7 ms·

This has more with a lack of discipline, than a lack of available time or resources.

by koheripbal 4y ago

giraffe_lady 4y ago
It's a common, almost universal, complaint which indicates pretty clearly there is more at play than individual virtue.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  It is a common, almost universal complaint that God sometimes plays favorites. Ergo, we can deduce from this that God exists and does indeed have favorites...
azemetre 4y ago
How can you argue it’s a lack of discipline when companies like Meta and Google literally hire psychologists to make their products more addicting? Why should society pay the price for their malfeasance?
- olalonde 4y ago
  Because our free society is based on the fundamental assumption that grown-up adults are generally responsible and act in their own best interest. Throwing out those assumptions is very dangerous and brings us closer to authoritarianism and tyranny.
  - azemetre 4y ago
    Do you apply these same arguments to other moral hazards like pollution? Wanting to regulate social media (when there are no meaningful regulations) is hardly tyranny.
    - olalonde 4y ago
      > Do you apply these same arguments to other moral hazards like pollution? No, it's not in the same category. Pollution is a cost that is imposed on an uninvolved third party. I do however apply the same argument to things like gambling, fast food, video games, traditional media, etc.
      - azemetre 4y ago
        Why can't it be the same category? How many studies need to smack you in the face about social media causing increased levels of depression and anxiety in both teens and adults? Why should social media companies get zero scrutiny for a way of living that they hoisted into the world with zero thought for the repercussions? Why do individuals have to fix a multination corporation's fuck up rather than regulating these companies. I mean we have Meta itself denying researchers data to study this phenomena independently. How is that fair? I as an individual am apparently not even allowed to study how this harms me or my loved ones. IDK, seems like the whole thing has gone awry to me. These companies deserve the hate they get and they've done a disastrous job navigating the political landscape.
        olalonde 4y ago
        No one is forced to use Facebook. If you believe Facebook is causing harm to people you know, talk to them about it and try to persuade them that they are being harmed. Personally, I've never felt Facebook was doing me more harm than good, or I would have stopped using it. I have a theory that underlying most calls for regulations is actually disbelief or disapproval in the choices other individuals freely make. The "victims" rarely seem to be the ones calling for the regulations.
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    Free society? What kind of "free society" is it when people can't afford basics like housing, healthcare, and education? The median US individual income is currently about $36k. People at the median are either not making it or just barely making it. How is that "free?" MIT has calculated that the living wage in the US is just over $24/hour which is $48k per year. The median is about 1/3 short of that. That's what you call "free?" See https://livingwage.mit.edu/ https://livingwage.mit.edu/ Correction: a living wage for an individual is nearly $40k or $20/hour. This is approximately the median individual income. Half of people literally can't live self-sufficiently, and you want to call this a "free" society?
    - mquander 4y ago
      That living wage is for a family of four, not an individual.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - actually_a_dog 4y ago
