[jal278]

> Despite the HN comments complaining about it being overwhelming and a dark reflection of how awful and distracting the internet is, clearly enough people enjoyed it to get to the front page.

Is this like a massive HN wooosh -- how can this be the top-voted comment?

From Neil Postman's 1985 "Amusing Ourselves to Death":

> “With television, we vault ourselves into a continuous, incoherent present.”

> “Spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face.”

It's less about whether we "enjoy" the stimulation, more about what kind of people we become when we lose ourselves in this bizarre sea of superstimuli. We're like reinforcement agents creating adversarial examples for each other, drawing ourselves further out of any sort of meaningful life, into a fever dream where the most desirable job for the next generation is to be famous for being famous [1] rather than do anything for any kind of deeper purpose.

[1] https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/what-is-gen-zs-no...

[afpx]

I like your description. I sometimes wonder if the final equilibrium state will be most people working on addictive products and the rest working on addiction treatment.

[throw83288]

I'd say with the current state of things it's more like two singularities in which either:

- A landian-stephensian accelerationist timeline occurs where the majority of the urban population becomes some flavor of AGI-tuned VR junkie

- An extreme naturalistic counterculture movement occurs that causes majority of the civilized world to willingly roll themselves back 1 or 2 centuries technologically in order to feel something again

[eru]

Perhaps the current obsession will just go the way of heavy drinking or smoking? Ie the population will eventually develop some partial immunity to the allure, but it won't even go away completely.

[adriand]

I personally believe that at some point, many people will realize that the majority of the people with economic means are the people who are able to concentrate and don’t waste all their time. Note that I don’t mean the super wealthy, I’m referring to people who are solidly middle class and have means. I know a lot of successful people who aren’t glued to their phones. I think there will be enough good and bad examples out there for people to start catching on.

[Loughla]

The most successful people I know absolutely are glued to their phones. They're networking and messaging and reading and planning on their phones.

But from the outside it looks very similar to candy crush. . .

[taikahessu]

Why not both?

- And there has to be the third, hyperminmaxers yearning forever more control and power trying to be(at) the machine. Thus becoming a reflection of the first.

- Fourth must be some sort of hybrid between denialist and creationist, whom I don't even want to envision through. Which would be a reflection of the second, but instead of withdrawing, they would bubble themselves into something terrifying version of the Amish.

[bookofjoe]

"Dune: Prophecy"

https://youtu.be/CzVHWNosS2o?si=NtT7P8SX3LebjIuf

[_Algernon_]

Can't wait for the Butlerian Jihad

[patcon]

See: Walkaway by Cory Doctorow (2017)

[ilikegreen]

Been reading their latest on interoperability. Interesting stuff, and a possible avenue for tech sanity in the upcoming years.

[cluckindan]

We are already there.

[locallost]

I think it's kind of necessary to be exposed to ideas and views of people like Postman to even think of them when you play a game like this. The top comment is disappointing, but so it goes.

I enjoyed the game, for the attention to detail and making a mockery out of so many things in our daily lives that are in essence absurd, in such a brilliant yet simple way. The frowning Duolingo owl. The pillow delivery tracking made me chuckle. The only thing I missed was booking a an apartment on booking.com with a billion reminders to hurry up as the place might be gone any second, or doing an online check in. Although maybe it happened, I refreshed the game accidentally and never came back.

[hn_throwaway_99]

>> Despite the HN comments complaining about it being overwhelming and a dark reflection of how awful and distracting the internet is, clearly enough people enjoyed it to get to the front page.

> Is this like a massive HN wooosh -- how can this be the top-voted comment?

100% agree. I had to read that sentence and surrounding parts like 5 times to check if I was missing a satirical nod somewhere. It's like writing a review of Franz Kafka's books and saying "Despite what we may say about bureaucracy, clearly lots of people enjoy it because his books were best sellers!"

Lots of art is there to make you think, not to "enjoy" it.

[samspot]

For me, the only thinking this inspired was:

1) Haha 2) But I already played Cookie Clicker

I've been trying to disentangle myself from the internet for the last couple years. Maybe this hits better for those who haven't yet realized they are spending too much time online.

[ThrowawayTestr]

If HNer's were as enlightened as they think they are, this would have been flagged and buried.