That's because it's obvious due to effects other than the one you're trying to observe. Which is of course the case when you're dealing with psychedelics (and of course many other drugs).
Last year I took a smartphone holiday for 4 months (switched to a dumbphone). It was a fantastic time and I regret "falling off the wagon" and getting a smartphone again.
I noticed a huge number of benefits, but one of the most surprising was that it forced me to confront a number of difficult decisions.
There were a few times in which I was bored (waiting at the passport office, sitting on a plane) in which I started to think about decisions I had to make that were very difficult in ways that caused me anxiety: firing a person I'm good friends with, shutting down a company, stuff like that.
I realized that ordinarily I would simply refuse to engage with the decision: I'd get on my phone or "get busy" somehow and so simply postpone thinking about the issue indefinitely.
But when you're stuck at the passport office for 2 hours with nothing to do, you can't but help think about the thing that is top of mind, anxiety be damned.
For someone that is prone to anxiety around certain topics (conflict avoidance, "disappointing" people, etc) having times in which I was forced to engage with the topic had truly enormous benefits.
> you can't but help think about the thing that is top of mind, anxiety be damned.
This really captures what I think is the main problem with our state of being constantly distracted: it feels at first like a relief from anxiety, but ultimately results in even small anxieties never properly being dealt with. The end result is a vicious cycle (or I guess virtuous if you sell online ads) of becoming more and more anxious causing us to rely more and more on the screen to distract us, which in turn only increases that backlog of anxiety.
I see this happen in a lot of younger people that are constantly on screens: they frequently mention their need to "chill for a bit" and yet spend most of their time doing nothing but staring at a screen. It's clear that they are living in a lukewarm vat of anxiety that they can't face while staring at a screen, but also one which causes them immediate stress when they do look away.
The anxiety does hit you back when in bed trying to sleep. I notice a vast difference in my ability to fall asleep if I've gone on a walk with a podcast in my ear vs just silently walking with my thoughts.
Wow, thank you for saying exactly this, this "deferred anxiety" probably does partly explain sleep issues I've had the last 3-4 years. I agreed with GP's comment and have more issues with screens, but didn't even notice this difference in how I take my walks now.
Sometimes my inner thoughts can crowd aside the podcast and I'll get home and realize I didn't hear anything from the podcast, but more often it keeps me distracted the whole time. I think unplugging from podcasts on walks and in the car is definitely worth a try.
Walking and movement is supposed to be a massive help for sleep, but in periods where I have more anxiety, this effect is stronger than the benefits of the walk itself. I manage a quite decent hygiene around my phone use, but buying in-ear headphones was quite a mistake on my part, as I found this difference quite soon after.
at least according to "irresistible" by adam alter, it's also close to the definition of behavioral addiction, more broadly when we routinely maladapt to engage with a certain behavior to avoid emotionally uncomfortable that gets worse due to the avoidance.
>"It's clear that they are living in a lukewarm vat of anxiety that they can't face while staring at a screen, but also one which causes them immediate stress when they do look away."
which sounds a whole lot like a word that starts with "a" and ends with "ddiction"
> it feels at first like a relief from anxiety, […] which in turn only increases that backlog of anxiety.
That’s exactly what’s describe in a book [0] I finished last week about addiction to nicotine. That book made the quit process easy by making you believe there’s nothing good about smoking, even the social aspect. They circle through every supposed advantages and disassemble one by one. There’s a few official rewrites for quitting "bad" sugars and taking good habits, not sure how they perform.
This exact same book has been modified to also help effortlessly quit porn. I say quit because its what will be understood the most easily by majority of people but it is in fact not quitting since quitting implies there's something valuable in porn. there isn't. its escaping the addiction.
Honestly its hands down one of the best methods to escape the addiction and besides you don't have anything to lose! either you successfully break free from the addiction or you stay the same (which doesn't happen from experience but its written to convince you to read it.)
https://read.easypeasymethod.org
This comes off as projective judgement. I don't think everyone agrees with you, holds the same moral values, or has the same negative relationship with sex, porn or other "vices". Some people are able to integrate things like alcohol, porn or whatever other moral sin of the week without negative effects on their life or relationships. These things aren't addictions for many people and there is also no value in making sweeping generalizations.
