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Wow, I'm glad this was posted. I think the way we use technology today will be looked back on the same way we look back at naive cigarette smoking in the 1950s

by lars 10y ago

Wow, I'm glad this was posted. I think the way we use technology today will be looked back on the same way we look back at naive cigarette smoking in the 1950s. Modern app design isn't about creating things that are good for the user, but about creating want in the user. This is a problem. For example, there are several studies showing that using Facebook in general makes people less happy. User happiness just happens to not be be necessary for Facebook to be a successful business. Go to a developer conference by one of the big tech companies, and speakers generally aren't talking about doing good things for the user. They'll use euphemisms like "increasing engagement". There's concepts like "permission priming", psychological tricks to get the user to do what you want. There's books written about how to maximize app addictiveness. It's stuff that mildly screws over the user, and it guides the product designs that affect the lives of billions of people. It's not good.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
I think the more apt metaphor is lead in Roman pipes. They knew lead exposure made you crazy but they still used it in their pipes, on their plates - and it drove them mad. After the planet has warmed beyond a point of no return, after antibiotic resistant bacteria make routine surgery a life-or-death decision, after we have squandered away our resources and used what little we had left to wage futile wars, we will find ourselves looking back at these Bernaysian psychological tricks of mass consumerism...and I wonder if we will use the same excuse then as we do today: "But it was good for GDP!"
- reasonattlm 10y ago
  The lead hypothesis for Roman decline is disputed. http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/04/lead-pipes-polluted-roman-drinking-water http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/04/lead-pipes-pollute... The demise of antibiotics is much overwrought. It won't happen, since researchers have basically solved the problem of cost-effectively finding an unlimited supply of new ones. https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26701 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26701 In general people like seeing doom everywhere. To the extent this motivates some of them to do something about it, this is probably good. But it is very irritating when the doomsayers don't adjust their doomsaying based upon current scientific work.
  - closed 10y ago
    > But it is very irritating when the doomsayers don't adjust their doomsaying based upon current scientific work. I love this line. It's like somebody just submitted doomsaying homework, and you are not taking issue with their premise per se, but taking off points for the sources they used.
    - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
      Heh, yeah. It's like talking to climate "skeptics" - people who believe climate change is real but disagree on the level of human agency. You can show them graph after graph of greenhouse gas emissions being pumped into the atmosphere at alarming rates and they'll say "I'm not that alarmed, we don't know how much of an impact it will have." Meanwhile, coral reefs are bleaching, Florida is flooding, and we are experiencing record heatwaves AND snowfall. At the very least, it doesn't take much to make clear that we should still DO SOMETHING.
      - cpt1138 10y ago
        But what? The problem with the constant doom is that we get exhausted. At least in the US all we truly care about is war and old people (looking at where the money goes; http://whatwepayfor.com/ http://whatwepayfor.com/). The problem with the doom sayers is they have no solutions or actionable items that we can say yes or no to. Its just lions and tigers and bears 24/7.
        Jtsummers 10y ago
        Reduce our emissions. This has one potential and one actual effect. 1) Potential: If climate change is significantly affected by human output, then we may curb or counter the current climate trends. 2) Actual: Healthier environment for life on this planet. We won't have cities like Los Angeles used to be, or Beijing is now where people can barely go outside without taking a year off their life. This is, without a doubt, a good thing unless you explicitly want poorer health to be the norm.
- y0ast 10y ago
  Actually, the Roman pipe store is a bit of an urban legend. According to this PNAS [0] paper: "Lead pollution of “tap water” in Roman times is clearly measurable, but unlikely to have been truly harmful." [0] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/18/6594.full http://www.pnas.org/content/111/18/6594.full
  - Retric 10y ago
    I don't know if that shows what you suggest it does. Using lead tainted water for irrigation is also harmful because plants will transmit that lead to people though their diet. Further, lead sticks around in contaminated soils and accumulates over time. In that context, every lead source ends up becoming increasingly important.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
      If plants transmit the lead to those who eat them how can it also accumulate in the soil? The plants would bioremediate the soil.
      - Retric 10y ago
        It's not 100%. Suppose a plant absorbs 5% of the lead. Well in the first year you get 5% of the lead in all water used for irrigation. But, 95% is left in the soil. Next year you get 5% of 195%. Until, the soil has 20 years worth of lead and all new lead added in a year ends up in the plant. Drop that to 1% and it would take ~100 years to get the same effect. Note, you would really get a differential equation with several terms, but more or less the same idea just after more time and balanced with water that overflows the field etc.
        TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
        Ah, yes, of course. I guess at some point you're supposed to develop soil testing and stop putting the toxins in to the soil. And the air. And the water. It's not looking too good is it.
  - 10y ago
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Besides actual lead concentration in water being disputed (per comments in the parallel subthreads), I think this analogy isn't good for another reason - Roman aqueducts were meant to solve a problem, to get fresh water into towns, improving comfort as well as sanitation. Most apps made today are not about solving problems, they're about bundling a minimum amount of features that would trick the users into doing something (paying with money, paying with daya) that profits the app creators.
  - chiaro 10y ago
    I think the majority of app developers still, at least nominally, believe that they are providing something of value.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  My favorite New Yorker cartoon ever: http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Yes-the-planet-got-destroyed-But-for-a-beautiful-moment-in-time-we-created-a-lot-of-value-for-sh-Prints_i9318014_.htm http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Yes-the-planet-got-destroy... "Yes, the planet was destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."
- mrleiter 10y ago
  What a beautiful comment, thanks.
- andrepd 10y ago
  Have you a source on that avoid the Romans?
- djsumdog 10y ago
