Manifesto - Blackmail.wtf

FREEDOM FROM YOUR PHONE

Right now some of the world's most talented people are working overtime to stop you from putting down your phone.

But first look at this bird ↓

Look at this pigeon. When the light comes on he gets a treat. He spends all his time pecking away, addicted to getting his little reward.

He could be flying with his friends in the infinite blue sky, soaring through the clouds, crapping on people's heads.

Instead he wastes his time chasing meaningless, positive feedback from an indifferent machine.

What an IDIOT.

How did this happen?

This is B.F Skinner. He is the father of behavioral psychology.

Here he is experimenting on pigeons in his lab. ↓

Manipulating them to do his bidding through a simple system of semi-random rewards and punishments.

These innovations were immediately implemented by the gambling industry.

It turns out cutting-edge psychological research is very important when your profits depend on people consistently making bad decisions.

Ever been to a casino?

Look around and you won't see joyful, smiling faces. You'll see an array of pained, stressed grimaces (and that's just the winners).

Casinos have been designed with the help of psychologists to manipulate, coax and nudge people into gambling as long as possible.

The Casino in your Pocket

In the early days of online gaming a software conglomerate employed a safeguarding team of behavioural psychologists to make sure their games weren't addictive.

The psychologists produced a large report detailing all the things that the developers shouldn't do to hook their players. Of course, the sales department promptly sacked the psychologists and implemented every tactic, trick and strategy they had warned against.

These same tactics are used to keep you on the hedonic treadmill that is your smartphone.

BIRD BRAIN

We are now the pigeons: Reduced to feedback in a cybernetic system optimised for slimy advertisers.

The apps on your phone don't care about your wellbeing. Their purpose is to improve an abstract metric linked to a stranger's performance related bonus.

BREAK FREE

On your deathbed do you think you will regret not using your phone more?

Would Shakespeare have finished writing Hamlet if he'd had access to Raid Shadow Legends?

Blackmail hopes to create a small space where you can be free from your phone.

Fighting the modern psychological tactics of nudges and incentives is simple when you use the oldest motivational strategy, one not available to our pigeon friends:

SHAME

Postscript

A Note about Boredom

The most valuable resource is time.

Of course, you know this already, but you choose to ignore it.

Frittering it away, tuned out, glued to your phone.

Have you noticed that no one is bored but everything is boring?

Maybe you remember a time when you weren't constantly occupied?

The pre-smartphone era was one of intermittent boredom.

Boredom is the mother of creativity.

Now we experience constant low-level stimulation, often coupled with intermittent anxiety.

Boredom was the dominant emotion of the industrial society.

In the information society it has been replaced by anxiety.

Putting down your phone, exiting the world of constant updates and micro-rewards, might help you to be more creative and less anxious.

When you open an app, advertisers and data-miners bid for your attention in lightning-fast automated auctions. This skews rewards for app developers. Their primary goal is not to provide fun, utility, or value. It's to keep you hooked, to hijack your attention, and then rent it out to the highest bidder. Regaining your focus is very important.

Not long ago, my phone broke. I found myself constantly fidgeting, looking for a non-existent device to check. I even felt phantom notifications, where I sensed a phone rattle in my empty pocket. At the same time, I spent a lot more time doing things that I felt were important. I didn't miss being constantly updated. After a few days, the FOMO faded away, and I felt much calmer.