Bookmarks: July 2023
Visual Essays, Video Games, Virtual Worlds, and a Very Good Podcast Episode
Hi, welcome to Dilemmas of Meaning, a journal at the intersection of philosophy, culture, and technology. This is July’s ‘Bookmarks’ in our Discovery series. In this month’s post we’re highlighting why it’s so hard to delete your Amazon account, memories of the Metaverse, a fun way to kill a few hours, and the last thing we’ll post about AI (for now). Keep your recommendations coming. See you all next month.
How Dark Patterns Trick You Online - The Nerdwriter
Ever found yourself trying to cancel an account or unsubscribe from a newsletter you don’t remember signing up for (hahahaha)? I’ll never forget how hard TikTok fought to have me share my contacts with it, popping up every few hours hoping to catch me off guard.
This insightful video shows the simply psychological tool websites and companies use to keep you trapped in their digital prison and funnel you into choosing options they want. Watch this to discover the multistep process just to delete your amazon account.
The Password Game - neal.fun
This one’s pretty simple. Ever been prompted to create a new password, now imagine that, but fun. I’ve been playing around with this and have lost hours of my life. 10/10.
Lessons From the Catastrophic Failure of the Metaverse - Kate Wagner
Something I’ve been thinking about is the cost of being wrong on the internet. We were told several times by those older (and in their mind wiser) that the internet was forever and everything you did would follow you around. I’ve found this to be mostly true especially for individuals. Shout-out to ‘this you,’ the best thing Twitter gave us (RIP). However, once you get enough money, it seems like you become surrounded by goldfish. Predictions and grand pronouncements of what the future will be or what is claimed to be the most important thing you must pay attention are conveniently forgotten right as they are proven false. Remember how we would all pay for everything with bitcoin, remember how we would never leave the house and go to the cinema, remember Clubhouse and Houseparty?
Kate Wagner takes aim at last year’s model and the thing that was supposed radically transform human connection: The Metaverse. Facebook literally changed its name to Meta in anticipation. As prophets of the coming change quietly pretend they didn’t pour the GDP of small countries into a term I haven’t said out loud in months, Wagner does a post-mortem. Looking back at a period of mass hype, she aims to answer the question, why did ostensibly ‘smart’ people go all in on a product clearly doomed to fail. The article is short and sweet and aims to ensure we avoid that oft repeated caution: those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
How to Talk about AI - The Vergecast
No this isn’t deja-vu. I’ve written two essays now on talking about AI and still found this conversation clarifying. The podcast hosts go through a few popular AI jargon and discuss why they all kind of suck and encourage people to use them in strange ways. We’re only highlighting the conversation starting at 28:36, but the podcast is a personal favourite. Listen if you like what you’ve read thus far on the topic but want something conversational, easy to listen to, or you’re lazy and rather listen than read, we won’t judge (well only a little).