▲ | Avoiding the Global Lobotomy(jdemeta.net) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
36 points by bramhaag 8 hours ago | 11 comments | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | paxys a few seconds ago | parent | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
What they are describing sounds more like long covid. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | coffeefirst 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Well, I'm not sure who forgot COVID, but elements of this are absolutely true. I've been reading The Count of Monte Cristo—a 1200 pages unabridged, clothbound edition that will spend 40 pages of wandering setup just to deliver one striking image. It was a banger in it's time, and it's still a banger, but it's striking how much it asked of its readers. It will take me the rest of the year to finish. And this is the thing, we really do live in a toxic attention ecosystem that rots our brains. Like the author, I've been trying to reassert control my own attention, and it's shockingly hard to do. I'm not sure if I'll manage to make it work. But let's suppose I do: I've deleted all social media, deliberately set my relationship with news, if I feel the urge to post dump it in a paper notebook instead, and somehow achieve the miracle of getting slack to chill out... ... much like learning to cook is great for me but doesn't solve the social costs from widespread ultraprocessed diets and resulting metabolic disorders, getting my own attentive house in order does not change the global brainrot and toxic political incentives. If anyone has found a way to turn that tide, I'm all ears. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | Aerbil313 27 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preach. I've noticed this exact effect and wrote about it recently, calling it 'ungrounding': https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44046389 I don't think anybody can even begin to notice the effect unless they detach from the various channels first. If you don't consume any content (including TV, radio, Hackernews) for a few months (near impossible, but I did it once) you realize the absolute mental captivity literally everybody else, including your very loved ones are living in. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | nathan_compton an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
>Now, as we can see from the previous section on dopamine-reward-systems, what social media and quantifiable discourse is doing is mentally limiting what we can say and do, not by way of oppression, but by way or ostracization, alienation and peer-pressure. The overton window is wider than its ever been at any point in history. Like I think this particular thing was overblown in the first place and also people are already correcting for it. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | eabeezxjc 28 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Lobotomy is also the removal of the lungs. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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