According to positive

Humans work on feedback loops, it is how we learn. But, we have changed the process slightly from the norm and are increasingly working only on positive feedback loops. One area that this is massively pronounced is in the tech industry, especially gaming and social media.

In gaming we can see the flow state hack where a challenge is presented and then a skill applied. To be overcome the increasing difficulty of the challenge as progress is made, one must increase skill levels. At each 'overcoming', a shot of dopamine gets released that makes one want to continue on. Hours, days and years can pass by achieving while never having to actually leave the chair or accomplishing much of anything.

Social media is worse though as no skill is really needed but it drives people to present their lives to an unknown public in the attempt to get likes, thumbs up, stars, shares, reactions and the like. The 'interaction' provides the feedback and the little bells and whistles through notifications release the dopamine hit.

This is the world now, actions made on engineered platforms to make us feel like what we are doing is important even though not much of value is created (by us) and we are not affecting much in the real world. We are led cattle acting on the call to dinner. However, there is more to it than that. So much of it is positive feedback and as social animals, part of our wiring is dedicated to responding well to what feeds our pleasure centres. A compliment gets smiles. A like has the same effect.

The social media platforms also allow us to surround ourselves with people who are more likely to give us thumbs up than negative feedback and if we manage them well, will rush to our defense in the face of opposition. It creates virtual tribes that will fight for each other based on perceived similarities or membership of a group.

I think where this leads is to a range of poor positions where not only are people unable to take criticism, they are increasingly sheltered from the criticism and protected by like minds. If you have a look at the world, no matter how strange your kink, there is always a support group for it, no matter how small the minority, there will be a movement to protect it. This sounds like a good thing right?

We are getting raised in systems that always support us, no matter how poor we behave or how bad our ideas are. A world where even the most violent and depraved can connect globally with similar depravity and share their ideologies and garner support to ramp up their activities by motivating and inspiring each other. There are niches that drive pedophilia or terrorism, racism or extremism of the many kinds. No matter what, there is a group available somewhere.

This is the problem with positive feedback as it leads to extremism as ideas are liked and supported by some and pushed upward until the critics fall away and an echo chamber forms. At this point, they get driven further upward by the remaining members and even the worst, most heinous of thoughts, seem normal as there is group consensus. This of course creates extremes in polarization between groups that often lead to violent altercations as well.

We live in an increasingly peculiar world where we are learning more about ourselves than we have ever known before but, instead of using it to increase well being, it is being used to monetize us, manipulate us, drain us of even more data that provides the feedback to more precisely target us. With all of what we know about the human condition, we should be doing much better than what we are.

One thing I think everyone needs to understand whenever they go online or start up a game is, everything is designed by psychological experts to make us want it, to hold our attention, to offer us what we desire, reward our behaviors and extract every bit of information and value we hold whilst offering us the absolute bare minimum of value in return.

They are designed to make us feel good, make us feel connected, make us feel right without ever offering the feedback of reality. They are like Casinos and offices with no windows or clocks so you do not know how long we spend thinking what we are doing is important.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

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