able to access typical time-wasting sites. If there was a way on OS X to reduce browsing certain websites to pre-broadband speeds, I'd be all on that. > For personal things, I deleted Facebook and feel quite a bit better. I did this too. So glad, don't miss it at all, and actually fe…

The newsletter thing is huge for me. I used to be really addicted to constantly checking the forums for new updates, but a weekly newsletter will sum all the important things I need to know. I try to dedicate a block of time to read it all in one go, rather than randomly clicking on links and reading them sporadically.

It's kind of like having a dedicated block of time to reply to all your emails vs. replying to them as they arrive in your inbox. I find that it reduces multitasking and increases focus.

Re: I Used to Be a Human Being

#228

Post by marmot777 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #137
marmot777 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may come off as disagreeing but I question to understand. Do you have some tangible examples?

From Michael and Joyce Heusemann, Techno-Fix (mentioned in a prior comment): "In addition to cost-effectiveness, efficiency and marketability, a wide range of other values are commonly embedded in many modern technologies. These are, for example, power, control, exploitation and violence, with respect to both people and nature (Chapter 3), profit-maximization, speed, mass-production, uniformity, repetitiveness, quant…

I get your point as some of the most articulate posts on here were by you and the others who responded on this topic. Wow, some passion behind this. Do you think it's ever political in the left, right, etc., since of the word?

What's wrong with Linux? Are you referring to RHEL and things like that?

Re: I Used to Be a Human Being

#229

Post by gasull »

resetting wrote: post #7

I'd be interested to hear everyone's strategies to combat this, as I assume many of us that work in the industry encounter similar problems of distraction and inundation. First, I don't use any devices directly after waking up. I meditate for about 20 minutes upon waking and then try to read fiction for 40 minutes. So, all in, somewhere around an hour of no device distractions before starting my day. Slack is one of…

1) Don't check email when waking up. Wait until noon. And check email only twice a day. Say in your email signature that you usually check your email twice daily, so people know what to expect.

2) Meditate.

3) Configure your phone to be in airplane mode or do not disturb as much as you can get away with it. Definitely when you sleep, but also for other times in the day.

4) Don't read news on weekdays. Save articles people send to you on Pocket, and subscribe to no more than 5 newsletters that you read only on the weekends. At the end of the weekend delete what you haven't read at https://getpocket.com/privacy_clear

When to multitask:

When commuting, read or listen to an audiobook.

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