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I'm an addict

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271–280 of 602 posts

Re: I'm an addict

#271
Sounds like OP isn't necessarily an addict: they have ADHD.

Half the article was them complaining about poor working memory, and the rest about getting stimulation/dopamine from unhealthy sources.

Everyone has "a little ADHD". We all occasionally, forget things, hyperfocus on things we are excited about, etc. ADHD is the disorder of having those struggles so often it's debilitating. It stems from having an underdeveloped frontal lobe that doesn't feel dopamine as well as neurotypical brains do, meaning an ADHD brain needs more stimulus to feel healthy.

Because of the deficit in stimulus, people with untreated ADHD are statistically much more likely to have a substance abuse disorder (SAD); but in many cases, treating their ADHD (with medication and cognitive behavioral therapy) has the side effect of treating their SAD.

Addiction, in the public consciousness/vernacular, is more abstract than SAD: it can mean anything from chemical dependence to unwanted habits. I suspect most people tend to make a false equivalence between the former and the latter. I see all the time people struggling to change a simple habit and immediately labeling themselves "addicts". I think that's a unhelpful characterization.

I think the point people tend to miss is that in order to change a habit, you don't just "stop doing it": you must replace it with an alternative dopamine source. This is especially tricky with untreated ADHD.

Re: I'm an addict

#272

My desire to read the comments sections on reddit and increasingly on here completely baffle me. If I was sat in a room and the people in there were saying things as stupid as I see on reddit I would leave that room and wonder how the hell I ended up in it. What possible reason do I have to be wasting time reading the barely formed thoughts of what must be predominantly teenagers. Yet ... I find myself back there.

An idea i had a while ago is a HN client which will only show the comments after one has completely read the article. I don't know how to go about it yet, but could be really cool.

While at it, force all articles into something like reader-mode.

Re: I'm an addict

#273
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kind of feels like some kind of idle loop where my mind has some spare cycles and it defaults to hacker news and similar stuff, then it goes down the rabbit hole once started. Just making it a little harder to view the sites seems to help me a lot. I add 127.0.0.1 to my /etc/hosts file during work hours. I find myself looking at a broken page a couple times a day without even realizing how I got there, but it allo…

Is there a good MacOS¹/Unix-y way to automate this? (I’m guessing a crontab that swaps two versions of /etc/hosts is my best option but maybe there’s something more elegant?) ⸻ 1. I’m aware of ScreenTime, but it’s too easily overridden.

I have a directory with a restricted hosts file and an empty one, and two aliases that just copy one of them to /etc

I can turn it off whenever I want with one commandline, but it’s enough to keep me from falling into the rabbit hole accidentally

Re: I'm an addict

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very un-HN take but maybe you're not meant to be 100% efficient all the time, maybe having some time to be passive and relax is good actually. Maybe we work far too much already and expecting to be additionally productive outside those hours is an express train to burnout?

I don't disagree with this but the constant state of being "plugged in" is the issue. Mind wandering is a real useful practice and the being plugged in is antithetical to mind wandering. Some of my most clearest thoughts, ideas, or beliefs came to me when I was just walking on the street not listening to podcasts, audio books, music or browsing social media. I think it's far more useful to literally stare at a wall f…

It sounds like you're already approaching this idea on your own, but if you haven't checked it out already you should have a look at Digital Minimalism [1]. It's a really well thought out analysis of exactly what you're describing. In theory, a few hours here and there shouldn't be an issue. However, the main problem with modern media (social and otherwise) is that it is very insidious. It's not just about the time spent indulging, but also what that indulgence does to your mental state throughout the rest of the day.

[1] https://www.calnewport.com/books/digital-minimalism/

Re: I'm an addict

#275
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I recommend religion and religious teachings which address this and many other daily worldly issues perfectly. This advice simply doesn't work if the recipient is an atheist. To me, Religious texts are made up fiction that hold no more meaning in my world view than Harry Potter or Game of Thrones. If you read enough fiction on a shared topic, you'll be able to pull the same number of 'enlightening' quotes from thos…

I mean, I used to be an atheist. Like, going to Richard Dawkins on campus, sneering at how stupid Christians were rolling my eyes at every little thing atheist. For a good ten to fifteen years. Then I realized it was terrible for my mental health and just got over myself and adopted more of a Pascal’s Wager outlook. Like, I frankly don’t give a damn about the truth or falsity of religion anymore. That’s not the point…

> If pressed I guess I’ll say it’s unlikely to be true. But that’s not the point.

