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Tux

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@giblets well I do not trust password managers, I prefer to keep my passwords safely in my head. But if I were to use a password manager, I would probably use this one. But I never used it much to begin with, so it is not possible for me to give you a good opinion on it.

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Yesterday for me was No Screen Saturday. I really needed to take a break from the computer. I did a lot of things, cooking, gardening, did some cleaning too. It was an interesting experience. One of my motivation was a fear of going on the PC, get out of control and start binge playing games. I think I am getting used to the idea that I am not going back to them. I had another dream of games recently, to my surprise I just quit the game in the dream. I hope the next dreams are similar, this is a good feeling, realizing you dream about stopping, not about binging.

I will probably do more of those No Screen days. This is very important to have plan, to have things to do. I though I had put down a lot of things on my list, yet I did almost everything. Limiting the computer can be a good thing, in the morning for example. Wake up, take a shower, eat, then go on the computer if you have things to do on it.

I still have big urges. This is really annoying. A part of me realize how trivial games are, how they are a waste of time and how they mess with my head. Another part of me want to play them. Yesterday, when I finished most of the activities I had planed, I did two things. I did some origami (Japanese paper folding), and after that, I picked up a book on mathematics I have lying around. When I was heavily into video-games, none of this was possible. This is not the only reason, I did not know some powerful ways to study, I did not have a reason to study mathematics so of course I did not work on them. I was not used to getting stuck, having to work a while to get something. Since I would not "get" maths quickly, I usually did not work a lot on them.

I am often thinking that the geniuses of our times are probably stuck between pornography and video-games. When TV arrived in the lower classes, school results plummeted. It was much easier to get in front of the TV than to work on mathematics, English, history, whatever it was. I never was someone who enjoyed TV much, but video-games were there. I am not sure what made me realize how harmful games were to me. I never bought into the media's narrative that games make you violent. Would a psychopath play call of duty, or my little pony ? Of course he would probably play the former. Add to the mix parents that have no idea about it all, lack of communication, lack of efforts.

If I do a little thought  experiment in my head, I am getting an answer to a rationalization I find myself having. If I work fully in the morning, then I can use the afternoon to relax, do something else, like video-games ? I could also spend the time to go outside, run, try some of the sports that I want to try, draw, work on mathematics as a hobby, write a book, get a blog, learn a language, do some gardening... It would be also easier to make friends outside. In fact, I made friends in video-games, a long time ago. One of them for example was living on the other side of the planet. Great. And I am not especially social in games anyway.

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Tux, great respect for No Screen days! I'd do them myself, but for now at my hands-on level I need a computer of some sort to make money.

As for psychopaths, I'm pretty sure some of them could get a kick out of playing My Little Pony), but the same goes for any nonviolent activity.

I totally agree with your point on lower income families and TV. I'm a law abiding citizen by all means, but when I pass by cheap housing and see people watching TV I dream of starting a charity fund. The fund would only need money for nice heavy aluminum baseball bats. Charity workers would kick doors in and smash TV sets right in front of the watchers liberating them so they can make money and better their living standards. I feel bad seeing them stuck and unhappy. But that's just my crazy utopia or dystopia. In real life I totally respect other people's free will and would never do such a thing. Plus that would increase competition for all the good things in life, and that's a conflict of interests right there, bro.

Best of luck on your journey.

Edited by Vlad
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You have great self-awareness, Tux. Yes, I sometimes rationalize games in my head as just a little bit of relaxation after a nice productive day. But it wouldn't end there. The little bit of relaxation would slowly expand and take over everything, including my productivity! ?

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Another dream. In this one, it was like a switch was turned on in myself, and I would play a game. After that, I'd realize I screwed up everything. I felt really bad. If I really do relapse, I can be sure this will be how I will feel. There is not a lot of things that can be done to prevent those dreams, beside continuing with Respawn. I did not work on it recently, I better get back to it. I am really afraid of just losing control, and starting to play again non-stop. Especially since I have a full free week ahead.

