TonesTones's recent activity
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Comment on Tildes Book Club - Ministry for the Future - How is it going? in ~books
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Comment on Walled gardens, privacy, SEO and the open internet in ~tech
TonesTones LinkLike @ogre mentions, the tradeoffs tend to be platform-specific, and depend on what kind of data is being shared publicly. In general, there is always a tradeoff, because even if you anonymize...Like @ogre mentions, the tradeoffs tend to be platform-specific, and depend on what kind of data is being shared publicly.
In general, there is always a tradeoff, because even if you anonymize everything before releasing it publicly, there’s always the risk of reidentification, or being able to identify a person from enough context clues in the data.
For example, Facebook allows you to lock your profile to only be visible by friends or friends-of-friends, which does support the idea of a walled garden (not visible publicly). However, even if you wanted to make results available to search engines by anonymizing profiles (say: remove name, picture faces, and birthday), there’d still probably be enough information on the profile to deduce who this person is.
On Tildes, when telling anything personal, I do change or hide any details so it’s harder for someone to go from Tildes content -> IRL identification. Someone who knows who I am IRL can probably conclude it’s me if they find me here and read enough of my comments. That I’m ok with, so it’s nice to know only others Tildes users can see my entire comment history.
I suspect the future way to get around the “walled garden” problem will be with decentralized protocols. That’s still a very new technical space, and there’s a lot of smart people that disagree on what that should look like, but I think most unbiased actors agree that some public protocol is better than media provided by one company.
Note that decentralized protocols will still likely hide a lot of data from public view via encryption (and therefore hide it from search engines), but at least you will have more than one option to find your friends online. -
Comment on Your favorite game OSTs in ~games
TonesTones LinkSo many of my favorite games are my favorites in part for their OST. Celeste, Minecraft, Outer Wilds, any Supergiant game, Ori, Disco Elysium, Hollow Knight, etc. I want to give a particular...So many of my favorite games are my favorites in part for their OST.
Celeste, Minecraft, Outer Wilds, any Supergiant game, Ori, Disco Elysium, Hollow Knight, etc.
I want to give a particular shoutout to two OSTs that, in my opinion, make the game what it is.
Furi is a game with a lot of rough edges. The story is hard to parse, the visuals lack polish, and a lot of the bosses don’t feel that different.
The soundtrack competes with Celeste’s for my favorite OST of all time. I have often muted games to listen to Furi’s OST instead. I think the game knows this, too: each level begins with a long walking section, so you can hear the introduction to each song, and then wait for the crux in the boss fight.
- My Only Chance
- 8.02
- 6.24
- 7.53
- A Monster
Katana Zero has one of those OSTs that’s able to set you in the atmosphere of the game immediately. The game is a story about a supersoldier with PTSD, and the soundtrack helps put you in the protagonist’s head. Of course, it helps that every level begins with the protagonist plugging in his casette tape to start the music.
- Sneaky Driver
- Chinatown
- Meat Grinder
- Driving Force: Neon Fog
- You Will Never Know
- Psychotherapy
These games are definitely worth playing, but they are unique to me in that I’m not sure I would recommend them if they didn’t have their respecitve OSTs. Definitely give the tracks a listen.
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Comment on Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? in ~life.men
TonesTones LinkSocial issues are notoriously difficult to unpack, and I think this article tries to attribute a complex issue to a monolithic cause. I agree that being in a culture with people like you makes it...Social issues are notoriously difficult to unpack, and I think this article tries to attribute a complex issue to a monolithic cause.
I agree that being in a culture with people like you makes it easier to succeed; this is why it’s so important to increase minority representation in general. As a result, I also agree that if men represent a minority of students in an institution, they will be at a disadvantage.
That is definitely not a valid monocausal explanation, though. If you want one cause, I have a better one: video game addicts are overwhelmingly male, online video games are a novel invention, and those addicts are less likely to succeed in school. We already know social media is disproportionately affecting the mental health of young teenage girls. It’s not that hard to conclude video games are disproportionately affecting the educational success of young men, in both high school and university.
