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Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy
- jonmc12 9y agoFor more on cultural evolution and the impact on evolution of our brain, check out Joseph Henrich's "The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution". There are many youtube videos of the author discussing the book as well. The ideas in the book give deeper context to cultural evolution discussed in the Wait But Why Neuralink article.
- overcast 9y agoThis goes for just about all "social media", and just one of the factors for my removal from them. The other being toxic communities.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y agoParts of the cycle are also relevant for community forums such as HN.
- overcast 9y agoAgreed, at least it's civil here, and related to my occupation.
- addicted 9y agoAlso, the minimal design, and the lack of an algorithm targeting my personal preferences with the express intention of tricking me into reading more stories makes a huge difference. I really enjoyed commuting by bike, to the point I would go to certain places solely for the bike ride, and leave within a few minutes. I was also addicted to smoking. HN is like my bike addiction, while FB and Twitter feel more like my smoking addiction.
- overcast 9y agoThat's a good analogy. Yes, HN is from an era before the social engineering began.
- iscrewyou 9y agoDefinitely. But the information I get from here makes my life productive. I am a civil engineer and sometimes I have no idea what half the words are that people say around here. But I get to learn something new everyday. It's just a guarantee. But with social media, their business model is to make me click on or look at things. That's just where it ends for them. And the productivity value is just not there. Yes, you can find helpful information, but I have to sift through so much noise.
- graphitezepp 9y agoYes HN has it's fair share of social media problem (I am definitely too keen to check for upvotes myself, for that sweet cheap validation) but avoids the worst of it by not seeming to try to get anything out of its users, instead being dedicated to actually facilitating civil intelligent discussion.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- swah 9y agoBut there is also great writing from independent people in my Facebook feed. I can't go back to reading the paper...
- anotheryou 9y agoalso important: your friends always have more friends/likes than you. edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_paradox
- gipp 9y agoNot a contradiction, it's a statistical certainty.
- anotheryou 9y agowhops, that's a miss-paste :) meant to paste this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_paradox
- Govindae 9y agoSomeone must have the most likes. But it's true for the rest of us. If there are disconnected graphs, they'll have a local king of the popularity hill.
- thewarrior 9y agoWhat I've noticed is that Instagrams recommendation algorithms are creepily accurate. If you like browsing pictures of butts you'll get lots of butts and of the exact kind that you'd like. I'm not sure how they do it. I don't even post on Instagram. And yet I'm addicted now to the Explore tab. They've genuinely managed to build something addictive in a way that other networks are not. Also Instagram is completely sanitized of politics and any other hot button stuff. So its just a space where you zone out. Instagram is the crack cocaine of social media. A cocktail of addiction and narcissism refined into its most potent form. I predict that Instagram will continue to grow and might one day rival Facebook itself.
- danielhooper 9y agoFacebook owns Instagram so they win either way
- pinky1417 9y agoOh woah, definitely not sanitized of politics. Probably because I follow some politicians, I get recommendations for these crazy, aggressive political meme pages. I see some very very hot button stuff on my feed. Count yourself lucky that Instagram looks politically sanitized!
- 1337biz 9y agoTo be honest I found instagram much more real than other social media platforms. Especially the story modus seems to make people more open to show their real emotions even when they are unhappy.
- overcast 9y agoThe only thing Instagram is good for at this point, is marketing your business.
- justzisguyuknow 9y ago> Today, we live in a completely different world as our ancestors. Yet, our biology is still exactly the same. Is that really true? I've heard this kind of argument so many times that it seems right, but I've rarely seen any scientific evidence to back it up. Surely our bodies have evolved in some subtle and diverse ways over many thousands of generations?
- logicchains 9y agoOur ancestors couldn't digest cow milk as adults. We've only had farming for around 10,000 years, but people in regions that practiced dairy farming have already developed lactose tolerance.
- lotsofpulp 9y agoWhile not conclusive, I think the easiest way to reason this is that evolution needs a much longer timespan than a few thousand years, assuming ancestors means sometime after "civilizations" started
- graphitezepp 9y ago'Exactly the same' is surely an exaggeration, but I see no way we could have changed significantly considering the timescale and nature of our evolutionary pressures.
