Avoiding the Global Lobotomy

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.

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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.

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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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4bpp an hour ago | parent | next [-]

If the author's theory were true and social media dynamics were indeed compressing the Overton window, wouldn't these sorts of "the Overton window is way too wide" posts be exactly the reaction one would expect to it on social media? Thinking that extremism is running rampant is what it feels like to be the thought police from the inside.

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phoronixrly 30 minutes ago | parent [-]

I think both you and the commenter you responded to are misreading the article. I read it as 'hey, currently everyone on social media is discussing $latest US political news, posting over-directed short-form content, etc., so you posting a family photo, a photo of your favourite plant, sharing a favourite song, or a passage of a book you're reading would be considered odd, weird, despite being a completely normal thing to do and many people used to do regularly.'

	▲	SpicyLemonZest 5 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That reading seems obviously false to me. I routinely see people posting those things on social media.

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Muromec an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I was with the author until that moment and the list of things "we" have supposedly forgot. Overtone window seems to be widening if anything. With the most unhinged hot takes of the 20th century being talked over again and all that.

At least the article doesn't blame "them" for doing it to "us". Or is it implied? Does the other article blame on the usual suspects of the day?

	▲	nathan_compton an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The main difference now is that everyone sees everyone else's overton window because we are all just letting our asses hang out on social media and this engenders a lot of conflict, dog-piling, etc. Not great stuff, certainly, but not really evidence that the overton window is narrowing. In other respects I think the submission is more on point, though still reactionary.

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eabeezxjc 28 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Lobotomy is also the removal of the lungs.

	▲	mft_ 7 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Lobectomy is the removal of a lobe of a lung.