  I'm so glad you mentioned Edward Bernays. It's interesting how he was very helpful in promoting his uncle's book in the US, bringing Freud some much needed cash. At the same time, Sigmund hated Bernays, and Anna, for using a lot of his psychological work to change the face of advertising into what it is today. Bernays created the very first _Public Relations_ office (he made up the term because "Propaganda" was a bad word). He helped get more women smoking (torches for freedom!). I'm sure if it wasn't him and Anna, someone else would have come along and made these discoveries anyway. Capitalism, Consumerism and Planed Obsolescence will be what brings down the current world.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    Well yeah, that was basically his argument: propaganda is too effective to be left in the "wrong" hands, so the "right" people better get on it, and quick. I'm sure it dawned on him that it wouldn't take long until everyone was using it and there would be no discernible difference between the good or bad. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."
    - jamesblonde 10y ago
      And the usual reference to Adam Curtis' history of consumerism, based around Edward Bernays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
- hueving 10y ago
  How is incorrect antibiotic usage related to anyone claiming it's good for GDP? Seems like a pretty weak strawman.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- andrei_says_ 10y ago
  By definition, profit is the only thing that matters to corporations. A moral corporation is a profitable one, and vice versa. Everything else is a lower priority than profit and growth. Thus, we turn everything that exists into what we measure as profit. We are the indigenous people selling our lives and attention and time and land/planet for shiny trinkets without value.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    The problem is that there are good profits and bad profits. "Good profits" create consumer surplus. "Bad profits" are rents. I don't know if you've looked lately, but corporations do a lot of things differently than simply maximizing short terms profits now. Besides, that's mostly an artifact of mutual fund style public stock financing. In addition to going private, there is emphasis on dividends, stock buybacks, that sort of thing. At its simplest, a thing is profitable if it can be done efficiently and people want it. That's not a bad thing.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  Lead pipes work just fine for most water chemistries. It was the salts of lead used as sweeteners that were much more of a problem. As they say, "the dose is the poison". If our behavior renders us extinct, then we had a good run.
kordless 10y ago
> User happiness just happens to not be be necessary for Facebook to be a successful business. All that is necessary for Facebook to be successful is to make money for their shareholders. User happiness is only important if it impacts that particular line item.
jflatow 10y ago
I was about to post the same sentiment re: smoking. Given that we see this type of behavior in all industries (not just tech), it seems to me it's actually a systemic problem. People / organizations are incentivized universally to optimize for their own selfish interest, because they do not incur the cost of their decisions on everyone else. In this case, designing your product to maximize e.g. addictiveness or time spent per user makes sense if the downside of that is paid by the user. I think taxing wealth / property instead of (primarily) income actually solves this problem, but that's another story...
- facetube 10y ago
  I'd wholeheartedly support wealth taxes if I trusted the social safety net and health care system in my country. Until then, I'll hoard money out of fear: I don't have anything I'm intending to spend it on and hopefully never will. Fix health care and there'd be a high probability of the chains coming off off, at least for me.
  - jflatow 10y ago
    Yeah, I chalk this up to broken feedback loops. A separate but related problem, is that in most places it works roughly like G = TI, with a fixed T (tax rate), so that G (government budget) is a function of I (income). The tax just works like a resistance to accumulating wealth, no matter how much the government actually needs in order to function. It would probably help if we capped G instead, i.e. T = G/I.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    The trick to taxes is in getting them right. Taxes are, to a rough analog, like the vacuum hose system within an automobile engine. (Hrm: I'm thinking that this may be a bad analogy if there aren't many auto gearheads here.) An internal combustion engine is essentially a self-powered air pump. It has a low-pressure end (intake) and high-pressure end (exhaust). It's got various bits and pieces which need powering. Chains, shafts, and vacuum hoses bleed off some of the energy output of the engine to run systems which can't otherwise be powered. Without the vacuum system, the engine as a whole runs worse. A vacuum leak, though, worsens performance as you're bleeding off energy and not feeding it back in where it's needed. In the same sense, taxes modify the function of markets by rasing or lowering costs, and transferring purchasing capability elsewhere. If properly structured, they improve the function of the economy as a whole. If not, they worsen it. The engine (wealthy) generally perceive the direct costs, but not the indirect benefits of the tax system.
swiley 10y ago
This is why I generally choose small open source Linux based tools over smartphone apps and the like. I just don't trust app and web developers because they have repeatedly worked against my interests.
- s3arch 10y ago
  Could you let us know which open source Linux based tools you use, and what mobile/web app you let go loose.
  - jmiserez 10y ago
    Not OP, but a good example would be the various PDF conversion apps around. The freemium/shareware ones all suck in one way or another unless you pay (arbitrary page limits, watermarks etc), the web-based ones make batch processing very hard and have privacy issues. Meanwhile ghostscript, pdftk, imagemagick and co. just work and will continue to work for a long time. On mobile I can use these over SSH on a remote Linux box. LaTeX or LibreOffice vs. Word is a similar example, although you can't always get around using Word. Or Photoshop, when Adobe switched to a subscription service. I use it maybe 3 times a year, a (legal) old version would be fine but you can't buy one. GIMP it is, even though it has less features. I want to spend less time looking for new apps/services just because the previous ones went out of business or now charge monthly for 5 lines of code. Libre/Free software mostly stays around, even the unmaintained stuff is often forked/fixed/updated by someone if the fix is small enough.
    - jakub_g 10y ago
      Offtopic ad. PDF: [1] is quite fine on Windows and has no arbitrary restrictions. But the general point holds. [1] https://www.pdfill.com/pdf_tools_free.html https://www.pdfill.com/pdf_tools_free.html
      - jmiserez 10y ago
        Nice. Apparently it uses Ghostscript in the background though? Another problem is that a Google search for "convert to PDF" turns up so much crap it's hard to even start looking. Same with "convert to MP4". I just use ffmpeg directly now, even though getting the command line options right is not easy.
danr4 10y ago
Couldn't agree more with the looking back part. It's a line of thought I frequently have when trying to think critically about many accepted practices in todays society. It usually comes in the form of asking myself "Is this practice the kind society is going to laugh about in a 100 years?" or me imagining someone saying "Haha I can't believe this is what they did in 2016! Man were they dumb". Most prominent non-tech example in these times for me is the meat industry.
