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Dopamine Fracking

igerman.cc

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Re: Dopamine Fracking

#321

Post by nlanier »

I've found that this engineered optimization has a more pernicious side effect: killing curiosity.

Lack of complexity stunts the desire to become curious - to give reasons to look closer, ask questions, compare experiences - and ultimately develop 'taste'.

When everything is optimized into its most obvious, frictionless, immediately-rewarding form, the sum of all experience becomes more 'pleasant' but harder to care about.

The author touches on something that's been grating at me (and is professionally relevant) for some time now, and I appreciate his effort to articulate it.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#322

Post by regexorcist »

spwa4 wrote: post #213
VileSquirrel wrote: post #137

Earlier 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 also live in a small European town and there is a convenience store and a hairdresser. Oh and restaurants. That's it. Doesn't matter if you go to neighboring towns, they're the same. One of the neighboring towns has a supermarket, an Aldi. I am also old enough to remember what it looked like in 1985.

Sounds like a very small town? In general most places are filled with shops you can walk to. In southern Europe in particular it's almost overwhelming the amount of options you have.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#324

Post by gacgacgac »

westmeal wrote: post #112
plastic-enjoyer wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a whole strand of German and French cultural pessimism that foresaw the convergence of mass media to the current point to some degree. > Staying with the articles example, by adding artificial strawberries flavour to everything those that could have enjoyed the natural experience never get the opportunity to do so, preventing them from acquiring the taste. I would go so far to say, that even if people tasted…

I don't know the real sauce is incredible compared to the fake stuff. It really is a massive hassle though :/

I make eggs benedict probably once a month or two. It's really fairly simple with an immersion blender. Comes together in like a minute. Timing the poached eggs and the sandwich elements is a little tricky, but not materially more difficult than, eg, cinnamon rolls from scratch.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#325

Post by hattmall »

designerarvid wrote: post #88
hattmall wrote: post #25

This has been happening in the real world for far longer. It's basically the experience of many modern cities, or even worse suburbs. Starbucks / Chipotle / Orange Theory / Target / Generic Brewery / Lime Scooter / Waymo / Subscribe N Save So much of modern life has been comodified to optimize for things that aren't necessarily what's inline with the users interests and certainly don't do anything for cultural robust…

Guessing by your examples that you are American. Maybe you are aware, or perhaps not, that in Europe many view your culture as the one that has taken this to its extreme. Some envy it, some don’t.

Oh absolutely. It's also a specific segments of America. I hope Europe and elsewhere can resist but it really requires regulation because people in general are too easy to steer via advertising and convenience value propositions.

Definitely places in the US where you want find this commoditization of experience.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#326

Post by pyrale »

VileSquirrel wrote: post #137
spwa4 wrote: post #95

Earlier 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? (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…

To add to this, I live in the suburb of a large European city, and the same is true here, except owners change more often. It is also true in the city center.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#327

Post by stronglikedan »

oa335 wrote: post #247
regexorcist wrote: post #238

As 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?

because we're not putting our personal lives on display here. it's a news aggregator and discussion forum. sure, some folks post their personal projects, but it's framed as news to be discussed, not desperation for validation.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#328

Post by j_w »

Aurornis wrote: post #276
PowerElectronix wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does, but as you really can't get money out of it in a reliable way by exploiting the user addictive behaviors, it doesn't have that effect on society. It's just a cool place to visit now an then an check cool stuff out.

Kind of interesting how many people don’t realize that the purpose of Hacker News was to be an advertisement for Y Combinator and their portfolio companies. You don’t see it as much these days, but YC portfolio companies can post privileged threads on this site for job listings, which in practice double as ads for the company. You’re not allowed to comment on them. I haven’t seen one for a while because I suspect eve…

Just live on /active and that stuff doesn't show up.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#329

Post by hattmall »

zbikowski wrote: post #256
VileSquirrel wrote: post #137

Earlier 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…

There's absolutely places like that in the US. I have multiple of those establishments, non-chain, minutes away. No newspaper store IDK about that, there's also McDonalds, CVS, Subway, but the independent restaurants and business outnumber chains easily. It's just not in a major metropolitan area.

Re: Dopamine Fracking

#330

Post by overgard »

PowerElectronix wrote: post #267
oa335 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why doesnt hackernews count as social media?

It does, but as you really can't get money out of it in a reliable way by exploiting the user addictive behaviors, it doesn't have that effect on society. It's just a cool place to visit now an then an check cool stuff out.

Man, I wish. It used to be that, but I suspect now that there's a lot of astroturfing and probably bots.
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