> Some people are able to integrate things like alcohol, porn or whatever other moral sin of the week without negative effects on their life or relationships. These things aren't addictions for many people and there is also no value in making sweeping generalizations.
A generalisation in itself. And I find your username interesting, given your comment.
Banter aside, there is A LOT of scientific literature about how porn is literally a damaging drug-like addiction.
It's like saying smoking is not bad for some people because they can quit whenever they want. Well, lucky them, but maybe they should, because having that capacity doesn't mean their lungs aren't getting irreversibly vandalised.
I agree that porn, as with any other source of dopamine, can be extremely addicting, and porn addiction in particular can destroy lives and relationships. But I wholly disagree that we can just go around pointing at things and essentially saying, "that objectively has no value to anyone and if you think it does for you, you're wrong.".
OP specifically says, "quitting since quitting implies there's something valuable in porn. there isn't." That's an insanely broad claim to make, and it ostracizes all non-addicts with healthy sexual proclivities and boundaries, and again we can replace porn here with a multitude of other things. In a general sense, OP's argument is flawed.
I agree with that and your responses to other siblings comments, generalizations are often wrong.
In the meantime I see how GP post was ambiguous and led to your rectification: he was writing as it's his own words, but in fact was paraphrasing the book series we're talking about [0]. But whatever it's GP or book authors' viewpoint, you are right to point out the logical fallacy. However I mostly disagree with this:
> there is also no value in making sweeping generalizations.
Those book series use this kind of generalization everywhere. You may argue those sentences are false - ok, but they still have a tremendous value: help the reader with their goal! One of the fondation of that method is the use of those sentence and in a sense (with extreme words) it's a brainwashing with false informations. But a very useful brainwashing that readers engage themselves consciously.
Also on a more linguistic side: people make generalizations everywhere to simplify the communication (Dogs are nice - Python versions management is always a pain - The internet has made everyone more connected...) and it often don't bother readers. But that's not the point here I guess.
0: just one exemple but there's plenty in every chapters, but I like this one because it's very factually debatable : > porn provides no genuine pleasure or crutch and you aren’t making a sacrifice. There’s nothing to give up[...]
You're correct, thanks for pointing that out, my snark was bleeding through there. Of course that statement itself is an absolutism, it was tongue-in-cheek but I certainly agree that generalizations can be valuable; however, sweeping generalizations can also be dangerous and require knowledge to wield effectively. When taken as a rule, they can do damage.
I don't think your excerpt is very factually debatable though, as "genuine" and "pleasure" are both vague and subjective words which reduces the discussion to one of semantics.
I rarely drink alcohol, I had my first drink yesterday in a year and a half and it was a small one. But I certainly won't preach that it has no value or provides no genuine pleasure. Or that everyone uses it as a crutch. I have a healthy relationship with it. It's not hard to imagine someone having a similarly healthy relationship with pornography. We can certainly speak on the toxic environment in the industry, and even on capitalism in general and how it subverts consent, which complicates ethical consumption. But as far as the consumption of porn, it's just like any other source of pleasure: stay away if you have trouble with moderation or compartmentalization. And in general, don't succumb to vices, keep a clear head and spend your limited time on this earth wisely. But we cannot be making proclamations about the objective value of subjective experiences.
To expend on sibling comment, sweeping generation has never been the goal neither most Muslims, sports enthusiasts or vegans want to force everyone live like they do. However when someone finds something incredibly valuable ( > projective judgement) they’ll try to share that with everyone else. It’s a generosity act!
The reasons themselves can be anything. Ethic is a powerful one, we often see life changes for psychic and/or physic health, time gain (time/benefit of an activity), money, whatever. Those methods are tools to self-help achieve your own goal. When it worked, we’re proud and keen to share it with friends and the world.