- unprepare 10y ago
  not just meat The entirety of food production is insane. We import workers from other countries to have them pick our fruit and vegetables. We use tons of various chemicals to combat and kill all kinds of insects, birds, animals to keep them away from our crops. We grow huge amounts of food in areas without fresh water sources etc.
dorfsmay 10y ago
Getting people hooked/addicted is not new, it's been used in TV series and shows for decades. I'll explain it all in my next post...
- Godel_unicode 10y ago
  Please elaborate in the form of a list of weird tricks
  - sjcsjc 10y ago
    Regrettably, "they" don't wish you to know those tricks.
  - mmariani 10y ago
    He just did with this: > I'll explain it all in my next post... By leaving it hanging your curious mind could not resist the temptation and started to fill in the blanks, and when that wasn't enough you posted a request for more. That's why the main characters never get home or never make out — it's a lot like an infinite scroll.
    - akaij 10y ago
      > and when that wasn't enough you posted a request for more I think that was very much intentional.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
nihonde 10y ago
If I find an app is pulling me in too often, I delete it. If I find a website is distracting me too much, I throw it on my hosts file (and redirect it to 127.0.0.1). If I find myself drinking too much beer, I stop. If I find myself craving anything in a way that feels intuitively bad, it's a good sign that I need to change something. I feel like a lot of people respond to those impulses by going out of their way to make it normal—everyone has this problem—rather than deal with it before it becomes a monkey on your back. I have a lot of compassion for their predicament, but I also know that the answer is very, very simple: walk away and do something else.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  As a personal prescription, this is great, but as a societal one it's like saying "just don't smoke, it's as easy as that!" On a national or international scale, we don't get to deal with what ought to be, only what is. And it increasingly looks - Facebook averages 50 minutes of use per day - like the average person either doesn't know or doesn't manage to limit their consumption of these things. Super-satiation is a real problem, is in fact most of our problems from obesity to inaccurate news to dishonest politicians. There comes a point where we have to accept that this is going to take some solution larger than personal responsibility.
  - nihonde 10y ago
    Yes, I completely agree. I have plenty of vices, and struggle with them all the time. I guess I was trying to convey my own current state of mind after thinking hard about this problem and where it leads...but you're right to characterize that as a personal viewpoint, and not something you can realistically prescribe for others. Everyone has to come to their own enlightenment, and I still have a long way to go.
    - taurath 10y ago
      It's not necessarily just a personal thing. We as a people haven't yet figured out how to value or not value this new deluge of distraction and information. Social rules are doing more to curb smoking now than any health warnings - everyone I know who's quit recently does so because it's seen as a bad thing to do by people. If overuse of media was treated the same way we tread people with any other addiction (social shame, professionals to help) it would be less of a problem. But a huuuge amount of people just spend their time tuning out and going down the information rabbit hole and not spending any time pursuing their goals (myself included)
0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
But why call it technology? On the bright side, the profit from hijacking your brain goes to sending their kids to "low-tech" schools[0] Hurray for computer human symbiosis after all[1] [0]http://www.educationnews.org/technology/silicon-valley-tech-execs-sending-kids-to-tech-free-schools/ http://www.educationnews.org/technology/silicon-valley-tech-... [1] http://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html http://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html
goalieca 10y ago
I'm glad you posted this. It is all about trying to drive habits just like cigarettes which are specially engineered.
goalieca 10y ago
I'm glad you posted this. It is all about trying to drive habits just like cigarettes which are specially engineered.
mc32 10y ago
I agree with you and the article and further... Many companies are trying to take search, for example, to the next level by brining predictability through your history as well as your graph. It takes decisionmaking out of people's minds. "You show a history of reading this and that book, have watched these movies and your circle of meaningful people have influenced you thus, so we have this book on its way to you now." It looks like it's really intelligent and offers convenience, time-savings, "efficiency". You don't even have to think of what you want, it knows already. You have an appointment in LA in 3hrs, don't forget your [whatever] and the mother of the person you are about to meet is in the hospital, take something appropriate for the occasion, we also suggest the following lamentation "...". This kind of thing is taking the humanity out of being human. People are reduced to a basic animal framework and the machine is adding humanity for you, so you don't have to bother. In taking the "tedium" out of daily living, people are reduced to a sort of best on a pedestal.
- kbenson 10y ago
  You can look at it as removing our humanity, or you can look at it as supplementing our humanity. Prior to the written word, we had to devote time and effort to passing down information through the spoken word. By offloading this task to an external device (wall, tablet, parchment, paper, book, screen), we've been able to use that time and brainpower to focus on other items, while also increasing the fidelity of our history and what we can learn from it. People lament the loss of an oral storytelling culture. It is a loss, but we've gained as well, so mathematics, literature, philosophy. We are able to build on the past in a way we weren't before. Prior to the plow and domesticated animals to pull them, we used to have to plant manually or practice a more hunter & gatherer lifestyle. By offloading these tasks we are able to secure our future needs, and live a life less of subsistence, and more of security in our health and future. Some people lament the loss of connection to the land, the feeling of oneness with the seasons. It is a loss, but again, we've gained as well. This free time has allowed us to study what we've written, and build upon the past. You could make a case that using these tools (and hundreds more in our history) takes the humanity out of you, and relies on the tool for it. I would make the case that using these tools is what makes you human, as without them, what's really the distinguishing feature that separates you from the apes? To me, nothing defines humanity more than the constant improvement of our race, our reach, and our capabilities. That I carry around a small computer in my pocket that connects to a much larger network and allows me near instantaneous connection to my family, friends, coworkers, and the largest accumulation of knowledge the human race has ever seen might seem like I'm trading away what you think makes us human, but since I use this to keep in touch with friends, be more mindful of important things to them, learn about what I'm doing to be more safe, secure and healthy, and share with myriad sub-cultures, I strongly disagree.
