this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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I've tried getting into peertube to have something to watch. I'm exploring copyleft music on open audio / funkwhale. I'm on here in lemmy as of this week. I'm playing with mastodon and the fediverse. I've tried studying psychology and psychology-adjacent territory like Deleuze and Guattari and Foucault and Derrida so I can break down what the Facebook algorithms are doing to me, how pop and mainstream music is designed and produced in conjunction with advertising to screw with our heads and make us buy things, how YouTube music suggestion algorithms screw with my head and ultimately make me buy things, and I've tried to start learning to code on a basic level at least so I can convert my chromebook to Ubuntu and hopefully my android phone, which I've paid off completely, to some kind of fully open source OS.

I've let my Netflix subscription wither away after just not paying it and try to not care about it anymore. I have no idea what to do about Amazon or Amazon Prime. I have some very important movies like 'Unhinged' and 'Donnie Darko' on there. I need to buy certain things in the present framework of my life right now, things that, in a small town with a particular disability keeping me from driving, I can only get on Amazon.

I'm doing a lot. But I still find myself jonesing for that death consciousness of mindlessly scrolling through Facebook totally vulnerable to an AI superpower extracting maximum profit from me perpetually. Moderation no longer seems remotely realistic. I can't shut the machine out. Has anybody found anything else I could try? I'm trying to find as many little strategies as possible.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 9 months ago (6 children)

This is just my opinion based on this post so don't take my word for it unless it adds up to you, but it seems to me that you're obsessing over the fear that big tech is causing your destructive / irreflexive / procastinating behavior and trying to cut all connection with big tech instead of possibly also addressing your relationship with whatever media/services/software you use.

My point is, if your entire life becomes FOSS and private and free of large corporate overlords, you might still find yourself engaging in self destructive doomscrolling somewhere or another, or mindlessly doing something else you don't think is great doing.

While I applaud your efforts and I think you should be proud of the sacrifices and work you've done, I also think it might be a good moment to sit back and think of the big picture of how you'd like to fit into the contemporary world.

Wanna go fully off the grid? Sure, but understand the costs and try to be fair regarding the benefits. Want to minimize harm to yourself without loosing too much comfort? That's great but there are a ton of ways you can improve your mental health and peace of mind beyond what platforms and software you choose to use.

I am an addict. a poly-substance addict, specifically. I'll always be an addict, no matter how long I stay sober for and there's nothing anyone can do about this. That's OK, though. You know why? Because I understand that cravings for what we yearn for are just some of our fears in disguise. We fear on missing out, on not having, on not being, on going "hungry" on something. And when it happens and we feel it, we built it up so much with fear we made it into a monster and try to run away from the bad feeling as quickly as possible. We try to drown the desire with some other dopamine source.. Doom scrolling, food, sexual release, video games, whatever.

When you understand satisfying a craving is just running away from fear, you can face your fear: "so what if this happens? bring it, bitches." Of course sometimes you'll still give in to what your better self wants to avoid, but sometimes you won't and that's a good thing.

Well, i don't really have a point beyond inviting you to figure out what you're really scared of, what the real problems you face are, and trying to go big picture on the best approach to address them for yourself.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

01:30am staring at my phone and I absolutely needed to hear this. Thank you internet stranger!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

You're more than welcome. Rest Well!

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