6 ms·

Well, quit, and be done with it. The problem with addicts is that some of them somehow think it is the responsibility of the society to outlaw whatever they ar

by lynx23 3y ago

Well, quit, and be done with it. The problem with addicts is that some of them somehow think it is the responsibility of the society to outlaw whatever they are addicted to. Nope. The "me" generation tells you: get your act together and stop making others responsible for your decisions.

CalRobert 3y ago
Sadly we've enfeebled the other options. Not being on social (at least the messaging platforms) media makes it tough to maintain social relationships. It can be done, of course, but with friction. It's also how a lot of orgs communicate with the world, annoyingly.
- lynx23 3y ago
  If I want to use WhatsApp or Messenger as a messaging tool, nothing forces me to follow any toxic feeds. I can just use WhatsApp and Messanger as a plain inbox and do not have to care about reading the FB feed. I am not so sure about Twitter, but I guess you can also use the DM features without having to dive headlong into flamey feeds.
- 9dev 3y ago
  Asking out of curiosity: is Twitter the medium of choice in your social circle? Everyone I know uses messengers to communicate, and while I know lots of my friends use Instagram, you don’t have to to participate.
- throwbadubadu 3y ago
  There are so many people wanting to escape, but then also again claiming this. But it is an excuse: there are so many electronic good alternatives for friend cycles to stay connected if they want where you still can keep off social media.. And tbh, we did this well before even without those, and there was even a time we did this without mobile phones but just landline and mail... Just try it for a while, it really still works. If social relationships cannot be maintained without social media, I have no doubt, it is the wrong social relationships "maintained".
  - dbspin 3y ago
    > there are so many electronic good alternatives for friend cycles to stay connected if they want where you still can keep off social media.. Network effects just don't work like this. I suspect thinking that they do is related to the kinds of friendships the commenter has - small, intense, long term group friendships; and proximity friendships. Personally I don't have the social capital to pull the dozens of people I keep in regular contact with off their preferred platform and into a new one. Very few people do. And I value those relationships far more than I hate the platforms that maintain them. > If social relationships cannot be maintained without social media, I have no doubt, it is the wrong social relationships "maintained". This is a value judgement, and not an argument. I have strong relationships with friends and former partners, as well as family, that I've maintained for decades through platforms like messenger - which is awful but ubiquitous - with real people who live across the world. We do meet when possible, but it's often years apart, and there's no one 'core group'. These are real world, profound friendships with people I met in person, lived or worked or studied with for years and care about. I completely agree with the characterisation of the harms wrought by social media. But prior to social media, more than a very few distant friendships were all but impossible to maintain. And when you lost contact with an old friend, you could never be quite certain if they had lost interest, were too busy, or had perhaps died or suffered some great setback in life.
    - coldtea 3y ago
      >This is a value judgement, and not an argument. Value judgements are the ultimate arguments. In the end, nothing else matters aside from the kind of values we want to uphold.
      - dbspin 3y ago
        Not to get into a back and forth - but that's not remotely true. Our values are soft things next to the concrete realities of life. The need to eat, our health, social contacts, the hard limits on our healthy lifespan. Values are the ways of being we develop to bring our desires into alignments with the aspects of reality we can't control. Moreover - what you're describing is virtue ethics, which is only one of many ethical systems. Hold hard to your values and be evaluated based on your adherence to them. Personally I'm more of a soft utilitarian - it's the results of my decisions that matter, not how they adhere to an abstract value. But we all fight the chaos in our own way.
