7 ms·

This is lame. Is an addictive algorithm an illegal substance of some sort? Is personal responsibility not a thing people care about anymore?

yamrzou 4y ago
> Is personal responsibility not a thing people care about anymore? You could say the same thing about illegal substances.
- dragonsky 4y ago
  Haven’t seen anybody successfully sue a alcohol company for being addicted to booze.
  - syrgian 4y ago
    It is the establishment you would sue. https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2021/08/texas-man-wins-5-5-million-in-lawsuit-claiming-restaurant-overserved-him-alcohol/ https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2021/08/texas-man-wins-5-5...
    - SnowHill9902 4y ago
      That was a default judgement so even if not immediately dismissed by the court it wasn’t really put to test.
  - alpaca128 4y ago
    You can absolutely find cases of companies getting in trouble for serving alcohol to minors. Or selling them cigarettes. Or running a secret casino/gambling business. You cannot rely on people being responsible with substances and mechanisms that make them behave irresponsibly. That's the whole point of regulating addictive things.
    - tossthere 4y ago
      > You cannot rely on people being responsible with substances and mechanisms that make them behave irresponsibly. That's the whole point of regulating addictive things. This statement is so profoundly simple and rational and true. My childhood was severely impacted by addiction in the family, and “It’s A Disease” is a refrain I’ve heard from every doctor and group therapist and concerned friend and public health official. The problem with “It’s A Disease” is that when you have a drug-addicted family member, you spend years or decades being trapped in extremely emotionally complicated and potentially catastrophic situations over and over again, and often the ONLY way to break free of it is to do things, say things, and make decisions that are very deeply hurtful to both you and your own family. Things you’re not proud of, that no reasonable or kind or loving person would ever say or do to somebody merely for having a disease. “It’s A Disease” turns the addict into an innocent victim of their own family. Anyway, I’ve always thought the cyclic part of drug addiction was desire -> gratification -> withdrawal, with negative behaviors as a consequence of that. Seeing drug addiction as a cycle of one’s behavior toward a substance being altered by that very same substance, literally never even occurred to me. I can accept that and not blame myself or my family. Thank you.
  - justinclift 4y ago
    Tobacco then? Pointing those out because in my current country (Australia), laws are being gradually introduced to - eventually - eliminate tobacco consumption. eg plain paper packaging mandate, banning of smoking in more and more places, and potentially soon there will be banning of tobacco sales to people born before a point in time year (2005 maybe?) so they're never allowed to smoke
    - notRobot 4y ago
      > potentially soon there will be banning of tobacco sales to people born before a point in time year (2005 maybe?) so they're never allowed to smoke Minor typo: the ban will be for people born after a particular year, not before.
      - behnamoh 4y ago
        easier to enforce such laws in a low populated country such as Australia than in places like the US.
        seanmcdirmid 4y ago
        Australians generally live in big dense cities. In fact, this is probably why the ban will work, they are also more into rule of law than the USA is. Also, vaping in Australia is illegal, making the ban even more impressive.
        justinclift 4y ago
        > illegal Don't you mean "legal"?
        seanmcdirmid 4y ago
        No, illegal as in “vaping is not allowed at all in Australia.”
        4y ago
tjpnz 4y ago
Would you expect a 13 year old to take personal responsibility?
micromacrofoot 4y ago
How far does personal responsibility go? what if there are 100 psychologists working to undermine your self control? do you stand a chance?
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  This is an interesting point, especially considering that people are born with various levels of self-control. People with little to no self-control stand no chance, but there are many people I’m sure that would survive psychologists, especially knowing that they work in a field where almost nothing is reproducible :)
  - oblio 4y ago
    It's also data scientists, computer scientists, and plenty of other folks in fields which are considered "hard sciences", that are working together with the psychologists. Plus, if it's "only" 20% of people we lose to these addictions, that's still a major tragedy. The dig at psychologists was funny, but this is a super serious topic, unfortunately.
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
    Personally I find social media so addicting that the only thing I could do is quit entirely. I occasionally have to use TikTok for trend research, and it's shockingly addicting... to the point where I think the algorithm should be legally required to be publicly accessible or explained in some plain language way (to some extent, there are a lot of logistical hurdles).
- Emanation 4y ago
  Self control is a weird thing, depending on the addiction. Self control can spawn from simply being self aware of how a thing affects you. I'm willing to bet it's not immediately obvious how scrolling through social media makes a person feel, unless they have experience with it (something psychologists teach to help their patients deal with situations.) So, if it's something that can be taught, does it affect how responsible someone is with their social media usage? Is their environment equipt to impart such information? Are they equipt to learn? Do they just enjoy it anyway?
oblio 4y ago
This trope of "personal responsibility" needs to go away. Only a minority of people can withstand an onslaught of determined, highly paid professionals, working together to basically harm them. Our brains have flaws. These people know those flaws and work actively every day of their working lives to exploit them. What hope can the always tired, always stressed out average person have of resisting, long term? Personal responsibility is failing, just look at obesity rates in countries with reduced malnutrition rates. We need systemic solutions, not blaming the poor idiot. That's how we solved other collective problems like air travel safety and road fatality rates. Your approach was the old, antiquated one, where we always blamed the pilot or the driver. Guess what? Even if the person is an idiot, we're all idiots. Let's make stuff that doesn't kill us even if we're idiots. Similar principle here.
- thebean11 4y ago
  > Only a minority of people can withstand an onslaught... Is that true? Most people aren't addicted to anything let alone social media..I really don't buy the claim that people have literally no control over their actions. What's your solution? Ban sugar, alcohol and social media? Padding on the sidewalks?
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
    > Most people aren't addicted to anything let alone social media Even if it's just 5-10% (difficult to prove one way or the other, but some have estimated it's within this range) that's a massive amount of people on a global scale. That's enough to influence elections, for example. Scrutiny seems reasonable.
    - thebean11 4y ago
      Sure let's say it's 10%, is the conclusion you draw from that that free will doesn't exist? Do 100% of people need to give up the freedom of choice to lower that figure? Not sure what you're getting at about elections, are you saying that's a reason to intervene? I don't really want the government making policy for the purpose of influencing election outcomes.
OGWhales 4y ago
I used to think the same thing when it came to the obesity problem here in the US, but someone said something to me that made me rethink my position. They said: if you have a few people that are obese, that’s an issue with them. If nearly half of society is obese, you have an issue with the society. Macro issues need to be addressed at the macro level. Yes, an individual can choose to not participate and be better for it, but that still leaves us with the same macro issue and it’s likely worth addressing that issue.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