dave2000 10y ago
Interesting you used smoking as a metaphor and not advertising. The amount of effort and money that's gone into that is amazing.
Clanan 10y ago
I think this hearkens back to the "great power, great responsibility" cliche. The power of technology requires mature, responsible users and creators. But it's very difficult to be either of those.
DigitalJack 10y ago
You couldn't be more right. Looking at apps on Apple's App Store, you will often see them bragging about their app being "Addictive," or in reviews, people will state how addictive the app is as if that were a good thing.
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
  That and "aggressive" for praising car designs. Great idea, we really could use some more aggression on the roads ...
tdaltonc 10y ago
I think that these powers can be used for good. I'm building a subreddit for people who want to learn how to align the behaviors their apps construct with their users best interests. https://www.reddit.com/r/behaviordesign https://www.reddit.com/r/behaviordesign
colordrops 10y ago
Funny that you mention cigarette smoking. I was just ruminating last night in bed how hard it was to put down the phone and go to sleep. I had the same feeling of addiction that I hadn't felt since I quit smoking 15 years ago. It actually caused me to have a minor panic attack, and I'm now actively seeking methods to reduce my dependency on the phone and internet information feed.
- perseusprime11 10y ago
  +1 Smartphone is a universal addiction as opposed to cigarette smoking. If we do not do something about this, our future humans will walk around with stiff necks as this will be coded into our DNA and we will evolve accordingly.
  - theseatoms 10y ago
    For these reasons, I've started to log my smartphone usage. God knows everyone else is. It should be fun to look at the data after a few weeks of logging via a free app.
    - pzenger 10y ago
      Which app are you using to do this? I'm interested in trying this as well.
      - theseatoms 10y ago
        I've been running this for only the past week. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a0soft.gphone.uninstaller https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a0soft.gph... I noticed it has 'Export to csv' functionality, which is convenient. But I haven't yet verified that it works.
      - EliRivers 10y ago
        For a moment I laughed hard at this, thinking it was ironic humour. But now I'm scared it's not.
amelius 10y ago
The same holds for fast-food and pop music.
patcon 10y ago
I heard some thinking by Jake Appelbaum that it feels like you might connect with: https://twitter.com/patconnolly/status/612755010238193664 https://twitter.com/patconnolly/status/612755010238193664 There's some sort of future truth in this kind of thinking that I'm still sorting out. It seems to centre around a future ability to embrace and accommodate all the ways that humans and our minds are frail, instead of all the ways that we're great. And that seems pretty counter to the prevailing western culture of choice and autonomy. Accepting this might require social concessions, where we carve out safe spaces and practices, free from the all-too-easy possibility of manipulation. I can very much imagine, in a sci-fi-esque way, how this leads into conversations that will later involve trans-humanism :/ Hopefully the above doesn't seem dark -- I'm an optimist!
bps4484 10y ago
"but about creating want in the user" reminded me of a quote, but it was about television advertising, which I think may be a more apt comparison: Indeed, we may go this far: The television commercial is not at all about the character of products to be consumed. It is about the character of the consumers of products. Images of movie stars and famous athletes, of serene lakes and macho fishing trips, of elegant dinners and romantic interludes, of happy families packing their station wagons for a picnic in the country -- these tell nothing about the products being sold. But they tell everything about the fears, fancies and dreams of those who might buy them. What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer. And so, the balance of business expenditures shifts from product research to market research. The television commercial has oriented business away from making products of value and toward making consumers feel valuable, which means that the business of business has now become pseudo-therapy. The consumer is a patient assured by psycho-dramas. I highly recommend the book http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Busi...
kennethologist 10y ago
Any books you would recommend for reading about these techniques?
rms_returns 10y ago
> User happiness just happens to not be be necessary for Facebook to be a successful business. Agreed. But the anti-thesis of that is that along with tech companies (like Facebook and Goolge), the average user is evolving too. In other words, sooner or later, the average user will start thinking exactly what you are thinking now. And thats when the user will start ditching Facebook for something open source and WhatsApp for something like Telegram.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mclovinit 10y ago
One of the interesting side effects of social media is the social "guilt" of "unfriending". I suppose this is another form of the inconvenience associated with using a technology. Individuals feel briefly butthurt by someone consciuosly disassociating themselves after intelligently beating the system. For example, I first unfriended all connections prior to deleting my Facebook account which allowed me to stay away forever instead of coming back to reactivate my account. You might have heard of similar approaches such as the "overwhelming force" of paying someone when it comes to quitting smoking if they happen to catch you smoking. Instead it seems companies have countered this by selling electronic cigarettes which seem to be socially appealing (e.g. asthetically appealing color and pattern choices). If someone does to act quickly enough on their plan to "leave the system", they may quickly get pulled back in with a counter move on behalf of some business.
cJ0th 10y ago
> I think the way we use technology today will be looked back on the same way we look back at naive cigarette smoking in the 1950s. > Modern app design isn't about creating things that are good for the user, but about creating want in the user. This is a problem. This would be my feelings as well. However, you have to acknowledge that this is only one possible scenario. It could be that somewhere in the future all of a sudden we discover a puzzle piece which is as of yet unknown and boom everything makes perfect sense and the way we did things in the 00s looks incredibly quaint and idiotic. Atm I try to ignore FB et al as much as I can but there is a slim chance that this makes me look like a fool one day.
kafkaesq 10y ago
I think the way we use technology today will be looked back on the same way we look back at naive cigarette smoking in the 1950s. Or perhaps cars and freeways, from about the same period.
voodootrucker 10y ago
Apps always serve the customers. When people used to buy apps, they were the customers. Now advertisers pay for apps, and people are the product. Economics are hugely important, as all behavior eventually will align with what is incentivized.

