This all or nothing, either or bullshit needs to stop being perpetuated. It is why we have such an inured two party system that effectively makes their followers dance each election.

Yeah, this, ahem, is strengthened by this:

The reality is there are brain changes due to screens and the invasive format of the “short”. Literal re-writing at the level of how neurons talk to each other. Shortened attention spans. Increased anxiety. Increased impatience. Inability to focus. Worse, inability to go all in on a single point of focus, for hours to create, produce, invent, or simply develop thinking skills. Increased anxiety and lack of coping in interpersonal, not even relationships, but interaction such that this idea of sitting around with groups of people, deliberately, as a way to use free time appears weird and fictional.

Because you have a dopamine farming machine that goes as good as it can, why do an activity where nobody’s even trying to compete with it?

And I hate to say it, but being autistic I’m more, not less, vulnerable to said machine. Willpower.

So - there are similar extremely optimized dopamine farming machines everywhere looking nicer than some truths around. Instead of continuing to write a program to do what I’m dreaming of, or at least find tooling, I can argue in a TG chat about whatever. Instead of going to a friend group meeting I can sit all day playing video games. Between going for a walk I can read things I don’t need. Or comment on Lemmy.

When everyone is used to picking a glossy advertised easy way over more real and dimmer one, it also reinforces “all or nothing” thinking.