
Endless Doom Scroller - joosters
https://endlessdoomscroller.com/
======
Barrin92
I don't really understand the 'doomer' debate, that is to say complaining
about negative news when the world in fact is facing enormous negative events.

It seems to me sort of like the 'three-wise-monkeys', just think happy
thoughts and the world gets better or something. It seems infantile. I don't
see how you can fix problems if you aren't willing to in the first place look
at them, as we've seen in this pandemic the virus doesn't care how optimistic
you are.

The prevailing opinion these days seems to be that people are too negative,
honestly looking at the world in sober fashion I think most people are
probably not scared enough.

~~~
luckylion
> I don't see how you can fix problems if you aren't willing to in the first
> place look at them, as we've seen in this pandemic the virus doesn't care
> how optimistic you are.

How can _you_ fix problems by knowing about them? What I mean is: unless
you're an expert on the problem, or willing and able to become one as soon as
you've learned about it, what difference does it make whether you specifically
know how bad something is?

We have institutions to work on things, do we need each individual citizen to
be constantly worried about everything that goes wrong, will go wrong, can go
wrong or won't go at all?

Does "knowing" about it do anything? Leave aside that you probably don't
_really_ know anything if you've read doomsday news, you're just afraid, but
the facts are very light and usually styled for effect: everything is always
terrible, it's constantly just one minute away from certain destruction etc.

~~~
walleeee
Obviously the news cycle thrives on panic and style over substance. This does
not change the fact that "knowing" about the world is valuable. Effective
action to address a threat is nearly impossible without an accurate model of
it. People don't need to be experts about everything to become relatively well
informed about _many_ things, nor do they need to try to solve every problem
at once.

The appeal to institutions as trustworthy problem solvers is also
disheartening. Institutions are supra-human intelligences. This does not mean
they are necessarily _more_ intelligent than any of their members. They're
often _less_ so, and in any case they usually have their own incentive
structures which are entirely separate from (and often antagonistic to)
people's wellbeing.

~~~
MaulingMonkey
Not all knowledge is equal in value, and time spent learning one thing has an
opportunity cost - it's time you can't spend, say, learning something more
useful.

Understanding what went wrong, how it could've been caught, how to prevent it
from happening in the future, options and tradeoffs for how to resolve things
now that the damage has been done, etc. - this can be extremely useful and
empowering. Even if you have no ability to impact the specific problem being
discussed, you can draw parallels from those problems to the problems you _do_
face in your own domains where you can have an impact. There may be no perfect
solutions, but there may be better solutions, a better understanding of the
problem, and an example of moving forward as one is best able to. This isn't
exactly a message of "doom" though.

On the flip side, one can see yet another retelling of beating yet another
dead horse - be they unpredictable black swan events with no real useful
takeaways for planning, no useful nonobvious changes to policy to propose, or
yet another deadlocked political quagmire of shouting heads that even the
experts can't untangle - or something where the lessons are obvious and
spelled out hundreds of hours of content ago and being applied - isn't
terribly useful, encouraging, or empowering. Quite the opposite - if anything,
they're depressing and disempowering.

To put it another way - flooding our information channels with low quality low
content unactionable unrelatable useless unresearched unvetted "the sky is
falling" shallow summaries of our inevitable doom displaces _useful_ content
about the problems of our world and more in-depth discussions about what we're
experimenting with to try and fix them, what seems to be working, what was
tried and failed, etc. Framed in this light, much of the news cycle has
_negative_ value: while it may let you "know" "more" about the world, you
would've spent your time much more wisely by trying to learn from what other
people are trying to do to fix things, or by attempting to fix things
yourself.

~~~
walleeee
I agree with everything you said.

------
cs702
This is a brilliant work of interactive digital art that perfectly captures
the zeitgeist.