The issue is the absolutist claim of a lack of objective value. From a purely philosophical standpoint, you really can't make that claim about almost anything (within reason).
I responded in a sibling thread. Just note that your usage of "almost anything" here is probably the objectively right way to use absolute quantifiers, however it doesn't seems to me you're trying to be pedantic but instead want to discuss the meaning itself. In that sense we could say something like:
"You really can't say 'anything' about almost everything without a proximity quantifier like 'almost'".
of course. I wasn't trying to be "correct" or trying to be nuanced here. My goal was to make the lazier people reading the comment to be more intrigued by the line (which itself i did not invent by myself just paraphrasing the book as seen above), in order to be pushed towards opening the link and reading it.
(i apologize in advance but this really feels like an "uhm akshually" on your part )
The part when they declare it has no value comes off as quite an absolutism, moral judgement and sweeping generalization. You could replace porn with almost any other thing and the claim is still hard to defend.
That is basically what psychiatrists have been saying about the topic.
Humans need downtime to process emotions - in the olden days there was a lot of menial work which served this purpose, but we automated most of it since, freeing time for more productive, but stressful activities.
Meanwhile looking at screens allows one to leave all that for later. Unfortunately unprocessed emotions don't go away - they pile up.
I've been using this to gauge how well I'm doing mentally and address whatever issues there might be. My ideal state is that of a chimpanzee who was finally let outside after years in captivity which, upon leaving the building where it was kept, just stares at the sky.
That's a good insight, tech work is brain work, leaving little room for your own thoughts or processing stuff.
I had a summer job once at a production line, pick up foam piece, place on plastic piece, repeat for two hours, then a break. I did have a CD player at the time and earbuds, but other than that it was completely devoid of mental effort or stimulation. There was something weirdly meditative about it. Not something I'd want to do as a day job but I wouldn't mind for a bit.
I came to the very same conclusion - I need "empty time" to reflect, and prepare myself for my own life. For me, it was not smartphones, it started with books when I was a child, and continued with music players and alcohol later. Everything to keep the unwanted thoughts and feelings at bay. I am an excellent daydreamer as well, at times of stillness, I find something to "work on" in my mind.
What I ended up with is literally a time of day where I "sit with myself" and just think about things. I just sit down for some minutes and try to get my bearings on where I am in life right now. Also, I eliminated a lot of background noise and music - I often do menial things without any other distractions for example. Good opportunities to think about something deep.
For me that's when I take a shower. I think I take showers way too long, but it's just a thing I enjoy and I think through many topics then. Sometimes I am sad that I cannot take notes during the shower, but if I could, maybe I would be back to square one.
Alternatively... just let the thoughts be. I think writing them down, or even the compulsion of writing them down, sounds like a kind of anxiety in itself - "this is Important, I Must Remember it and Do Something with it as soon as I'm out!"
But if it's important enough you'll remember or it'll come back to you next time you shower. Or not. Either way is fine.
Same for me. The thoughts came when I was taking a shower, or trying to fall asleep. For me, these times did not work for thinking at all, and I just ended up hating and avoiding both, to tell you the truth. The specific "sitting down with myself" time actually helped me to de-stress these other two, so now I'm much calmer when taking a shower, or trying to fall asleep.
But you can (take notes in the shower). I do and it helps me offload the burden of forgetting those shower thoughts.
It has also made me realize that these fleeting thoughts are not as smart as I thought they were.
I believe one of the side effects of the loss of “empty” time to reflect is that people tend to rush decisions even when there’s time enough to think it through, as it were more important to take a quick decision rather than a good one.
Meditation is such a superpower. It costs nothing - not even time when you realize through meditation that there is no such thing as time, and emptying your mind is a great way to be in the now - it's "easy" in the sense that you don't really need to know anything, just let go of things. Letting go is tricky because we tend do engage with it in an active way and that's already grabbing on to something. Letting go is the opposite of doing anything.
Learning to just sit still and let the universe (including whatever your mind does) flow around you... It makes a huge difference in mental health. It really cannot be overstated how beneficial for humans it is to just have downtime and do literally nothing but breathing.