yamrzou 4y ago

> Is personal responsibility not a thing people care about anymore? You could say the same thing about illegal substances.

dragonsky 4y ago
Haven’t seen anybody successfully sue a alcohol company for being addicted to booze.
- syrgian 4y ago
  It is the establishment you would sue. https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2021/08/texas-man-wins-5-5-million-in-lawsuit-claiming-restaurant-overserved-him-alcohol/ https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2021/08/texas-man-wins-5-5...
  - SnowHill9902 4y ago
    That was a default judgement so even if not immediately dismissed by the court it wasn’t really put to test.
- alpaca128 4y ago
  You can absolutely find cases of companies getting in trouble for serving alcohol to minors. Or selling them cigarettes. Or running a secret casino/gambling business. You cannot rely on people being responsible with substances and mechanisms that make them behave irresponsibly. That's the whole point of regulating addictive things.
  - tossthere 4y ago
    > You cannot rely on people being responsible with substances and mechanisms that make them behave irresponsibly. That's the whole point of regulating addictive things. This statement is so profoundly simple and rational and true. My childhood was severely impacted by addiction in the family, and “It’s A Disease” is a refrain I’ve heard from every doctor and group therapist and concerned friend and public health official. The problem with “It’s A Disease” is that when you have a drug-addicted family member, you spend years or decades being trapped in extremely emotionally complicated and potentially catastrophic situations over and over again, and often the ONLY way to break free of it is to do things, say things, and make decisions that are very deeply hurtful to both you and your own family. Things you’re not proud of, that no reasonable or kind or loving person would ever say or do to somebody merely for having a disease. “It’s A Disease” turns the addict into an innocent victim of their own family. Anyway, I’ve always thought the cyclic part of drug addiction was desire -> gratification -> withdrawal, with negative behaviors as a consequence of that. Seeing drug addiction as a cycle of one’s behavior toward a substance being altered by that very same substance, literally never even occurred to me. I can accept that and not blame myself or my family. Thank you.
- justinclift 4y ago
  Tobacco then? Pointing those out because in my current country (Australia), laws are being gradually introduced to - eventually - eliminate tobacco consumption. eg plain paper packaging mandate, banning of smoking in more and more places, and potentially soon there will be banning of tobacco sales to people born before a point in time year (2005 maybe?) so they're never allowed to smoke
  - notRobot 4y ago
    > potentially soon there will be banning of tobacco sales to people born before a point in time year (2005 maybe?) so they're never allowed to smoke Minor typo: the ban will be for people born after a particular year, not before.
    - behnamoh 4y ago
      easier to enforce such laws in a low populated country such as Australia than in places like the US.
      - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
        Australians generally live in big dense cities. In fact, this is probably why the ban will work, they are also more into rule of law than the USA is. Also, vaping in Australia is illegal, making the ban even more impressive.
        justinclift 4y ago
        > illegal Don't you mean "legal"?
        seanmcdirmid 4y ago
        No, illegal as in “vaping is not allowed at all in Australia.”
        4y ago

