5 ms·

Life is complex and beautiful and trying to regulate every possible outcome beforehand just makes it boring and depressing.

andybak 8mo ago
But how do you stop the boring and depressing - and abusive and manipulative parts? I'm not saying legislation is a good solution but you seem to be making a poetic plea that benefits the abusers.
- randomNumber7 8mo ago
  I would say the core problem is that we lack a goal as society. If you only care about making money stuff like this happens regardless how many regulations you do.
- saidinesh5 8mo ago
  >I'm not saying legislation is a good solution but you seem to be making a poetic plea that benefits the abusers. Only if you believe everyone else has no agency of their own. I think most people outgrow these things once they have something more interesting in their lives. Or once they're just bored. Back when this thing was new, everyone was posting pictures of every food item they try, every place they've been to etc.. that seems to slowly change to now where there are a lot more passive consumers compared to a few polished producers. If you're calling people delivering the content "abusers", what would you call people creating the content for the same machine?
  - andybak 8mo ago
    I don't believe people have no agency. But I do believe we overestimate our own agency. Or more importantly society is often structured on the assumption that we have more agency then we actually do.
    - fatherwavelet 8mo ago
      We have agency but it is almost trivial to hijack. Setting up the argument between agency/no agency misses the point IMO.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 8mo ago
    because some people suffer from mental health issues and need help and encouragement to break these behaviours. And companies should not be allowed to predate on the vulnerable.
    - bdangubic 8mo ago
      where does it stop though? I suffer from cant-stop-eating-nutella but should we shut down ferrero? it is simply not possible to protect the vulnerable in a free society. any protection only gives power into the wrong hands and will eventually get weaponized to protect “vulnerable” (e.g. our kids from learning math cause some ruling party likes their future voters dumb)
      - 2muchcoffeeman 8mo ago
        Dumb argument. They don’t intentionally make Nutella addictive and then test out recipes on the public to make it even more addictive. Other people can’t stop eating ice cream or oranges or salami.
        TeMPOraL 8mo ago
        Except that's sort of... exactly what they do. The food industry has pretty much invented the whole process of making "addictive" products and then "test[ing] out recipes on the public to make it even more addictive". Of course, we usually call it making products that taste good, and running taste panels with the public for product development (making a new tasty thing), quality control (ensuring the tasty thing stays tasty), and market research (discovering even tastier things to make in the future). Each part of it employs all kinds of specialists (and yes, those too - nutrition psychology is a thing). The process is the same. The difference between "optimized for taste" and "addictive" isn't exactly clear-cut, at least not until someone starts adding heroin to the product (and of the two, it's not the software industry that's been routinely accused of it just for being too good at this job). Not defending social media here in any way. Cause and effect is known these days, and in digital everything is faster and more pronounced. And ironically, I don't even agree with GP either! I think that individuals have much less agency than GP would like it, and at the same time, that social media is not some uniquely evil and uniquely strong way to abuse people, but closer to new superstimulus we're only starting to develop social immunity to.
torlok 8mo ago
We should just let people with overwhelming amounts of money research and fund new ways to trick people's lizard brains into giving them even more money.
- twoodfin 8mo ago
  If you’re going to organize your society around the theory that humans don’t actually possess free will, you’re going to produce a fair number of outcomes that a classical liberal would find abhorrent.
  - mrob 8mo ago
    It's only assuming that free will requires effort to exert. They shouldn't be required to waste that effort on defending themselves from attempts to trick them into buying things they don't need.
  - jbxntuehineoh 8mo ago
    Yeah, good, okay
  - keybored 8mo ago
    The reason why we are even talking about it is what they said: people with a lot, lot of resources can prey on people. What’s one individual against an industry of psychological research? But yet again we can’t do anything about it because it would interfere with the freedoms of corporations, effectively. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46870147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46870147
- replooda 8mo ago
  People aren't lizards, however. You demonstrate that by engaging in the distinctly unlizardlike behavior of employing a false dichotomy to imply the opposite.
ApolloFortyNine 8mo ago
What it does is allow for selective enforcement, making it possible to go after any company at will. When rules are vague enough you can pretty much always find a rule someone is 'breaking' depending on how you argue it. It's why countries don't just have a single law that says "don't be evil".
- idiotsecant 8mo ago
  No, that's what case law is for. Modelling the zillion little details. One party claims something breaks a law another claims it doesn't, and then we decide which is true. The only alternative is an infinitely detailed law.
  - sophrosyne42 8mo ago
    No, case law is when the interpretation of the law is ambiguous in specific cases where the law as written intends for a specific meaning. This is different, it is intentionally ambiguous precisely so bureaucrats get to choose winners and losers instead of consumers.
  - dredmorbius 8mo ago
    Case law, also known as common law, is a British legal tradition. Most of the EU does not follow the common law tradition. There may be supreme courts, but the notion of binding precedent, or stare decisis as in the US legal system does not exist. Appeal and Supreme court decisions may be referenced in future cases, but don't establish precedent. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedent> The equivalent doctrine under a civil legal system (most of mainland Europe) is jurisprudence constante, in which "if a court has adjudicated a consistent line of cases that arrive at the same holdings using sound reasoning, then the previous decisions are highly persuasive but not controlling on issues of law" (from above Wikipedia link). See: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisprudence_constante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisprudence_constante> Interestingly, neither the principle of Judicial Review (in which laws may be voided by US courts) or stare decisis are grounded in either the US Constitution or specific legislation. The first emerged from Marbury v. Madison (1803), heard by the US Supreme Court (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison>), and the second is simply grounded in legal tradition, though dating to the British legal system. Both could be voided, possibly through legislation, definitely by Constitutional amendment. Or through further legal decisions by the courts themselves.
Unai 8mo ago
Laws should protect what's beautiful about life. And life is less beautiful when trillion dollar companies abuse the human nature to extract value, damaging society and individuals for the benefit of the very few.
samrus 8mo ago
Yeah. I would have liked to have fun with all that asbestos in my walls

