Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who has struggled with understanding Adorno for a long time, I found this recent review of a book about Frankfurt School a pleasant read : https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-dialectical...
From this (mostly fine) article you linked to: "Marx was a left-Hegelian, which meant he filed the serial numbers off God and called Him “communism”." I mean, no. That's a complete misreading of Marx. (Though perhaps one that was convenient to Stalinists or Maoists to continue to let breathe...). For one, it would only apply to Marx in his 20s. Grown up Marx substantially threw out most of the Hegelian stuff, seeing…
Dopamine Fracking
291–300 of 446 posts
Re: Dopamine Fracking
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Where in Europe do you find large amounts of small stores? (and for real, not fake) I live in a small european town and all the followings are found less than 3 minutes away from my home: butcher, baker, shoes store, newspaper store, convenience store, barber. The town hosts a market once a week that sells more divers products, and many people do shop there. Some of the stores are owned and operated by descendants…
I think that young USAmericans are deathly envious of a community like yours, myself included. I have nothing really novel to contribute here (in my view, North American urbanism, zoning regulation, the aforementioned globalism and, if you will allow me to briefly beat a dead horse, car-centric planning are to blame.) I was playing Stardew Valley the other day and it hit me. For me, that type of close-knit community…
The US had that too until about WW2. There were family-owned shops having history lasting since long before the Revolution.
Re: Dopamine Fracking
#293The companies are trying to make something you’ll want, and you want it! But if you allow fracking on your “property” then you will be left with poisoned aquifers and empty of substance.
Re: Dopamine Fracking
#294I love this term - I think it beautifully describes the direction that at least, YouTube is heading towards. Take for example, this racket where a channel copies popular (non-kids) creators’ parody work, splits the screen in half with the content on left, adds a completely random DIY type video on the right half, and lo and behold its content for kids who are too young to know any better[1]. Another one: AI voiceover…
Re: Dopamine Fracking
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
.. and here I am wanting better minivan options that can pull a travel trailer.
And here I am just wanting station wagons to come back, and be reasonably priced. The towing numbers are always higher in Europe than US too, despite being the same cars (as far as I know).
Mostly due to differences in environment, AFAIK. Americans drive faster, and towing instability seems to increase with the square of the speed. Also, most travel trailers in the US wouldn't be car-towable anyway, because we have expectations on amenities and size that are predicated on using at least a half-ton pickup for the tow vehicle. Trailers with the compromises needed to be towed European-style aren't popular, so it becomes a self-reinforcing cycle.
Re: Dopamine Fracking
#296As someone under 40 who never had any social media, I cannot overstate the negative impact it's had on my peers and their behaviours. Worst thing to ever happen to society imo, I feel for the younger ones who grew up with it.
why doesnt hackernews count as social media?
It doesn't intentionally insert dark patterns into the platform.
It's not without flaws, of course, but it's 1+ orders of magnitude better than anything else.
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#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess it is mostly (by default): a) real pseudonymity b) no photos/videos c) no infinite scroll d) no notifications e) very specific (mildly speaking) topic range f) very very good ranking and filtering algo ....
(g) guidelines designed for curiosity and intellectual discussion that are enforced by the moderators. No "real" social media platform has anything similar. (so maybe it's more like a discussion board? LessWrong/old phpbb forums)
Re: Dopamine Fracking
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where in Europe do you find large amounts of small stores? (and for real, not fake). Or is your point that Europe has a different supermarket chain per country? Malls have the same stores across countries ... but they differ, somewhat, if you move from one country to the next. And they're fake. Every company has 3-4 store brands these days so malls have 4-5 stores that look different, but aren't. So ... what a differ…
"Where in Europe do you find large amounts of small stores?" Im vibrant city centers of every bigger city I visited. The ugly malls are taking over much and online ordering is heavy pressure, but some are still very much alive.
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#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
That means most people can never have it, which is why romanticism ends up pining for aristocracy.
I take your point, but the other argument against scaling in this way doesn't rely on sentiment: it's unsustainable. I actually hate that word, but the point is that current production methods create (unpriced) environmental externalities. We're draining aquifers, exhausting topsoil, pouring fertilizer into rivers, using too much petroleum - and then throwing a massive portion of what we produce away. (And that's jus…
My issue with at least some of green ideology is that it's viewed as a moral problem. We are sinning by asking for more than we deserve and, if you really scratch the surface, by trying to give too much to the unwashed hordes. Beneath the surface I think you find romanticism, and beneath that you find nostalgia for a fantasy world that never really existed. That fantasy world is the fantasy of the old aristocracy. It's the story they told themselves.
I think those kinds of greens are "trads" who don't know it yet. The only thing keeping them from going down that road is an attachment to the idea of equality and things like LGBTQ rights. If you give up those things, the rest aligns perfectly. If you want a world of rare authentic things enjoyed by cultured people and all of it to fit within present techno/ecological limits, you have to put the masses back in feudal serfdom and establish a rigid, religious, traditional system to hold everything in stasis that way. It would be sustainable.
But as I said a few levels up, there is another side of the critique that I think has more legs. That's the critique of engineered addiction and manipulation. Those are not mandatory effects of scale. They're engineered to maximize short term profits or for other purposes like political manipulation, which I guess is another kind of profit (power rather than money).