[throwup238]

> I have a 297 day streak right now and I just feel like slave to the owl. I’m going to get to 365 and then purposely break the streak to free myself.

Why do you even care? It's an artificial count by a for-profit company with an Owl logo that doesn't even know you exist outside of a few database rows.

You've just self-described it as slavery, why would you keep doing this to yourself?

[csallen]

Sure, the count is tracked by the company Duolingo, but that's irrelevant. The count is also tracked by the user, and that's what's important. Even more importantly, the commitment to keep to the count is made by the user. It's their commitment, not Duolingo's. Therefore, it's not relevant that Duolingo encouraged that commitment and benefits from it. The user is still going to be subject to the guilt and shame that comes when humans break our own commitments, and that's what makes quitting easier said than done.

It's kind of like telling a smoker to just quit because it's the smoking company who benefits. Yeah, sure, but the addiction is internal. They're not just selflessly smoking to help Philip Morris.

[lolive]

Reminds me of this joke: “God exists for sure, at least in the mind of believers.”

#downvoteInApproach :)

[cykros]

It never ceases to amaze me how much people discount the existence of things because they "only" exist in the minds of those who believe in them.

Nobody has yet shown me a flawless proof that they themselves exist, or anything else, and yet somehow, I manage to get through my days just fine based on the versions of things in my mind that correspond to the empirical phenomena that I experience. And occasionally those mental constructs change with new empirical data even.

[colechristensen]

One of the things that enables civilization and not dying of disease living in your own filth is a certain vague appreciation for order that comes out in certain ways for different people… like the semiobsession with streaks which plenty of businesses take advantage of.

Lots of people harness this for their own good with streaks for things that are really actually valuable for them.

[pierat]

One thing I've heard here in HN, is that people LOVE to complain and bemoan their situation, and willingly abrogate their power and choices to some inanimate policies and corporate choices.

The GP's comment was that they were effectively 'slave' to a skinner box, and even recognized it. And yet, refusal to do anything about it.

I see it again and again. The answers are there, and a bit harder, but yeah.

[wycy]

> And yet, refusal to do anything about it.

I mean, I literally said in the same post what I was going to do about it. I'm ending it on my own terms when I'm satisfied with my own progress.

[skyyler]

We forge the chains we wear in life.

[wycy]

If I make it to a full year I'll at least feel like maintaining the streak as long as I did was in service of a specific milestone goal.

After a year the milestones become less meaningful (400 days? 500? 700? meh) yet harder and harder to break the longer you go. A friend recently hit 1000 days in Duolingo--really hard to give up once you've gone that far.

[chaps]

Maybe don't casually call something slavery when it clearly isn't.

[gambiting]

Being a slave to your phone or an app, or even a game or a book is perfectly correct use of the word.

[johnnyanmac]

Devices can't literally own a person, so it's not the correct use.

I don't like being nitpicky, but if we're going to argue about the "correct usage" and not accept colloquial usage has perverted the term, I may as well set the record straight:

>a person who is forced to work for and obey another and is considered to be their property; an enslaved person.

[gambiting]

>>Devices can't literally own a person, so it's not the correct use.

No, it is actually completely correct. But for the sake of playing this fun game of being "Technically right" here's also a dictionary definition:

Slave noun:

"a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person:"

She was a slave to her own ambition.

>>and not accept colloquial usage has perverted the term

No such thing has happened, words can have both literal and figurative meaning.

[johnnyanmac]

>No, it is actually completely correct.

fair enough, I thought that definition was unofficial or marked as slang.

>No such thing has happened, words can have both literal and figurative meaning.

yes, like "literally" having the definition of "figuratively". I would indeed call that a perversion:

>to divert to a wrong end or purpose

most of the time that is at best marked as slang (such as use of a double negative to mean a negative, and not a soft positive), but I guess that's not my call to make.

[chaps]

Hmmm. Personally when the non-disambiguated wikipedia page of a specific word starts with, "$WORD is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labor." and includes a photo of a physically mutilated other person, then maybe there are reasons to be a bit more careful since it's very easy to pass the wrong message.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery