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You can only replace an addiction with another (healthier) one. For instance: intense outdoor activity, time spent working in a farm, etc. The tech we’ve buil

You can only replace an addiction with another (healthier) one. For instance: intense outdoor activity, time spent working in a farm, etc. The tech we’ve built is insanely addictive.

jjgreen 3y ago
You could take up smoking. Problem is that you can smoke and zombie-phone at the same time ...
- contravariant 3y ago
  Just start drinking as well, you'll have to quit one habit or take up juggling.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Haha, no. I can smoke and drink and tap on the phone at the same time. Hold my beer while I show you.
    - dingleberry 3y ago
      skip the drink?
TeMPOraL 3y ago
Isn't the strength of addiction inversely correlated with how healthy it is? Or put another way, how the fuck does one begin to like intense outdoor activity at all, much less to the point of it replacing a social media problem (including HN)? There's only one somewhat reliable "trick" I know that makes people do these kinds of switches: falling in love, or at least getting a crush on, someone who's already doing the healthier thing. Obviously, this method is only available for a small segment of the population and mostly for a few years.
- Der_Einzige 3y ago
  See everyone tells me gaming is unhealthy but I loved doing it so much that I simply became a computer professional so that people can't stop me from gaming. It's a time honored tradition to game during downtime in many IT departments. Seems a highly addictive and on paper "unhealthy addiction" was in this case quite gainful for me.
- best_one_there 3y ago
  It's tautological if you phrase it that way. Hiking is just fun. Like, actually fun. If you set up the mental barrier that exercise is bad and sucks and feels bad, then sure, now it's bad. If you're super unfit it might suck, much like sitting down and bashing out some cool scripts in Python would suck if you had no programming knowledge, but that's fixable for most.

You can only replace an addiction with another (healthier) one. For instance: intense outdoor activity, time spent working in a farm, etc. The tech we’ve built is insanely addictive.

jjgreen 3y ago

You could take up smoking. Problem is that you can smoke and zombie-phone at the same time ...

contravariant 3y ago
Just start drinking as well, you'll have to quit one habit or take up juggling.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Haha, no. I can smoke and drink and tap on the phone at the same time. Hold my beer while I show you.
  - dingleberry 3y ago
    skip the drink?

TeMPOraL 3y ago

Isn't the strength of addiction inversely correlated with how healthy it is? Or put another way, how the fuck does one begin to like intense outdoor activity at all, much less to the point of it replacing a social media problem (including HN)? There's only one somewhat reliable "trick" I know that makes people do these kinds of switches: falling in love, or at least getting a crush on, someone who's already doing the healthier thing. Obviously, this method is only available for a small segment of the population and mostly for a few years.

Der_Einzige 3y ago
See everyone tells me gaming is unhealthy but I loved doing it so much that I simply became a computer professional so that people can't stop me from gaming. It's a time honored tradition to game during downtime in many IT departments. Seems a highly addictive and on paper "unhealthy addiction" was in this case quite gainful for me.
best_one_there 3y ago
It's tautological if you phrase it that way. Hiking is just fun. Like, actually fun. If you set up the mental barrier that exercise is bad and sucks and feels bad, then sure, now it's bad. If you're super unfit it might suck, much like sitting down and bashing out some cool scripts in Python would suck if you had no programming knowledge, but that's fixable for most.