That is a fantastic article, thank you. I don’t know if there is a way around the ennui engine, not without massive systemic changes; seems like it’s part of human nature. It seems pretty rational too, from an animal-brain point of view … to take a sure win right now instead of a maybe-win later.
It’s unfortunate that this feeds so many people’s anger cycle. I wonder if that’s cultural.
Unfortunately I think the rage aspect is likewise biological, it being one of the most basal of all human desires. It often pops up as someone pursues pleasure and having satisfied those desires, next turns to the even more basal ones below that (e.g. video). Which makes sense evolutionarily bc those apes that do it are more likely to survive than e.g. complete pacifists.
That said, algorithms that specifically tap into that aspect of our animalistic desires feed forward that cycle, encouraging an ever-increasing amount, just like echo chambers decrease the allowable diversity of opinions (yes even here: just try saying that you like Windows and watch what happens, or that you enjoy driving a car, or eating meat, or in certain corners of Lemmy that you don’t support Russia, China, or North Korea hard enough), and both of those combine to form the modern social media experience.
So, as with anything having a biological basis, I doubt that it will ever truly go away entirely, yet I do believe that it can be managed.
That is a fantastic article, thank you. I don’t know if there is a way around the ennui engine, not without massive systemic changes; seems like it’s part of human nature. It seems pretty rational too, from an animal-brain point of view … to take a sure win right now instead of a maybe-win later.
It’s unfortunate that this feeds so many people’s anger cycle. I wonder if that’s cultural.
Unfortunately I think the rage aspect is likewise biological, it being one of the most basal of all human desires. It often pops up as someone pursues pleasure and having satisfied those desires, next turns to the even more basal ones below that (e.g. video). Which makes sense evolutionarily bc those apes that do it are more likely to survive than e.g. complete pacifists.
That said, algorithms that specifically tap into that aspect of our animalistic desires feed forward that cycle, encouraging an ever-increasing amount, just like echo chambers decrease the allowable diversity of opinions (yes even here: just try saying that you like Windows and watch what happens, or that you enjoy driving a car, or eating meat, or in certain corners of Lemmy that you don’t support Russia, China, or North Korea hard enough), and both of those combine to form the modern social media experience.
So, as with anything having a biological basis, I doubt that it will ever truly go away entirely, yet I do believe that it can be managed.