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3/29/2024
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Update on my information diet. I think I am cured of
YouTube. The procedure is now to only get on the tube when
I have a specific thing I am looking for. For example,
seeing how something is done or a visual simulation. Even
then, I impose one extra barrier of downloading it with a
script based on youtube-dl. Most recently, I uploaded some
videos on the change of water levels over geological time.
But then after I pulled those videos, I looked around at
what else the recommendation engine was coming up with and
didn't want any. It was a liberating moment.
I stand by my claim two phlog entries ago [1] that the
hacking into our visual space is what must be avoided most
as the risk/reward is terrible: it has much power, but does
not serve a need. To flourish, we need social interactions,
but we have no need for the visual space to shift
completely with cuts a dozen or so times every minute. We
have to figure out ways to cobble together a social life,
but we can actually avoid video.
Just because this is a very radical statement does not make
it wrong. The etymology of the word radical means to get to
the root.
Podcasts, evil?
===============
I listen to a good amount of podcasts. I have long listened
to them when doing tedious chores. But now while I am
taking a breather from work (one more month, and then back
to the grind, I suppose) I am using podcasts to fill
another function that in the past used to make me slip back
to YouTube: something to make eating lunch alone not feel
so lonely.
I think there is a strong case to that podcasts are bad in
that they replace the kind of riffing you should be doing
with friends. Further, by the selective pressures for the
talent to succeed in the market, you are listening to
people in the top fraction of 1% in the ability in whatever
it is you are listening for. This can distort your
expectations for what real people can be expected to do. It
is still content and mass media.
And I'll admit that once I've started a podcast, I tend to
not be able to "put it down," so after I have finished a
round a chores, I will often do things like play chess
while I listen to the end.
But none of the problems are unique to podcasts, and only
becomes worse when you added the visual, pseudo-social, and
slot-machine aspects to the cocktail. It's easier to resist
a podcast, and very easy to pause it if something else
comes up.
I just don't like feeling icky or like my time has been
wasted, and I don't feel that way with my current
information habits.
==
[1]
gopher://sdf.org/0/users/candide/stimulate.txt
==
This work is hereby in the public domain.
Do what you want with it.
