In this case, people only started to believe in reality when they faced the consequences–the equivalent of deciding to study for an examine only after you’ve failed it.
Voters’ confusion about the consequences of their actions is indicative of a larger trend.
In some ways, our minds have become materially conditioned to mindless actions—things that can be deleted or edited or ignored.
Source: Brexit is what happens when our digital lives seem more “real” to us than our real ones — Quartz
Source: The Data/Human Goal Gap | Ken Arneson
Let’s call the goal you’re trying to reach “Point G”.
And let’s call the best place the data can lead you to “Point D”.Note that Point D is near Point G, but it’s not exactly the same point.
…
The problem is this: the thing your data is measuring is not *exactly* the thing you’re trying to accomplish.
The real world isn’t two-dimensional, and the data doesn’t lead you in a straight line. But the phenomenon does, I believe, exist in the wild. And it’s becoming more and more common as computers make data-driven processes easy for organizations and industries to implement and follow.
Source: How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Former Insider
Where does technology exploit our minds’ weaknesses?
When using technology, we often focus optimistically on all the things it does for us. But I want you to show you where it might do the opposite.
Are you upset that technology hijacks your agency? I am too. … The ultimate freedom is a free mind, and we need technology that’s on our team to help us live, feel, think and act freely.
Hijack #1: If You Control the Menu, You Control the Choices
Hijack #2: Put a Slot Machine In a Billion Pockets
Hijack #3: Fear of Missing Something Important (FOMSI)
Hijack #4: Social Approval
Hijack #5: Social Reciprocity (Tit-for-tat)
Hijack #6: Bottomless bowls, Infinite Feeds, and Autoplay
Hijack #7: Instant Interruption vs. “Respectful” Delivery
Hijack #8: Bundling Your Reasons with Their Reasons
Hijack #9: Inconvenient Choices
Hijack #10: Forecasting Errors, “Foot in the Door” strategies
Source: Immortality Begins at Forty
I discovered something a couple of years ago: Almost all culture, old or new, is designed for consumption by people under 40. People between 40 and Ω (an indeterminate number defined as “really, just way too old”), are primarily employed as meaning-makers for the under-40 set. This is because they are mostly good for nothing else, and on average not valuable enough themselves for society to invest meaning in.
you begin to experience immortality the first time you recognize the transience of experiences you thought were permanent, and more subtly, the permanence of experiences you hoped were transient.
Source: Online Dating and the Death of the ‘Mixed-Attractiveness’ Couple
People tend to date people who are just as attractive as they are. And thanks to the rise of online dating, that is only becoming more true.
