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Comment by jmfldn | Hacker News Reader

This for me is key, these sorts of problems cannot just be solved on an individual level. They are systemic.

"Individual abstinence is “not the solution, for the same reason that wearing a gas mask for two days a week outside isn’t the answer to pollution. It might, for a short period of time, keep certain effects at bay, but it’s not sustainable, and it doesn’t address the systemic issues.” He said that our attention is being deeply altered by huge invasive forces in wider society. Saying the solution was to just adjust your own habits – to pledge to break up with your phone, say – was just “pushing it back on to the individual” he said, when “it’s really the environmental changes that will really make the difference”."

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Except I have no choice but to walk through an area which might be polluted. I do have a choice to not read news sites for four hours a day.

The article fails to define both the problem and the solution.

How exactly this “attention theft” causes significant negative societary consequences is defined extremely vaguely, and almost exclusively through personal anecdotes.

The offered solutions, forcing employers to respect working hours and forcing social media companies to change their business models, are borderline non-sequiturs to the article’s thesis.

There is a comment about this possibly being a new “moral panic”, which the author dismisses out of hand. Yet in the same article, he implies his son dropped out of school at 15 because of WhatsApp.

"Choice" really needs to be well-defined here. We know you can influence people to change their behavior because we invented the term "attention hacking". Sheer willpower will not overcome this on anything but an individual level. And just like obesity has other dependents like the cost of food, there is also cost/disincentives to "disconnecting". Social interaction is almost exclusively happening online now, especially during a pandemic. There is a very limited set of circumstances in which individual action will not have other severe consequences to your life - so while it might work for you, there's no way it'll work for everyone. Systemic issues require systemic solutions.

The article describes a far broader group of culprits than just social media. However, the author only calls for forcing social media companies to change their business models and not, say, news sites that publish articles trigger-happy about declaring crises and emergencies.

And they never will. There is just too much money in it. That's why ultimately the responsibility lies with us.

I'd say "choice" in the conventional sense - the exercise of voluntary control over one's body. If sheer willpower can overcome this on an individual level then it can overcome it on a societal level, society being nothing more than a collection of individuals.

It seems as though you're suggesting that we use authority to "solve" these "systemic" issues - which really are just individual issues for a subset of the population. This suggests that you are comfortable deciding what's good for others. How would you respond to obese or social-media-obsessed people who are content with their lives and not interested in your "solutions"?

You're acting like corporations aren't enacting control over large populations right now either.

Everything the market does as a byproduct of maximizing profits is fine, but all other intervention with provably better mental and physical health outcomes is authoritarian. Did I get that right?

> provably better

First we have to all agree on what this means, which I'm quite sure is impossible. Everything the free market does is voluntary by definition. Every "intervention" is by definition not. That is exactly the basis for my opposition to authoritarian paternalism.

Also I disagree that corporations are "enacting control" - they are merely exerting influence. There is a world of difference.

>Everything the free market does is voluntary by definition. Every "intervention" is by definition not.

I think we're going to have to disagree for good here. I much prefer living in a country where radically free markets are substantially toned down.

I'm sure you do. I'm questioning the basis for your imposing this view onto others who would disagree.

This presupposed the "voluntary" part of capitalism, which I find objectionable, but I didn't want to go on a tangent for too long.

FWIW, I wouldn't want to prescribe a particular habit of eating healthy or not binging media, but I also don't consider the current status quo neutral. It is true that it is simply a product of profit incentives, but that doesn't mean the outcomes are good, desirable or natural.

My point is that "good, desirable or natural" are not real. They are not concrete things that we can derive from observations about the world. They are akin to religions beliefs. Reasonable people can hold opposing views, and there is no oracle to divine the one truth. Given this situation, the only reasonable way forward seems to be tolerance of the full diversity of belief, and refrain from imposing one's own beliefs onto others.

This is why I wanted to avoid this discussion. Because philosophically, I really don't disagree with this statement, but the discussion has pivoted past the important part, where we talk about whether total economic freedom is itself ideology (or "an imposition of belief"). It doesn't exist in a vaccum. It is a way to maximize one particular aspect of freedom, but at the expense of other aspects. You will always have to make this trade off somewhere, paradox of tolerance and all, and I don't think this is the one we should make.