- HEmanZ 3y ago
  People used to be able to maintain large remote friend circles before the telegram was invented. If they could do it by snail mail, you can do it with a phone and no social media.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    Not when all others that you want to reach have switched to social media.
    - lynx23 3y ago
      They disconnected their phone number and switched to social media? Or did they discontinue their postal address and switch to social media? I am sort of confused what you are trying to say.
      - coldtea 3y ago
        They're spending their time on social media (instead of meeting friends and going out as much), they preferentially make their arrangements when going on and keeping touch on social media, they will often actively snub or forget people outside social media, and even if you manage to get time with them face to face, they're likely to discuss social media drama or just stare at their social media smartphone screen.
        lynx23 3y ago
        OK, but given the behaviour you describe, why do you miss them, then? Sounds like these people dont add anything to your life, or at least dont really want to add something, which is also reason enough to not care.
        coldtea 3y ago
        Because "these people" is most people. So minimizes the chances of finding people to "add something to your life". This is one result... https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-soci... https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/reports/loneliness-in-america https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/reports/loneliness-in-america
blrwxt 3y ago
Gamification, group think, mob voting and censoring dissenters exist in other areas that you cannot escape. GitHub is an example. Mobile service providers outsourced their customer "service" to open forums. Mailing lists have been replaced by "Discourse" or unsearchable Telegram and Gitter channels. Nothing has a history any longer.
- q87b 3y ago
  Discourse or Discord? Discourse is nicely searchable and in many ways more user-friendly and sustainable than mailing lists.
- lynx23 3y ago
  I don't quite get how you perceive GitHub as toxic social environment, but to each their own... All I sometimes get is a rejected PR, which is definitely not toxic but just the reality of things. I get your grief with Mailing lists though. The forced move from lists to web forums was pretty much a downer for me. Actually, I left every community which did that. I am too old to browser a bunch of web forums each day. If the new kids like that, let 'em play with eachother...
coldtea 3y ago
>The problem with addicts is that some of them somehow think it is the responsibility of the society to outlaw whatever they are addicted to. Nope. On the other hand, the problem is with "everyone for themselves" solutions is that they're not enough to address an issue that affects you (and society in general in systemic ways) even if you personaly don't use the medium.
- lynx23 3y ago
  Source?
  - coldtea 3y ago
    Also need a source that water is wet? This just requires thinking, it's not based on the results of some lab experiment.
    - lynx23 3y ago
      You're claiming that something I dont care about is affecting my life in subtle ways I dont realize. When I ask you to back that up, you effectively say I am too stupid to get it on my own. Well, my point stands: You are claiming things and have nothing to back that up, and expect to be taken seriously?
      - peteradio 3y ago
        Credit card companies have created a system where if you don't use them you are a loser, that's an example of what can happen. I can't prove OPs point about whether it affects you or not but in principle it might not, you might benefit from that status quo.
        lynx23 3y ago
        Can you explain, how is someone a "loser" if they don't use a credit card? Buying stuff on credit was never standard around where I live. Yet, for internet purchases, sure, but for most other things, we actually never adopted credit cards. We finally have debit cards, which is nice for the occasional internet purchase. But I see no extra pressure in my society to actually own and use a credit card.
edgyquant 3y ago
That’s fine when it’s a minority issue, when it affects everyone it IS societies responsibility to fix it. That’s the kind of stiff society exists for

