I too have had this sense of superiority about the negative outcomes of other people's addictive behavior. It's easy to blame people for not having willpower. But (and I say this as a former casino owner, former bartender, and someone who worked on early Facebook games trying to maximize engagement), even intelligent people with better than average self control are no match for the sophistication of systems that have been designed, studied, and iterated upon for the sole purpose of breaking down human self control. Looking at myself not being a degenerate gambler, drinker or social media user, I suspect it's only because I have first hand experience being on the other side of the table in all those cases. When people do congratulate themselves for their own willpower, they tend to have other issues and addictions which they hide from public view, and/or they are recovering.
No one goes without being deceived in their lives. And teenagers with little experience are the easiest to deceive and to hook into addictive behaviors.
On the other hand, my sarcastic post got much more upvotes than my normal posts do (currently at 55 pts). Obviously fake internet points is not the same thing as a good post. Many upvoted things don't deserve to be and vice versa. However it is certainly a mixed signal here.
This was an interesting post. Thanks for making me question if sarcasm is actually a bad thing. I don’t agree off the bat but I’ve never seriously considered it.
it is a risky gamble IMHO.
(some) needy/vain people use it to 'prove' to themselves 'I am so close to person X that we understand each other so well that when I say the opposite they still understand me'. IE it's a bit like yanking a chain to prove it still holds.
Problems with that.. people get tired of people continuing to yank chains for no good reason (cry wolf). And other people are busy with their own lines of thought and lives. So instead of the intended (wow we understand each other/so close!), 25% (* ) of the time instead the receiver thinks "hmm he's probably in a bad mood today?!"
So, net effect is instead often to be viewed as grumpy moody.
Famously, kids don't parse sarcasm well, neither at them or others. My grandfather, who was,
in retrospect,
actually rather cool, was viewed as semihostile by us kids, because he often phrased his terms of endearment sarcastically. Net result was that we thought he didn't like us much, merely tolerated us. That is what macho sarcasm got him.
Now I am his age, with similarly bad habits. I guess my kids will end up sarcastic too.
( * *) A number I scientifically arrived at by pulling it directly from my posterior.
Some people think sarcasm makes for a smart and sophisticated joke.
In reality, it takes very little intelligence to say the opposite of what you mean. Once I reflected on it, I really think it’s such an adolescent way of thinking.
If you think you’re smart, then challenge yourself to make a great joke, instead of just saying !(thing).
That kind of sarcasm is not just saying the opposite of what you mean. It’s an attempt to compel the reader into understanding their own flawed rationale by presenting an argument under the reader’s pretense that is obviously flawed.
An adolescent way of thinking would be deriding sarcasm as beneath you intellectually.
It’s an attempt to compel the reader into understanding their own flawed rationale by presenting an argument under the reader’s pretense that is obviously flawed.
But you were confused by it and didn't understand the point I was trying to make?
From where i am sitting it sounds like devmor implied you had "an adolescent way of thinking" and that offended you. To prove him wrong you essentially threw a tantrum.
In fairness, devmor's jab was rude and uncalled for. However responding to an accusation that you're immature by behaving childishly is really kind of weird.
> But you were confused by it and didn't understand the point I was trying to make?
The confusing part is that it doesn't seem to support your position. Devmor's claim was essentially that sarcasm as a rhetorical device can be abused but isn't inherently bad if used correctly. You then used sarcasm in what Devmor would probably characterize as an incorrect adolescent manner to prove the point that it is annoying. However everyone already agreed that adolescent sarcasm is annoying. Presumably your intent was to demonstrate via example why sarcasm is bad or in the words you quoted, to "[present] an argument under the reader's pretense that is obviously flawed". This didn't work because nobody claimed sarcasm was a universal good, only that in certain situations it could be used to good rhetorical affect. You made a flawed argument, but it wasn't using the pretense of the person you were responding to.
To summarize, its confusing because you are arguing against a strawman. Instead of skewering the parent's argument, which i presume was the intent, it instead just made it look like you don't understand the person you are responding to.
There are important distinctions to be made between categories such as being unaware of the cause of a problem (likely many of the children), aware but unable to redress it (most gambling addicts), and intentionally choosing to make a tradeoff for various circumstantial reasons (many but certainly not all developers working in C).
I doubt the children (or even their parents for the most part) realized the extent of the impact. Now that they're aware they have the option to attempt to mitigate it if they so choose. Of course they might try and fail (second case) or consciously choose to tolerate the downsides for some perceived gain (third case).
As to language choice, inertia can be a perfectly valid reason. I strongly prefer writing Scheme but I generally choose to work in other languages due to the surrounding ecosystems.
Social pressure is a very fuzzy term that can refer to any number of things. It could be "won't even stop to consider the possibility of using the new tool" or alternatively something more like "my coworkers aren't willing to entertain my idealism when it negatively impacts their ability to get things done".
I mean 's hard for an individual to go against what the rest of their peers are doing. The same applies to schoolkids as for programmers. There are a lot of costs to going against the crowd.
I think the implication is that there are parental authorities who can enforce this. Doesn't take much willpower when you've got people who will help you against your will!
We underestimate how much the average parent recognizes the problem. My peers had children and put a tablet in their children's hands almost immediately. Despite many working in tech, who I assumed knew about the growing concerns.
We are at the "doctor smokes a cigarette while giving you your lung cancer diagnosis" point in history.
I suppose that is because of social exclusion. If all the important things are coordinates online and in real-time, then those kids can't participate. Communicating with your peers is much harder when the peer's baseline is "I'll just write a chat message" and it would take considerably more effort to talk to the kid who doesn't have mobile internet access.
Look, I am guilty of this. "Maybe people should eat less instead of popping Ozempic", etc. I have been on both ends of being an absolute rock and an addicted mess, so I can understand both sides.
That said - one has to go through the initial hurdle of buying junk food, or getting a prescription for a drug instead of taking a hard look at their life style first.
Phones are different. THEY ARE ALWAYS THERE, so resisting falling back into negative habit loops is never-ending, hard work.
That's not always a bad thing, especially when it's about things like "let's do this or read about that" instead of sleeping at a fixed hours. Might be a part of why night owls are more creative.
Not really comparable because these are 12 year old children.
Not only could the phones be put away at night, but universally available parental controls could be used to lock the phones at a specified time each night.
We do this. It is just part of parenting, like deciding the time of bedtime.
Sort of like how people addicted to gambling would probably save a lot of money if they had just a little more will power.