Yeah I hate this. I signed up for 1 email newsletter, axios, for a morning and evening update. Thats plenty of news. You just have to quit cold turkey if thats not enough. If your on facebook you can use plugins like facebook purity to filter out 90% of the junk. That's the only social media that I actually pay attention to. I'm sure there are other filter programs for twitter and similar out there.
'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle
271–280 of 305 posts
Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle
#272I deleted my Twitter a few months ago and my life is better for it. The need to be “in the know” was powerful, but I realized that I was consuming vast amounts of shallow information that resulted in shallow, uninformed opinions. I’ve been reading a lot more long-form articles and books; I’ve finished reading three books in the last month or so. When my Twitter habit was strong I would often start a book and give up…
Mastodon is like that but with far less noise per signal. You have insightful toots and most of the time, great tips and URLs. Also, it moves a far slower pace, you can just check once or twice a day and be done.
Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A massive and obvious flaw in the "capitalism is slavery" argument is the fact that American agriculture became MORE profitable after slavery was abolished. “Capitalism” and “maximizing systemic, aggregate profitability” aren't even related concepts, much less so intimately linked that not doing the latter proves that something is not an element of the former.
And "slavery" and "private ownership of the means of production" are similarly orthogonal. If the means of production were owned by the government, and the government forced its citizens to work uncompensated against their will, with no option to leave, could one then contend that socialism/communism is inextricably linked to slavery? No, that's absurd. Involuntary servitude can exist in any economic system, whether…
> On the other hand, capitalism can only really function in a world where all transactions are bilaterally voluntary
That condition has not been true at any time in the history of Capitalism. Since that's only possible if the two parties are perfectly equal, which obviously is almost never the case, and certainly not a state of affairs that the proponents of Capitalism wants or have ever wanted.
In reality, unless born into property/wealth, one is not a voluntary party of such a transaction, and its voluntariness decreases in proportion to the socioeconomical situation of the party at that time.
Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
And "slavery" and "private ownership of the means of production" are similarly orthogonal. If the means of production were owned by the government, and the government forced its citizens to work uncompensated against their will, with no option to leave, could one then contend that socialism/communism is inextricably linked to slavery? No, that's absurd. Involuntary servitude can exist in any economic system, whether…
> On the other hand, capitalism can only really function in a world where all transactions are bilaterally voluntary That condition has not been true at any time in the history of Capitalism. Since that's only possible if the two parties are perfectly equal, which obviously is almost never the case, and certainly not a state of affairs that the proponents of Capitalism wants or have ever wanted. In reality, unless bo…
Of course, nobody is credibly arguing that we are anywhere close to the platonic ideal of a capitalist system — in the same way that at no point in the history of humanity have we had a truly communist or socialist system.
If your argument is that the inverse relationship between "voluntariness" and socioeconomic status is anathema to capitalism, that reinforces the idea that literal slavery is even further from that platonic ideal.
As an aside, capitalists love UBI for this reason: it gets us that much closer to truly universal voluntary transactions, because when one is no longer worried about starving to death, they can rationally participate in all economic transactions in a free society.
But the point remains the same: slavery (or more abstractly, involuntary servitude) is orthogonal to the underlying economic system. It can exist in any economic system. Most of the developed world today is largely capitalist, and without slavery. Conversely, some of history's most well known efforts in installing Marxist communism also notably featured forced labor camps where people were compelled to work involuntarily.
Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
> On the other hand, capitalism can only really function in a world where all transactions are bilaterally voluntary That condition has not been true at any time in the history of Capitalism. Since that's only possible if the two parties are perfectly equal, which obviously is almost never the case, and certainly not a state of affairs that the proponents of Capitalism wants or have ever wanted. In reality, unless bo…
Of course, nobody is credibly arguing that we are anywhere close to the platonic ideal of a capitalist system — in the same way that at no point in the history of humanity have we had a truly communist or socialist system. If your argument is that the inverse relationship between "voluntariness" and socioeconomic status is anathema to capitalism, that reinforces the idea that literal slavery is even further from that…
As I've said in another comment in this thread; each system is defined by the incentive structure it sets up.
The Stalinist structure is set up to be ripe for corruption, abuse of power, etc. That is what it will be rightly remembered for.
The Capitalist structure is set up to be ripe for exploiting whatever there is to be exploited at that particular time to accumulate capital. That both slavery and Colonialism flourished under such an incentive structure should not be a surprise. We can see the same pattern today; exploiting whatever is possible until the moral outrage hurts profits too much or may land the execs behind bars.
> As an aside, capitalists love UBI for this reason
It's a very big assumption that a capitalist UBI would be little else than removing social security and then go on devaluing the UBI year by year. Once again, the incentives suggest exactly that. You're somehow imagining an altruistic capitalism that primarily looks for true voluntary transactions while still concentrating power and privilege in the hands of the few.
Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm using Marxism in exactly the same sense you are: people advocating for "an overhaul of private property relations." That is, as a I understand it, what "democratic socialism" really means. I don't use the term "democratic socialism" because its proponents in America have co-opted that term to mean Nordic-style "capitalism with a robust welfare state" (which I think would be fine). As far as I can tell, though, th…
I think your reply proves my point that it's not really about democracy at all. It's just about a fervent defense of the current undemocratic and unjust private property relations. What do you expect to find in constitutions written by free market economies? > The concept is likewise enshrined in Article 17 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights False, it was left intentionally vague to not explicitly endorse private…
> I think your reply proves my point that it's not really about democracy at all.
I never said it was about democracy!
> It's just about a fervent defense of the current undemocratic and unjust private property relations.
I would characterize it as a fervent defense of British constitutionalism, tracing back to the Magna Carta, but yes, the current system of property relations is a part of that.
But it seems like we're not in any disagreement about my original post: I expressed worry that Marxist ideas were resurgent. We seem to be on the same page about what I mean by "Marxism." And you don't appear to disagree that those ideas are resurgent--and therefore my originally stated worry was not baseless after all.
Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your reply proves my point that it's not really about democracy at all. It's just about a fervent defense of the current undemocratic and unjust private property relations. What do you expect to find in constitutions written by free market economies? > The concept is likewise enshrined in Article 17 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights False, it was left intentionally vague to not explicitly endorse private…
> I think your reply proves my point that it's not really about democracy at all. I never said it was about democracy! > It's just about a fervent defense of the current undemocratic and unjust private property relations. I would characterize it as a fervent defense of British constitutionalism, tracing back to the Magna Carta, but yes, the current system of property relations is a part of that. But it seems like we'…
Well, I certainly hope they are, but I doubt that they are as institutionalized as you seem to suggest.
I also think that using "Marxism" for a democratic movement and ideas is done to intentionally associate them with the authoritarian regimes of the 20th century.
Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle
#278This article really only touches the surface of the issue and, despite hinting at deeper problems, refuses to acknowledge them.
A potentially endless stream of seamlessly accessible information (aka continuous scrolling down) is bad, not because of the content read, but because it manages to manipulate the user into going on and on and on and on.
The article touches on that tangentially ...
> Aldao, the director of Together CBT, a clinic that specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy, has worked with her patients to cut back on doomscrolling.
... but fails to point out that the conclusion is not to control which content is being taken in, but to ban doomscrolling altogether, because it's some form of automaticity making you more perceptible to being psychologically manipulated.
That's why it's so successful and that's why it's so bad.
That's why patients are being treated with CBT, because apparently that's what it takes to get her to stop doing it instead of her simply stopping doing it. She simply can't.