by lars 10y ago

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

I think the more apt metaphor is lead in Roman pipes. They knew lead exposure made you crazy but they still used it in their pipes, on their plates - and it drove them mad. After the planet has warmed beyond a point of no return, after antibiotic resistant bacteria make routine surgery a life-or-death decision, after we have squandered away our resources and used what little we had left to wage futile wars, we will find ourselves looking back at these Bernaysian psychological tricks of mass consumerism...and I wonder if we will use the same excuse then as we do today: "But it was good for GDP!"

reasonattlm 10y ago
The lead hypothesis for Roman decline is disputed. http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/04/lead-pipes-polluted-roman-drinking-water http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/04/lead-pipes-pollute... The demise of antibiotics is much overwrought. It won't happen, since researchers have basically solved the problem of cost-effectively finding an unlimited supply of new ones. https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26701 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26701 In general people like seeing doom everywhere. To the extent this motivates some of them to do something about it, this is probably good. But it is very irritating when the doomsayers don't adjust their doomsaying based upon current scientific work.
- closed 10y ago
  > But it is very irritating when the doomsayers don't adjust their doomsaying based upon current scientific work. I love this line. It's like somebody just submitted doomsaying homework, and you are not taking issue with their premise per se, but taking off points for the sources they used.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    Heh, yeah. It's like talking to climate "skeptics" - people who believe climate change is real but disagree on the level of human agency. You can show them graph after graph of greenhouse gas emissions being pumped into the atmosphere at alarming rates and they'll say "I'm not that alarmed, we don't know how much of an impact it will have." Meanwhile, coral reefs are bleaching, Florida is flooding, and we are experiencing record heatwaves AND snowfall. At the very least, it doesn't take much to make clear that we should still DO SOMETHING.
    - cpt1138 10y ago
      But what? The problem with the constant doom is that we get exhausted. At least in the US all we truly care about is war and old people (looking at where the money goes; http://whatwepayfor.com/ http://whatwepayfor.com/). The problem with the doom sayers is they have no solutions or actionable items that we can say yes or no to. Its just lions and tigers and bears 24/7.
      - Jtsummers 10y ago
        Reduce our emissions. This has one potential and one actual effect. 1) Potential: If climate change is significantly affected by human output, then we may curb or counter the current climate trends. 2) Actual: Healthier environment for life on this planet. We won't have cities like Los Angeles used to be, or Beijing is now where people can barely go outside without taking a year off their life. This is, without a doubt, a good thing unless you explicitly want poorer health to be the norm.
y0ast 10y ago
Actually, the Roman pipe store is a bit of an urban legend. According to this PNAS [0] paper: "Lead pollution of “tap water” in Roman times is clearly measurable, but unlikely to have been truly harmful." [0] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/18/6594.full http://www.pnas.org/content/111/18/6594.full
- Retric 10y ago
  I don't know if that shows what you suggest it does. Using lead tainted water for irrigation is also harmful because plants will transmit that lead to people though their diet. Further, lead sticks around in contaminated soils and accumulates over time. In that context, every lead source ends up becoming increasingly important.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    If plants transmit the lead to those who eat them how can it also accumulate in the soil? The plants would bioremediate the soil.
    - Retric 10y ago
      It's not 100%. Suppose a plant absorbs 5% of the lead. Well in the first year you get 5% of the lead in all water used for irrigation. But, 95% is left in the soil. Next year you get 5% of 195%. Until, the soil has 20 years worth of lead and all new lead added in a year ends up in the plant. Drop that to 1% and it would take ~100 years to get the same effect. Note, you would really get a differential equation with several terms, but more or less the same idea just after more time and balanced with water that overflows the field etc.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
        Ah, yes, of course. I guess at some point you're supposed to develop soil testing and stop putting the toxins in to the soil. And the air. And the water. It's not looking too good is it.
- 10y ago
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Besides actual lead concentration in water being disputed (per comments in the parallel subthreads), I think this analogy isn't good for another reason - Roman aqueducts were meant to solve a problem, to get fresh water into towns, improving comfort as well as sanitation. Most apps made today are not about solving problems, they're about bundling a minimum amount of features that would trick the users into doing something (paying with money, paying with daya) that profits the app creators.
- chiaro 10y ago
  I think the majority of app developers still, at least nominally, believe that they are providing something of value.
Analemma_ 10y ago
My favorite New Yorker cartoon ever: http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Yes-the-planet-got-destroyed-But-for-a-beautiful-moment-in-time-we-created-a-lot-of-value-for-sh-Prints_i9318014_.htm http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Yes-the-planet-got-destroy... "Yes, the planet was destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."
mrleiter 10y ago
What a beautiful comment, thanks.
andrepd 10y ago
Have you a source on that avoid the Romans?
djsumdog 10y ago
I'm so glad you mentioned Edward Bernays. It's interesting how he was very helpful in promoting his uncle's book in the US, bringing Freud some much needed cash. At the same time, Sigmund hated Bernays, and Anna, for using a lot of his psychological work to change the face of advertising into what it is today. Bernays created the very first _Public Relations_ office (he made up the term because "Propaganda" was a bad word). He helped get more women smoking (torches for freedom!). I'm sure if it wasn't him and Anna, someone else would have come along and made these discoveries anyway. Capitalism, Consumerism and Planed Obsolescence will be what brings down the current world.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Well yeah, that was basically his argument: propaganda is too effective to be left in the "wrong" hands, so the "right" people better get on it, and quick. I'm sure it dawned on him that it wouldn't take long until everyone was using it and there would be no discernible difference between the good or bad. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."
  - jamesblonde 10y ago
    And the usual reference to Adam Curtis' history of consumerism, based around Edward Bernays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
hueving 10y ago
How is incorrect antibiotic usage related to anyone claiming it's good for GDP? Seems like a pretty weak strawman.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
andrei_says_ 10y ago
By definition, profit is the only thing that matters to corporations. A moral corporation is a profitable one, and vice versa. Everything else is a lower priority than profit and growth. Thus, we turn everything that exists into what we measure as profit. We are the indigenous people selling our lives and attention and time and land/planet for shiny trinkets without value.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  The problem is that there are good profits and bad profits. "Good profits" create consumer surplus. "Bad profits" are rents. I don't know if you've looked lately, but corporations do a lot of things differently than simply maximizing short terms profits now. Besides, that's mostly an artifact of mutual fund style public stock financing. In addition to going private, there is emphasis on dividends, stock buybacks, that sort of thing. At its simplest, a thing is profitable if it can be done efficiently and people want it. That's not a bad thing.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
Lead pipes work just fine for most water chemistries. It was the salts of lead used as sweeteners that were much more of a problem. As they say, "the dose is the poison". If our behavior renders us extinct, then we had a good run.

