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"The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, but it doesn’t necessarily protect freedom of attention." Are you suggesting that people's free will is so eas

"The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, but it doesn’t necessarily protect freedom of attention." Are you suggesting that people's free will is so easily lost that we needed to have, in the First Amendment, a clause stating "freedom from external thought influences"? "Modern Media is a DoS Attack on Your Free Will" Only if you allow it to be, just like with any other compulsive activity, if it starts affecting your life negatively, you should probably make some personal life changes. This reads like a call for government regulation of advertising or how content is served to people because people cannot defend themselves from this media onslaught. I believe something similar to China's regulation of the web may be what you're looking for, but I'm old enough to vote and go to war so I'm old enough to decide how often my "free will" is attacked.

Mahn 9y ago
The problem is that a lot of people can't help themselves from falling prey to the attention seeking media. I don't know whether this is something that should be regulated, but there is some responsibility on the party that's exploiting people's time fully knowing what they are doing, not just on the addicted consumer.
- gaius 9y ago
  Of course they know. FOMO is a real thing evolved into your brain over millions of years in which being apart from the tribe meant greatly reduced chances of survival. When FB sends you a notification to say "your friends are doing something without you" they are knowingly and deliberately pushing that button.
dps7ud 9y ago
I think this is addressed in the article: > Isn’t it our own fault that we’re too easily distracted? Maybe we just need more self-discipline. > That kind of rhetoric implicitly grants the idea that it’s okay for technology to be adversarial against us. The whole point of technology is to help us do what we want to do better. Why else would we have it? ... > Does personal responsibility matter at all? > I don’t think personal responsibility is unimportant. I think it’s untenable as a solution to this problem. Even people who write about these issues day to day, even me—and I worked at Google for 10 years—need to remember the sheer volume and scale of resources that are going into getting us to look at one thing over another, click on one thing over another. This industry employs some of the smartest people, thousands of Ph.D. designers, statisticians, engineers. They go to work every day to get us to do this one thing, to undermine our willpower. It’s not realistic to say you need to have more willpower. That’s the very thing being undermined!
- HoppedUpMenace 9y ago
  Its funny because these points sound exactly like the ones I've heard made by former casino developers whom worked on any number of slot machines or video poker. In any case, I'd have to disagree and say that even though you can't escape ads or even 100% avoid the lure of electronic clicks and taps, its ultimately up to you to decide what you do with your time and money and if you cannot do this yourself, then you need to seek help. Just because a corporation has unlimited resources committed to targeting a person with ads or tappy and clicky stuff, it does not mean they should be held accountable for people's addictive habits or tendencies, just as you can't hold any existing casinos liable for a person's poor gambling choices.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    >its ultimately up to you to decide what you do with your time and money and if you cannot do this yourself, then you need to seek help. It seems like you implying people are 100% free agents independent of external influences and subconscious evolutionary drives? >Just because a corporation has unlimited resources committed to targeting a person with ads or tappy and clicky stuff, it does not mean they should be held accountable for people's addictive habits or tendencies Should alcohol, cigarette, and porn companies be allowed to target children? Should opioid manufacturers be allowed to target recovering addicts?
  - jackvalentine 9y ago
    > ...and if you cannot do this yourself, then you need to seek help. > Just because a corporation has unlimited resources committed to targeting a person with ads or tappy and clicky stuff, it does not mean they should be held accountable for people's addictive habits or tendencies, just as you can't hold any existing casinos liable for a person's poor gambling choices. You know, in my country there is a self-exclusion register for gambling. You put yourself on it knowing that you have a problem and as a result you're barred from entering a gaming establishment. In doing so, gaming establishments now have a responsibility to keep you from gambling on their premises and there are consequences and liability transfers if they knowingly allow you to continue.
jackmott 9y ago
everything is ok as long as it is ok
_rpd 9y ago
> "Modern Media is a DoS Attack on Your Free Will" > Only if you allow it to be, just like with any other compulsive activity, if it starts affecting your life negatively, you should probably make some personal life changes. I think this belief - "you can't look away" - is so prevalent among journalists because (i) the idea that vast sections of the public pay no attention to them for extended periods of time is anathema and (ii) journalists are more likely to be from the group that "can't look away."
boomlinde 9y ago
> Only if you allow it to be, just like with any other compulsive activity, if it starts affecting your life negatively, you should probably make some personal life changes. Replace "life" with "server" and that also rings true for a network DoS attack. Just as you don't always have complete control over the network, you don't always have complete control over the aspects of your life that influence your day-to-day decisions. Free will IMO is an abstract and poorly defined concept. You can define free will in terms that make "non-free will" an impossibility. On the other hand, you could also amount it to very basic particle events that are either entirely deterministic or based on seemingly random quantum wave collapses. If something is regulated by the government, one could argue that you are still able to employ your free will and break the law. Someone may force you to do something, but by a not entirely unreasonable definition of free will it is your choice to comply or not, regardless of the consequences. Of course, the argument that "modern media is a DoS attack on free will" employs a different, less generous definition. Whether you agree with that definition or not, the discussion on how easily manipulable people are and how external agents exploit that to influence our day-to-day decisions in subtle, often negative ways is warranted. You can call it "[...] is a DoS attack on our subconscious", "[...] on our attention" or whatever, but I think it amounts to the same discussion. I feel a sense of agency and that I have the power to ignore many of these influences, but this also presents a cognitive load problem. I wouldn't be sad for a second if for example building regulations were used to a greater extent to limit advertising in public spaces. You also have to consider those that aren't old enough to go to war or to vote, not to make it a blanket "think of the children" argument, but because we recognize that they are not competent enough to make informed life choices. I wouldn't want my children grow up with a poor self image just because it makes them more inclined to purchase bikinis, watches, tanning lotion and cars, but I also wouldn't want to shelter my children from society when it is ultimately our responsibility as adults to shape it for the coming generations. People have made decisions that make society what it is today, and we should continue making decisions and re-evaluating the old ones. For public advertisement, I've always been in favor of defacing and removing it. I'm old enough to go to war and infringe on the ultimate human right by killing people, so why should I not be able to make choices that improve public spaces? If I remove an online casino billboard, who is better off and who is worse off?