I’m not saying video games are the bad guy. I’m illustrating that for social issues, monocausal explanations are fairly easy to develop and justify if you are using survey statistics and not doing rigorous scientific experiments. Something something correlation.
There’s likely some truth in what the article argues. It’s also unwise to dismiss other causes like the article seems to be doing.
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Comment on Honey did nothing wrong in ~tech
TonesTones (edited )LinkMaybe I misunderstand something about the situation, but I believe almost everyone is missing the big deal here. Most, including the original video creator, the plaintiffs of the lawsuit, and the...Maybe I misunderstand something about the situation, but I believe almost everyone is missing the big deal here.
Most, including the original video creator, the plaintiffs of the lawsuit, and the comments here are focused on stealing some revenue from the creator by swapping affiliate cookies. I would agree that this is shady, but this is small potatoes when looking at the money, and Honey might be quite lucky if this is the worst outcome from all this drama.
I strongly suspect Honey inserts an affiliate cookie in every purchase, not just those where there’s already an affiliate link. Nearly every online retailer on the planet has an affiliate program, and as demonstrated with NordVPN, companies pay affiliates up to 30% of the revenue of the sale, depending on the contract terms.
Suppose you are a small business owner who decides to innocently set up an affiliate program. Say you pay out 30% of the revenue for affiliate sales. You enter a contract with Honey (20 million users). If those users form 2% of sales, you are now paying out 0.6% of your total revenue to Honey. Not profit, revenue.
Extrapolate to all the business in the English-speaking world, and you can imagine the impacts.
What I suspect has actually happened is Honey has struck deals with any major vendor to take closer to 1-5% for affiliate commissions instead of the usual 15-30%. That still lets Honey take home tens or hundreds of millions per year, but maintains a good relationship with companies who would be investigating and attacking them otherwise.I think the real losers here are not content creators, but small businesses who enter an affiliate contract with Honey and suddenly find themselves getting strongarmed in negotiations. Maybe companies with tight enough margins have been driven to bankruptcy almost overnight.
I guess this is where the last two parts of this exposé are headed.
The worst part is, since Honey likely has good lawyers, the contracts might mean these small businesses have no grounds on which to sue Honey. I’m not a lawyer, but corporate lawyers have done sleazier shit in the past.If I’m right about how Honey works, then my napkin estimations say there have been more “damages” than almost any class-action lawsuit in my lifetime. I might not be right, but I guess that will come out in time.
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Comment on Climate stress has millennials rethinking retirement in ~finance
TonesTones Link ParentI’ll do my best to briefly explain the nuance of the framing I like to use. Climate change is a global crisis that effectively guarantees a whole host of awful things will happen to a lot of...I’ll do my best to briefly explain the nuance of the framing I like to use.
Climate change is a global crisis that effectively guarantees a whole host of awful things will happen to a lot of people and animals.
At a political and social scale, this requires action.It’s also true that awful things happen to people all the time. There have been and currently are terrible natural disasters, horrible wars, and famines. If you are affected by these at an individual scale, there’s not a whole lot you can do. So, you do your best in the situation you are in. At an individual level, you must accept the pieces of reality you cannot control.
The biggest differences I see with climate change are (a) this is preventable (or at least at this point, damage can be mitigated), and (b) this will affect pretty much everyone. But those are things that change the social reality and not the individual reality.
It’s okay to be afraid. It makes a lot of sense to be afraid. But the fear will paralyze you if you let it, so you just have to move with and towards the fear.
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Comment on Climate stress has millennials rethinking retirement in ~finance
TonesTones Link ParentYup, you’re right. I often cut things from my responses for brevity when I forget why I added something in the first place. I didn’t read the attitude explicitly from respondents in the article as...Yup, you’re right. I often cut things from my responses for brevity when I forget why I added something in the first place.
I didn’t read the attitude explicitly from respondents in the article as written. It sounded instead like the authors were expecting to find that, and didn’t (emphasis mine).
“We expected there to be a group of people who see climate change as a reason to save more, while others want to use their resources now and enjoy life,” Helm says.
“But I was happy to see proactive coping strategies in their savings behavior. We are generally more concerned about millennials, because they tend to have lower retirement savings than other generations before them. Financial literacy, particularly among younger people, is comparatively low.”
I was just providing my rationale for why I agree with that, but I totally didn’t provide that context in my response. Thanks!
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Comment on Climate stress has millennials rethinking retirement in ~finance
TonesTones (edited )LinkNot saving never seems like a reasonable conclusion to me. When you put money in your retirement account, it doesn’t magically disappear until you hit retirement age. You can always withdraw it...Not saving never seems like a reasonable conclusion to me. When you put money in your retirement account, it doesn’t magically disappear until you hit retirement age. You can always withdraw it from the account early and pay some taxes (at least in the USA).
I understand why people might feel the way described in the article, but it could also be rationalization for just wanting to live beyond your means now. (Edit: See child comments for context.)
In my mind, even if the worst of climate change comes to pass, death by natural disaster might just come for me sooner. People still save even knowing a freak accident could take their life any day. Climate change is absolutely an Earth-threatening crisis, but at an individual level, climate change is just another way we could die too young. Using that as an excuse not to prepare for your future is just
being fearful of a premature deathletting your fear of a premature death control you. -
Comment on Tildes Book Club discussion - The City We Became by N K Jemisin in ~books
TonesTones LinkI’m starting to read more for personal reasons, and I decided to join the Tildes book club to help motivate that. I’m always more consistent with other people. Thanks to the community and...I’m starting to read more for personal reasons, and I decided to join the Tildes book club to help motivate that. I’m always more consistent with other people. Thanks to the community and @boxer_dogs_dance for organizing.
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This book definitely kept me engaged. I finished it over the course of 2 days on Christmas vacation. Jemisin’s writing is illustrative and brilliant, and she does a good job of pulling you through the character’s emotions especially when they remain separated.
Overall, the book read like a love letter to New York, and Jemisin basically says as much in the acknowledgments. I don’t know enough about New York to know if this did that well.
The themes, and especially the twist at the end, felt a bit disjointed. The whole book speaks to how the primary avatar will bring New York together, but the protagonists prevail by literally splitting from Staten Island. I assume this is resolved in the sequel, but ending on that note still left me feeling disappointed.
I found the book was at its best in the first half, when the Enemy represented real issues the characters were facing in the city. I think a much more interesting way to explore the dynamic between the boroughs would have been to introduce conflict between the avatars. The Lady offered Staten Island companionship and won her over. I found that compelling. I think having the Lady tempt boroughs with things they want at the expense of the other boroughs would have highlighted the theme of “winning is bringing New York together” instead of “winning is cutting out what doesn’t fit”.
I enjoyed getting to know all the characters, although I loved the prologue sequencd and the character of New York the most, so I’m sad he only showed up there. Every person felt pretty real. Overall, I enjoyed the read, even if it didn’t leave me with a strong take-home message.
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Comment on Why I am pursuing a life, professionally and personally, of Christian Virtue in ~humanities
TonesTones LinkThank you for the touching and meaningful writeup. I felt how much you have been through and how many things you have tried and felt like they haven’t worked. As somebody who is not particularly...Thank you for the touching and meaningful writeup. I felt how much you have been through and how many things you have tried and felt like they haven’t worked.
As somebody who is not particularly religious, I thought I would take some time to encourage and express why I have a lot of respect for religion, including Christianity.
First, churches are one of the few places you can find a community outside of family and work (the “third place”). They also provide a total supportive community, which is actually quite rare in modern urban society. Many people in cities and suburbs rely on just their immediate family and closest friends, which puts stress on everyone when problems arise. A church (or other larger communities) is a much larger supportive network. These are sorely needed in today’s world (people are lonely!), and if secularism continues to grow, I expect some secular solution to this issue to become popular within my lifetime. For now, churches are one of the best places to find a community.
