Dhamma Talk Video 158: Cause and Effect (in Social Media)
Here’s a 59-min recorded video (186MB .mp4 - Tip: tap-and-hold to “Download link”, or right click to “Save Link As…“).
Topics:
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Desire, addiction, “Open World” video games, “Don’t use willpower, use Wisdom Power”, comparison of “Contra” and “Legend of Zelda” video games; changing the model, changing the framing; agati, wrong path, “anger, envy, fear, outrage”, discerning needs from wants
Sutta References:
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from 92 suttas from the Early Buddhist Texts on Dependent Origination, the stock definition:
“And what, bhikkhus, is dependent origination? With ignorance as condition, volitional formations come to be; with volitional formations as condition, consciousness; with consciousness as condition, name-and-form; with name-and-form as condition, the six sense bases; with the six sense bases as condition, contact; with contact as condition, feeling; with feeling as condition, craving; with craving as condition, clinging; with clinging as condition, existence; with existence as condition, birth; with birth as condition, aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair come to be. Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering. This, bhikkhus, is called dependent origination.
Past Dhamma Talk References:
Other References:
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“Engineered Addictions” - How silicon valley is putting a price tag on your attention - and relationships
Inevitable Corruption: Every attempt to “fix” social media eventually becomes part of the problem because the economic structure creates inevitable corruption of the original mission. The pattern is always the same: start with connection, end with extraction.
Algorithm Manipulation: To maximize time-on-platform, you need to show people content that keeps them scrolling. Algorithms surface whatever provokes strong emotional responses - anger, envy, fear, outrage. The feed becomes a drug dealer and the drug is dopamine and emotional surges.
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License:
- My work (the video above): Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)