Mahn 9y ago

The problem is that a lot of people can't help themselves from falling prey to the attention seeking media. I don't know whether this is something that should be regulated, but there is some responsibility on the party that's exploiting people's time fully knowing what they are doing, not just on the addicted consumer.

gaius 9y ago
Of course they know. FOMO is a real thing evolved into your brain over millions of years in which being apart from the tribe meant greatly reduced chances of survival. When FB sends you a notification to say "your friends are doing something without you" they are knowingly and deliberately pushing that button.

dps7ud 9y ago

I think this is addressed in the article: > Isn’t it our own fault that we’re too easily distracted? Maybe we just need more self-discipline. > That kind of rhetoric implicitly grants the idea that it’s okay for technology to be adversarial against us. The whole point of technology is to help us do what we want to do better. Why else would we have it? ... > Does personal responsibility matter at all? > I don’t think personal responsibility is unimportant. I think it’s untenable as a solution to this problem. Even people who write about these issues day to day, even me—and I worked at Google for 10 years—need to remember the sheer volume and scale of resources that are going into getting us to look at one thing over another, click on one thing over another. This industry employs some of the smartest people, thousands of Ph.D. designers, statisticians, engineers. They go to work every day to get us to do this one thing, to undermine our willpower. It’s not realistic to say you need to have more willpower. That’s the very thing being undermined!

