The problem is that the more you fight change, the more you change things. Your movement becomes more and more focused on resisting change, and less focused on preserving any good qualities it once had. It's an inescapable bit of futility, hard coded into the human condition.

I feel that the majority of innovation occuring in modern capitalism is confined to two key areas:

1. Regulatory capture and market control.

2. New ways to mindfuck people into overpaying for goods and services.

Supervise your kid while they're on the internet. Install nanny filters on their phone and computer. Monitor who they hang out with. If you can't handle raising your kid, you should have thought of that before having them.

I have a few servers that I've put together, both towers and rack mount, that are fairly old in IT terms but would still sell for thousands used.

I pulled most of the parts out of the trash.

Wait, Gibbs is the least compelling character on the show. Maybe I just see things in a different light, but the only thing that separates this from a bog standard police procedural is watching all the other characters try to deal with the fallout from Gibb's hollywood issue most-tragic-backstory-ever trauma and solving the mystery of why he hasn't been shuffled off to a desk job where he can't do much harm yet.

All of the supporting characters had more depth, development, and more relatable back stories.

EDIT: Mark Harmon is the executive producer, that explains everything. That should teach me to post without reading the full article, but honestly it won't.

Yup, it's easier for a user to justify a small purchase and lose track of how much they're spending and that's exactly why they do it.

It's the same with in-app currency, they sell you 100 coins or gems or whatever for $2.99, then charge you 75 for the shortcut to the progression required upgrade. You don't want to let a quarter of your money go to waste, so you're more tempted to put another $2.99 down to utilize it and buy the next upgrade. Cue the leveling treadmill.

It's a sort of weaponization of the study of human behavior IMO.

It was more due to the way a lot of the games I liked to play started to make changes to gameplay to try and push players to spend more money. Unnecessarily long grinds with subscription based paid shortcuts, freemium/premium BS, game modes that started to require you to be online for a certain amount of time each week to progress.

Gaming was always more of a social thing for me, and once it started to feel like an unpaid, part time job for me and my friends it stopped being fun.

EDIT: I may be projecting dark patterns onto something that's just driven by market forces these days, but I kind of doubt it.

True, but I don't think it's due to a lack of faculties for most people, it's just not an area of interest or a primary concern. It should be, because this sort of consumer and media manipulation is being used to enable some very dangerous things at present, but it's really hard to make headway when you're telling people how fucked up and unhealthy the one thing that's providing them with a little escape and joy is.

It might be easier to lead an addiction intervention.

I try to reframe privacy concerns with the idea that if someone was stalking you and recording your every action in physical public spaces that you'd be pretty disturbed. Most people get it, they understand the idea and can view their internet activity through the lense of that metaphor.

But they don't really feel it, and that's where the disconnect comes in. How do you get people who don't feel the Internet is part of "real life" to understand how invasive this is on both and intellectual and emotional level? Because of digital privacy and user rights don't hold some sort of emotional significance for them, it's going to stay a back burner issue in their lives.

What were we warned about back in the prime Facebook/Twitter era? Short term dopamine driven feedback loops or some such?

This is the result of not heeding that warning.

You're right that blaming phones is dumb. The phone is a tool, just like a hammer. You can use a hammer to build something, or destroy something. It's all about how it's used.

This may honestly be it for me.

I quit playing games because of all the greed and hype, I went back to piracy when streaming started to fracture and greed set in, I left non-federated social media because of the enshittifaction and invasiveness, and I go to fairly extensive lengths to block ads and protect my privacy as much as possible...

And instead of moving to any number of fair, non-exploitive business models, they're just going to force ads down my throat like that episode of black mirror.

If this goes through I'll be sorely tempted to wipe everything I can and start over as best I can. Only interact with the Internet when I need to.

You'll find me paying cash at the local used bookstore, at least until all the major publishers make that illegal.

EDIT: It's honestly depressing, I genuinely enjoy technology and the internet, but when companies like Google are able to force garbage like this it just sucks all the joy out of it for me.

It's like everying is becoming a shitty mobile game. Do the toolsheds that develop Candy Crush clones not think we can understand why in app currencies are sold in bundles of 100 but every thing we purchase with them requires amounts that end with a five? Does Google not think we know the real motivation behind a system that strives to prove ads were delivered to your browser either?

I know a lot of people may not see the real driver here, but I'm tired of being underestimated and infantalized by a bunch of dorks trapped in a corporate echo chamber. I think I'd prefer it if they just straight up said they're going to sacrifice our privacy and user experience for a quick bump in stock value.

Coverage of politics became commodified and sensationalized in the name of ratings and advertising dollars and coupled with intense competition for viewer attention this has led to the news becoming more of a form of entertainment than anything informative.

At the same time, voter apathy drives politicians to search for new ways to create interest, promote themselves, and generate a following.

This promotes more and more sensational behavior, which is further played up by the media, which raises the bar for the kind of things a representative from a flyover red state hardly anyone cares about has to do to maintain a presence on the national stage.

Repeat that cycle a few times and now congress is looking at Hunter Biden's nudes.

I would suggest 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' by Neil Postman for further reading.

I've worn a kilt to participate in Scottish heritage festivals and the Highland Games. It's a far, far better garment than pants or shorts in hot weather and super comfy in general. Pants are great, but for just hanging around and casual wear kilts are amazing.

Utilikilts (the ones with pockets) are awesome, but with a traditional kilt you can accesorize with a nice belt and sporran (the little pouch in front).

All in all, I'd be really happy to see more kilts and similar garments in day to day men's fashion.