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I am often thinking that the geniuses of our times are probably stuck between pornography and video-games. When TV arrived in the lower classes, school results plummeted. It was much easier to get in front of the TV than to work on mathematics, English, history, whatever it was. I never was someone who enjoyed TV much, but video-games were there. I am not sure what made me realize how harmful games were to me. I never bought into the media's narrative that games make you violent. Would a psychopath play call of duty, or my little pony ? Of course he would probably play the former. Add to the mix parents that have no idea about it all, lack of communication, lack of efforts.

Scott Alan Turner (Financial Rockstar) did a great podcast on this on 17 July (279: The High Cost of TV). They've done studies that show that less than 1% of people who earn greater than $150,000 a year watch 5 hours of TV a week. I think the opposing numbers were something along the lines of those who earnt less than $30,000 watched greater than 5 hours of TV a week greater than 60% of the time. It's been a few days since I listened to the podcast, but what I took away from it is that the quest or goal to not watch TV is the right one. 

Edit: Found the article that Scott was talking about! It is here. I can't get the page to load in my browser to sanity check though.

Edited by giblets
inserted the survey link
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I used to spend hours in front of the computer without problems. Now that I am working on things, instead of consuming content, it is harder to stay stuck for hours. Getting bored is natural. But I am not sure if feeling restless like I currently am feeling right now is normal. I think this is starting to pass, but it is impossible for me to stand still. I did some Origami just because I could, maybe focusing on something intensely which is manual helped, I don't know. I feel a bit better. I think I'll need to find activities where I can focus on something manual intensely. Any idea ? Maybe drawing could be something interesting. I want to draw on the computer too, but maybe just drawing in real life can be a solution. Gardening is something I like, but I do not have acres of forest to tend to. It takes some time every once in a while, but I can not come back to it everyday.

I am continuing the modules too. I am at more than 90 days now. The Your Brain On Porn website explain how it takes a while for the brain to heal. I am grateful I have no problem with pornography, but the science is the same. This is addiction. And since I spent most of my life exposed to games, it will take more than 90 days to get healed properly. This is all explained on their website, there is a protein called delta-fos-b that reinforce specific behavior as a teenager, which mean I will need something like 150 days to heal. I am going to work on the issues behind gaming too. There is many things I can do when I am not playing.

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Technically, the week is not over as there is still today to deal with. But I made it through my holiday week without touching a game. I only had a dream this night, where I was playing a game and suddenly realized in the middle of it that I had relapsed. These dreams seems to get more and more uncommon, the last was was earlier this week.

I am still afraid I will relapse during the week between the end of my job and school start. Or during the holidays I will have when studying. This is why I need to commit to this. I must finish this, deal with the real issues. I am tired of always being quitting games, only to find myself back in. I spend a lot of time on a computer already, there is a lot of thing I want to get out of life, and games are always holding me back.

As I said in one of my replies, I could easily spend decades if not centuries playing games. Anything related to them would be the same thing. I once entertained the thought of game development, but there are for more interesting things to develop than games. Can you imagine a life of only playing games, then when you are not playing games, you are making them ? Well there would not be much time left for anything else. At least for me, moderation is not an option. It is a delusion.

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You could try having some activities ready for the holidays and a schedule. Find out things you're going to be doing that'll keep you busy and plan them out ahead of time. Then you'll be ready when the urges strike.

Edited by Mettermrck
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I once entertained the thought of game development, but there are for more interesting things to develop than games. 

Think of the amount of influence you could have to the open source community! Thanks to people like you I have the ability to even be online right now. The thought that something you have created is having a tangible impact on someone (or thousands) of people's lives would be amazing.

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This is just a quick update, I am still here. I did not have that much cravings recently, and I finally set up a calendar. I chose another on F-Droid that is simply called "Calendar" and it works nicely. This is also a nice way to see how much time I really have, and a way to organize myself better. If I want to do something, I can put it on the calendar and be sure that I will take the time to deal with it.