HoppedUpMenace 9y ago
Its funny because these points sound exactly like the ones I've heard made by former casino developers whom worked on any number of slot machines or video poker. In any case, I'd have to disagree and say that even though you can't escape ads or even 100% avoid the lure of electronic clicks and taps, its ultimately up to you to decide what you do with your time and money and if you cannot do this yourself, then you need to seek help. Just because a corporation has unlimited resources committed to targeting a person with ads or tappy and clicky stuff, it does not mean they should be held accountable for people's addictive habits or tendencies, just as you can't hold any existing casinos liable for a person's poor gambling choices.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  >its ultimately up to you to decide what you do with your time and money and if you cannot do this yourself, then you need to seek help. It seems like you implying people are 100% free agents independent of external influences and subconscious evolutionary drives? >Just because a corporation has unlimited resources committed to targeting a person with ads or tappy and clicky stuff, it does not mean they should be held accountable for people's addictive habits or tendencies Should alcohol, cigarette, and porn companies be allowed to target children? Should opioid manufacturers be allowed to target recovering addicts?
- jackvalentine 9y ago
  > ...and if you cannot do this yourself, then you need to seek help. > Just because a corporation has unlimited resources committed to targeting a person with ads or tappy and clicky stuff, it does not mean they should be held accountable for people's addictive habits or tendencies, just as you can't hold any existing casinos liable for a person's poor gambling choices. You know, in my country there is a self-exclusion register for gambling. You put yourself on it knowing that you have a problem and as a result you're barred from entering a gaming establishment. In doing so, gaming establishments now have a responsibility to keep you from gambling on their premises and there are consequences and liability transfers if they knowingly allow you to continue.

jackmott 9y ago

everything is ok as long as it is ok

_rpd 9y ago

> "Modern Media is a DoS Attack on Your Free Will" > Only if you allow it to be, just like with any other compulsive activity, if it starts affecting your life negatively, you should probably make some personal life changes. I think this belief - "you can't look away" - is so prevalent among journalists because (i) the idea that vast sections of the public pay no attention to them for extended periods of time is anathema and (ii) journalists are more likely to be from the group that "can't look away."

boomlinde 9y ago

> Only if you allow it to be, just like with any other compulsive activity, if it starts affecting your life negatively, you should probably make some personal life changes. Replace "life" with "server" and that also rings true for a network DoS attack. Just as you don't always have complete control over the network, you don't always have complete control over the aspects of your life that influence your day-to-day decisions. Free will IMO is an abstract and poorly defined concept. You can define free will in terms that make "non-free will" an impossibility. On the other hand, you could also amount it to very basic particle events that are either entirely deterministic or based on seemingly random quantum wave collapses. If something is regulated by the government, one could argue that you are still able to employ your free will and break the law. Someone may force you to do something, but by a not entirely unreasonable definition of free will it is your choice to comply or not, regardless of the consequences. Of course, the argument that "modern media is a DoS attack on free will" employs a different, less generous definition. Whether you agree with that definition or not, the discussion on how easily manipulable people are and how external agents exploit that to influence our day-to-day decisions in subtle, often negative ways is warranted. You can call it "[...] is a DoS attack on our subconscious", "[...] on our attention" or whatever, but I think it amounts to the same discussion. I feel a sense of agency and that I have the power to ignore many of these influences, but this also presents a cognitive load problem. I wouldn't be sad for a second if for example building regulations were used to a greater extent to limit advertising in public spaces. You also have to consider those that aren't old enough to go to war or to vote, not to make it a blanket "think of the children" argument, but because we recognize that they are not competent enough to make informed life choices. I wouldn't want my children grow up with a poor self image just because it makes them more inclined to purchase bikinis, watches, tanning lotion and cars, but I also wouldn't want to shelter my children from society when it is ultimately our responsibility as adults to shape it for the coming generations. People have made decisions that make society what it is today, and we should continue making decisions and re-evaluating the old ones. For public advertisement, I've always been in favor of defacing and removing it. I'm old enough to go to war and infringe on the ultimate human right by killing people, so why should I not be able to make choices that improve public spaces? If I remove an online casino billboard, who is better off and who is worse off?