I mean ... I did the thing now, giving up on the idea of yeeting ChromeOS from my Chrome Book and just embracing the Linux on board
as is and ... I don't really need all that much from there anyway. And now I'm ... fine with it. And I do feel kind of stupid - although I'm
still basically and practically right about almost all of my criticism. But yea, the solution to the problem was to let go of my vision - to
be a little less stubborn and allow the wiggle room there is to deliver the solution I wanted; Rather than having it exactly as I thought it
had to be. And I'm technically aware that this is one of my personality flaws. I mean, I understand that behavior like this goes back into
my childhood. Like - I wanted to drink Spezi, that was ... Coke mixed with Fanta. And they didn't have Fanta and I made a huge fuzz
about it. Well, Orange Juice - I must say as an adult - isn't really a good substitute for Fanta or the other way around, but Coke with
Orange Juice isn't actually ... all that bad.
I'm not too sure where that is coming from - but it is true that in some instances the "how" you do a thing is important. The order of
things can be important. Whether "the thing" is "the thing" or just "well kinda sorta" can be important. And between hand-crafts and
industrial manifacturing ... there's a lot of that.
So yea, it makes sense. I suppose there's a time where that behavior would be called "excentric". A word then usually used to describe
behavior that 'norma' people experience as 'weird' but accept because the person is also somewhat special - one way or the other.
And whether or not to "allow" or 'criticize' it ... who knows?
This is to me however also a great indicator as to why a 'singular leader' is a bad choice; Unless that leader is God; And how to generally
understand the qualitative baseline of a democracy.
To say: It's not about VOTING - it's about bringing different perspectives to the table and choosing the best.
Anyay. So - I saw a video on whether or not TikTok is bad for us, we all know it, but the question is: How? Or Why? What is the
mechanism by which TikTok screws with our minds?
I mean - it is often compared to how even the old greeks feared that "writing" was going to ruin civilization or whatever. Time and time
again the story repeated itself; And time and time again ... it didn't turn out to be that wild. So, logically we'd apply the same to TikTok.
Or: Short Form Video/SFV. But now some studies have shown that: Nuh Uh! This __IS__ different!
Now, she at first - after the intro - delivers a good idea of why one might think that TikTok is a good thing. And I find that perspective
intriguing. There certainly is a point there. But alas ... then we get to the facts and it clicked. The intro triggered the theory, the ending
solidified the assumption for me.
The simple truth is this: The 'swiping' enables us to quickly and easily get rid of something that annoys us. If we're watching a long
form video - the thing that they call "Boring", wondering whether THAT's the secret sauce - you're like locked in and whatever cognitive
ping pong or billards are going on can play out. The challenge is there, you're forced to engage with it - all that. And that's really the
crux. Cognition as such is ever so often conjoined with problem solving. Problem solving requires "Brainjuice" - may be inconvenient,
that sort of thing. But then, when you're given to swipe away at any sign of inconvenience, you're like literally swiping brain cells away.
Well. Today I wanted to be a little productive but ended up watching YouTube anyway. But then something happened - or occurred to
me - and it has been ... bothering me for a while now also. I even have kind of developed strategies around that issue, but today I like
... "perfected" it. And I want to present this to you in the setting of problem solving - and challenges that the modern day imposes onto
us that had previousy not been an issue. Like ... because there was no TikTok. I mean ... it is significantly harder to center all of our
lives around writing - than it is to center it around watching SFVs.
And at long last we can turn it into Billionaire/Tech-Bro bashing. Yay!
But before we get started - a random fact: People who claim that not everyone can be a billionair is Horseshit! We did it! Here in Germany!
Everyone was a Billionaire and we made more money than any group of people anywhere on earth ever - prior and since.
But alas ... we figured that the system had flaws and abandoned it.
Now, the Algorithm does what it does. And what happened was: There were two videos in the recommendations that I wanted to watch.
It happens occasionally that there's a whole bunch of videos I'm interested in - but I'm still forced to make a choice, knowing that
when I select either one of those videos, the other(s) will eventually vanish until I forgot all about them. There used to be that "watch
later" function - but all it did was fill up a playlist I suppose nobody ever really returned to. It didn't help that once I had watched it,
it wouldn't be removed from the list either.
So, what I do is select a video, wait for the ad to finish, and then return back to the homescreen before the contents on it get reshuffled.
I would this way tag videos I want to watch - then go into the mediatheque, if I felt like it, and watch them. When done - just return to
the recently watched videos and move on to the next. Or skip it. This way I wouldn't need like a quasi review of each video to asses
which one I should rather watch. Some videos maybe only have a 5 minute start I'm interested in - I don't care about the topic but
something intrigues me, but THAT other video is something I'm really interested right now but I really don't want any more of that kind
of crap right now. So ... what to do?
And it really goes to show where our priorities are. Number go up! So - all we do is make numbers go up ... like Carbon Emissions ...
to say: What's really the gain from all that? And it must be rough, as a content creator, to engage with this. I mean - like, to actually come
forward and act against your own (immediate/short term) interests is tough! And so it is ever so often those outside that have to step in
and impose restrictions.
Sure - on Desktop I just open multiple tasks.
And that's kind of the thing. In some instances it's fair that we'd have to use workarounds for certain things. Like - if you're a criminal
politician and want to make sure that the Black Market keeps thriving you can't just let Cannabis legalization happen in a sane way.
You have to make it so that ... while technically legal it's a pain in the ass to get it still. I mean - Total Biscuit once said it: What really
drives piracy in a lot of cases is the convenience of it. Once it's more convenient to pay - people will pay! And thoset hat don't either
are so deeply in the piracy ecosystem it's just what it is, or you don't have the money to pay anyway. Or both.
So, is that the CDU/CSU telling me that being a criminal is actually ... wanted? I mean, yea - modern conservative politics in a nutshell.
And not in a good way, mind you!
But - and I'm kind of tired that we more and more have to do their work for them, although, they don't really care to begin with;
So it really is just a circlejerk of the disenfranchised - how about: A way to manually interact with the algorithm outside of just watching
a video? I mean - sure, we're allowed to select categories we're interested in. Woohoo. But doesn't that just lock me out of all the things
I don't really care about right at that moment? And isn't it the whole concept of "the algorithm" that it gets more and more fine-tuned to
our personal "interests"?
Yea - blood pressure is rising ... I should call it quits now.
Peace!