- rb808 9y agoMaybe born the same, but looking at the people around me that sit down 14 hours a day and eat "modern food" our physique certainly is different to their great grandparents, it wouldn't surprise me that brains differ too.
- chairmanwow 9y agoYOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT SHADY TACTICS SV ENTREPRENEURS ARE USING TO GET AHEAD. NUMBER 8 WILL MAKE YOUR JAW DROP!
- Fenicio 9y agoThat and the fact the graphs are stolen from waitbutwhy
- graphitezepp 9y agoNobody will even bother to listen to me talk about social media anymore, because I am always telling people it is unhealthy and they should get off it (and yet I'm here). It is the worst fast food imaginable for our human need to socialize, transient and shallow.
- overcast 9y agoI think comparing a discussion on HN to liking photos, and notifications on Instagram. Is a bit far fetched. You can easily argue about the addictiveness of an online forum, and social interaction. We are social creatures after all. But social media sites like IG, Facebook, Twitter, specifically target those weaknesses in our brain.
- graphitezepp 9y agoYeah whatever damage (if any) HN does is child's play compared to the big players. Being explicitly about technology and related news rather than yourself makes a huge difference already. With consideration to the lack of aggressive personalization/click manipulation makes it hard to claim its even in the same game. It still is a social network at the end of the day though, least how I see it.
- swiley 9y agoThe /only/ reason I still have a hackernews account after abandoning my other accounts is because it's one of the only sites that seems aware of this. I'm especially fond of the noprocrast feature. I don't know of any other site/app that will kick their users out if they use it for too long.
- graphitezepp 9y agoProviding a feature designed to make you use a product less is the antithesis of what the major social media sites do. Really inspires confidence in HN's motivations being pure.
- 9y ago
- suresh70 9y agoInstagram follows the same path as Facebook when it comes to curating content to the core of user's likes and dislikes. When a content that is tailored to the user's preference starts to surface more on the feed ,it tends to keep the user engaged passively even if not active, leading to ad revenue for the company. Once you are out of the platform and exposed to different, if not opposing views,people find it tough to handle and lead to depression.
- davidreiss 9y agoIt also applies to media and websites like medium.com that use clickbait to make money for itself. Anything in excess is terrible. It's why so much of news industry and people who watch too much too get depressed. People who religiously watch foxnews and the members of NPR or subscribers to the NYTimes are just as depressed. Ultimately, this is an article that says nothing. It's a clickbait form of water is wet. And yes, too much water is also bad for you.
- jathu 9y agoI've been reading a lot about this "ancestral hijacking" lately and have tried to cut out on a lot of them. My phone now only has two possible notifications: phone calls and Things app. I have 0 social apps or games. I am also slowly cutting out sugars and extra carbs. I think you guys should read about supernormal stimulus [1]. There is this comic [2] about supernormal stimulus that shows how man, and man alone, has the ability to overcome it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus [2] http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/supernormal-stimuli/ http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/supernormal-stimuli/
- devrandomguy 9y agoThere are times, when I can't honestly claim that my behavior is any smarter than that of the houseflies that die in front of the window, or the salmon that spends the remainder of its life searching for a way past a dam. The environment might be more complex, but the behavior is not. It is helpful to have a name for the system that is responsible, makes it much easier to recognize and derail it. I believe Sir Mix-A-Lot studied the problem thoroughly in the 1990s, but in the end, had to concede that he was unable to take control of his own reptile brain.
- taternuts 9y agoOne 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. The salmon is focused on doing what it's doing at the moment, and doesn't have the time or capacity to build a sense of 'self' that they are proud or ashamed of, that colors their actions and gives them pain in the moment because it wasn't what they wanted or thought it would be. They just want to get up stream.
- goatlover 9y agoWould you rather be a salmon? I rather prefer the complexity that comes with having a self.
- whipoodle 9y agoMaybe what's inside our brains isn't the problem. Maybe it's what's outside.