But I know it's hard. Our whole culture is predicated upon being busy. But we can just put everything down and be empty for a bit every once in a while and it is so beneficial.
I absolutely hate running, my cardio sucks and I like to lift heavy multiple times per week.
But when I run I don’t bring anything, no music no phone just a watch to track speed and time.
I get all my best thinking done during those runs. I run slow and it hurts and it never improves but I go for 1-2 hours just so I can get more disconnected thinking done
Same. Running or walking. Sometimes I make a point of thinking/feeling through recent times and processing those thoughts and emotions. Other times, I treat it as a moving meditation, and try to clear my mind when thoughts enter.
Either way, I find I feel much better when I take a break from screens, news, and podcasts, and give my mind time to do its thing.
A couple of times recently when I've not pulled out the phone, I've ended up having an interesting chat with somebody nearby.
Be open to having others talk with you by having an inviting look. And perhaps recognize when others are being inviting and feel out if they seem keen on yakking.
Imagine a subculture developing where some people just recognize other sociables. Maybe we need masonic-like rings or something else to identify us as welcoming random conversion.
Concentrating on your phone is as much of a conversation stopper as headphones.
I think it also encourages socialization. Chatting with someone instead of being engrossed in your phone.
I did a screen time detox a few years back. After hearing a similar idea about needing to get to boredom sometimes and not just escaping to a device. Only used a computer for work and exclusively worked on it, then no screen time whatsoever. Maybe lasted 3 weeks or so and made me more interested in stuff like reading, drawing, etc.
From time to time I follow a policy of 'no idle screen time'. Essentially this means if I am using a screen I must have a definite purpose in mind. It really cuts down on how much time I spend on my phone or computer in general, but ironically increases the amount of work I get done (I work almost exclusively on a computer).
Some benefits I noticed after a short while include feeling much calmer (low level feeling of anxiety largely absent), actually actively listening to music again (instead of just using it for background noise), reading books again (even renewed my library card after 10+ years), keeping a more organised home, eating better, getting more exercise, and organising more time to spend with friends and family.
I've tried this a couple of times, and the only things I miss are:
- Navigation (can be solved with a dedicated device, but it's a lot less convenient)
- A good camera at all times (I used to not care about this, but it's become more important now I have kids)
- Mobile payments (pretty essential in my country, not all places accept cards or cash)
In every other aspect, it was a net positive in my life to get rid of my phone.
This is what's held me back as well, but I recently discovered the Minimal phone which is an android phone with all the things you mentioned, but with a less distracting e-ink display.
I "pre-ordered" one, and it has not yet arrived. I have given up on ever receiving my phone, and just consider it a lesson learned. If I receive it, that will be a happy occurrence. It should have arrived 4 months ago (at least that's what they said when I ordered it). They tell me it will arrive in the next month (depending on customs clearance times). They have said it will arrive in the next month multiple times. Those statements have all been inaccurate so far. Maybe it will show up one day.
Reviews seem good, thanks for the hint. I guess I'll go order it because the grayscale mode on my Pixel 8 had zero effect, videos are just as good apparently.
Curiously Mininal Phone didn't show up when I did research half a year ago, it seems new.
For a camera, I suggest buying a real, standalone camera (I have a fuji x100). The photos it takes are VASTLY better than an iphone. For something smaller that fits in a pocket, people say great things about the Ricoh GR III.
Unfortunately, I found that being out without a smartphone did cause certain anxieties for me: What if I forgot about an appointment? What if I get an urgent email or whatsapp?
The answer would be having an actual assistant (ie, a secretary). Someone I could call to order me an uber or look up a restaurant, and someone who could call me to say "hey, X just sent you a whatsapp message that seems pretty urgent."
I that an AI powered assistant that communicates via phone or text could be a great use for AI and something I hope to code up whenever I have some spare time.
I don't know... I'm of the opinion that there's no such thing as an "urgent email" or similar. Urgent things should be handled via synchronous technology--like a phone call.