The artist, one Benjamin Grosser, describes it as follows:

 _> "Doomscrolling" refers to the ways in which people find themselves
regularly—and in some cases, almost involuntarily—scrolling bad news headlines
on their phone, often for hours each night in bed when they had meant to be
sleeping. Certainly the realities of the pandemic necessitate a level of
vigilance for the purposes of personal safety. But doomscrolling isn’t just a
natural reaction to the news of the day—it’s the result of a perfect yet evil
marriage between a populace stuck online, social media interfaces designed to
game and hold our attention, and the realities of an existential global
crisis. Yes, it may be hard to look away from bad news in any format, but it’s
nearly impossible to avert our eyes when that news is endlessly presented via
designed-to-be-addictive social media interfaces that know just what to show
us next in order to keep us “engaged.” As an alternative interface, The
Endless Doomscroller acts as a lens on our software-enabled collective descent
into despair. By distilling the news and social media sites down to their
barest most generalized messages and interface conventions, The Endless
Doomscroller shows us the mechanism that’s behind our scroll-induced anxiety:
interfaces—and corporations—that always want more. More doom (bad news
headlines) compels more engagement (via continued liking/sharing/posting)
which produces more personal data, thus making possible ever more profit. By
stripping away the specifics wrapped up in each headline and minimizing the
mechanics behind most interface patterns, The Endless Doomscroller offers up
an opportunity for mindfulness about how we’re spending our time online and
about who most benefits from our late night scroll sessions. And, if one
scrolls as endlessly as the work makes possible, The Endless Doomscroller
might even enable a sort of exposure or substitution therapy, a way to escape
or replace what these interfaces want from and do to us. In other words,
perhaps the only way out of too much doomscrolling is endless doomscrolling._

Source: [https://bengrosser.com/projects/endless-
doomscroller/](https://bengrosser.com/projects/endless-doomscroller/)

~~~
teddyh
Yes, the submitted link should have been this instead.

------
goalieca
I want to stay informed about the world but I'm unable to read the highly
editorialized doom scrollers. I'm tired of the news cheering for the hurricane
and I'm tired of pointless feel good stories to bring "happy news" that isn't
really news at all.

I've started to read more long-form essays on current events topics. I find
they nicely summarize events in a chronological order with all of the benefit
of hindsight to go with it. Opinions are generally more nuanced and the
writing style assumes that you read all the way through the article.

TV news and late night talk shows are just the worst.

~~~
BurningFrog
"The News" is mostly gossip and things that are interesting because they
almost never happen. As a way of learning how the world works, it's pretty
awful.

If you want to be informed, spend the news time reading books/essays about
important/interesting topics, and you'll be _way_ more enlightened in a year.

If you go all the way in this, you won't be able to participate in the shared
culture of society, so I don't get fanatical with it. I'm human, and some
gossip is fun.

------
softwaredoug
I would advise the way to beat the anxiety about doom scrolling is to RTFA

Headline: The world is spiraling out of control

Body: X is happening that will impact Y in these specific ways. Z people are
working against X and trying tactics A & B...

The Headline is calibrated to maximize your anxiety. The Body is often
calibrated to the right level of anxiety and context. I find instead of trying
to mentally suppress Headline that freaks me out, and thus subconsciously
imagining the worst possible thing, RTFA helps to soften and calibrate the
anxiety more appropriately.

~~~
Robotbeat
The problem with that is we are bombarded with at least 10 times as many
headlines as articles can possibly be read. Even within an article, there will
be links to other headlines. Look at a news front page and there are enough
headlines immediately in view that would take an hour or five to read through.
There’s no way to “get ahead” by RTFA, and shaming people for only having seen
a misleading headline is attacking the victim, not the perpetrator. (You’re
not doing that here, but I often see it done online.)

We MUST start shaming media organizations that publish bullcrap headlines.
This is almost entirely the editors’ fault, BTW. The reporters don’t have
control over the headline.