I once entertained the thought of game development, but there are for more interesting things to develop than games. 

Think of the amount of influence you could have to the open source community! Thanks to people like you I have the ability to even be online right now. The thought that something you have created is having a tangible impact on someone (or thousands) of people's lives would be amazing.

I really want to contribute to something. But I need to practice more first.

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I have been thinking recently, about this whole addiction. It reminds me of the problem our society currently have with ecology. We got an industrial age that brought us a lot. But because of a lack of understanding, a lack of knowledge, and no requirement from those who created the systems to think about the consequences, we have a lot of problems. Waste of resources, pollution... we know all of this today.

But today, we are no longer in the industrial age, we are in the information age. And the same pattern is happening. There are very few regulations. So we are bombarded with stimuli, with ads that appeal to the most primal need in ourselves, with "news" articles that rely on us getting triggered by their titles just so we read them. Everything is battling for our attention. What will the consequences be ?

Most of us here are either in our late teen, or even adults. And here we are, struggling with it. But what will happen for the next generation ? A generation raised by video-games, buzzfeed, instant gratification, social networks, youtube, extreme pornography, and constantly bothered to pay attention to the worst things ? The people behind this are identical to the ones who exploited everything they could to make a quick buck. Short term benefit, to the long-term detriment of everyone else. Advertisers manipulates us. They shape our culture, for the benefit of their employers. Short term profit, for long term detriment. Advertising doesn't want you to be happy. It require you to feel perpetually less than, inferior, so you need their product. Which will only "work" for a while. Even when said product is durable, and doesn't destroy itself thanks to programmed obsolescence, they make sure psychological obsolescence comes into play. Why change your smartphone every year, if it still work ? Because there is a new shiny one, with more things you never knew you required to exist ! Why change clothes every quarter, when they are still perfectly fine ? Because they are terribly outdated, by a few months, compared to the brand new ones that just came out !

Those people are shaping our society. We constantly hear about the planet, about pollution. But pollution is not purely physical. And the planet is not the only thing to protect, there is our humanity. How we can be more than just primal emotions. We reached a point where our specie can achieve a lot, yet our technological revolutions might just be our downfall.

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Well, that depends on our need to satisfy what we think is socially acceptable to the world, for example, if i give my friend a smartphone and an iPad and i tell him they both have identical features but one has a better OS than the other, they will simply dump the one that has the outdated OS and try to justify that he saw it on an ad where it has 'XYZ'. The former don't have A and B that he wants and posts it on Twitter. He then goes out to buy the one with the new OS and posts it on Twitter for his friends to see.

But all of a sudden something goes wrong with the device with the new OS a day later and calls it in, now angry, the person with the now defective device lost money purchasing the device. He decides to give it negative reviews on the developers site and posts back on Twitter. The developers hastily acquiesce either A) Refund him his money back or B) Replace his device for free.

A week later, devs brainstorming, new patches come out and boom the same thing happens, now the developers are in bind they are losing money so they make a last ditch effort to entice the public with 'New Item A' that costs XX.XX that has a big title but little features on it as stimulus package. The person goes out to buy it, reads the print, installs it on his device.

Shocked that the new update was nothing like it said in the package and in anger he sells his device, calling the developers a sham and rants on Twitter. All his friends as well as him quits buying new devices from them and moves on. Developers lose their entire fan-base out of frustration, they go bankrupt. Meanwhile, a newer device emerges. Rinse and Repeat.

So in other words, capitalism sucks people in to create a fandom. 

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"The illiterate of the future are not those who can’t read or write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

-Alvin Toffler.

I have been thinking recently, about this whole addiction. It reminds me of the problem our society currently have with ecology. We got an industrial age that brought us a lot. But because of a lack of understanding, a lack of knowledge, and no requirement from those who created the systems to think about the consequences, we have a lot of problems. Waste of resources, pollution... we know all of this today.

But today, we are no longer in the industrial age, we are in the information age. And the same pattern is happening. There are very few regulations. So we are bombarded with stimuli, with ads that appeal to the most primal need in ourselves, with "news" articles that rely on us getting triggered by their titles just so we read them. Everything is battling for our attention. What will the consequences be ?

Most of us here are either in our late teen, or even adults. And here we are, struggling with it. But what will happen for the next generation ? A generation raised by video-games, buzzfeed, instant gratification, social networks, youtube, extreme pornography, and constantly bothered to pay attention to the worst things ? The people behind this are identical to the ones who exploited everything they could to make a quick buck. Short term benefit, to the long-term detriment of everyone else. Advertisers manipulates us. They shape our culture, for the benefit of their employers. Short term profit, for long term detriment. Advertising doesn't want you to be happy. It require you to feel perpetually less than, inferior, so you need their product. Which will only "work" for a while. Even when said product is durable, and doesn't destroy itself thanks to programmed obsolescence, they make sure psychological obsolescence comes into play. Why change your smartphone every year, if it still work ? Because there is a new shiny one, with more things you never knew you required to exist ! Why change clothes every quarter, when they are still perfectly fine ? Because they are terribly outdated, by a few months, compared to the brand new ones that just came out !

Those people are shaping our society. We constantly hear about the planet, about pollution. But pollution is not purely physical. And the planet is not the only thing to protect, there is our humanity. How we can be more than just primal emotions. We reached a point where our species can achieve a lot, yet our technological revolutions might just be our downfall.

I think you answered your question there by identifying some of the problems. I suppose either/or a change in governance, economic systems and better self awareness as we teach our young having gone through it ourselves. But that does require a widespread reorganisation and a reevaluation of our values and ethics. Though it should be noted that no one ever went broke underestimating humanity's collective capacity for self awareness. I think that the alternative is a downward and unsustainable spiral into oblivion as is usually case now.

On a larger scale things work in cycles, and everything is a reaction to something else, eg. Trump, Brexit-reaction to a shiny new world of the information age, people dunno where to go and resort to paths they know how to navigate. I find that with this cycle there is a greater reaction than there ever was previously as the very things that people react against are what is reaching them and empowering them in greater and greater numbers. There is a story of Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince-I think is where it comes from, I heard it watching the a answer given by the author in a lecture given by the author of the Bell Curve) having a debate with some Italian Princes about cycles and they asked him, "Why bother attempting to stop say, a war if we know it is going to lead through to another cycle culminating another war?" Machiavelli's answer was that wisdom could break the cycle.

I dunno if that made sense, its late and I cannot sleep. It honestly sounds like a non-answer-like-answer but I am too tired to think up something better.

Some handy links:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/15/timothy-morton-anthropocene-philosopher

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in

 

Edited by -n.g-
Full hour of rewriting a reply into something neat enough, still cannot do grammar.
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  • 4 months later...

Still going strong. It will be 8 months since I stopped completely in a few days.

Still, I've been having big cravings, especially after exams, and also now that I'm in holiday, I'm also feeling them. For some reasons a few minutes ago I had a surge of extreme sadness. There this thought of playing again some specific games. I really want to create something, and the game in question, Rimworld, seem to partly fill that. Just so you know, it was the last one I binged on before realizing this problem is for life. Another one with a huge potential for binging is Terraria.

When I posted here, I decided that video-games for me are over for ever. There is no going back. I want my live to move forward, not backward. Become a Man, and not stay a child. No matter how big what I build in terraria or rimworld, it will end up deleted. It's the worse waste of time. Going on the internet for hours is better, because at least I'm not reinforcing addictive patterns. This feeling of sadness will not go alone on its own. I feel sad, okay. So I'm going to do something that I like, working on some electronic stuff.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm in computer science too! I started programming mid last year though. Sounds like you've been programming a lot more than me. What do you want to do after college?

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