- zzalpha 9y agoDidn't add much to the discussion, unfortunately. The post is just material copied from Hooked (which is a creepy book worth reading!), plus observations that have already been made (social media causes us to compare ourselves to everyone else's highlight reel), followed by a bunch of generic, currently popular fads/lifestyle advice (keto diet, exercise, meditate, stoicism). A far simpler solution is available to all of us: stop using Instagram.
- bluntfang 9y ago>A far simpler solution is available to all of us: stop using Instagram. Easier said than done, no? That's basically saying "opt out of modern society," which I personally agree with, but it's not a reasonable solution. These companies that spend b/millions on psychological research to condition consumers is not going away anytime soon.
- wambotron 9y agoIn what way is instagram "modern society?" You can stop using it, you won't even notice.
- bluntfang 9y ago>You can stop using it, you won't even notice. You're deliberately ignoring the idea of addiction, consumerism, and conditioning to feel superior because you think you can "quit" being influenced by our culture and society.
- cirgue 9y agoYou can't quit being influenced entirely, but it is still mostly up to you.
- zzalpha 9y ago> That's basically saying "opt out of modern society," Hahahaha... oh man... at what point did a photo sharing social media website become "modern society"? > These companies that spend b/millions on psychological research to condition consumers is not going away anytime soon. Look, if you're already considering drastic measures like fundamentally altering your diet, your exercise regime, or the very way you perceive the world and interact with people, I think it reasonable to suggest smaller, more achievable changes like opting out of the very things that are making you unhappy. Simply removing the apps from your phone, which will take you mere seconds, would go a long long way by limiting exposure. Disabling or deleting your account entirely takes only seconds more, if you're willing to take the leap. This isn't like trying to kick a crack habit. You have a choice.
- Boothroid 9y agoIts difficult to want to be too critical about this since I think the author's motives are only good in that he seems to genuinely be trying to impart good advice; but so what, I'll criticise anyway. This reads like parody of a certain time, peppered as it with trendy buzzwords and ideas; it just happens that the time it is unintentionally parodying is right now. There's a faint air of desperation about the whole thing: the banality of a life punctuated by 'cheat days' rather than one lived with dietary equilibrium; the tacit assumption that the world is right and we are primitive; the unspoken message that we are effectively living in a world that is hostile to us, but that the problem is not the world, and we should rather learn to adapt to it instead of bending it to serve our interests as human beings.
- ejlangev 9y agoSeems 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 think a little bigger here.
- collyw 9y agoI 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 reading of the article was the first step in chasing that dopamine hit.
- ejlangev 9y agoYeah I definitely think there are some good ideas behind it I just think the focus is a bit too individualistic. Overall I liked it.
- visarga 9y agoEvery week, news articles and people here on HN say that neural nets can be easily fooled by adversarial images. Yet human behavior has the same flaws. Apparently there are adversarial triggers for unintended/undesired human behavior.
- deltafreq369 9y agoI tried 80% fat diet and blood ketone monitoring for a few months. I felt more energetic and happy. My girlfriend tried the same thing, she felt lethargic. I think individual customization based on genetics and lifestyle is necessary if you want to do any effective biohacking.
- tracker1 9y agoAgreed.. I recently discovered I specifically don't react well to legumes... nothing huge, just some upset stomach etc... but when I avoid them successfully, I do much better... I falter (get fast food fried in "vegetable" ie soybean oil), it's worse every time. I did a year of very low carb, and was pretty good after about the first couple weeks. I just really like pasta, bread, etc. I've been heading in that direction again, as I did a lot better on beef, bison, elk, etc than poultry or legume sources. Also have noticed the effects of secondary animal products and what they're fed more than I expected. I just wish soy free eggs weren't so much more difficult to find... and making my own mayo/ranch isn't so bad, just time consuming for a product that spoils relatively quickly. But I feel a lot better when I don't have the stuff. Aside: trail mix is a whole new level of fun when you can't have legumes (peanuts), and are badly allergic to cranberries. Have to make my own.