I'm curious how you would categorize total economic freedom in any sense an "imposition of belief". It is simply absence of any imposition into the economic realm. What other aspects are being sacrificed in order to maximise this aspect? I'm not sure the paradox of tolerance is a statement of fact.

What if total economic freedom resulted in the reduction of other freedoms

Which other freedoms are you referring to? How would they be reduced by total economic freedom? I don't see how economic freedom would lead directly to violence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

I agree that the maintenance of the common physical environment we live in should be regulated, but that's not what we're talking about here is it? We're talking about regulating interaction between people, which is inherently paternalistic.

We’re talking about the concept of total economic freedom in general, which would inevitably lead to negative externalities of any kind, including to the physical environment, not merely interactions between people.

I'm not strictly in favour of total economic freedom and wasn't the one to bring it up. Namely I am in favour of regulating the physical commons - rights of way, air, water, etc. that we all must physically interact with. I'm against the paternalistic regulation of how free people should peacefully interact with each other, with the view to steer outcomes to some random idea of good.

What ensures the parties involved are free? Many of these issues being discussed deal with consequences experienced by one party that were never disclosed by the other. Information asymmetry makes such contracts un-free and thus the legal framework should permit nullification and redress.

> What ensures the parties involved are free?

The prohibition by the government of the physical force requisite to deprive people of their freedom.

> the legal framework should permit nullification and redress

It does already. Contracts have disclosure clauses all the time.

Contracts have disclosure clauses all the time.

To bring it back to the article at hand, did social media and other tech companies disclose the negative effects of the use of their products in their EULA?

The prohibition by the government of the use of physical force requisite to deprive people of their freedom.

If a distributor of an addiction-forming substance engenders an addiction in customers, is that not utilizing physical force to deprive them of their freedom? Especially if the addictive properties were not disclosed ahead of time.

> negative effects

What do you mean "negative"? Why do you consider captivating people negative? Do you think this view is universally held?

I think people should be able to distribute any substances or provide any services "as is", without implied warranties of any kind. Offering such goods and service does not constitute physical force.

Negative, in this context, can constitute enough for whatever grievance that enough users are unhappy with their customer experience. To take this discussion from the normative to the practical, I do not believe the appropriate government role here would be to act as sole regulator but rather aid those users who are aggrieved by these businesses in more precise actions, such as filing amicus briefs in class action suits by users who feel that their captivation has proven to be personally detrimental. Or perhaps for the FTC to provide guidance and support to consumer watchdog groups to form and issue PSAs on said detrimental effects. Empowering individuals and independent groups to come together. These supportive, assistive, incentive-based actions would not be utilizing the state’s monopoly on violence, and thus does not violate your views on the proper place of the government.

without implied warranties of any kind. Offering such goods and service does not constitute physical force.

Then there simply should be more powerful NGOs rooted in civil society that can advise consumers on potential negative effects, to protect against information asymmetry, and so users will understand the full freedoms they have at their disposal for redress if a business happens to provide poor, injurious service.

> These supportive, assistive, incentive-based actions

All of these actions are done with the threat of fines for noncompliance, and the threat of imprisonment for noncompliance with the fines. They are also financed by taxation, which is involuntary and redistributive by nature.

> Then there simply should be more powerful NGOs

If these NGOs do not occur naturally, then there's clearly not enough demand for them. This is supported by your proposal to use authority to force them into existence. I'm opposing the use of authority to intervene in peaceful interaction between citizens.

Instead of forcing the issue, why not just be content with the fact that most people are not interested in forming voluntary collectives, even when it is in their interest, and in spite of the fact that they are free and entitled to, and allow them to suffer the consequences?

> All of these actions are done with the threat of fines for noncompliance, and the threat of imprisonment for noncompliance with the fines.

How is filing an amicus brief or funding third party groups in danger of anything like that? There’s no regulation involved.

> If these NGOs do not occur naturally, then there's clearly not enough demand for them.

They already do, e.g. https://www.ofsms.org/

> why not just be content with the fact that most people are not interested in forming voluntary collectives

Why are you insistent on claiming the nonexistence of information asymmetry?

> They are also financed by taxation, which is involuntary and redistributive by nature.