kordless 10y ago

> User happiness just happens to not be be necessary for Facebook to be a successful business. All that is necessary for Facebook to be successful is to make money for their shareholders. User happiness is only important if it impacts that particular line item.

jflatow 10y ago

I was about to post the same sentiment re: smoking. Given that we see this type of behavior in all industries (not just tech), it seems to me it's actually a systemic problem. People / organizations are incentivized universally to optimize for their own selfish interest, because they do not incur the cost of their decisions on everyone else. In this case, designing your product to maximize e.g. addictiveness or time spent per user makes sense if the downside of that is paid by the user. I think taxing wealth / property instead of (primarily) income actually solves this problem, but that's another story...

facetube 10y ago
I'd wholeheartedly support wealth taxes if I trusted the social safety net and health care system in my country. Until then, I'll hoard money out of fear: I don't have anything I'm intending to spend it on and hopefully never will. Fix health care and there'd be a high probability of the chains coming off off, at least for me.
- jflatow 10y ago
  Yeah, I chalk this up to broken feedback loops. A separate but related problem, is that in most places it works roughly like G = TI, with a fixed T (tax rate), so that G (government budget) is a function of I (income). The tax just works like a resistance to accumulating wealth, no matter how much the government actually needs in order to function. It would probably help if we capped G instead, i.e. T = G/I.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  The trick to taxes is in getting them right. Taxes are, to a rough analog, like the vacuum hose system within an automobile engine. (Hrm: I'm thinking that this may be a bad analogy if there aren't many auto gearheads here.) An internal combustion engine is essentially a self-powered air pump. It has a low-pressure end (intake) and high-pressure end (exhaust). It's got various bits and pieces which need powering. Chains, shafts, and vacuum hoses bleed off some of the energy output of the engine to run systems which can't otherwise be powered. Without the vacuum system, the engine as a whole runs worse. A vacuum leak, though, worsens performance as you're bleeding off energy and not feeding it back in where it's needed. In the same sense, taxes modify the function of markets by rasing or lowering costs, and transferring purchasing capability elsewhere. If properly structured, they improve the function of the economy as a whole. If not, they worsen it. The engine (wealthy) generally perceive the direct costs, but not the indirect benefits of the tax system.

swiley 10y ago

This is why I generally choose small open source Linux based tools over smartphone apps and the like. I just don't trust app and web developers because they have repeatedly worked against my interests.

s3arch 10y ago
Could you let us know which open source Linux based tools you use, and what mobile/web app you let go loose.
- jmiserez 10y ago
  Not OP, but a good example would be the various PDF conversion apps around. The freemium/shareware ones all suck in one way or another unless you pay (arbitrary page limits, watermarks etc), the web-based ones make batch processing very hard and have privacy issues. Meanwhile ghostscript, pdftk, imagemagick and co. just work and will continue to work for a long time. On mobile I can use these over SSH on a remote Linux box. LaTeX or LibreOffice vs. Word is a similar example, although you can't always get around using Word. Or Photoshop, when Adobe switched to a subscription service. I use it maybe 3 times a year, a (legal) old version would be fine but you can't buy one. GIMP it is, even though it has less features. I want to spend less time looking for new apps/services just because the previous ones went out of business or now charge monthly for 5 lines of code. Libre/Free software mostly stays around, even the unmaintained stuff is often forked/fixed/updated by someone if the fix is small enough.
  - jakub_g 10y ago
    Offtopic ad. PDF: [1] is quite fine on Windows and has no arbitrary restrictions. But the general point holds. [1] https://www.pdfill.com/pdf_tools_free.html https://www.pdfill.com/pdf_tools_free.html
    - jmiserez 10y ago
      Nice. Apparently it uses Ghostscript in the background though? Another problem is that a Google search for "convert to PDF" turns up so much crap it's hard to even start looking. Same with "convert to MP4". I just use ffmpeg directly now, even though getting the command line options right is not easy.

danr4 10y ago

Couldn't agree more with the looking back part. It's a line of thought I frequently have when trying to think critically about many accepted practices in todays society. It usually comes in the form of asking myself "Is this practice the kind society is going to laugh about in a 100 years?" or me imagining someone saying "Haha I can't believe this is what they did in 2016! Man were they dumb". Most prominent non-tech example in these times for me is the meat industry.

unprepare 10y ago
not just meat The entirety of food production is insane. We import workers from other countries to have them pick our fruit and vegetables. We use tons of various chemicals to combat and kill all kinds of insects, birds, animals to keep them away from our crops. We grow huge amounts of food in areas without fresh water sources etc.

dorfsmay 10y ago

Getting people hooked/addicted is not new, it's been used in TV series and shows for decades. I'll explain it all in my next post...

