Given the state of nature that exists between large industrialized nations, each in incentivized to foment dysfunction in their rivals to slow them down economically. The more infighting in any given country, the more headaches present among citizens, the slower and more reluctant their economy becomes.
There's a slow, glacial, permanent grind that never goes away, because the world at large is trying to make you call in sick to work, so that they can gain some breathing room, and pump up their own economy.
Meanwhile, uncompetitive personality flaws get classified as mental illness, so that there's medical justification to ply you with productivity drugs. Take prescribed speed to perform for the economy. Take mood stabilizers so you don't snap at your co-workers. Take anti-anxiety meds for your impostor syndrome, and stop worrying about whether everyone hates you. They're all just cranky from the speed and psychological operations of global superpowers trying to slow us down.
It's one thing to state a premise, but they're usually expected to be accompanied by conclusions.
Even if you win the war with yourself, you'll still have an entire world to confont, but at least most of the problem wasn't even you to begin with. So at least there's that?
many students are taking adderall to ace exams/boards/bar/standardized tests, and athletes are taking steroids/HGH/etc. Its largely considered academic fraud / cheating, but also largely unpoliced.
sometimes i feel the world is becoming like the movie/series limitless. those that you see are succeeding / influential are juiced up.
Google has a similar problem, it returns what it thought I meant - the keywords seems to have only minor importance to the results. Searching for a non-tech term when it has a tech meaning is near impossible because google knows I'm a nerd.
People who are only exposed to the same things tend not come up with ideas outside of the group.
But I really disagree with the premise that its enjoyable to always be exposed to the same things. Serendipity really seems to be underappreciated.
Regarding algorithmic doppelgangers and how we govern them (Zuckerberg 2020) this is a good place to start:
https://iainmait.land/posts/20170418-algorithmic-governmenta...
'Is this part of me, or external to me? Did I come up with this, or was it presented to me?'
As long as a user avoids or suppresses those kinds of questions then yes it's a transitional object, and whatever algorithmic control is in effect is not so important to us. To a certain extent, the algorithms, just reflect our desire for a space where there is an illusion that the outer-world accords with our inner-worlds.
Meanwhile - in terms of differentiating Facebook from the other social networks ...
Unlike Twitter (word limits, textual), and Snapchat (ephemeral, visual) Facebook is gunning for limitlessness (VR, Everything) ... in this sense, in giving its users a sense of omnipotence and omnipresence it's in a different league, one where the fundamental question of where we end and our algorithmic doppelgangers begin is elided altogether in favor of an algorithmic state ... with it's own reality, and truth.
If anything, Facebook has sacrificed some of its identity-shaping power in exchange for more engagement and ad sales. People are moving more of their real social interaction to other places, leaving Facebook to be mostly a source of news and updates from casual acquaintances.
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. Are they actually blaming clinical depression on personal freedom and social mobility?
I'm not trying to take a stand here, but your gut reaction (and my initial one) was based in emotion, not on research and facts -- get the facts (or as best you can) before throwing up any more.
Until the digital ages, (cameras, print, now bits), these external representations decayed somewhat organically. With perfect copies, these images persist for others and for ourselves. It makes it harder to escape.
As others noted, yes, we have more potential to escape our self-created representations, but there's also a higher escape velocity.
[1] - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