by lynx23 3y ago

CalRobert 3y ago

Sadly we've enfeebled the other options. Not being on social (at least the messaging platforms) media makes it tough to maintain social relationships. It can be done, of course, but with friction. It's also how a lot of orgs communicate with the world, annoyingly.

lynx23 3y ago
If I want to use WhatsApp or Messenger as a messaging tool, nothing forces me to follow any toxic feeds. I can just use WhatsApp and Messanger as a plain inbox and do not have to care about reading the FB feed. I am not so sure about Twitter, but I guess you can also use the DM features without having to dive headlong into flamey feeds.
9dev 3y ago
Asking out of curiosity: is Twitter the medium of choice in your social circle? Everyone I know uses messengers to communicate, and while I know lots of my friends use Instagram, you don’t have to to participate.
throwbadubadu 3y ago
There are so many people wanting to escape, but then also again claiming this. But it is an excuse: there are so many electronic good alternatives for friend cycles to stay connected if they want where you still can keep off social media.. And tbh, we did this well before even without those, and there was even a time we did this without mobile phones but just landline and mail... Just try it for a while, it really still works. If social relationships cannot be maintained without social media, I have no doubt, it is the wrong social relationships "maintained".
- dbspin 3y ago
  > there are so many electronic good alternatives for friend cycles to stay connected if they want where you still can keep off social media.. Network effects just don't work like this. I suspect thinking that they do is related to the kinds of friendships the commenter has - small, intense, long term group friendships; and proximity friendships. Personally I don't have the social capital to pull the dozens of people I keep in regular contact with off their preferred platform and into a new one. Very few people do. And I value those relationships far more than I hate the platforms that maintain them. > If social relationships cannot be maintained without social media, I have no doubt, it is the wrong social relationships "maintained". This is a value judgement, and not an argument. I have strong relationships with friends and former partners, as well as family, that I've maintained for decades through platforms like messenger - which is awful but ubiquitous - with real people who live across the world. We do meet when possible, but it's often years apart, and there's no one 'core group'. These are real world, profound friendships with people I met in person, lived or worked or studied with for years and care about. I completely agree with the characterisation of the harms wrought by social media. But prior to social media, more than a very few distant friendships were all but impossible to maintain. And when you lost contact with an old friend, you could never be quite certain if they had lost interest, were too busy, or had perhaps died or suffered some great setback in life.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >This is a value judgement, and not an argument. Value judgements are the ultimate arguments. In the end, nothing else matters aside from the kind of values we want to uphold.
    - dbspin 3y ago
      Not to get into a back and forth - but that's not remotely true. Our values are soft things next to the concrete realities of life. The need to eat, our health, social contacts, the hard limits on our healthy lifespan. Values are the ways of being we develop to bring our desires into alignments with the aspects of reality we can't control. Moreover - what you're describing is virtue ethics, which is only one of many ethical systems. Hold hard to your values and be evaluated based on your adherence to them. Personally I'm more of a soft utilitarian - it's the results of my decisions that matter, not how they adhere to an abstract value. But we all fight the chaos in our own way.
HEmanZ 3y ago
People used to be able to maintain large remote friend circles before the telegram was invented. If they could do it by snail mail, you can do it with a phone and no social media.
- coldtea 3y ago
  Not when all others that you want to reach have switched to social media.
  - lynx23 3y ago
    They disconnected their phone number and switched to social media? Or did they discontinue their postal address and switch to social media? I am sort of confused what you are trying to say.
    - coldtea 3y ago
      They're spending their time on social media (instead of meeting friends and going out as much), they preferentially make their arrangements when going on and keeping touch on social media, they will often actively snub or forget people outside social media, and even if you manage to get time with them face to face, they're likely to discuss social media drama or just stare at their social media smartphone screen.
      - lynx23 3y ago
        OK, but given the behaviour you describe, why do you miss them, then? Sounds like these people dont add anything to your life, or at least dont really want to add something, which is also reason enough to not care.
        coldtea 3y ago
        Because "these people" is most people. So minimizes the chances of finding people to "add something to your life". This is one result... https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-soci... https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/reports/loneliness-in-america https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/reports/loneliness-in-america

blrwxt 3y ago

Gamification, group think, mob voting and censoring dissenters exist in other areas that you cannot escape. GitHub is an example. Mobile service providers outsourced their customer "service" to open forums. Mailing lists have been replaced by "Discourse" or unsearchable Telegram and Gitter channels. Nothing has a history any longer.

q87b 3y ago
Discourse or Discord? Discourse is nicely searchable and in many ways more user-friendly and sustainable than mailing lists.
lynx23 3y ago
I don't quite get how you perceive GitHub as toxic social environment, but to each their own... All I sometimes get is a rejected PR, which is definitely not toxic but just the reality of things. I get your grief with Mailing lists though. The forced move from lists to web forums was pretty much a downer for me. Actually, I left every community which did that. I am too old to browser a bunch of web forums each day. If the new kids like that, let 'em play with eachother...

coldtea 3y ago

>The problem with addicts is that some of them somehow think it is the responsibility of the society to outlaw whatever they are addicted to. Nope. On the other hand, the problem is with "everyone for themselves" solutions is that they're not enough to address an issue that affects you (and society in general in systemic ways) even if you personaly don't use the medium.

lynx23 3y ago
Source?
- coldtea 3y ago
  Also need a source that water is wet? This just requires thinking, it's not based on the results of some lab experiment.
  - lynx23 3y ago
    You're claiming that something I dont care about is affecting my life in subtle ways I dont realize. When I ask you to back that up, you effectively say I am too stupid to get it on my own. Well, my point stands: You are claiming things and have nothing to back that up, and expect to be taken seriously?
    - peteradio 3y ago
      Credit card companies have created a system where if you don't use them you are a loser, that's an example of what can happen. I can't prove OPs point about whether it affects you or not but in principle it might not, you might benefit from that status quo.
      - lynx23 3y ago
        Can you explain, how is someone a "loser" if they don't use a credit card? Buying stuff on credit was never standard around where I live. Yet, for internet purchases, sure, but for most other things, we actually never adopted credit cards. We finally have debit cards, which is nice for the occasional internet purchase. But I see no extra pressure in my society to actually own and use a credit card.

edgyquant 3y ago

That’s fine when it’s a minority issue, when it affects everyone it IS societies responsibility to fix it. That’s the kind of stiff society exists for