Second, religion encourages belief in a higher power or greater plan. Religion and science are not irreconciliable, but the belief in a greater plan and the belief that the world is fundamentally chaotic are. In particular, scientists that believe in a chaotic world often conclude that humans need to solve their problems with technology to reach utopia. Religion provides an alternative perspective; as I understand, Christianity teaches that the world offers hardships and with strength through God, we can face those hardships with goodness and then reach heaven after life. I think the latter is a much more healthy way of emotionally coping with the injustice, unfairness, and cruelty inherent to our world. Obviously, there are problems we can solve, but not everything is within our control.
Finally, belief in God or something greater is one of the most straightforward paths to true humility. I find the Abrahamic characterization of human as simply creation oddly powerful. It also allows people to believe that we are placed somewhere for a reason; regardless of the truth of that, for me, it makes it way easier to find meaning in my circumstance instead of becoming angry that things aren’t the way I might want.
I hope someone enjoyed reading this. In a positive discussion of religion, I wanted to contribute some of the things I really like about religion and think the secular world could use more of.
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Comment on Lawsuit reveals how colleges really talk about rich applicants in ~life
TonesTones LinkFrankly, I do not totally see why admitting wealthy, connected students even if they are not as qualified is a bad thing. These elite institutions are quite possibly doing their best to serve...Frankly, I do not totally see why admitting wealthy, connected students even if they are not as qualified is a bad thing. These elite institutions are quite possibly doing their best to serve their incoming students. Such a “reveal” is unsuprising to me. (I do not think the article explicitly labeled the practice as a bad thing——it reads like objective journalism——but does suggest the institutions want to hide or deny this behavior. I wonder why?)
In this day and age, having wealth and power or connections to wealth and power is incredibly valuable. For example, if MIT stopped admitting children of wealthy donors and Harvard didn’t stop, I suspect the brightest kids would, on average, be more successful at Harvard. They’d have connections to buisness and venture capital and all the things necessary to enter into a life of privilege. Which is likely what the smart kids admitted into MIT or Harvard want.
The benefits of elite education are and have always been the connections. It is in the best interest of the university and the admitted students for admissions to work the way it does. Is the situation good or just? No. However, I think the only losers in this situation are the rejected candidates. Does a private institution really have any obligation to do favors to students it rejects?
The lawsuit in question is accusing these 12 universities of price fixing (i.e., colluding to give students similar financial aid packages). Which is anticompetitive and absolutely harms the admitted students. However, that isn’t the focus of the article.
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Comment on Question for the women in relationships: how would you react if a male friend asked to hang with you alone? in ~life.women
TonesTones LinkHello! I’m in a different age range, and not a woman, but I hope I can provide something other comments here haven’t. I’m queer, and in particular I identify as aromantic and asexual, so I’m...Hello! I’m in a different age range, and not a woman, but I hope I can provide something other comments here haven’t.
I’m queer, and in particular I identify as aromantic and asexual, so I’m pretty used to relationships that are intimate in one way or another without taking on an explicitly romantic or sexual nature.
Navigating relationships is hard for everybody. We all are essentially driving blind, and rely on cultural knowledge and past experiences to guide us. There doesn’t exist some special set of rules that informs what is appropriate and what isn’t.
Neurodivergence
I’m also neurodivergent and fairly socially adept despite that. I don’t think neurodivergent people struggle socially because they don’t understand the rules. I don’t think anybody truly does. The research shows neurodivergents struggle to recognize facial expressions and body language queues, and therefore have a harder time gauging how somebody else is feeling in a moment. I think the struggle comes from neurodivergents having less signal to make social decisions, and therefore being more prone to make social mistakes.In my experience, people tend to assume the set of rules they are used to is the same as others’ rules, and so infer someone’s intentions based on their own interpretations. This is necessary; you can’t enter every new relationship from scratch.
