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Comment by carlosjobim | Hacker News Reader

Life is like a supermarket. You are supposed to seek out the good things. You can't stop and stand and rage in the first aisle, which is filled with ultra processed food for the masses. You have to seek out the good ingredients in the back and make an effort.

You can't get stuck in life being disappointed in average people. You have to seek out good people. And good places and good things.

Or stay in the cranky cynic rabbit hole. God knows there are unlimited amounts of other cranky people to back you up. Maybe even the majority?

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You are naive, you don't seriously expect people to "seek out the good ingredients" do you? When the shit ingredients are addictive, cheaper than the good ones and more available? The entire premise of these platforms is use whatever edges possible to get more ad money, they do that by getting people addicted to their phones and using psychological tricks that have been refined through over a decade of A/B testing to be effective.

I'm speaking to whoever wants to listen. Advice is a gift that you are free to refuse.

you miss my point entirely. People are a product of their environment. Just because YOU or I don't fall down this trap doesn't mean our friends or family or people in our communities won't.

In my country we charge sales tax on processed foods but not on fresh foods. It's because we can make the good choice easier and the bad choice harder. We shouldn't be doing the opposite, then laying all the responsibility on individuals (many of which will still be children who aren't aware of the consequences of their actions)

Maturity is understanding that no matter who is to blame for the situation you are in or the problems you have, you as an individual are most of the time the only one who can fix your problems. Nothing is more effective than a determined person. And nobody knows you better than yourself.

Unless you think you can change the entire universe to do your bidding - then the best thing you can do is helping yourself and helping others. Nobody is helped by complaining. And I'm not missing your point, I just don't share your perspective.

People who want to be mislead will always find a way to be mislead, because they want somebody else to be blamed and "responsible" for their life and their mistakes. Failing to realize that it is always themselves in the end who pay the price and bear the burden. That's how they have been bred on this earth. "At least it was not my fault" feels perfectly good in the soul of many suffering people, because they have been raised within a guilt or shame culture. And there are plenty of unethical people willing to indulge them in this falsehood.

That's why I'm saying to seek out what is good instead of what is evil. And help those who want to be helped.

> Maturity is understanding that no matter who is to blame for the situation you are in or the problems you have, you as an individual are most of the time the only one who can fix your problems. Nothing is more effective than a determined person. And nobody knows you better than yourself.

This is not an individual problem, this is a social problem.

>Unless you think you can change the entire universe to do your bidding - then the best thing you can do is helping yourself and helping others. Nobody is helped by complaining. And I'm not missing your point, I just don't share your perspective.

There are things that are going wrong that are beyond the scope of individuals - we fix these things by regulations and laws

>because they want somebody else to be blamed and "responsible" for their life and their mistakes.

This is an irrelevant strawman, I don't care about blaming, I want to fix the issues that we have in society.

>That's why I'm saying to seek out what is good instead of what is evil. And help those who want to be helped. This is not a solution, you may as well go to clinically depressed people and go "well why don't you just be happy?" - it doesn't work. Just like how saying "well don't use social media!" doesn't work.

> this is a social problem.

A society is made up of individuals.

OP is right. One does what they can first.

> Just like how saying "well don't use social media!" doesn't work

Sometimes the answer really is that simple.

Sure, if we just ignore network effects and feedback loops and applications being designed to psychologically make themselves addictive as possible. Social media addiction will definitely just fix itself if we just tell people to, except this hasn't worked has it?

A society changes when enough individuals change. Network effects themselves change when enough individuals change.

This effect is exactly reciprocal--feedback loops as you say--so I'm not sure what is so difficult to understand.

Be the first cause.

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