• 1 Post
  • 77 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 13th, 2023

help-circle
  • Does Urban Dead count? I loved Urban Dead for a few years.

    I also played something called the Most Wanted Game, which was a mafia/mob themed game where you could form gang coalitions with others and raid adversaries. I think this concept kind of changed into Mafia Wars on Facebook or Clash of Clans as technology progressed and the social proliferation of the Internet continued. (I could be wrong on that, I never played and Facebook games besides Words with Friends, and have never played Clash of Clans - I just assumed they were both different kinds of successors).











  • I appreciate the thoughtful response - I haven’t noticed that trend specifically with BI, but have seen the general tendency you’re describing in media at large. For this specific article, I find the concept of a dumb phone more intriguing than “Lifehack: Eat Gruel!” Type stuff – see my other comment in this thread if you’re curious about why – but also did roll my eyes at the person who has three such devices for different purposes.

    Thanks for elaborating!


  • I agree with you in concept, but I think in practice people struggle with the self discipline, and that’s kind of the fundamental problem with apps (and particularly algorithm-based social media). I’ve set timers to limit my usage of certain apps, including my Lemmy app, to encourage mindful use, but I can understand why someone might want or need more of an enforced limitation.

    You might not replace your current phone with a “dumb” device, but when it’s time to get a new device eventually, you could ask yourself if less-smart device might meet both your functional and other needs.

    Edit: I guess to me this is kind of like: why are people overweight? They can just not eat as much. And while that’s technically true - and advice I follow - it’s apparently not that easy for everyone. If it was, we wouldn’t see problems as pervasively as we do.


  • Genuine question - can you speak more on how this article would promote a social trend in a “serflike” direction? I’ve been thinking about switching to a “dumb phone” for the same reasons as the person in the article, and I’ve seen it as a potential reclamation of my time and attention to the present moment.

    BI definitely publishes a lot of nonsense, but I feel like I’m not fully understanding your meaning.





  • Atlas Shrugged changed my political beliefs entirely when I read it as a teenager. Real life experience and empathy changed it back again a few years later, thankfully. It’s tough when you’re young, recognizing that the world is flawed and searching for something that might be an answer.

    It’s not quite the same because I was never any kind of ardent “pro-nuke” activist, but the movie Threads took me from a position of resigned ambivalence regarding the existence of nuclear weapons to a strong believer in global disarmament. If anyone is neutral on the topic of nuclear weapons, I’d suggest they give it a watch.