For better or worse I look on Hacker News (HN) every so often. This is a big improvement over looking on Reddit like I used to, but I’ve come to realize that HNers are just as dumb.

Take this article for example.

The linked article roughly about how annoying modern tech is (fair).

But then in the comments you have messages like this:

Tried almost all of these, stuck on no. 7. If I have a browser I’ll browse, I have no social media apps at all, I’ll open HN and browse it happily, I even use Reddit on a browser with that atrocious webpage nagging you to install the app. I’ll use it in a PC if my phone breaks. If I lock myself out of the browser, cut all communications, miss a phone call, I’ll not be able to do “something” that is not socially acceptable not to do. Life will create a situation, and make me feel like I’m doing something wrong, maybe I am.

Then there is all the good things, that article that got you hooked on a new idea, that contact that got you a better job, that friend you miss in another continent. My kid would not exist were not for the internet. When you are in a bad day you will convincingly argue it’s for the greater good, maybe you are even right that it was.

There is porn when you are horny, delivery services when you are tired and hungry, a map when you are lost, hobby items you can’t find locally, podcasts when you are lonely, all the music.

I think I’m not wired in a way that can healthily separate the good and the bad in a society that also can’t. I know something is wrong, but I don’t think I can fix it with tech.

This commenter is just a hapless wee lad who can’t possibly be expected to have any agency over his life. This “woe is me” mentality is just sad.

“But Oliver, you are just victim-blaming! This is all because of the big tech meanies:”

You’re fighting trillions a year in addictive engineering.

The tech industry has spent the last 20 years (and really in earnest the last 15, accelerating over time) making their tech as addictive as possible.

Current tech is egregiously addictive. It’s worse than most drugs.

The big tech companies are now the most successful drug dealers in history.

or:

Yet services do whatever they can to convince the user to install their apps.

While I agree that the user shouldn’t install unnecessary apps and probably remove most of what’s installed, this is playing a rigged game. On the one side a person who want to do something, on the other end countless very well founded teams trying to exploit our monkey brains.

Or another; there is a comment about how you can just: not install the apps that are taking all your attention. To which someone else happily let’s us know that

I guess that means no concerts, no banking, etc. Hardly a practical stance.

Concerts let you order online and print the ticket. The gatekeepers at the concert just scan the QR code on the paper or phone to let you in.

Just do banking on your laptop. Like a normal person.

Basically all this is say; if you knowingly make bad decisions, it doesn’t matter how much the “evil tech overlords” want you to also make that decision. Ultimately, you are still the one who made it. You are (though it would appear many of these people disagree) in control of your body and your actions. And if at any point you think “this product doesn’t seem to be that good for me.” Every action past that point with the product is knowingly making bad decisions.

You are allowed to just not use social media. In highschool I uninstalled Snapchat and didn’t tell any of my friends. The real friends just ended up texting me when I didn’t respond to their snaps. I just stopped communicating with the other 95% of people who were “friends”.