That reminds me of Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture, discussing how he handled his boss demanding a way to contact him in his honeymoon in case of a work emergency.
Pausch gave his boss the number of his new mother in law. In case of an emergency, the boss could explain to the mother in law why it was worth interrupting her daughter’s honeymoon, in which case the mother in law would relay the message.
This is cool. AI assistant which operates the real smartphone hidden somewhere in a drawer, and the only interface would be voice chat or text via dumbphone! I am in.
The big LLM companies should have employees using only a dumb phone connected only to their LLM as a way to accomplish tasks or get information. Would rapidly improve the UX of their chat programs I’m sure.
The main things I needed to remove are the web browser and email client to make it ~ a dumbphone. I don't find myself wasting time staring at maps, or a weather app, or a calorie tracker, or camera/photos so I don't feel there's any reason to forgo those. (YMMV of course!)
I have a smartphone that runs signal, the phone app, the camera app, and a mapping app. Why not do the same?
I have never logged into anything except signal on a phone. I haven't removed the browser but I don't have any interest in using it and have only used it to look up wikipedia stuff while traveling and what not. If I did feel some temptation to web browse on it I could remove the browser.
I find it surprising that anyone wants to browse on their phone, I find the tiny screen infuriating.
Like you mention, they are still decent for reading : HN, Slashdot before that, Wikipedia, various RSS feeds : I was already doing it before smartphones got touchscreens, WiFi, and dirt cheap cellular data : by using Opera mini on a Nokia.
I’d like to inform you that I share your same anxieties. I read a book called “Difficult Conversations” (Patron, stone, heen). It didn’t remove all the anxiety, but it gave me A framework to lean on to get started, which was half of the stress. I think it will always suck having to fire people you like.
I just had a day "off" because of some work on the 5G tower nearby. I can feel my brain chemistry change when the line is off. I don't feel the need to constantly check. There was a limited service bandwidth but it was too unreliable for my brain to want to wait for its dose of webpage refreshing. It sucks the long term / in-depth brain states .. it's so weird.
Do you ever have trouble falling into past decisions, and over analyzing them, and doubling down on your anxiety?
I would love to get rid of my smart phone, but the problems I dwell on are very rarely present or future decisions, and realistically what is top of my mind anxiety be damned is useless energy, it's like running a wind turbine off the grid, and forcing it to spin as if it were a big fan instead of running the grid off wind turbines. The thoughts are more like did I disappoint that friend last weekend, or did I dissapoint that coworker at the Christmas party 6 months ago, or did I do <x> that definitely didn't create <y>, but did I do <x> that made <y> happen?
I use chess apps on my phone to at least put my brain off those thoughts entirely because I have a different problem to solve, and that is magnificent, and if If I didn't have that I don't know what I would do. I know there's something probably not quite right, but I'm wondering how much time you end up spending on problems that "can't be solved," and how much is time spent actually solving problems in your life. If that makes any sense.
What you are describing sounds precisely like your brain trying to do some emotional processing and you are shutting it down because you think it's not useful. If you are looking for the productive spin, then I would suggest trying some metathinking. Try to discover why your brain decides to bring this up to your attention. The specific story might seem banal, but uncovering the underlying pattern will teach you things about yourself that you might not be aware of yet, like what you are afraid in life.
Don’t worry about the past, what’s done is done. Learn from it to do better next time and move on. Most people won’t remember the thing you’re freaking out about because it was something minor in their lives.
Ah. Well I didn't mention all the benefits, but what I was referring to here were future decisions, not past ones. Decisions I had put off taking because they caused me great anxiety but that nonetheless had to be done, and the sooner the better.
Other benefits:
- Vastly improved mood
- Renewed interest in creative endeavors, specifically writing
- A sense of well-being
- A "the scales have fallen from my eyes" realization/epiphany/gnosis around the nature of reality and the effect "weaponized language delivery mechanisms" (ie, social media) have on our perception of it.
Pretty fucking worth it, if you asked me. And yet I fell off the wagon and have a smartphone again.