It seems like you believed that since you were both in committed relationships, the nature of your relationship was obviously strictly platonic. That holds for some people (e.g., some just enjoy flirting with others), but not everyone is so generous with the benefit of the doubt. I think other comments mentioned how your behavior (inviting her to your living place alone, saying no to her boyfriend, emphasizing the 1-1 relationship, etc.) could be interpreted as romantic interest. I think (as do other comments) that these are well-understood conventions. Oops! Mistakes happen, and if you had no bad intentions, I wouldn’t beat yourself up over it.
I want to add this: If you want to do something that could be interpreted in a bad way due to social conventions, you need to explicitly call out the social convention and that it doesn’t apply here. This isn’t always enough, but it seems like a necessary piece to break the rules. I am an aroace person who likes to, for example: flirt, be emotionally vulnerable, go on 1-1 evening outings, etc. with friends. I use something along the lines of: “I know when X happens you are used to it meaning Y, but with me, my intentions are Z.” People genuinely really appreciate the sincerity (but! you have to not change your intentions without very, very explicit communication, otherwise you are now manipulating somebody).
I hope this helps, if not you, then somebody reading this post. Socializing well is a mixture of recognizing and conforming to the common social conventions and empathizing with how someone’s background might inform their individual experience. Honest, clear, and respectful communication is essential. At the end of the day, if you want to be a good friend, it’s about them, not you.
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Comment on The Just World Cultural License—a copyleft license to make the world a better place in ~creative
TonesTones LinkHello @TheMeerkat. From the feedback on the Tildes survey post, it seems like you have returned after some time away fron Tildes. I’m a newer member of the community, but welcome back all the...Hello @TheMeerkat. From the feedback on the Tildes survey post, it seems like you have returned after some time away fron Tildes. I’m a newer member of the community, but welcome back all the same.
I saw this license a few days ago after poking around your website when I noticed the survey was hosted on your domain. I was intrigued and gave it a once-over. I reviewed the FAQ before commenting here. I suppose you are posting it here to generate some sort of discussion, and I’m happy to contribute.
I totally understand where a license like this comes from. I think your website does a good job explaining the motivation behind it. There needs to be some form of accountability for use of works outside of software development. There is an interesting difference, though. The use case for a license for software development is obvious; people want the functionality of a tool or library for their own project.
Therefore, I’m curious to what kinds of work this is intended to apply to. “Cultural works” is quite generic, and I can see how this could be used for something like digital artwork. I’m not a legal scholar, and so I wonder how this would apply to pieces of writing and other forms of artwork. For example, is citing a piece considered sharing or redistributing it? In general, to what range of use cases do you see this being applied to? Are there “cultural works” that I might not even think of?
I think the Preamble and FAQ are well-written and are unambiguous about the intentions of this license. Even if this is the wrong way to accomplish the intended goals (I don’t know enough to say one way or the other), I’m sure the existence acts as a catalyst for someone to make changes they think are relevant. So, this seems like a noble endeavor regardless of effectiveness. Thanks for sharing!
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Comment on The confusing reality of AI friends in ~tech
TonesTones Link ParentI do think that framing as editor/editee is useful. There’s something about the editor/editee process being cyclical with feedback that my framing didn’t include though. It’s not exactly the same....I do think that framing as editor/editee is useful. There’s something about the editor/editee process being cyclical with feedback that my framing didn’t include though. It’s not exactly the same. Again, this article raised more questions for me that I don’t have answers to.
I think that’s the concluding question of the article? The author quoted a few individuals in the field, whose responses range from caution, to cautious optimism, to market supremacy >>> morals.
Indeed it is. In the context of my second-to-last paragraph, I was trying to reframe the concluding question as: what if the user thinks they are talking to a human when in fact the human has been replaced with an LLM? That isn’t discussed explicitly in the article. As usual, it’s inherently unsettling to me but not obvious how it’s philosophically different on a text-based platform.
That’s the question I was trying to evoke with my post. The article asks “Are LLM relationships just as satisfying as human ones?”. I wanted to ask “If they are, then is virtual human contact equivalent to LLM contact, and is it problematic to replace humans with LLMs if everyone benefits?”
