5 ms·

For everyone here who --like me-- has never bought into Facebook, and never gotten hooked on it, congratulations. We are free of the Facebook dopamine dispense

For everyone here who --like me-- has never bought into Facebook, and never gotten hooked on it, congratulations. We are free of the Facebook dopamine dispenser, unlike our poor friends and family. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go refresh the HN front page for the 10th time today, and after checking how many upvotes I got on my latest comments, don't mind if I jump back over to reddit for a while, and then back to watching the Larry David clips that YouTube is sending my way.

Syonyk 5y ago
You want this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-demetricator/dihffdmjkpohpejghlapggoiieifikeo https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-demetr... It removes comment/upvote numbers from Hacker News and makes it far less able to exploit human psychological loopholes related to numbers.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
My girlfriend calls it "Slacker News" because I only come here when I'm slacking off.
- civilized 5y ago
  She's a keeper.
  - andresgaitan 5y ago
    Lol
btown 5y ago
Can you imagine if Facebook had like karma? Global GDP would almost immediately take a nosedive!
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  It basically does since it has likes/reactions for posts. Except it's worth because the only likes/reactions that matter are the ones people will see today which makes it seam like getting 500 or even 5000 likes per post is a totally normal 'goal'. In comparison HN, the number of possible karma per post is pretty much an equal playing field (save for a few recognizable accounts).
- gnicholas 5y ago
  Isn't that what follower counts are, effectively? In some ways, follower count is even more powerful than karma because it affects how many people see your posts/comments.
rafale 5y ago
You made me laugh, but also think what I might be addicted to. I can't think of a single thing except porn. Highly functional addict buy still one nonetheless. I don't think I can quit. It's odd though that it's the only thing. I've always thought that susceptibility to addiction is a personality trait that make you usually get addicted to more than one thing.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  Also mine. Have gone long stretches between relapses during which time I've felt noticeably better. What typically happens is I'll rationalize its use after a spell, but will find I'll want to watch the next day, and the next. Particularly if sleep suffers, just to get some deliverance. From what I've learned, large sustained dopamine hits lead to deficits in baseline levels. I could intuit early on that some of my negative experience (including sleep) was linked to consumption, but managed to convince myself each time that I "just need to better manage it". Even if the truth stares you in the face it's hard. I like to think of it as a "mild" addiction owing to frequency (it wasn't always) but still an addiction, which is like playing with fire. It can always get worse. I've been enjoying Huberman's videos on the topic of dopamine and other things - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU
agumonkey 5y ago
I had a similar realization a few years back. All these petty average Joe scrolling selfies and trendy deals doing nothing. I, on the other side, am scrolling hn, lambdartheultimate, Haskell subs and discords, hoarding caml research papers... doing nothing. I was mostly a snub variant of the above.
lurquer 5y ago
I’m just waiting till I reach 1000. I’m at 995... I get up to 999, and then I fuck up and make an anti-vaccine post and plummet back to the 980’s. Once I hit 1000, I’m outa here. Promise.
- Radim 5y ago
  FWIW, I found your past comments articulate and well-supported. Please don't take the downvoting herds too much to heart – there was no "fuck up" on your part :-) BTW I upvoted a bunch of your comments right now, but apparently with no effect to your karma. You (or I?) may have angered the HN algo gods.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    I’ve noticed this, too. I think HN karma is updated in some asynchronous fashion.
- anonuser123456 5y ago
  You mean 1024 right?
afarviral 5y ago
ouch... this struck home.
sandworm101 5y ago
Except that on HN I have actually learned a things or two. I have been connected to useful articles on topics that have solved many of my tech problems in recent years. Nobody has ever gotten anything useful from a facebook news feed. The core difference is that while Facebook seeks to keep our eyes on facebook, places like HN actively encourage people to post links to material outside the core service. HN doesn't try to keep eyeballs on targets. (And HN is so tiny that it loads faster than anything on work connection out in the middle of nowhere.)
- khazhoux 5y ago
  > Nobody has ever gotten anything useful from a facebook news feed. Millions of people disagree, and frankly it's not our place to judge what is useful for others. It's not all snark and misinformation. > The core difference is that while Facebook seeks to keep our eyes on facebook, places like HN actively encourage people to post links to material outside the core service. But that's just an opinion, that staying on-site on FB is somehow bad. They would argue that they're encouraging users to hold discussions with people they know, highly social and relatively unmoderated.
  - executesorder66 5y ago
    > But that's just an opinion, that staying on-site on FB is somehow bad. They would argue that they're encouraging users to hold discussions with people they know, highly social and relatively unmoderated. Maybe, depends on your social circle, but the main reason I left facebook more than a decade ago was because everyone I had on facebook _didn't_ hold any discussions or post anything original. It was all just sharing random crap they liked, or reposts from Instagram. I don't care about some random blogspam article my cousin liked. I joined to find out what was happening in people's lives and none of that was on facebook, it was all on instagram or whatsapp. (So I totally see why facebook bought out those two companies)
  - darepublic 5y ago
    I liked your first post but this is like saying a person who tells you not to go out and see the world because you've got everything you need on the compound is better than someone who tells you to experience new places and people. The former clearly has some shades of exploitive manipulation trying to foster dependence / imprisonment
danjac 5y ago
I know a lot of immigrants/expats and Facebook is pretty much the one thing they have to keep in touch with family and friends back home. Personally I loathe the company and would be happy if some fatal DNS or other issue took it down for good or if it were legislated out of existence by the EU/US. But we also need to be aware of the value it provides other than as a bullhorn for anti-vaxxers and other nutjobs and perhaps think of how to build a safer and more ethical alternative.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  Wouldn’t something else fill that vacuum if Facebook went away?
  - danjac 5y ago
    Sure, maybe, but building that "something else" isn't trivial, is prone to the same problems as Facebook, and even if it were not, would not appear overnight.
jader201 5y ago
I may be in the minority, but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, but rather follow @newsyc150 on Twitter, and just get a feed of articles that hit 150 votes (there are other increments, too). It’s not overwhelming — I generally feel it hits the sweet spot of signal-to-noise. I only pull up Twitter a few times a day, and scan to find interesting things there. My Twitter feed is generally light — I don’t follow any individuals, only sites I want to see updates on without having to poll them.
- henriquemaia 5y ago
  Funny, but I do exactly the same. My source, however, is Telegram's channel @hacker_news_feed. As you said, the signal-to-noise ratio hits that sweet spot that keeps me out of HN's front page for a long time.
- paganel 5y ago
  > but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, I really like the HN front-page, it gives me a sensation of comfort (so to speak), of how the Internet should have been but unfortunately it is not: very fast-loading page, all text, a basic color-scheme that hasn't changed in a while.
  - khazhoux 5y ago
    I hate April Fool's Day, but this made me think how hilarious it would be if HN front page had a banner ad. And not even an over-the-top one... just a simple banner ad, quietly ruining HN.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    HN is what SlashDot was 15-20 years ago.
    - slothtrop 5y ago
      spot on
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
emerged 5y ago
I check HN once per day when I wake up and only rarely otherwise. I got the social media addiction out of my system years ago on a forum. It was horrible, I had to lock myself out using repeated sha1-hashing which required me to spend many hours of CPU time to get access back. So glad to be done and over with that sort of addiction. Social media is as addictive as cigarettes or booze and we are way behind on treating it in the same ways.