Ah if we go down that route of normative woolgathering then we can next call property theft and even land (or at least rent) theft, and continue this endless wheel of rhetorical Samsara.

- We already regulate interaction between people (e.g. you can't throw a rock at someone when you disagree with them). Even if it's paternalistic, surely you're not proposing we should do away with those regulations.

- The internet is a common shared environment, so its maintenance should be regulated like other environments to manage externalities.

These points seem consistent with your philosophy and also permit regulation of social media companies.

If it wasn't clear, I'm suggesting regulating nonviolent interaction is paternalistic, as is weaseling around it by expanding the definition of violence.

I agree we shouldn't let people physically destroy internet infrastructure. I don't think this is controversial. I don't think we should regulate how people peacefully interact.

Why is "violence" your boundary? Most people agree that lots of things can be "bad" besides violence. There's a pretty broad consensus on that. You're going to need some pretty strong arguments to justify legalizing theft and fraud.

I'm not trying to justify legalizing theft and fraud - these are most generally justified by property rights, which are somewhat tangential here. Neither of them set a precedent for the government intervening in honest interactions between people. Lots of things are widely considered "bad", that doesn't mean it wouldn't be tyrannical to make them illegal.

You didn't answer. Why do you draw the line there? What's so special about violence that it deserves special attention from the state, while other bad things don't? I see you've also added property rights now, which are a totally separate category from violence. Why these things in particular?

Because violence is horrific in a way that nothing else is. Poverty and illness are facts of nature, no living thing is immune. What's special about violence is that it's perpetrated by other people, people who have the cognitive capacity to understand the suffering they are directly causing.

Violence is fundamentally preventable because people have agency in ways that animals do not. You'll note that only violence with knowledge is considered horrific. For instance, being attacked by a person with the mind of a 4 year old isn't considered nearly as bad as being attacked by an otherwise normal adult. The adult knew what they were doing and did it anyways.

> I see you've also added property rights now, which are a totally separate category from violence

I suppose it stems from the idea of natural rights - ie. what would you be able to do if there were no other people around? Would you be able to put something down and expect to find it where you put it? If so then you have "property rights": the reasonable expectation that your material activities will not be interfered with. The rest of it is mediating how your property rights interact with those of others.

Liberty is basically the idea that you should be able to do anything at all as long as it doesn't interfere with the rights of others to do the same. The legitimacy of government is derived from its defence of liberty. It's not about preventing "bad things".

But that economic system is built on barely 2 century old philosophy you take for granted. It is not "human nature". If you could argue for any political system to be "human nature" it would be feudalism or anarchism-without-adjectives.

What is being sacrificed? Equal starting conditions to start with. Wealth in capitalism tends to concentrate. Social mobility exists, but it is severely limited. Exploitation through holding capital is mandatory. I'm feeling this right now, I am in the top 25% income bracket overall and much better if accounting for age, yet I will never be able to do such trivial things regular workers could do just a few decades ago such as build a house, thanks to the freedom afforded to the absolute top end to turn housing into a speculative commodity. If I lived in the US, a considerably "freer" society than mine, my entire wealth would be consumed by healthcare, a result of the freedom of hospitals and insurers to charge arbitrarily high fees for maximum extraction.

I'm not arguing that it's "human nature". I'm arguing there's no such thing. I'm arguing that we are fundamentally decision-making agents.

> Equal starting conditions to start with

Equal conditions are not a prerequisite for liberty. They are in fact impossible to define and impossible to impose. You can be destitute and free, and you can be pampered and enslaved. The Darwinian nature of a free economic system isn't imposed, it's an emergent property of any system where scarce resources are competed for by living beings. As in any Darwinian system, the optimal behavior for the successful is to maximally exploit their success, to pull-up the ladder, so to speak.

Everything else you've said just betrays your religion: "Workers should be able to build houses". "Healthcare should be regulated so people can afford it". I don't think it's unreasonable to disagree here. In my religion, I'd prefer to die in agony rather than pry greedily into the pocket of an unwilling stranger. Why is your religion better than mine?

Ethical nihilism is no basis for public policy. Your argument successfully justifies legal murder, for instance. Who are we to say that it's wrong?

If someone consents to be murdered, who are we indeed to stop them? My argument doesn't justify non-consensual murder at all however.

