logoalt Hacker News

sans_souse • yesterday at 9:04 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

Excellent piece, easy to read and I agree on most until this part:

     'The surveys all point the same direction: rising anxiety, rising      depression, rising rates of loneliness even as we've never been more connected.
     
     How could this be, when we've gotten so good at giving people what they want?
     Maybe because we've gotten good at giving people what they want in a way that prevents them from wanting anything worth having'
As much as it is true we are technologically more connected than ever, I would argue that much was taken away in parallel to what was given. The capabilities came to fruit but at the same time the governance and politics thinned out much of our desires at their core; ie now we're being told we want more and more because it's been determined we can't have certain things.

Replies

switchbak • yesterday at 9:22 PM

I don't see governance and politics as being the primary movers in what I seek out.

My experience is more: I find myself spinning my tires watching yet another youtube video instead of calmly deciding on a worthy investment of a deep pursuit.

No government has forced that on me, that's mostly a corporate entity and platform making (automated, ML mediated) decisions on what I should consume. Of course governments are involved when deciding what I shouldn't be exposed to, but that's a different matter.

We all have a limited reserve of energy, of attention and willpower. When you spend it on shallow desires, you have expended it and tacitly made a choice to not invest in a more meaningful path. If I were to summarize the time I've spent sitting on my ass watching YouTube the last N years, it's really quite depressing (even if it does sometimes provide some very real value).