
Merlin Mann: Better - benofsky
http://www.merlinmann.com/better
======
seiji
It's The Society of Drivel effect.

Morning radio shows on rock/alt stations perfected it a long time ago -- focus
your segments around sex and alcohol. Throw in fart jokes too for good
measure. Hoards of simple people will flock to you.

We've moved on though. More dangerous than airwave broadcast drivel is our
newfound self-participatory drivel. reddit lets you think you're being clever.
HN lets you think you're being smart. Brain rot personalized to your
interests. It slips around your "I'm wasting my life" filters for hours
(days?) at a time.

Sometimes it's good. You want to turn your brain off. Browsing reddit is
cheaper than antidepressants. You just have to guard against too much looping.
Infinite loops of social media consumption are hazardous to your health.
Everything in moderation, including moderation.

All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.

~~~
phlux
I love it when I come to a thread, HN or reddit, and I read the first comment
and think "Cool, I'm done with this topic, no need to read ay other comments.
<clicks x>

~~~
phillco
Upvoted? Nope. Ctrl+W'd.

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praptak
I think it's a good time to reread <http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html> :
( _"A crap link is one that's only superficially interesting. Stories on HN
don't have to be about hacking, because good hackers aren't only interested in
hacking, but they do have to be deeply interesting."_ )

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runjake
This has been submitted to HN quite a few times. Here's the last one I
personally remember: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1704931>

You can Google for "<http://www.merlinmann.com/better>
site:news.ycombinator.com" for past discussions and thoughts.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I posted a reply to this that got auto-killed for some reason. Hilariously,
that only reinforces the point I was hoping to make, which nobody will read.
:-)

~~~
TheSOB88
Obviously, it was auto-killed for the sex references. Because then it must be
drivel.

------
bherms
I like reading people write about how people shouldn't write insignificant
shit. While I agree with him, it's always slightly ironic.

~~~
jhermsmeyer
Exactly. Navel gazing at its finest, something the Merlin does with some
frequency. Though to his credit, he does do it well.

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ChrisLTD
Is Merlin telling me to stop reading Hacker News?

~~~
mrspeaker
I don't know about that, but anyone who writes a comment on this article
totally missed the point.

Err.

~~~
zem
or disagreed with it!

------
achompas
Very interesting to see this article on HN. Guess we're having a Merlin run
here?

I'd actually go as far as to say that "Better" has shaped my thinking about
social networking and the Internet in general. Attention is a finite resource
-- even moreso for those who struggle to focus -- and as someone with an
economics background I'm tempted to consider the marginal benefit vs. marginal
cost of the things I read about on the Internet.

Usually these comparisons usually come out strongly negative, even when we're
talking about Hacker News. We would get much more out of a chapter of CLRS or
an OSS patch than something from Techcrunch or Daring Fireball.

Just something to consider.

~~~
pgroves
You would probably like the economist Tyler Cowen's books. There are several
but in one (I forget which) he goes so far as to say you should walk out of
movies after 10 minutes if you aren't enjoying it and walk into the middle of
another. Any other strategy is a waste of precious time.

He writes a ton of book reviews on his blog (marginal-revolution.com), but
half the time the review is "I probably won't be finishing this one."

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aditya
Better is relative.

While I love reading well researched and thoughtful pieces on certain topics,
I also like the fact that, for instance, on HN there are quite a few off the
cuff "idea" posts that are half-baked but meant to inspire conversation and
discussion than to be authoritative treatises on the subject.

Merlin wanted to stop consuming and producing half-baked ideas and content,
and that is his call.

------
lizzard
I think part of this comes with age. We realize we don't have a lot of time
left, we've accumulated a lot of cruft in our information input habits as well
as in what we produce, and there's a strong impulse to focus. Writers and
philosophers thousands of years ago were also complaining about this same
thing and coming to the same conclusion.

------
ericn
All I know is Merlin Mann became famous by selling productivity porn. Now he
repents and he's a prophet?

------
dreamdu5t
In a nutshell: We don't know our neighbors, yet we spend our time reading news
about countries we'll never even visit.

~~~
tomjen3
Most people and most things aren't interesting, so I will be better of looking
at what is than whom I have been randomly placed nearby.