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Comment on The confusing reality of AI friends in ~tech
TonesTones (edited )LinkI was already aware these AI companion companies existed, and am unsuprised at their success at capturing customers. Actually hearing from those customers and their feelings for the AIs really...- Exemplary
I was already aware these AI companion companies existed, and am unsuprised at their success at capturing customers.
Actually hearing from those customers and their feelings for the AIs really made me question my own capacity for connection. I consider myself lucky to have many friends, some of whom I have deep, meaningful connections with.
So to what degree are my relationships made possible by my power of language? Many of my friends are my friends because of the combination of what I say and what they say. There is no doubt in my mind that my ability to convey and clarify my ideas, thoughts, and feelings through language dramatically strengthens my ability to be a meaningful human being in a relationship. I cannot imagine having the same relationships with people in a foreign language, even if I could speak and understand it. My mastery over the language wouldn’t be there.
This is obviously true in general when you consider that written and spoken media can evoke emotions. I often read or listen to feel something or think about something. The author’s ability to use that language to that end makes their content more or less compelling.
Some of the interactions with AI companions felt obviously generic to me, but they clearly weren’t to the customers. A sufficiently isolated person might never have interacted with somebody who has the same power over language as an LLM. Does that make their relationship with the LLM more potent than their relationships with a human being? My instinctual answer is obviously NO, but at the same moment, if I were replaced with an equivalent version of myself who simply spoke and wrote German, my relationships with people who speak German would become more potent.
So, when does our capacity for human thought end and our capacity for constructing language begin? My language is inextricable from who I am as a person. To the people around me, I am likely primarily valuable as much as my language is. So, in a human relationship, does it matter when human thought ends and language begins? It’s the same to an observer. But if it doesn’t matter, then why is a relationship with an LLM worse than a human one?
Here on Tildes, I am barely anything more than my language. Maybe I am also characterized by my infrequent but long comments, and my tendency to forgot to respond to my comments’ replies. But if I were to make a robot through which I passed my thoughts and then the robot constructed the comment, but the robot had mastery over language and could convey my thoughts in a way I simply couldn’t, who is more authentic? Surely the robot isn’t me, but it damn well might be strictly more compelling than me. And that terrifies me.
I foresee a potential future where if I get blocked on social media (e.g., a dating app), the person I am talking to will be replaced by an LLM that kindly and emphathetically ends the relationship. The end result is equivalent except my feelings will be less hurt and I’m less likely to be angry. Maybe it decreases stalking cases. Maybe it increases happiness. Surely it increases app retention.
Everyone is better off. Everyone gets what they want. All that is required is a small replacement. Of a person with a robot. But if everyone is better off, that isn’t harmful, right?
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Comment on Slop economics in ~finance
TonesTones LinkI have not seen this creator before. "Slop" (or at least the intentional creation of it) certainly seems like a novel phenomenon. I think the creator made a strong argument connecting "slop" to...I have not seen this creator before. "Slop" (or at least the intentional creation of it) certainly seems like a novel phenomenon. I think the creator made a strong argument connecting "slop" to the perverse incentives of corporations to make something that will hold somebody's attention.
However, the conclusion of this video really fell flat for me. Specifically, I do not think "slop" is defined by something that uses the existing value of the brand without adding to it. The creator themself nearly arrives at this conclusion in their script.
I mentioned Daredevil as an example of good, non-slop, valuable, attractive, Netflix content, but it is a Marvel adaptation. It exploits the already existing, captured value of brand recognition and attachment to a specific, established character.
Instead of recognizing their definition of slop has issues, they decide that there is a "slop spectrum".
There is a "slop"-iness to Daredevil. The edges of the slop principle do become hazy the closer you look. [...] So maybe there's a slop spectrum.
If you consider nearly any event in the cultural zeitgeist, there is at least some exploitation of existing value; it helps get people invested. Avengers: Endgame, the Drake/Kendrick beef, the Star Wars sequels, Taylor Swift's Eras concert. Or, literally any product with a recognizable brand. Most of marketing is about developing and building off of existing cultural value.