It certainly does justify it. And literally everything else. It's an argument against laws of any kind. After all, "good, desirable or natural" are not real. We have no framework to rank desirability of outcome, according to you. The only reasonable way forward is tolerance of the full diversity of belief, right? Including the belief that murder is okay.

Well, if one person doesn't want to be murdered and another wants to murder someone, and these people are equal, then we have a conflict. We should tolerate the full diversity of belief, but we should not tolerate infringement on anyone's liberty.

> Everything the free market does is voluntary by definition. Every "intervention" is by definition not.

In some ideal world, where both parties of an exchange hold equal bargaining power, the "free" market might be "voluntary".

This is certainly not the current state of affairs, though. Being able to "choose" between a crappy option and a horrible option is anything but voluntary: "you can choose to work for me for little to no money... or you can choose to starve to death. it's your 'free' choice."

The very premise of what would make a free market efficient in the real world simply doesn't exist, but we keep trying to convince ourselves that it does because we don't know or aren't used to anything different.

Being able to choose between horrible options is exactly the definition of freedom. Believe it or not many people would choose free destitution over pampered slavery. It is exactly the ability to make this choice, at the most extreme level, that should be respected. To take an maximal example: you should be able to sell your kidneys to fuel your heroin habit, for no other reason than because no one can claim more ownership over them than you.

To protect people, against their will, from the consequences of their own misfortune or inadequacy is fundamentally paternalistic. The goal isn't efficiency, but the primacy of agency and consent.

What is wrong with paternalism?

The authoritarian and condescending nature of it.

Why is paternalism within the family not authoritarian or condescending?

It absolutely is! In the context of raising a child, it may be appropriate. When interacting with an equal it is not.

What determines equality?

It is a moral axiom:

> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...

And how are children, as men, not also created equal, yet still subject to paternalism?

I think children are excluded from the definition of "men".

Surely not by the above moral axiom.

Surely by it. I would struggle to find a precedent where children are considered equal to adults, and not subject to their authority. In fact my whole point is we shouldn't treat adults the same way we do children.

Why is it authoritarian and condescending for a government to provide service and address societal problems, but no less authoritarian or condescending for a government to be in the business of protecting the rights that any self-respecting freeholder should be ready and willing to do so?

Because that self same freeholder should be ready and willing to negotiate with others to provide whatever goods and services he needs. He shouldn't need a third party to intervene on his behalf, and, knowing that depriving anyone of freedom deprives him as well, should be loathe to apply force to compel the other free party he is negotiating with to meet his terms.

Sounds like then the truly moral position would be to cut out the government entirely. If the freeholder is ready to take on the grave responsibility of ensuring every single interaction, both large and small, are secure, then they should also be responsible for guaranteeing their own rights from all threats large and small, and not abdicate that in favor of a shadowy government.

Believe it or not, in the moment, you can use any sort of force required to defend yourself from violence. This is especially true in places that have castle doctrines and stand-your-ground laws. The government is there mostly to sort it out afterwards, and to discourage aggression by providing an alternative (due process) and punishing transgressors. The punishment of crime is what the government monopolizes, not self defence, since the alternative is generations-long blood feuds.

Why should the government be able to monopolize the punishment of crime, and not those who uphold their own rights?

Because if they don't maintain law and order they fail to meet the basic definition of government.

Why does there need to be a government at all?

To defend the liberty of its citizens =)

Isn't that what the right of bear arms is for?

If the two horrible options were free from context, sure. But that's hardly (if ever) the case. It is very convenient to start from a place where A has power over B, then say "B is free to choose whatever crappy options A offers, because... freedom".

We have to start from some place don't we? Even if we perfectly redistributed wealth tomorrow, we'd see billionaires in a generation or two.

This only goes to show that the current system is inherently broken, but this is a completely different conversation.

Sure you have a choice. But much like with wearing a gas mask, people will think you're weird and you'll end up alone.

I’m not sure I see a connection with doomscrolling, which is what I used as an example in my comment, referring to the article.

How are those two examples even remotely comparable?

Uninstall social media from your phone, delete your social media accounts, put your phone in a box when you get home, etc, etc, etc.

These “problems” are trivially easy for an individual to solve. They are so easy to solve that I disagree with the basic premise that we even have a problem.