Godel_unicode 10y ago
Please elaborate in the form of a list of weird tricks
- sjcsjc 10y ago
  Regrettably, "they" don't wish you to know those tricks.
- mmariani 10y ago
  He just did with this: > I'll explain it all in my next post... By leaving it hanging your curious mind could not resist the temptation and started to fill in the blanks, and when that wasn't enough you posted a request for more. That's why the main characters never get home or never make out — it's a lot like an infinite scroll.
  - akaij 10y ago
    > and when that wasn't enough you posted a request for more I think that was very much intentional.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

nihonde 10y ago

If I find an app is pulling me in too often, I delete it. If I find a website is distracting me too much, I throw it on my hosts file (and redirect it to 127.0.0.1). If I find myself drinking too much beer, I stop. If I find myself craving anything in a way that feels intuitively bad, it's a good sign that I need to change something. I feel like a lot of people respond to those impulses by going out of their way to make it normal—everyone has this problem—rather than deal with it before it becomes a monkey on your back. I have a lot of compassion for their predicament, but I also know that the answer is very, very simple: walk away and do something else.

Bartweiss 10y ago
As a personal prescription, this is great, but as a societal one it's like saying "just don't smoke, it's as easy as that!" On a national or international scale, we don't get to deal with what ought to be, only what is. And it increasingly looks - Facebook averages 50 minutes of use per day - like the average person either doesn't know or doesn't manage to limit their consumption of these things. Super-satiation is a real problem, is in fact most of our problems from obesity to inaccurate news to dishonest politicians. There comes a point where we have to accept that this is going to take some solution larger than personal responsibility.
- nihonde 10y ago
  Yes, I completely agree. I have plenty of vices, and struggle with them all the time. I guess I was trying to convey my own current state of mind after thinking hard about this problem and where it leads...but you're right to characterize that as a personal viewpoint, and not something you can realistically prescribe for others. Everyone has to come to their own enlightenment, and I still have a long way to go.
  - taurath 10y ago
    It's not necessarily just a personal thing. We as a people haven't yet figured out how to value or not value this new deluge of distraction and information. Social rules are doing more to curb smoking now than any health warnings - everyone I know who's quit recently does so because it's seen as a bad thing to do by people. If overuse of media was treated the same way we tread people with any other addiction (social shame, professionals to help) it would be less of a problem. But a huuuge amount of people just spend their time tuning out and going down the information rabbit hole and not spending any time pursuing their goals (myself included)

0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago

But why call it technology? On the bright side, the profit from hijacking your brain goes to sending their kids to "low-tech" schools[0] Hurray for computer human symbiosis after all[1] [0]http://www.educationnews.org/technology/silicon-valley-tech-execs-sending-kids-to-tech-free-schools/ http://www.educationnews.org/technology/silicon-valley-tech-... [1] http://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html http://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html

goalieca 10y ago

I'm glad you posted this. It is all about trying to drive habits just like cigarettes which are specially engineered.

goalieca 10y ago

I'm glad you posted this. It is all about trying to drive habits just like cigarettes which are specially engineered.

mc32 10y ago

I agree with you and the article and further... Many companies are trying to take search, for example, to the next level by brining predictability through your history as well as your graph. It takes decisionmaking out of people's minds. "You show a history of reading this and that book, have watched these movies and your circle of meaningful people have influenced you thus, so we have this book on its way to you now." It looks like it's really intelligent and offers convenience, time-savings, "efficiency". You don't even have to think of what you want, it knows already. You have an appointment in LA in 3hrs, don't forget your [whatever] and the mother of the person you are about to meet is in the hospital, take something appropriate for the occasion, we also suggest the following lamentation "...". This kind of thing is taking the humanity out of being human. People are reduced to a basic animal framework and the machine is adding humanity for you, so you don't have to bother. In taking the "tedium" out of daily living, people are reduced to a sort of best on a pedestal.

kbenson 10y ago
You can look at it as removing our humanity, or you can look at it as supplementing our humanity. Prior to the written word, we had to devote time and effort to passing down information through the spoken word. By offloading this task to an external device (wall, tablet, parchment, paper, book, screen), we've been able to use that time and brainpower to focus on other items, while also increasing the fidelity of our history and what we can learn from it. People lament the loss of an oral storytelling culture. It is a loss, but we've gained as well, so mathematics, literature, philosophy. We are able to build on the past in a way we weren't before. Prior to the plow and domesticated animals to pull them, we used to have to plant manually or practice a more hunter & gatherer lifestyle. By offloading these tasks we are able to secure our future needs, and live a life less of subsistence, and more of security in our health and future. Some people lament the loss of connection to the land, the feeling of oneness with the seasons. It is a loss, but again, we've gained as well. This free time has allowed us to study what we've written, and build upon the past. You could make a case that using these tools (and hundreds more in our history) takes the humanity out of you, and relies on the tool for it. I would make the case that using these tools is what makes you human, as without them, what's really the distinguishing feature that separates you from the apes? To me, nothing defines humanity more than the constant improvement of our race, our reach, and our capabilities. That I carry around a small computer in my pocket that connects to a much larger network and allows me near instantaneous connection to my family, friends, coworkers, and the largest accumulation of knowledge the human race has ever seen might seem like I'm trading away what you think makes us human, but since I use this to keep in touch with friends, be more mindful of important things to them, learn about what I'm doing to be more safe, secure and healthy, and share with myriad sub-cultures, I strongly disagree.

dave2000 10y ago

Interesting you used smoking as a metaphor and not advertising. The amount of effort and money that's gone into that is amazing.

