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Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

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Re: Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

#91

Post by EchoAce »

goatlover wrote: post #79
taternuts wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the books that really allowed me to think differently and sometimes overpower my train of thought is called "The Power of Now". The rhetoric can be super flowery at times (especially in the beginning), but the point he tries to get across was incredibly novel to me and there's strategies in there to help you control your brain and use it more as a tool. I often think that salmon has it better than us humans. T…

Would you rather be a salmon? I rather prefer the complexity that comes with having a self.

That's because you value your power over your peace of mind, which is fine and true for most people. I think they just meant in terms of a purely happiness based value system.

Re: Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

#92

Post by krapp »

overcast wrote: post #83
eduren wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it would help to have a comment reply notification built into HN? Most of the time if I decide not to add a follow-up comment it's because the user I'm replying to has no way of being notified that I did. Or do you think it would just exacerbate the urgency issues?

Something other than the awful threading would be nice. It's nearly impossible to keep up with anything but recent conversations.

>It's nearly impossible to keep up with anything but recent conversations

It's been implied that this is an intentional means of keeping engagement low, as the quality of comments tends to diminish over time, while the likelihood of flamebait and spam increases as comment distance diverges from the root. This is also apparently the reason there are no notifications for new comments. I don't know if it's true or one of those features the community is reading too much meaning into, which only exists as it does because pg wasn't interested in expanding on it.

In any case, I really hope they consider adding more ways to sort the threads - sorting by time rather than karma would be very helpful. They could even keep the karma sort the default so no one else has to complain about the layout changing.

Re: Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

#93

Post by ejlangev »

collyw wrote: post #73
ejlangev wrote: post #44

Seems the author's intentions are good but it's such an odd way to frame it. He outlines that many companies are explicitly designing products in such a way as to exploit ("hack") people's brains at great detriment to those people. But his response is to frame it as that we should place blame on our own brains rather than on the people doing these things or the social structure that rewards them. Feels like he could…

I thought it was quite interesting after a bit of introspection. I expected to pick holes in it and make critical comments here. Then as I read it, I realized that while I am not too addicted to posting shit on Facebook, I get the same dopamine release when I post responses here. Sure I feel a bit smarter because its usually involves a bit more reasoning than a selfie on Faceboook, but the end effect is the same. The…

Yeah I definitely think there are some good ideas behind it I just think the focus is a bit too individualistic. Overall I liked it.
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