~~~
ontifica
If news media is for profit, news media will naturally use the most engaging
headline to beat out competition. There is no solution to this problem unless
news is regulated or not for profit. You won't 'shame' an entire industry into
changing something they've been doing for centuries.

~~~
Robotbeat
Beats shaming humans for doing something they’ve been doing since the
invention of writing: reading titles before reading books or articlesz

------
terrymah
I, too, came for the procedurally generated Doom levels and left disappointed

------
noetokyo
I thought this was gonna be doom the game

~~~
chris_overseas
I'm wondering if there's anyone who _didn't_ think this!

~~~
joosters
I submitted this link, and I also thought it was going to be Doom the game
from where I originally saw it!

------
mtagius
Tired of doom scrolling? Try out my infinite scroll website that I promise
will not fill you with dread.

[https://endlessdonuts.us/](https://endlessdonuts.us/)

~~~
dencodev
I spend too much time on HN because my first thought in seeing these was to
add more randomness and unique features to the point that the probability of
getting an exact donut replica on a page load was near 0

~~~
mtagius
Haha, I love it. I tried that at first, but I had to prevent a bunch of combos
from being generated because the colors clashed bad or the icing/sprinkles
looked too messy.

------
ithkuil
I scrolled to the bottom and it said "no end in sight" but it stopped there

~~~
mistersquid
> I scrolled to the bottom and it said "no end in sight" but it stopped there

I could not verify your reported result after running this in my web browser
console:

    
    
      var scrollToBottom = function() {
       window.scrollTo(0,(document.scrollingElement.scrollHeight - window.innerHeight));
       setTimeout(function() {
        if (window.scrollY < (document.scrollingElement.scrollHeight - window.innerHeight)) {
         scrollToBottom();
        }
       } ,500);
       return
      }
      scrollToBottom();

------
Tepix
Elon Musk on avoiding daily news:

“ _The daily news I find to be a lot of noise. Generally newspapers seem to
try to answer the question, ‘What is the worst thing that happened on the
Earth today?’_ ”

~~~
varjag
Elon 'Covid will be over by April' Musk?

~~~
dvtrn
Yes that Elon Musk. People can say dumb things, and sometimes they can say
interesting things. No one is permanently locked into one or the other.

~~~
watwut
Apparently, instead of avoiding noise, his reading strategy got him into swamp
of covid deniers. I guess their opinions felt better.

So it is completely relevant when he is being treated as authority.

------
davedx
Hey, it’s the Guardian’s front page with less photos!

~~~
thomasahle
Is that a meme or something? I checked the current front page, and I think
it's only half bad.

> Coronavirus: UN warns of 'catastrophe' over school closures; France says
> second wave likely

Negative

> US Donald Trump flounders in interview over US Covid-19 death toll

Neutral

> Spain Country speculates over whereabouts of scandal-hit ex-king Juan Carlos

Neutral

> A good sign Sailors stranded on Pacific island saved by giant SOS in sand

Positive

> Climate crisis Rising temperatures will cause more deaths than all
> infectious diseases – study

Negative

> TikTok China hits out at US 'smash and grab' as tech row deepens China hits
> out at US 'smash and grab' as tech row deepens

Probably negative

> Thailand Country orders new investigation into Red Bull heir's alleged hit
> and run

Probably positive

> Brexit Number of UK citizens emigrating to EU has risen 30% since vote on
> withdrawal

Neutral

> Thailand Protesters openly criticise monarchy in Harry Potter themed rally

Probably positive

> Mexico Giant dam poised to displace indigenous people and flood graves

Negative

So four negatives and three positives.

Maybe people just focus too much on the negatives?

~~~
phtrivier
> Maybe people just focus too much on the negatives ?

Basically, yes.

Source: Wikipedia [1], and, also, every newspaper since pretty much forever
[2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism)

------
jpseawell
I half expected this to just redirect to twitter.

------
softwaredoug
Another thing to mitigate doom scrolling - read History

What we're experiencing now is part of a broad, generational change.
Regardless of your country or the outcome of any one election or news cycle,
the far right is emerging as a strong force. It will remain so in most Western
countries, maybe for decades.

Understand the broader sweeps and landscape. Understand that you're probably
like a drop in the ocean. If you see a part of it that's your duty, do your
duty. But do, or do not...

History shows us broad strokes oscillations of political winds, how often
things have seemed absolutely terrible, how things swing back often
unexpectedly. How even the most influential have little control over
affairs...

