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Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

amirsharif.com

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Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#51

Post by bigiain »

padolsey wrote: post #31
ch4s3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im never surprised when someone prattling on about dopamine also leans on a bad study to make a spurious point.

Yep it's always a bit cute and funny, when you consider the absolute necessity of dopamine in basically every functionally relevant neural activation. Talk to a parkinson's patient about your 'dopamine=bad' fluff. Ugh. They may as well just have titled it "Protecting My Attention At The {Insert Arbitrary Hormone or Neurotransmission Chemical} Carnival"....

> They may as well just have titled it "Protecting My Attention At The {Insert Arbitrary Hormone or Neurotransmission Chemical} Carnival"....

I disagree. I am absolutely certain that the vast majority of the readers here would have known in the context of that headline exactly what "The Dopamine Carnival" meant, without needing any specific positive or negative implications about dopamine in general or it's actual biochemical mechanisms. It's blatantly obviously about social media and mobile apps that are intentionally designed to manipulate your brain and its reward system.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#52

Post by joules77 »

jampa wrote: post #11

> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance. That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours. I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one…

Don't use apps. The only apps on my phone are for communication. Nothing else.

It's quite possible to live with websites.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#53

Post by bigiain »

Dr_Birdbrain wrote: post #47
jampa wrote: post #11

> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance. That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours. I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one…

What would your employer say if you said “I don’t own a smartphone. What alternatives exist?” My current employer has a little nub on my laptop that I touch, but my previous employer was big on making me check my smartphone.

I have at times carried a Firefox Phone and a Pinephone, and deeply enjoyed asking work or other people who insisted I needed to download an app to do (whatever) "Where I can get your app for my phone? No, it's not an iPhone. No, it's not an Android phone either."

(Lately I've been using "It's a work phone, I'm not able to install apps on it, you'll need to run your app past our corporate IT and Security team.")

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#54

Post by p0sixlang »

o11c wrote: post #46
jampa wrote: post #11

> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance. That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours. I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one…

> I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer [...] Because MFA requirements have never been about security, only security theater. It's the modern version of the "you must change your password every 30 days" rule.

Wat? If my laptop gets infected and the bad actor tries to access my (insert account protected with MFA here), their ability to do harm is limited by spreading things across two devices.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#55

Post by p0sixlang »

joules77 wrote: post #52
jampa wrote: post #11

> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance. That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours. I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one…

Don't use apps. The only apps on my phone are for communication. Nothing else. It's quite possible to live with websites.

How are you delineating websites and apps, and can you elaborate what exactly your hypothesis is here?

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#56

Post by llmthrow103 »

padolsey wrote: post #23

> Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x. Argh people keep referencing this study as Gospel. It has not been peer-reviewed. Its methodology has a number of concerning confounders. It's a tiny sample with a narrow contrived task domain. And the very premise of the study is misframed. The implication that 'brain…

I agree that it's not a great study, but I also don't want to find out too late that it wasn't a good idea to outsource my thinking to ChatGPT.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#57

Post by brailsafe »

androng wrote: post #7

I think I can obtain a triple benefit by using Cursor "ask" mode instead of "agent" mode. 1) I don't over-rely on the AI so I don't accidentally commit bugs 2) I can just put in a OpenAI API key pay-as-you-go instead of subscribing to Cursor Pro monthly and getting screwed by SaaS fee I don't use 3) I actually learn what the AI says and add it to my long-term memory instead of just having it write code for me in Agen…

> for bigger edits I think trying to learn everything the AI says is not really scalable or at least it takes me much longer.

Seems like this is the inherent difficulty in being a skillful developer. Atleast in the context of non-trivial collaborative projects, big edits that the person commiting doesn't understand might as well be a diceroll, and imo those big edits should really only be applied if the intent was to save the time in writing it.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#58

Post by brailsafe »

candiddevmike wrote: post #13
bcoates wrote: post #3

The idea of app timers seems like exactly the weird self-negotiation alcoholics do around booze where they think mimicking the habits of casual drinkers (on what is, to the casual, a bender) will make them not an alcoholic anymore. Yes, normies might have three margaritas on a Tuesday. Like, once a quarter. Not every single day, and also not followed by a whole lot more once you’re loosened up. Likewise, the reaction…

I wish Chrome had timers for specific websites on mobile. I hate the all-or-nothing Chrome timer, it's ridiculous and so counter intuitive.

> I wish Chrome had timers for specific websites on mobile.

Chrome does have this feature on mobile, but perhaps not on your mobile.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#59

Post by brailsafe »

parpfish wrote: post #27
candiddevmike wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish Chrome had timers for specific websites on mobile. I hate the all-or-nothing Chrome timer, it's ridiculous and so counter intuitive.

I’d also like more control over chrome autocomplete. Most of the time that I get sucked into a website, it’s because autocomplete and muscle memory got me there without thinking. Every once in a while I’ll clean out my history cache and for a week or so I’ll find myself on the page of google search results for “re” or “fa”

Agreed, and their setting to turn it off entirely doesn't work on Pixel at all.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#60

Post by bongodongobob »

Dr_Birdbrain wrote: post #47
jampa wrote: post #11

> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance. That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours. I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one…

What would your employer say if you said “I don’t own a smartphone. What alternatives exist?” My current employer has a little nub on my laptop that I touch, but my previous employer was big on making me check my smartphone.

Phone call, sms, email, physical fob, 2nd person.
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