Syonyk 5y ago

You want this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-demetricator/dihffdmjkpohpejghlapggoiieifikeo https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-demetr... It removes comment/upvote numbers from Hacker News and makes it far less able to exploit human psychological loopholes related to numbers.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

My girlfriend calls it "Slacker News" because I only come here when I'm slacking off.

civilized 5y ago
She's a keeper.
- andresgaitan 5y ago
  Lol

btown 5y ago

Can you imagine if Facebook had like karma? Global GDP would almost immediately take a nosedive!

KingMachiavelli 5y ago
It basically does since it has likes/reactions for posts. Except it's worth because the only likes/reactions that matter are the ones people will see today which makes it seam like getting 500 or even 5000 likes per post is a totally normal 'goal'. In comparison HN, the number of possible karma per post is pretty much an equal playing field (save for a few recognizable accounts).
gnicholas 5y ago
Isn't that what follower counts are, effectively? In some ways, follower count is even more powerful than karma because it affects how many people see your posts/comments.

rafale 5y ago

You made me laugh, but also think what I might be addicted to. I can't think of a single thing except porn. Highly functional addict buy still one nonetheless. I don't think I can quit. It's odd though that it's the only thing. I've always thought that susceptibility to addiction is a personality trait that make you usually get addicted to more than one thing.

slothtrop 5y ago
Also mine. Have gone long stretches between relapses during which time I've felt noticeably better. What typically happens is I'll rationalize its use after a spell, but will find I'll want to watch the next day, and the next. Particularly if sleep suffers, just to get some deliverance. From what I've learned, large sustained dopamine hits lead to deficits in baseline levels. I could intuit early on that some of my negative experience (including sleep) was linked to consumption, but managed to convince myself each time that I "just need to better manage it". Even if the truth stares you in the face it's hard. I like to think of it as a "mild" addiction owing to frequency (it wasn't always) but still an addiction, which is like playing with fire. It can always get worse. I've been enjoying Huberman's videos on the topic of dopamine and other things - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU

agumonkey 5y ago

I had a similar realization a few years back. All these petty average Joe scrolling selfies and trendy deals doing nothing. I, on the other side, am scrolling hn, lambdartheultimate, Haskell subs and discords, hoarding caml research papers... doing nothing. I was mostly a snub variant of the above.

lurquer 5y ago

I’m just waiting till I reach 1000. I’m at 995... I get up to 999, and then I fuck up and make an anti-vaccine post and plummet back to the 980’s. Once I hit 1000, I’m outa here. Promise.