andybak 8mo ago

But how do you stop the boring and depressing - and abusive and manipulative parts? I'm not saying legislation is a good solution but you seem to be making a poetic plea that benefits the abusers.

randomNumber7 8mo ago
I would say the core problem is that we lack a goal as society. If you only care about making money stuff like this happens regardless how many regulations you do.
saidinesh5 8mo ago
>I'm not saying legislation is a good solution but you seem to be making a poetic plea that benefits the abusers. Only if you believe everyone else has no agency of their own. I think most people outgrow these things once they have something more interesting in their lives. Or once they're just bored. Back when this thing was new, everyone was posting pictures of every food item they try, every place they've been to etc.. that seems to slowly change to now where there are a lot more passive consumers compared to a few polished producers. If you're calling people delivering the content "abusers", what would you call people creating the content for the same machine?
- andybak 8mo ago
  I don't believe people have no agency. But I do believe we overestimate our own agency. Or more importantly society is often structured on the assumption that we have more agency then we actually do.
  - fatherwavelet 8mo ago
    We have agency but it is almost trivial to hijack. Setting up the argument between agency/no agency misses the point IMO.
- 2muchcoffeeman 8mo ago
  because some people suffer from mental health issues and need help and encouragement to break these behaviours. And companies should not be allowed to predate on the vulnerable.
  - bdangubic 8mo ago
    where does it stop though? I suffer from cant-stop-eating-nutella but should we shut down ferrero? it is simply not possible to protect the vulnerable in a free society. any protection only gives power into the wrong hands and will eventually get weaponized to protect “vulnerable” (e.g. our kids from learning math cause some ruling party likes their future voters dumb)
    - 2muchcoffeeman 8mo ago
      Dumb argument. They don’t intentionally make Nutella addictive and then test out recipes on the public to make it even more addictive. Other people can’t stop eating ice cream or oranges or salami.
      - TeMPOraL 8mo ago
        Except that's sort of... exactly what they do. The food industry has pretty much invented the whole process of making "addictive" products and then "test[ing] out recipes on the public to make it even more addictive". Of course, we usually call it making products that taste good, and running taste panels with the public for product development (making a new tasty thing), quality control (ensuring the tasty thing stays tasty), and market research (discovering even tastier things to make in the future). Each part of it employs all kinds of specialists (and yes, those too - nutrition psychology is a thing). The process is the same. The difference between "optimized for taste" and "addictive" isn't exactly clear-cut, at least not until someone starts adding heroin to the product (and of the two, it's not the software industry that's been routinely accused of it just for being too good at this job). Not defending social media here in any way. Cause and effect is known these days, and in digital everything is faster and more pronounced. And ironically, I don't even agree with GP either! I think that individuals have much less agency than GP would like it, and at the same time, that social media is not some uniquely evil and uniquely strong way to abuse people, but closer to new superstimulus we're only starting to develop social immunity to.