        Sorry, I misread. The graph here shows that a single individual needs to make nearly $40k or $20/hour in order to have a basic lifestyle that doesn't even include savings or entertainment: https://uc735a30719703449309c8146b8e.dl.dropboxusercontent.com/cd/0/inline/BndKkSJfHyn4pueP8DCteWyI0y8IXe05CHt57cz9wCZHCbr5v3A6jjSj0D_mHCD1bqyH_y7B0Yj9urNNF-XkEmRUPIT36dRNYlEuRpdjdhGMrTeyo1V24NzofcyoofDzZUxBRWodWuwJ2rNSNuGeL9swj-vzCl_OrUdsO--SBFkkQg/file# https://uc735a30719703449309c8146b8e.dl.dropboxusercontent.c... Besides, do you want people to not have children at at least the replacement rate? You know, that's bad for the economy, right? Current US fertility rate is below replacement rate, and immigration is only barely making up for it. The argument stands.
    - olalonde 4y ago
      Free as in freedom, not as in free beer.
  - gmadsen 4y ago
    that is not true. people say that for certain things, but not for others. why is it that food processing is regulated? If people are responsible and act in their own interest, then it shouldn't be the responsibility of companies to comply to safety regulations. Same thing with OSHA. If people want to work in dangerous life threatening conditions, that is their best interest choice??
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  The flip side of this is that society has built conspicuous reward mechanisms for doing things that don’t actually suit our brains very well (reading vs. watching/listening, “thoughtful” classical music vs. Drum-heavy pop music, etc.) because otherwise no one would do those things and that would have negative societal consequences. Now, the Internet is only focused on making content that fits our brains and people who grew up benefiting from those conspicuous rewards miss those rewards (but not enough to put in the work to get them now that there’s a much more fun alternative). It really comes down to the idea that there is no “good” or “natural” thing for humans to do from an objective standpoint. Evolution is in many ways a manifest of preference.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  I'm going to rephrase the parents comment: You're going to have a lot more luck correcting yourself than moving others.
  - azemetre 4y ago
    No it’s actually much easier to correct at the government level because it forces bad actors to rectify their behavior. Blaming the individual is such a weak argument, especially since the deck is stacked against you as an individual.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      Right, which is why GDPR has totally solved all data harvesting and breaches..
      - azemetre 4y ago
        Since the alternative was continuing to do nothing, yes yes it was.
- skybrian 4y ago
  I doubt Y Combinator hired any psychologists, but why does it matter? It's easy to spend too much time on Hacker News too. There's nothing special about big tech websites that makes them particularly addicting. People spent too much time on BBS's and Usenet and video games back in the day. Or watching TV.
rakejake 4y ago
Sure, you could put it that way. There are always two sides to this: one side says onus is on the individual to regulate what they do/consume, other side blames the addictive properties of the substance. The internet is no way comparable to a physical addiction like tobacco, in fact I'm not sure if it could even be called an addiction. I'd put it this way: our way of life today has been altered because of the internet. By default, you have a lot of exposure to media today which means our baseline tolerance for media is very high. Toning this down is very achievable but is not trivial and requires some effort and habit-forming.