Radim 5y ago
FWIW, I found your past comments articulate and well-supported. Please don't take the downvoting herds too much to heart – there was no "fuck up" on your part :-) BTW I upvoted a bunch of your comments right now, but apparently with no effect to your karma. You (or I?) may have angered the HN algo gods.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  I’ve noticed this, too. I think HN karma is updated in some asynchronous fashion.
anonuser123456 5y ago
You mean 1024 right?

afarviral 5y ago

ouch... this struck home.

sandworm101 5y ago

Except that on HN I have actually learned a things or two. I have been connected to useful articles on topics that have solved many of my tech problems in recent years. Nobody has ever gotten anything useful from a facebook news feed. The core difference is that while Facebook seeks to keep our eyes on facebook, places like HN actively encourage people to post links to material outside the core service. HN doesn't try to keep eyeballs on targets. (And HN is so tiny that it loads faster than anything on work connection out in the middle of nowhere.)

khazhoux 5y ago
> Nobody has ever gotten anything useful from a facebook news feed. Millions of people disagree, and frankly it's not our place to judge what is useful for others. It's not all snark and misinformation. > The core difference is that while Facebook seeks to keep our eyes on facebook, places like HN actively encourage people to post links to material outside the core service. But that's just an opinion, that staying on-site on FB is somehow bad. They would argue that they're encouraging users to hold discussions with people they know, highly social and relatively unmoderated.
- executesorder66 5y ago
  > But that's just an opinion, that staying on-site on FB is somehow bad. They would argue that they're encouraging users to hold discussions with people they know, highly social and relatively unmoderated. Maybe, depends on your social circle, but the main reason I left facebook more than a decade ago was because everyone I had on facebook _didn't_ hold any discussions or post anything original. It was all just sharing random crap they liked, or reposts from Instagram. I don't care about some random blogspam article my cousin liked. I joined to find out what was happening in people's lives and none of that was on facebook, it was all on instagram or whatsapp. (So I totally see why facebook bought out those two companies)
- darepublic 5y ago
  I liked your first post but this is like saying a person who tells you not to go out and see the world because you've got everything you need on the compound is better than someone who tells you to experience new places and people. The former clearly has some shades of exploitive manipulation trying to foster dependence / imprisonment

danjac 5y ago

I know a lot of immigrants/expats and Facebook is pretty much the one thing they have to keep in touch with family and friends back home. Personally I loathe the company and would be happy if some fatal DNS or other issue took it down for good or if it were legislated out of existence by the EU/US. But we also need to be aware of the value it provides other than as a bullhorn for anti-vaxxers and other nutjobs and perhaps think of how to build a safer and more ethical alternative.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
Wouldn’t something else fill that vacuum if Facebook went away?
- danjac 5y ago
  Sure, maybe, but building that "something else" isn't trivial, is prone to the same problems as Facebook, and even if it were not, would not appear overnight.

jader201 5y ago

I may be in the minority, but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, but rather follow @newsyc150 on Twitter, and just get a feed of articles that hit 150 votes (there are other increments, too). It’s not overwhelming — I generally feel it hits the sweet spot of signal-to-noise. I only pull up Twitter a few times a day, and scan to find interesting things there. My Twitter feed is generally light — I don’t follow any individuals, only sites I want to see updates on without having to poll them.

henriquemaia 5y ago
Funny, but I do exactly the same. My source, however, is Telegram's channel @hacker_news_feed. As you said, the signal-to-noise ratio hits that sweet spot that keeps me out of HN's front page for a long time.
paganel 5y ago
> but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, I really like the HN front-page, it gives me a sensation of comfort (so to speak), of how the Internet should have been but unfortunately it is not: very fast-loading page, all text, a basic color-scheme that hasn't changed in a while.
- khazhoux 5y ago
  I hate April Fool's Day, but this made me think how hilarious it would be if HN front page had a banner ad. And not even an over-the-top one... just a simple banner ad, quietly ruining HN.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  HN is what SlashDot was 15-20 years ago.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    spot on
  - raxxorrax 5y ago

emerged 5y ago

I check HN once per day when I wake up and only rarely otherwise. I got the social media addiction out of my system years ago on a forum. It was horrible, I had to lock myself out using repeated sha1-hashing which required me to spend many hours of CPU time to get access back. So glad to be done and over with that sort of addiction. Social media is as addictive as cigarettes or booze and we are way behind on treating it in the same ways.