torlok 8mo ago

We should just let people with overwhelming amounts of money research and fund new ways to trick people's lizard brains into giving them even more money.

twoodfin 8mo ago
If you’re going to organize your society around the theory that humans don’t actually possess free will, you’re going to produce a fair number of outcomes that a classical liberal would find abhorrent.
- mrob 8mo ago
  It's only assuming that free will requires effort to exert. They shouldn't be required to waste that effort on defending themselves from attempts to trick them into buying things they don't need.
- jbxntuehineoh 8mo ago
  Yeah, good, okay
- keybored 8mo ago
  The reason why we are even talking about it is what they said: people with a lot, lot of resources can prey on people. What’s one individual against an industry of psychological research? But yet again we can’t do anything about it because it would interfere with the freedoms of corporations, effectively. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46870147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46870147
replooda 8mo ago
People aren't lizards, however. You demonstrate that by engaging in the distinctly unlizardlike behavior of employing a false dichotomy to imply the opposite.

ApolloFortyNine 8mo ago

What it does is allow for selective enforcement, making it possible to go after any company at will. When rules are vague enough you can pretty much always find a rule someone is 'breaking' depending on how you argue it. It's why countries don't just have a single law that says "don't be evil".

idiotsecant 8mo ago
No, that's what case law is for. Modelling the zillion little details. One party claims something breaks a law another claims it doesn't, and then we decide which is true. The only alternative is an infinitely detailed law.
- sophrosyne42 8mo ago
  No, case law is when the interpretation of the law is ambiguous in specific cases where the law as written intends for a specific meaning. This is different, it is intentionally ambiguous precisely so bureaucrats get to choose winners and losers instead of consumers.
- dredmorbius 8mo ago
  Case law, also known as common law, is a British legal tradition. Most of the EU does not follow the common law tradition. There may be supreme courts, but the notion of binding precedent, or stare decisis as in the US legal system does not exist. Appeal and Supreme court decisions may be referenced in future cases, but don't establish precedent. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedent> The equivalent doctrine under a civil legal system (most of mainland Europe) is jurisprudence constante, in which "if a court has adjudicated a consistent line of cases that arrive at the same holdings using sound reasoning, then the previous decisions are highly persuasive but not controlling on issues of law" (from above Wikipedia link). See: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisprudence_constante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisprudence_constante> Interestingly, neither the principle of Judicial Review (in which laws may be voided by US courts) or stare decisis are grounded in either the US Constitution or specific legislation. The first emerged from Marbury v. Madison (1803), heard by the US Supreme Court (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison>), and the second is simply grounded in legal tradition, though dating to the British legal system. Both could be voided, possibly through legislation, definitely by Constitutional amendment. Or through further legal decisions by the courts themselves.

Unai 8mo ago

Laws should protect what's beautiful about life. And life is less beautiful when trillion dollar companies abuse the human nature to extract value, damaging society and individuals for the benefit of the very few.

samrus 8mo ago

Yeah. I would have liked to have fun with all that asbestos in my walls