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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. 

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[1] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/candide/stimulate.txt

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This work is hereby in the public domain.
Do what you want with it.