The problem is expecting the dogma of a thousands years old tradition and book to be absolutely true. There are things in the Bible and Christianity that are basically tall tales. For example, I doubt Jesus was immaculately conceived, but it makes for a great story. People make up stories about remarkable people. I believe Jesus was a real person who had world-changing insights, but I'm afraid a lot of cruft has built up around him and been carried forward as literal truth.

The challenge for an individual is separating the wheat from the chaff.

Most of my thoughts on the matter are derived from Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You.

Re: I'm an addict

#276
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had some limited exposure to Buddhism, but I very much like what I've read. Buddhism seems to focus more on human-as-is and making peace with existence, instead of human-as-should-be and making war with existence, as, for example, Christianity does - by the cardinal sin, the human is sinful through its very existence .

The cardinal sin represent the awakening of the human mind, we no longer live in the moment, we can imagine the future and that make us powerful but also miserable (we can suffer from problems we imagine in the future) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifi5KkXig3s

There is an interpretation that disagrees with what I said, I know. Whatever I say, there will be an interpretation out there that disagrees with what I said.

Re: I'm an addict

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I recommend religion and religious teachings which address this and many other daily worldly issues perfectly. This advice simply doesn't work if the recipient is an atheist. To me, Religious texts are made up fiction that hold no more meaning in my world view than Harry Potter or Game of Thrones. If you read enough fiction on a shared topic, you'll be able to pull the same number of 'enlightening' quotes from thos…

> Religious texts are made up fiction that hold no more meaning in my world view than Harry Potter or Game of Thrones I have been downvoted many times (not sure why?) for stating this on HN, but I will state it again: It's sad that this line of thinking has taken over the modern time. We now have "science", so we don't need any of that silly stuff like "philosophy" or "art" or "religion". All can be explained through…

> we don't need any of that silly stuff like "philosophy" or "art" or "religion"

Op didn't say anything about art or philosophy. You added that stuff in. Atheism doesn't preclude art or philosophy.

> All can be explained through the scientific method

As opposed to "all can be explained through God"? How is that any better?

Re: I'm an addict

#278
One more confirmation that our mission with Murmel (https://murmel.social) is on the right track. I want to see a world where people spend less tiem on social media (doom scrolling on Twitter, in particular), and more tiem outseide, or with friends and family.

Re: I'm an addict

#279
post #174

My desire to read the comments sections on reddit and increasingly on here completely baffle me. If I was sat in a room and the people in there were saying things as stupid as I see on reddit I would leave that room and wonder how the hell I ended up in it. What possible reason do I have to be wasting time reading the barely formed thoughts of what must be predominantly teenagers. Yet ... I find myself back there.

> Yet ... I find myself back there. Agreed. There have been entire days where I've found myself distracted from completing otherwise pressing deadlines. What I've found is that the activity I do first when I start my 'working day' dictates what I do. So, if I show up at work and open Hacker News or Tweetdeck, there's a not-so-insignificant chance that I'll find myself distracted one way or another for the rest of the…

> So, if I show up at work and open Hacker News or Tweetdeck, there's a not-so-insignificant chance that I'll find myself distracted one way or another for the rest of the day. However, if I stick to a set schedule, there's a good chance that I have a productive day

Do you think this is mediated by your mental state, instead of directly causal?

I noticed this for myself: I was recently diagnosed with a CFS-like issue and a combination of drugs and identifying food triggers has made a huge difference in my level of mental energy.

I still monitor and manage it day-to-day, and I noticed that when my inflammation is up, I am a complete sucker for YouTube videos and mindlessly rescrolling through Twitter. It's been really valuable to be able to reframe the problem as downstream of something more manageable.

Re: I'm an addict

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High BPM music does it for me.

Same, or mostly just mixes that go on for an hour or two which I can put on so I don't end up distracted clicking through tracks and discovering shit I want to get. I also have to remind myself to set time aside for checking tracklists on tracks. Helps I got a side gig playing music haha but my bookmarks on that are gargantuan. The dancehall reggae section alone is massive. I never listen to that and get stuff done,…

Lucy Stoner on Soundcloud has been good for me. I've been putting https://soundcloud.com/lucystoner/bangface# on pretty much on loop. Before that it was DJ Sharpnel's Youtube channel. It's an open question for me what the best ratio of beats to memes is; I like when the music makes me smile a few times over a track, but is mostly fast, melodic rhythm without voice - or voice without content; remixes with japanese samples work well, like https://soundcloud.com/dreamydust/ddmix32 .
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