That doesn't make everything that has ever been made that builds off previous work slop. Building off previous works can result in an incredible global experience like Eras, or it can forever damage the reputation of the previous work like Star Wars almost overnight. Neither of these examples feel like slop to me because of how strong people felt about these things. These events made people feel things.
I would describe slop as simply palatable. Acceptable. Mediocre. Not doing anything novel, interesting, or challenging, but simply repeating what is known to work. Pillar of Garbage accurately identifies that a) slop slowly degrades the reputation of a brand over time and b) many successful brands are exploited to generate slop that gets guaranteed attention.
There's always been mediocre work. Today, those works simply aren't remembered because they were uninteresting. I think the real novelty of this era is what this creator points out Netflix is doing. Intentionally creating slop to avoid losing people's attention. This might be bad for the culture, but it's clearly what the free market demands. Netflix is profitable when every other independent streaming service is dead, and the dependent ones remain subsidized. This seems unique to the post-Information era.
For those of you who watch F.D. Signifier's analysis of hip hop culture, I think he had a compelling reason why this has happened. F.D. describes the pre-Internet hip hop culture as being dominated by the gatekeepers: record executives, radio hosts, and other powerful industry figures who used to decide who got seen. If you wanted to publish a record, get your song on the radio, and otherwise get a spotlight, you needed to go through the gatekeepers. As a result, the gatekeepers got to determine what the culture looked like, for better or for worse.
In the post-Internet era, F.D. makes the case that while still powerful, these gatekeepers are forced to bend a knee to the all-powerful algorithms. If your song doesn't become a TikTok sensation, another one will. If your streaming service doesn't optimize for watchtime and retention, Netflix will. As the creation and consumption of media is democratized, the algorithms determine what works.
I think what we see happening today is companies learning that slop is what works consistently. They are deciding to produce slop, fully aware that it deteroriates their brand value, to generate capital. Since the gatekeepers lack power, they won't fight fair in the battle for attention. Instead, when some superstar comes out of the masses with new, exciting brand value, they'll use their capital to buy in and repeat. Low-risk with guaranteed returns.
I'm glad I watched the video. I do not think I would have thought about this or come to this conclusion otherwise.
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Comment on ADHD and TODO lists in ~health.mental
TonesTones Link ParentHa! Thanks for the hot take. Just wanted to mention for anyone thinking about their executive functioning issues: there are other neurodiversities (specifically for me, ASD) that also impact...Anybody who claims to have solved it with a single method either doesn't have ADHD or hasn't truly solved it.
Ha! Thanks for the hot take.
Just wanted to mention for anyone thinking about their executive functioning issues: there are other neurodiversities (specifically for me, ASD) that also impact executive function. I have been diagnosed with ADHD, but based on my personal understanding of the condition and myself, I think that was a misdiagnosis from the ASD's impact on my executive functioning.
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Comment on Wonder announces acquisition of Grubhub in ~food
TonesTones Link ParentThe CEO of Wonder is Marc Lore, who is worth (I think) multiple billions of dollars. Since the acquisition was for less than a billion, this seems more comparable to Elon Musk’s purchase of...The CEO of Wonder is Marc Lore, who is worth (I think) multiple billions of dollars. Since the acquisition was for less than a billion, this seems more comparable to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter from a financial standpoint. (I don’t know much about Marc Lore or his goals, so I don’t want to make a non-financial metaphor between the two billionaires.)
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Comment on "I’m withdrawing from DBT and this problematic language is why" in ~health.mental
TonesTones LinkI think mental health journeys are deeply personal, so I won't be writing any advice for people who DBT hasn't worked for, and if DBT hasn't worked for you, none of this is a judgment. I want to...I think mental health journeys are deeply personal, so I won't be writing any advice for people who DBT hasn't worked for, and if DBT hasn't worked for you, none of this is a judgment. I want to explain why I think the author had the reaction they did.
While I think "it depends on the therapist" is largely true, I also think DBT explicitly refuses to engage with trauma exploration because that's not the goal. It trains therapists to address thoughts and behaviors because that's the best way to change feelings. That can feel like it isn't addressing the root causes, but often changing behavior is what is needed to address the root cause of the issue.
