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Comment by bluetomcat | Hacker News Reader

Nowadays we encode micro-stories in memes. We address a particular situation with the most relevant meme. We don't comprehend any overarching stories or belief systems apart from capitalism, free-market economics and technological progress. Instead of addressing structural societal problems, we treat mental health and classify new kinds of mental disorders.

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That's cause of time frames involved.

Think kahnemans system 1/system 2 or the difference in reaction time of the (electrical)nervous system and the (chemical)endocrine system.

Culture generation happens along both time frames.

Engament metric driven social media and news media are all system 1. Reaction times ate fast. There is no system 2. It's still evolving.

So current Culture generation doesn't exhibit system 2 fall back when required.

Good point. What would you suggest? I wouldn’t know. Lowering taxes on beer in pubs? Raising taxes on social media accounts?

money isn't the most important driver in decisions. Making something previously free paid is a much bigger drive than tripling the price. Why? it's the fact that you actively have to decide to do something and execute on it. If you made it so that in order to keep a social media account you had to submit a form each week to the local social media office, hardly anyone would have one. Even (especially) if you could submit a reimbursement form to have any costs associated with filling and posting the form returned.

> Lowering taxes on beer in pubs? Raising taxes on social media accounts?

Reforming the whole media system to not incentivise engagement. Let Facebook become a place where one shares family pictures with close relatives. Reward the YouTuber who produces infrequent 2-hour long videos that talk about philosophical ideas.

> Reward the YouTuber who produces infrequent 2-hour long videos that talk about philosophical ideas.

YouTube Longs.

You can just directly pay the YouTubers that you like, and unfollow Facebook accounts that you don't want to see. But if you're suggesting some sort of government restrictions or subsidies, screw that.

Restricting spying and indefinite data retention, and making companies responsible for content they don’t just host but promote, would likely kill engagement-first social media and “the feed”. And are things we should do anyway.

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