You are clearly better for your temporary retreat. It is still with you. Reducing contact with the world is not the only way to deal with its less helpful siren calls.
Distraction free can also mean, “free despite distraction”.
You created some very positive grooves in your thought patterns, that you can keep using, to recall and reset awareness of what matters at any moment.
10 seconds meditating on what you experienced and learned can reset a day.
Knowing and remembering the contrast is a great way to wade through the complications of life, but avoid drowning again.
A another superpower is to have clearly defined personal missions. Then continually asking “is this helping?” quickly exposes and resolves both mundane and profound derailments. Vast time can be wasted by things that are healthy, but just not the optimal path, too!
For me, the only extreme measures I take are to avoid any exposure or giving attention to advertising. And zero exposure to opinion media (whether views “lean” in a way I sympathize with or not). That stuff just constantly models a norm of sleepwalking into a flattened reality.
After that, I just pay attention unintended wasted time and course correct whenever healthy exposure to novelty flips to low quality or extended hit seeking. We do benefit from some of the former.
I was lucky to grow up without television. Nobody had to teach me the difference between influence and inspiration and I won’t ever let that get watered down.
It scares me how most people’s world views get smashed into low artificially discrete dimensions, down selected empathy and synthetically narrowed concerns, when the if, buts, mostly, sometimes, in general but often not in particular, …, nature of reality and people seems to become invisible to so many even though it isn’t hidden at all.
And I am talking about the smart high intentioned people!
It is important to remind each other to think, each for ourselves. Don’t ever categorize one’s world view as an allegiance to any school of thought, or take any of the other common steps that subtly channel our awareness away from unfiltered reality, hand us menus of default views, or numb our ability to spy the omnipresent gems of value in the most alternate views.
So thanks for posting your experience!
We can live a high contact life and benefit from the roughness and stickiness of untamed social reality, instead of being sanded down by it.
Is it good to have anxiety over things you have to do where there really aren’t options. Unless you’re saying you figured out better decisions due to the additional thinking. But if the end result was simply more anxiety — mine being distracted on the phone.
This is a self-reinforcing concept as well; I haven't read the other book mentioned (The Anxious Generation, I put it on my wishlist) but I'm convinced that it makes mention of this as well, that is, not being on your phone in these interstitial moments is in itself a cause of anxiety, not so much because of the places your mind wanders but because of its constant presence and repeated mini dopamine hits. Addiction, basically.
I've got a vacation planned, I should make a point of it to leave my phone alone for distraction / entertainment / interstitial moments.
Why didn't you list the downsides, what you missed from not having a smart phone? Was it because there weren't any or because you thought they were obvious?
Having a mobile, networked computer with us at all times has been a huge benefit in many ways and I find it hard to believe people would chuck it all due forming habits they don't like. Habits can be molded pretty easily if approached in a conscious way.
I asked a good friend that runs a multi-billion dollar CPG business that relies on China imports. His answer:
> Almost guaranteed.
> There are some categories (toys, pet stuff,computer accessories) where HUGE percentages of goods are made in china. Those shelves will be empty as soon as inventory runs out, which will be soon.
> Shelves would get re-stocked once tariffs are removed and the ships start sailing again.
> If it takes longer than 60 days from now, we're looking at 10s of thousands of bankruptcies. This will make covid look like a weekend at the ritz carlton. Biggest financial crisis since the great depression.
My takeaway: People are not taking this NEARLY seriously enough.
My tinfoil hat interpretation: The US govt knows how serious this is, and they know that if people panic (which honestly, they fucking should) it increases China's leverage substantially.
Thanks! I was super confused, as there are several corporations with generic-sounding names that shorten to GPG.
I agree with your points btw. My friend is a retail director specializing in this area and has been at pains to educate me (and anyone else willing to listen) on the depth and severity of the impending supply dislocation.
In elixir, ```Map.get("user") |> create_user |> notify_admin ``` would aso be valid, standard elixir, just not idiomatic (parens are optional, but preferred in most cases, and one-line pipes are also frowned upon except for scripting).