I think DBT works this way because for many, DBT is the last in many different modalities of therapy that they have tried. This was the case for me. There comes a point where continuing to dwell on past events is not helpful and can be avoided, and you just need to acknowledge the past cannot be changed and focus on the future. For many who have done substantial therapy to explore, understand, and (begin to) heal their trauma, that's the right next step. If you have DBT before you have done that processing of the past, I can see why the author would have felt the way they did in response to DBT. Also, when somebody is ready to move on depends on the person. Everyone's journey is different, and that's unfortunate for providers.
I also want to mention a distinction between "provider language" and "patient language", where "provider language" is what providers use to discuss patients in reports, and "patient language" is what providers use to talk to patients. I have not heard this explicitly talked about, but it definitely exists, and you can glean a strong difference between provider-facing material and patient-facing material for this reason. Sometimes my therapist uses phrases under their breath that I have never heard of.
I mention this because the author focuses on "therapy-interfering behaviors" as bad language, and I think this is intended to be provider language, and the therapist in question really shouldn't be using it. I think this because I've heard that phrase maybe once or twice between lots of exposure to DBT and three different DBT providers. It's definitely invalidating, especially when used to talk about behaviors that aren't just 'missing session' or 'not taking meds' or something, but it's useful because you have to address therapy-interfering behaviors first before addressing other behaviors.
I think it makes sense that DBT doesn't work for everyone, and the author definitely seems to dislike DBT for reasons that are pretty specific to DBT. It's also sad that we don't know how to address everyone's mental health issues yet. Hopefully pieces like this help get us a little bit closer.
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Comment on ADHD and TODO lists in ~health.mental
TonesTones LinkI also struggle with executive dysfunction. One thing I’ve been trying recently that may or may not help other people is what I call expectation journaling. It’s more or less something I invented...I also struggle with executive dysfunction.
One thing I’ve been trying recently that may or may not help other people is what I call expectation journaling.
It’s more or less something I invented on my own to help myself. Someone may have come up with a similar idea independently, but AFAIK, there’s not any research about effectiveness.
The premise: Instead of writing what you want to get done in a day, or what you plan to get done, write what you expect to get done. This is fundamentally a predictive exercise. (I do it either evening of the day before or day of; it’s probably more helpful to do the day before.)
- If you write down a list of one thing and complete it, success.
- If you write that you believe you’ll spend all day on social media and you do, success.
- If you don’t write any list at all, that’s not a success.
- If you either fail to meet OR exceed your expecations, it’s a failure, but not because of your actions, but because your prediction was wrong.
I try not to actively hold myself to my predictions. I always will, just because by writing something down, you are more likely to do it (that’s part of the point of TODO lists). But it isn’t a moral failure if I don’t get my list done, it’s a predictive failure.
This system is intended to take advantage of the fact that if you decided something is important yesterday, you’ll probably think it’s important today. However, it also acknowledges (like many other comments have) that we often give ourselves too much to do because our expectations are super optimistic.
I began practicing expectation journaling to train myself to keep my expectations in line with my realistic ability. Note that the nature of this journal means it cannot replace hard requirements (where it is a moral failing if you don’t do something, like attend an important event), so I still use calendars, Most/Must prioritization, and other time management tools if I really need to do something on a specific day.
I also write down how long (in a range) I expect time-flexible events and tasks to take and how I expect to feel doing certain tasks (e.g., fear, excitement, anxiety) in the spirit of Cope Ahead from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (by knowing an emotion is coming, you can be prepared to deal with it).
Let me know if you try this! Whether it helps you or not. Might publish a longer piece about this if it’s actually helpful to others.
I’m in the mid-80s, so I’m nearing the end of the book. I really, really enjoy Kim Stanley Robinson’s writing style. I both like and dislike the “I am a concept” chapters. The pivots between different short stories make for an interesting storytelling tool, and I’ll think more about that when I write for the actual discussion.