I think we could rewrite this article from the perspective of any generation. Just replace the phone with whatever hysteria was happening in that era. Music, video games, comics, or whatever.

The author of this article seems to just throw her hands up without having tried even a single thing.

“No, I cannot manage my own behavior. It is society that must change!”

Well, in same vein, you can tell addict to 'just drop that needle', yet few do. Or cigarettes. Addictive behavior is, well, addictive, and few in population have the mental will to shed it off themselves once they get hooked.

Tobacco clearly kills you (and people around), ruins you and make you stink like pile of old crap. We still allow it, but regulate it heavily since bad effects are out there, everywhere. TBH I don't mind some regulation on too-powerful social media, they've enjoyed their free pass for way too long and so far they definitely didn't make the world a better place, in contrary.

HN and many tech-minded forums struggle the most with arguments that require empathy. For people who probably don’t consider themselves religious, their outlook is extremely Puritanical.

“I see you explaining why x is difficult for most people, but I don’t struggle with it so the difficulty is invalid.”

It’s not an empathy gap. It’s collectivism vs individualism.

Do you have any links to share that would corroborate your suggestion that social media is as addictive or hard to quit as heroin or tobacco? That’s quite a statement.

I find these two examples particularly interesting because the regulations have done absolutely nothing. Heroin has never been more popular or more regulated. Tobacco is lightly regulated and the declines in usage are almost completely attributed to campaigns against smoking, not the regulations themselves.

I'd start by questioning why you think addicts should discontinue their habits? Why do you think you know what's good for someone more than they do? If an addict says "I like my addiction, thank you very much", what gives you the right to intervene?

the societal cost is why intervention is justified. you know, the basis of all laws? we don't live in an anarchy. unless you live completely sustainably with no dependence or impact on others' resources, society has a right to intervene.

I don't think mitigating societal cost is source of the government's authority. It seems to be more about defending our inalienable rights.

Certainly societal costs can be a threat to our inalienable rights.

Correct. It is baked into their business model, to monetize your attention. And they have gotten very good at it. A "race to the bottom of the brain stem" as Tristan Harris likes to put it[0] is the correct way to look at it, AFAICT.

To me, it's also a problem of "Moloch does it". Scott Alexander describes it well and gives a handful of great examples in Part I of his Meditations on Moloch.[1]

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-10-01/why-social-...

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditation...

Of all the examples, reddit is the scariest to me. People think it's a bunch of nerds talking about geeky topics (or whatever) but as soon as a subreddit has a sizable user base it will be targeted by PR firms posing as normal users. More political subs are likely subject to propaganda ops bu8t Im not even going there.

Some things on the frontpage are clear advertisments, there has been evidence of shilling about certain topics by using post templates etc etc. but still somehow the impression persists that some dude from Idaho just posted his awesome BBQ recipe and the perfectly framed and well-lit tech equipment in the background is just coincidence.

In my eyes, the worst is probably Facebook or Instagram or TikTok (none of which I use) but yes, I also understand the Reddit example as well (which I do use). And yes, even without speaking to the larger politicized subs like T_D, I do completely agree. Quite scary.

And it scares me 'PR firms' exist and are named as such because the term 'propaganda' started to take on a negative connotation. Kinda like how Google became Alphabet, or Facebook became Meta. Advertising, marketing, public relations, propaganda, manipulation.... where does the distinction lie?

Do you care to give a couple cases/examples on the Reddit front? Like proven scandals where people or groups have conspired to deceive? You mention a dude from Idaho, but I'm not in-the-loop enough to get the reference.

I mean there are entire pages dedicated to lay out marketing strategies on reddit:

https://blog.wishpond.com/post/115675438254/reddit-marketing...

https://contentfac.com/a-complete-guide-to-reddit-marketing/

There are also useful subreddits to find examples: https://old.reddit.com/r/AstroTurfing/

The only way that you can solve it is on an individual level unless you are in a position of power. You have far less agency over the systemic issues than you have over your individual choices.

I just don't agree really. That analogy is pretty absurd.

It is hugely powerful to not get caught up in all this nonsense at the individual level.

I know so much more than what I knew in early January 2021 because I spend my time reading books, doing tutorials or taking MOOCS instead of wasting my time watching TikTok. I literally don't even know what the user interface to TikTok looks like and never will.