With the disclaimer that I don't know Elixir and haven't programmed with the pipeline operator before: I don't like that special () syntax. That syntax denotes application of the function without passing any arguments, but the whole point here is that an argument is being passed. It seems clearer to me to just put the pipeline operator and the name of the function that it's being used with. I don't see how it's unclear that application is being handled by the pipeline operator.
Also, what if the function you want to use is returned by some nullary function? You couldn't just do |> getfunc(), as presumably the pipeline operator will interfere with the usual meaning of the parentheses and will try to pass something to getfunc. Would |> ( getfunc() ) work? This is the kind of problem that can arise when one language feature is permitted to change the ordinary behaviour of an existing feature in the name of convenience. (Unless of course I'm just missing something.)
I am also confused with such syntax of "passing as first argument" pipes. Having to write `x |> foo` instead of `x |> foo()` does not solve much, because you have the same lack of clarity if you need to pass a second argument. Ie `x |> foo(y)` in this case means `foo(x,y)`, but if `foo(y)` actually gives you a function to apply to `x` prob you should write `x |> foo(y)()` or `x |> (foo(y))()` then as I understand it? If that even makes sense in a language. In any case, you have the same issue as before, in different contexts `foo(y)` is interpreted differently.
I just find this syntax too inconsistent and vague, and hence actually annoying. Which is why I prefer defining pipes as composition of functions which can then be applied to whatever data. Then eg one can write sth like `(|> foo1 foo2 (foo3) #(foo4 % y))` and know that foo1 and foo2 are references to functions, foo3 evaluates to another function, and when one needs more arguments in foo4 they have to explicitly state that. This gives another function, and there is no ambiguity here whatsoever.
> if `foo(y)` actually gives you a function to apply to `x` prob you should write `x |> foo(y)()`
If foo(y) returned a function, then to call it with x, you would have to write foo(y).(x) or x |> foo(y).(), so the syntax around calling the anonymous function isn't affected by the pipe. Also, you're not generally going to be using pipelines with functions that return functions so much as with functions that return data which is then consumed as the first argument by the next function in the pipeline. See my previous comment on this thread for more on that point.
There's no inconsistency or ambiguity in the pipeline operator's behavior. It's just syntactic sugar that's handy for making your code easier to read.
> Having to write `x |> foo` instead of `x |> foo()` does not solve much, because you have the same lack of clarity if you need to pass a second argument
That's actually true. In Scala that is not so nice, because then it becomes `x |> foo(_, arg2)` or, even worse, `x |> (param => foo(param, arg2))`. I have a few such cases in my sourcecode and I really don't like it. Haskell and PureScript do a much better job keeping the code clean in such cases.
A skilled assembly worker makes closer to $30 or $40 an hour than $25. And that doesn't account for overtime. A skilled tradesman can make $40+.
Manufacturing is skilled, well-paid labor that requires commitment, attention, and care. That is why there's a shortage of labor--not because of wages.
>>A skilled assembly worker makes closer to $30 or $40 an hour than $25. And that doesn't account for overtime. A skilled tradesman can make $40+.
In theory. In practice the numbers are way lower.
As some one who has done quite a big time in India IT services firms, have lots of war stories, our Delivery manager would often tell us if US managers only knew adjusted for regular all nighters, whole week on-call hell weeks. Development phases where teams would be working days at stretch in office. The actual per hour rate of an engineer in India is at best $1 - $5 an hour. You just can't bill the customer that way.
Only reason why this even works is India is still poor and people work for anything.
Im sure, adjust for everything(in real practice) manufacturing hourly wages in China aren't all that different and wouldn't be surprised if they are at something like $1 per hour, or something such.
Americans have little idea how much affluence and luxury their ordinary citizen has. Most of the world would do anything even to be poor in the US.
Fair enough to say nobody in the US is signing up to work a hellish factory job for $1/hr anytime soon.
Like OP, I work in manufacturing (after 15 years in startup land). I'm not as experienced as him, but I work in manufacturing that makes similar products on both sides of the US/Mexico border.