This has more with a lack of discipline, than a lack of available time or resources.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

It's a common, almost universal, complaint which indicates pretty clearly there is more at play than individual virtue.

vorpalhex 4y ago
It is a common, almost universal complaint that God sometimes plays favorites. Ergo, we can deduce from this that God exists and does indeed have favorites...

azemetre 4y ago

How can you argue it’s a lack of discipline when companies like Meta and Google literally hire psychologists to make their products more addicting? Why should society pay the price for their malfeasance?

olalonde 4y ago
Because our free society is based on the fundamental assumption that grown-up adults are generally responsible and act in their own best interest. Throwing out those assumptions is very dangerous and brings us closer to authoritarianism and tyranny.
- azemetre 4y ago
  Do you apply these same arguments to other moral hazards like pollution? Wanting to regulate social media (when there are no meaningful regulations) is hardly tyranny.
  - olalonde 4y ago
    > Do you apply these same arguments to other moral hazards like pollution? No, it's not in the same category. Pollution is a cost that is imposed on an uninvolved third party. I do however apply the same argument to things like gambling, fast food, video games, traditional media, etc.
    - azemetre 4y ago
      Why can't it be the same category? How many studies need to smack you in the face about social media causing increased levels of depression and anxiety in both teens and adults? Why should social media companies get zero scrutiny for a way of living that they hoisted into the world with zero thought for the repercussions? Why do individuals have to fix a multination corporation's fuck up rather than regulating these companies. I mean we have Meta itself denying researchers data to study this phenomena independently. How is that fair? I as an individual am apparently not even allowed to study how this harms me or my loved ones. IDK, seems like the whole thing has gone awry to me. These companies deserve the hate they get and they've done a disastrous job navigating the political landscape.
      - olalonde 4y ago
        No one is forced to use Facebook. If you believe Facebook is causing harm to people you know, talk to them about it and try to persuade them that they are being harmed. Personally, I've never felt Facebook was doing me more harm than good, or I would have stopped using it. I have a theory that underlying most calls for regulations is actually disbelief or disapproval in the choices other individuals freely make. The "victims" rarely seem to be the ones calling for the regulations.
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  Free society? What kind of "free society" is it when people can't afford basics like housing, healthcare, and education? The median US individual income is currently about $36k. People at the median are either not making it or just barely making it. How is that "free?" MIT has calculated that the living wage in the US is just over $24/hour which is $48k per year. The median is about 1/3 short of that. That's what you call "free?" See https://livingwage.mit.edu/ https://livingwage.mit.edu/ Correction: a living wage for an individual is nearly $40k or $20/hour. This is approximately the median individual income. Half of people literally can't live self-sufficiently, and you want to call this a "free" society?
  - mquander 4y ago
    That living wage is for a family of four, not an individual.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - actually_a_dog 4y ago
      Sorry, I misread. The graph here shows that a single individual needs to make nearly $40k or $20/hour in order to have a basic lifestyle that doesn't even include savings or entertainment: https://uc735a30719703449309c8146b8e.dl.dropboxusercontent.com/cd/0/inline/BndKkSJfHyn4pueP8DCteWyI0y8IXe05CHt57cz9wCZHCbr5v3A6jjSj0D_mHCD1bqyH_y7B0Yj9urNNF-XkEmRUPIT36dRNYlEuRpdjdhGMrTeyo1V24NzofcyoofDzZUxBRWodWuwJ2rNSNuGeL9swj-vzCl_OrUdsO--SBFkkQg/file# https://uc735a30719703449309c8146b8e.dl.dropboxusercontent.c... Besides, do you want people to not have children at at least the replacement rate? You know, that's bad for the economy, right? Current US fertility rate is below replacement rate, and immigration is only barely making up for it. The argument stands.
  - olalonde 4y ago
    Free as in freedom, not as in free beer.
- gmadsen 4y ago
  that is not true. people say that for certain things, but not for others. why is it that food processing is regulated? If people are responsible and act in their own interest, then it shouldn't be the responsibility of companies to comply to safety regulations. Same thing with OSHA. If people want to work in dangerous life threatening conditions, that is their best interest choice??
RC_ITR 4y ago
The flip side of this is that society has built conspicuous reward mechanisms for doing things that don’t actually suit our brains very well (reading vs. watching/listening, “thoughtful” classical music vs. Drum-heavy pop music, etc.) because otherwise no one would do those things and that would have negative societal consequences. Now, the Internet is only focused on making content that fits our brains and people who grew up benefiting from those conspicuous rewards miss those rewards (but not enough to put in the work to get them now that there’s a much more fun alternative). It really comes down to the idea that there is no “good” or “natural” thing for humans to do from an objective standpoint. Evolution is in many ways a manifest of preference.
vorpalhex 4y ago
I'm going to rephrase the parents comment: You're going to have a lot more luck correcting yourself than moving others.
- azemetre 4y ago
  No it’s actually much easier to correct at the government level because it forces bad actors to rectify their behavior. Blaming the individual is such a weak argument, especially since the deck is stacked against you as an individual.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Right, which is why GDPR has totally solved all data harvesting and breaches..
    - azemetre 4y ago
      Since the alternative was continuing to do nothing, yes yes it was.
skybrian 4y ago
I doubt Y Combinator hired any psychologists, but why does it matter? It's easy to spend too much time on Hacker News too. There's nothing special about big tech websites that makes them particularly addicting. People spent too much time on BBS's and Usenet and video games back in the day. Or watching TV.

rakejake 4y ago

Sure, you could put it that way. There are always two sides to this: one side says onus is on the individual to regulate what they do/consume, other side blames the addictive properties of the substance. The internet is no way comparable to a physical addiction like tobacco, in fact I'm not sure if it could even be called an addiction. I'd put it this way: our way of life today has been altered because of the internet. By default, you have a lot of exposure to media today which means our baseline tolerance for media is very high. Toning this down is very achievable but is not trivial and requires some effort and habit-forming.