If anything the exact problem is people are giving up agency at the individual level. As if there is absolutely no choice other than to be helplessly addicted to your phone. That implies then that it is not your fault that you check your phone or txt while driving.

It's both. Yes it is good that you spent early 2021 not mindlessly scrolling TikTok, and yes it is true that as individuals we do have some agency in the matter.

But, it is also true that in this 'attention economy' the large companies are hiring psychologists to try to break your agency, to try to take it away from you. And they are doing a pretty damn good job, and aren't going to stop any time soon. "Stolen" in the title of the OP is not really an exaggeration.

>It is hugely powerful to not get caught up in all this nonsense at the individual level.

I mostly agree with this, but in the same token think we should be aware of "this nonsense".

>As if there is absolutely no choice other than to be helplessly addicted to your phone.

Don't think anyone is saying that. Think what we are saying is more along the lines of something like 'the problem is systemic, essentially baked into the business model of advertising/marketing, and it should be addressed'

> “Stolen" in the title of the OP is not really an exaggeration.

Theft can happen only when it’s involuntary.

> the problem is systemic, essentially baked into the business model of advertising/marketing, and it should be addressed

That’s not the root cause. It is just a choke point for blame.

The root cause is the choice people make, which we’ve established exists. If people want help, there are plenty of mitigations for social media, like alternative front ends.

>Theft can happen only when it’s involuntary.

I suppose I am arguing that it is involuntary. Social media addiction is a real thing. "Stolen attention" seems to fit here. But I guess the line does get blurry. When a true heroin addict shoots up, is that completely voluntary or completely involuntary? Probably neither.

>The root cause is the choice people make, which we’ve established exists. If people want help, there are plenty of mitigations for social media, like alternative front ends.

So the root cause is not that these companies are being manipulative for financial gain, the cause is that users aren't choosing alternative front ends to social media (or some other mitigations). Hmm... Not sure I agree.

Yes, it is true users have some sort of agency or choice in the matter, but that doesn't mean these large companies aren't still doing the sneaky things that we know they are. Even you including the word "mitigation" in your response speaks to the fact that the problem is deeper than the users choice. Mitigation is secondary.

Also, I think this is a great discussion that is well worth having. The 'root cause' of all of this... (I tend to think it's just greed.)

> When a true heroin addict shoots up, is that completely voluntary or completely involuntary? Probably neither.

The heroin addict doesn't get to blame someone else for their choices; it's a bit like jumping from a building - it's not voluntary to be falling (i.e. being subject to gravity). You had a choice to not jump from the building.

The mitigation is to turn the parachute on your back on, so _continuing_ to be falling is voluntary.

So, in the moment, it may not be voluntary - but in the long term, it certainly is. And the _responsibility_, that most certainly lies with the user in this case.

> but that doesn't mean these large companies aren't still doing the sneaky things that we know they are

It's not like they're hiding anything from the user so it's not sneaky at all. The effects of social media are pretty public on the Internet.

And what are they doing, exactly? Responding to HTTP requests over the network and serving content as the user requests them via algorithms.

Not much different than any other addictive thing in life. Sure, you can try to compare the addictiveness, but it's still just a spectrum.

I have been learning new things since I started _making_ videos on TikTok.

Ironically, making highly digestible content for social media is something that requires a certain amount of sustained attention.

> It might, for a short period of time, keep certain effects at bay, but it’s not sustainable

And yet we have worn masks for months at least. If the price of a free internet is the equivalent of wearing a gasmask then I would rather do that, at least until we we have the equivalent of the nano-robot immunesystem from the Diamond Age.

If we let the government make the rules here we will lose the last place where we can play freely, and will almost certainly not solve the problem we wanted to be solved.

Regardless if the solution is government intervention, it seems rather funny to say the modern internet is a place that all entrants can play freely. It’s changed quite a bit since when The Diamond Age was first written.

We can play freely, invent new solutions and approaches without having the government test their safety, without having to get special approval by anybody.

I am aware of the bias of large companies that stops certain people from building, which is why I wrote play.

The antitrust left says large companies prevent people from building freely, but doesn’t the free speech right also claim that large companies are preventing from playing- or rather, speaking- freely?

Seems like different activities are falling under corporate purview.

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