Let me add some thoughts:
1) Capacity, not cost, is the main driver for nearshoring. All things being equal, a manufacturer would rather produce a product in the US than overseas. The cost of modern products is mostly parts & material, not labor. When you add logistcs expenses, the theoretical cost advantage of overseas vs local is not that great. Remember:the people on the other side of the border are capitalists too! They want to keep most of the surplus of nearshoring to themselves! The problem is that there simply is no capacity, both in facilities and especially in people.
2) What matters even more than capacity is the first derivative of capacity. In other words: how quickly can I spin up a new factory if I win a big deal? How quickly can I spin one down if the client goes away? How long will it take me to get a permit to connect my new factory to the highway? In the US, these costs and timelines are massive. Real estate, permitting, hiring. There is an order of magnitude difference here, in cost and time.
3) The labor problems are real. I don't want to disparage the american workers I work with, because they are amazing. Truly fantastic craftsmen. But they are hard to find. You'd be surprised how many people show up who can't read or can't read a tape measure. How hard it is to find people that want to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. By contrast, in our overseas facility we have qualified workers literally showing up at our gate every day asking for work.
In other words, the root cause problems with american manufacturing are—-surprise surprise!--the same problems as with other parts of the US that are in decay:
- Disfunctional local government, especially around permitting, construction, housing and transit
- Disfunctional education & healthcare systems.
- A lack of strategic investment in infrastructure (rail, highways)
- A social safety net that is totally out of whack, with a high cost burden for employers & employees, with little to no immediate quality-of-life benefits for the working population
The cost of manufacturing your stuff is not labor dependent only because you are probably putting together low cost components made with cheap labor. What if you had to make the spring or the resistor or the little painted metal box? Could you do that without labor being the big cost?
What? How much labor do you think goes into making a spring or a resistor? These are parts which cost fractions of a cent and are cranked out by the tens of millions.
The fact that WhatsApp is also gigantic in large countries with no intermobility between them (Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria) would suggest that the only issue that mattered was the fact that ~2011, mobile carriers would charge insane rates for SMS.
For sure, but from what I understand, in some European Countries in 2011, SMS was free if your recipient was inside the country but cost if they were not due to tariffs and interconnect fees. Since Europeans do move between countries thanks to that European Union thing, it became a problem and WhatsApp became the solution.
Sure, other countries it might have picked up domestically thanks to high SMS prices but low data prices.
To reinforce the real-world value of contact secrecy, let me share an example of how WhatsApp's contact broadcasting is creating massive opportunities for scammers where I live (Mexico).
In WhatsApp, when you join a "community" (sort of like a giant, moderated group), all members of the community are visible to all other members. You can see their phone numbers and their self-chosen nickname. Note that very frequently people will have their names or a shortened version of their name as their nickname.
In emerging markets, people use WhatsApp for everything and many people will naturally join a few communities. Things like:
- A community for your kid's school
- A community for your neighborhood's safety alerts.
- A community for a club or hobby.
So a scammer's workflow is as follows:
1. Infiltrate a community or a group.
2. Check all of the members and find those whose names are publicly shared or you can deduce.
3. Use their name, phone and--crucially--information about the community itself to craft a targeted phishing phone call.
Example:
Sandra is a part of a community for neighborhood safety news. The community is called "Hillsborough safety." Her whatsapp nickname is "Sandy Williams."
A scammer will join the community and see her contact. They will then call her with a message like "Hi, is this Sandra Williams? Yes, I'm calling from the Hillsborough police department. Unfortunately there's been an accident with your husband...".
You can imagine how the simple fact of knowing someoen's name and some sort of "proprietary knowledge" (they know I live at Hillside!) can be enought to for a victim to lower their defenses.
An additional layer to this is that often the scammer will social-engineer their way into gaining access to the victim's Whatsapp account itself. They can then access all of the groups that victim was a member of, including "tight" friend groups, etc.
IMHO contact broadcasting is an inexcusable design decision by WhatsApp.
Like...nobody could ever take a macro dose of LSD or mushrooms and not know it.