~~~
apta
> the far right is emerging as a strong force.

As a response to the far left. Not that I condone either.

------
thomasdd
I admire people who love to create useless unique things! That “luxury” of
nonsense! Great!

------
mberning
I thought I was on the front page of Reddit for a second. Well done.

~~~
xvector
Would actually be interesting to see a version of this with the Reddit
CSS/design, randomized upvotes and all.

------
grugagag
This is basically the news we’re reading and theres no end in sight

------
jwally
YOU DON’T NEED TO WATCH THAT MUCH NEWS You will never have the political power
to do something about all the terrifying problems we wave at you. The human
brain just isn’t designed to take in a whole world’s worth of disturbing news.
Most of us have enough trouble with the more mundane problems of finding inner
peace and securing happiness for our loved ones. We know this, but keep
winding you up anyway. In fact, the tension between the sheer quantity of
horrifying news and your real-world impotence to do much about it is part of
our consumer strategy.

#We create the illusion that being informed is a kind of action in itself#.

So to wash that guilt out—to eliminate the shame and discomfort you feel over
doing nothing as the world goes mad—you’ll keep tuning in. The “You don’t
actually need to be watching this all day” rule would be true even if news
stories were sorted logically and according to social importance. They aren’t:

Taibbi, Matt. Hate Inc. (p. 137). OR Books. Kindle Edition.

------
ackbar03
I thought it was gonna link to some articles at least

~~~
hatch_q
Randomly generated by GPT-3

~~~
Tepix
I don't see any info on how it is generated. Is it really GPT-3?

It would be interesting to have GPT-3 write a short teaser for each headline.

------
ldad
Something similar: [https://badnewsfirst.co/](https://badnewsfirst.co/)

------
brandonmenc
I expected more instances of the word "grim". Seems like every headline author
cannot not use that word lately.

------
CarlosCabrito
It feels like Doom Scroller at the time, was created to enhance user
experience and it is not pushed to drive further increases in profitability to
the point where it is a detriment to society.

I am curious to see if society will move towards providing a tick-box setting
to give users control over Doom Scrolling. Only time will tell.

------
fnord77
so, /r/politics

------
runawaybottle
In cognitive behavioral therapy this akin to “catastrophizing”.

------
asd
Here are all 338 headlines if scrolling isn't your thing.

[https://pastebin.com/1J0N8iLg](https://pastebin.com/1J0N8iLg)

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Is the list being looped? Considering the site is titled 'Endless'.

------
shahbaby
Nicely done

------
abhv
There was also "some good news" briefly, but that was purchased by ViacomCbs.

Maybe this OP is also looking for a media deal.

------
shipstern
How about adding a circular loader? Why not inserting some void into the
user's head before the doom continues?

------
kingkawn
If this were formatted to look a little more like a contemporary news site it
would be perfect

------
ivolimmen
338 different doom messages are not endless but depressing non the less...

------
gonational
There are two kinds of doomer news in 2020. The first is “the virus is going
to kill us all”. The second is “the things we’re all doing because of the
virus will kill us all”.

The former is fear-mongering, but the latter is true.

------
wpasc
Woah, wait til you guys see what the last one was!

------
colmvp
It's interesting that they chose precisely the same typeface used by the New
York Times for their wordmark.

------
rubin55
Ha! I found a:

“This Is Not the End”

Hope in the endless doom!

------
EmilioTT
Repetition detected..

------
kortex
Was expecting a procedurally-generated Doom sidescroller conversion.

I was nonetheless quite amused.

~~~
rgoulter
In case anyone hasn't seen it: Linear Doom
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM50BifVRHA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM50BifVRHA)

It's Doom, but if it were just a single, linear hallway.

~~~
IgorPartola
Also 2D Doom: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=puoB-
ofLF98](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=puoB-ofLF98)