tjpnz 4y ago

Would you expect a 13 year old to take personal responsibility?

micromacrofoot 4y ago

How far does personal responsibility go? what if there are 100 psychologists working to undermine your self control? do you stand a chance?

mensetmanusman 4y ago
This is an interesting point, especially considering that people are born with various levels of self-control. People with little to no self-control stand no chance, but there are many people I’m sure that would survive psychologists, especially knowing that they work in a field where almost nothing is reproducible :)
- oblio 4y ago
  It's also data scientists, computer scientists, and plenty of other folks in fields which are considered "hard sciences", that are working together with the psychologists. Plus, if it's "only" 20% of people we lose to these addictions, that's still a major tragedy. The dig at psychologists was funny, but this is a super serious topic, unfortunately.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  Personally I find social media so addicting that the only thing I could do is quit entirely. I occasionally have to use TikTok for trend research, and it's shockingly addicting... to the point where I think the algorithm should be legally required to be publicly accessible or explained in some plain language way (to some extent, there are a lot of logistical hurdles).
Emanation 4y ago
Self control is a weird thing, depending on the addiction. Self control can spawn from simply being self aware of how a thing affects you. I'm willing to bet it's not immediately obvious how scrolling through social media makes a person feel, unless they have experience with it (something psychologists teach to help their patients deal with situations.) So, if it's something that can be taught, does it affect how responsible someone is with their social media usage? Is their environment equipt to impart such information? Are they equipt to learn? Do they just enjoy it anyway?

oblio 4y ago

This trope of "personal responsibility" needs to go away. Only a minority of people can withstand an onslaught of determined, highly paid professionals, working together to basically harm them. Our brains have flaws. These people know those flaws and work actively every day of their working lives to exploit them. What hope can the always tired, always stressed out average person have of resisting, long term? Personal responsibility is failing, just look at obesity rates in countries with reduced malnutrition rates. We need systemic solutions, not blaming the poor idiot. That's how we solved other collective problems like air travel safety and road fatality rates. Your approach was the old, antiquated one, where we always blamed the pilot or the driver. Guess what? Even if the person is an idiot, we're all idiots. Let's make stuff that doesn't kill us even if we're idiots. Similar principle here.

thebean11 4y ago
> Only a minority of people can withstand an onslaught... Is that true? Most people aren't addicted to anything let alone social media..I really don't buy the claim that people have literally no control over their actions. What's your solution? Ban sugar, alcohol and social media? Padding on the sidewalks?
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  > Most people aren't addicted to anything let alone social media Even if it's just 5-10% (difficult to prove one way or the other, but some have estimated it's within this range) that's a massive amount of people on a global scale. That's enough to influence elections, for example. Scrutiny seems reasonable.
  - thebean11 4y ago
    Sure let's say it's 10%, is the conclusion you draw from that that free will doesn't exist? Do 100% of people need to give up the freedom of choice to lower that figure? Not sure what you're getting at about elections, are you saying that's a reason to intervene? I don't really want the government making policy for the purpose of influencing election outcomes.

OGWhales 4y ago

I used to think the same thing when it came to the obesity problem here in the US, but someone said something to me that made me rethink my position. They said: if you have a few people that are obese, that’s an issue with them. If nearly half of society is obese, you have an issue with the society. Macro issues need to be addressed at the macro level. Yes, an individual can choose to not participate and be better for it, but that still leaves us with the same macro issue and it’s likely worth addressing that issue.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]