Clanan 10y ago

I think this hearkens back to the "great power, great responsibility" cliche. The power of technology requires mature, responsible users and creators. But it's very difficult to be either of those.

DigitalJack 10y ago

You couldn't be more right. Looking at apps on Apple's App Store, you will often see them bragging about their app being "Addictive," or in reviews, people will state how addictive the app is as if that were a good thing.

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
That and "aggressive" for praising car designs. Great idea, we really could use some more aggression on the roads ...

tdaltonc 10y ago

I think that these powers can be used for good. I'm building a subreddit for people who want to learn how to align the behaviors their apps construct with their users best interests. https://www.reddit.com/r/behaviordesign https://www.reddit.com/r/behaviordesign

colordrops 10y ago

Funny that you mention cigarette smoking. I was just ruminating last night in bed how hard it was to put down the phone and go to sleep. I had the same feeling of addiction that I hadn't felt since I quit smoking 15 years ago. It actually caused me to have a minor panic attack, and I'm now actively seeking methods to reduce my dependency on the phone and internet information feed.

perseusprime11 10y ago
+1 Smartphone is a universal addiction as opposed to cigarette smoking. If we do not do something about this, our future humans will walk around with stiff necks as this will be coded into our DNA and we will evolve accordingly.
- theseatoms 10y ago
  For these reasons, I've started to log my smartphone usage. God knows everyone else is. It should be fun to look at the data after a few weeks of logging via a free app.
  - pzenger 10y ago
    Which app are you using to do this? I'm interested in trying this as well.
    - theseatoms 10y ago
      I've been running this for only the past week. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a0soft.gphone.uninstaller https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a0soft.gph... I noticed it has 'Export to csv' functionality, which is convenient. But I haven't yet verified that it works.
    - EliRivers 10y ago
      For a moment I laughed hard at this, thinking it was ironic humour. But now I'm scared it's not.

amelius 10y ago

The same holds for fast-food and pop music.

patcon 10y ago

I heard some thinking by Jake Appelbaum that it feels like you might connect with: https://twitter.com/patconnolly/status/612755010238193664 https://twitter.com/patconnolly/status/612755010238193664 There's some sort of future truth in this kind of thinking that I'm still sorting out. It seems to centre around a future ability to embrace and accommodate all the ways that humans and our minds are frail, instead of all the ways that we're great. And that seems pretty counter to the prevailing western culture of choice and autonomy. Accepting this might require social concessions, where we carve out safe spaces and practices, free from the all-too-easy possibility of manipulation. I can very much imagine, in a sci-fi-esque way, how this leads into conversations that will later involve trans-humanism :/ Hopefully the above doesn't seem dark -- I'm an optimist!

bps4484 10y ago

"but about creating want in the user" reminded me of a quote, but it was about television advertising, which I think may be a more apt comparison: Indeed, we may go this far: The television commercial is not at all about the character of products to be consumed. It is about the character of the consumers of products. Images of movie stars and famous athletes, of serene lakes and macho fishing trips, of elegant dinners and romantic interludes, of happy families packing their station wagons for a picnic in the country -- these tell nothing about the products being sold. But they tell everything about the fears, fancies and dreams of those who might buy them. What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer. And so, the balance of business expenditures shifts from product research to market research. The television commercial has oriented business away from making products of value and toward making consumers feel valuable, which means that the business of business has now become pseudo-therapy. The consumer is a patient assured by psycho-dramas. I highly recommend the book http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Busi...

kennethologist 10y ago

Any books you would recommend for reading about these techniques?

rms_returns 10y ago

> User happiness just happens to not be be necessary for Facebook to be a successful business. Agreed. But the anti-thesis of that is that along with tech companies (like Facebook and Goolge), the average user is evolving too. In other words, sooner or later, the average user will start thinking exactly what you are thinking now. And thats when the user will start ditching Facebook for something open source and WhatsApp for something like Telegram.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mclovinit 10y ago

One of the interesting side effects of social media is the social "guilt" of "unfriending". I suppose this is another form of the inconvenience associated with using a technology. Individuals feel briefly butthurt by someone consciuosly disassociating themselves after intelligently beating the system. For example, I first unfriended all connections prior to deleting my Facebook account which allowed me to stay away forever instead of coming back to reactivate my account. You might have heard of similar approaches such as the "overwhelming force" of paying someone when it comes to quitting smoking if they happen to catch you smoking. Instead it seems companies have countered this by selling electronic cigarettes which seem to be socially appealing (e.g. asthetically appealing color and pattern choices). If someone does to act quickly enough on their plan to "leave the system", they may quickly get pulled back in with a counter move on behalf of some business.

cJ0th 10y ago

> I think the way we use technology today will be looked back on the same way we look back at naive cigarette smoking in the 1950s. > Modern app design isn't about creating things that are good for the user, but about creating want in the user. This is a problem. This would be my feelings as well. However, you have to acknowledge that this is only one possible scenario. It could be that somewhere in the future all of a sudden we discover a puzzle piece which is as of yet unknown and boom everything makes perfect sense and the way we did things in the 00s looks incredibly quaint and idiotic. Atm I try to ignore FB et al as much as I can but there is a slim chance that this makes me look like a fool one day.

kafkaesq 10y ago

I think the way we use technology today will be looked back on the same way we look back at naive cigarette smoking in the 1950s. Or perhaps cars and freeways, from about the same period.

voodootrucker 10y ago

Apps always serve the customers. When people used to buy apps, they were the customers. Now advertisers pay for apps, and people are the product. Economics are hugely important, as all behavior eventually will align with what is incentivized.