- graycat 9y agoTo read the original post (OP), I had to look up the meaning of the acronym PPL -- "push, pull legs". I never did see what "the 'gram" meant. Uh, we have the Roman alphabet, the English language we can write using the Roman alphabet, and dictionaries where we can look up words in the English language written with the Roman alphabet. Commonly we can also use Google to look up such meanings. Then acronyms such as PPL and abbreviations such as "the 'gram" are not in an English dictionary and, thus, are obscure and poor means of communications. Similarly for icons. So, in the interest of clear communications, ease of use, and a good user experience (UX), the Web pages for my startup are in English using the Roman alphabet and have no acronyms, abbreviations, or icons, obscure or otherwise. Doing the same, the OP would be easier to read.
- zitterbewegung 9y agoWhy are people treating engagement as a new thing? AdTech companies use the same strategies that newspapers used to use. Yellow journalism has become fake news. Tabloids are now blogs fueled by rumor mills. Newspapers trying to promote celebrities are the same as having a twitter / snapchat / instagram account. A rose by any other name is still a rose.
- cirgue 9y agoThis rose has a much tighter action-reward loop, both for consumers and producers. Yellow journalism, tabloids, etc were taking advantage of the same human tendencies, but the speed and volume of the message is orders of magnitude greater than in the past.
- theEXTORTCIST 9y agoIn society we have an endless amount of social warnings, "Don't drink too much, you'll get ill. Don't do drugs, you'll become an addict. Don't drive without your seatbelt, you can die. Don't watch too much TV, it's not good for you." But we still lack any sort of warning in the greater contemporary society about the risks of overuse of the hyper stimulus that comes along with social media. I am definitely beginning to see this take shape in our society (with people rejecting social media applications, articles like this, the way people speak to the overuse of such platforms)
- mnm1 9y agoTldr: diet, exercise, sleep, meditation, relationships, and self reflection will improve your life because that's how humans have always thrived. It's a little wordy but on point. Since I stared focusing on these things, I have felt better, been less depressed, much more energetic, etc.
- TrickyRick 9y agoIs it just me who's hooked on Hacker News? :(
- randomdrake 9y agoMore information about how you can avoid making apps that do this, or how you can control your own app usage, can be found here: http://www.timewellspent.io http://www.timewellspent.io There's an interesting page where they show the results of 200,000 users of an app called Moment[1] where you can see which apps make people the least happy. Additionally, you can see the time limits at which users start to feel happy about their usage. http://www.timewellspent.io/app-ratings/ http://www.timewellspent.io/app-ratings/ I came upon the movement after incorporating suggestions from Tristan Harris' "How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist[2]" into my every day life. [1] - https://inthemoment.io https://inthemoment.io [2] - https://journal.thriveglobal.com/how-technology-hijacks-peoples-minds-from-a-magician-and-google-s-design-ethicist-56d62ef5edf3 https://journal.thriveglobal.com/how-technology-hijacks-peop...
- nnd 9y agoThank you for sharing this.
- danielam 9y agoThe overall way the author frames the discussion is putting the cart before the horse and ultimately Procrustean. The author's argument is a bit like a person with his head in a bucket of water claiming that human beings are "outdated" because we have this "primitive" need to breathe that's preventing us from being able to deal with having our heads stuck in buckets full of water. Maybe we shouldn't be sticking our heads in buckets of water? Maybe breathing is good? There is a pathological strain of individualism divorced from reality that understands freedom not as freedom from all those things that are opposed to human nature (and especially our own vices), but as the right to arbitrarily will and do anything with no reference to human nature. Indeed, there is a hostility to the very idea of human nature because it is seen as an impediment to freedom.
- apeacox 9y agoI don't get your point. The author just used some funny metaphore to explain how our brain works. And yes, our brain still works with ancestral habits, this is not a big news after all.
- atemerev 9y agoI wonder how the same set of banalities repeated for years can be passed for incredible revelations. Perhaps our brains are indeed buggy.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- danschumann 9y agoI don't know what the "right" thing to post on social media is. I don't want to brag, nor complain, nor talk about how average my day is. I usually just end up posting cool articles and never anything personal. I thought about automatically posting the #1 HN article to my timeline every day, for the likes.
- cyanexttuesday 9y agoI was half expecting a point on nearly half of all women are on something like Xanax. How biopharma is enabling the worst in us.