What kind of questions / domains were you encountering false information on?
Most false information was on the hardware description language VHDL that I'm currently learning.
Readit Newskobenni commented on Study mode openai.com/index/chatgpt-... · Posted by u/meetpateltech
An underrated quality of LLMs as study partner is that you can ask "stupid" questions without fear of embarrassment. Adding in a mode that doesn't just dump an answer but works to take you through the material step-by-step is magical. A tireless, capable, well-versed assistant on call 24/7 is an autodidact's dream.
I'm puzzled (but not surprised) by the standard HN resistance & skepticism. Learning something online 5 years ago often involved trawling incorrect, outdated or hostile content and attempting to piece together mental models without the chance to receive immediate feedback on intuition or ask follow up questions. This is leaps and bounds ahead of that experience.
Should we trust the information at face value without verifying from other sources? Of course not, that's part of the learning process. Will some (most?) people rely on it lazily without using it effectively? Certainly, and this technology won't help or hinder them any more than a good old fashioned textbook.
Personally I'm over the moon to be living at a time where we have access to incredible tools like this, and I'm impressed with the speed at which they're improving.
In my experience asking questions to Claude, the amount of incorrect information it gives is on a completely different scale in comparison to traditional sources. And the information often sounds completely plausible too. When using a text book, I would usually not Google every single piece of new information to verify it independently, but with Claude, doing that is absolutely necessary. At this point I only use Claude as a stepping stone to get ideas on what to Google because it is giving me false information so often. That is the only "effective" usage I have found for it, which is obviously much less useful than a good old-fashioned textbook or online course.
Admittedly I have less experience with ChatGPT, but those experiences were equally bad.
The problem is I know that I am completely addicted, but I cannot stop. I feel like I'm the alcoholic drinking a bottle of vodka a day. I have tried to give up many times but I just can't crack it. Every time I have a good day the next day just slides right back into addiction. I probably average around 5-10 hours of pointless screen time a day (scrolling random youtube clips. Researching items I will never buy. Fantasizing about jobs I can never get. )
I have tried all kinds of blocking software and strategies. Blocking software, however elaborate, never seems to make a different. You find one way or another to get around the block and then after a while turning off the block just becomes part of your muscle memory. The most extreme thing I tried was cutting off the internet to my house and going back to a dumbphone for 6 months. For sure, I probably had less screen time. But I also spent many hours sitting in the station using the public wifi or watching hours and hours of pointless television.
This is a really tough nut to crack. I think there is probably no technological solution to it.
This post reminds me of myself in the past.
One thing I found very helpful was to regularly practice mindfulness meditation, as it reduces my desire for entertainment and generally seems to improve my executive function a lot. It also caused other improvements to my well-being in general.
Regarding a technological solution to blocking, I did the following (on Android, I can handle myself on non-portable devices):
1: Use adguard to block the relevant addresses on DNS level. I chose adguard specifically because it allows setting regex-like patterns on what addresses to block, eliminating loop holes.
2: Use applock (I haven't informed if applock specifically is better or worse than alternatives) to require a passcode when opening settings, when opening adguard, and when opening applock itself. Store this passcode in a way that it's cumbersome but possible to reach. Ask a friend or relative to set and store it for you if necessary.
3: Remove the icons of adguard and applock from the home screen, so that they are only reachable through settings -> apps.
This has worked well for me. It's cumbersome enough to discourage me from deactivating it. It's not so cumbersome that I can't update the block list if necessary. It's flexible enough that I can very precisely choose what to block and what not. And it's specialized for (android) smartphones, which are the worst scrolling addiction drivers.
You could also throw in Google parental controls to stop yourself from downloading apps if necessary, but I found that DNS blocks are enough for me.
If you struggle with other devices as well, like TVs, consider whether you can get away with not owning these devices at all.
All that being said, professional psychological help for addiction and executive dysfunction exists. That would have been my last resort if the methods mentioned above hadn't turned out to be sufficient for me.
Good luck, don't give up.
Addiction is not the problem. It is a (poor) solution to a problem. Figure what your underlying problem is and address it first. Without doing that, you are only taking away one solution with no alternative.
For me, I noticed I have no compulsion to surf after hanging out with friends where I have their attention and curiosity and they have mine. It is like an oxytocin surge that depletes overtime and needs recharging. Scrolling is like junk food in that it feels like a recharge but empties as soon as I stop.
I now call up a friend or arrange a hangout if I feel like I’m running low and it’s amazing how many friends are delighted to hear from me but then never reach out.
You are correct that working on underlying issues is very important, but there is a huge practical value to blocking out distractions. First of all, it gets you started on scrolling a lot less immediately. Secondly, it makes concentrating on the important parts of life and thus the underlying issues much easier as you have more time and energy now. Thirdly, you will always have some bad days, you will always have some issues in your life that you can't fix (yet), but having a mechanism that stops you from re-entering the habit independently of your current state is really helpful in stabilizing your behavior.
What I'm trying to say is that blocking and working on the "deeper" issues are stronger when used synergistically, it doesn't have to be an either or.
kobenni commented on What happens when clergy take psilocybin nautil.us/clergy-blown-aw... · Posted by u/bookofjoe
These studies are all deeply flawed. They find willing participants, give them some drugs, then ask how they feel about it. Of course they say they feel spiritual and connected with the world and all of that, that's what the drugs do. But I know plenty of people who claim that mushrooms or lsd were spiritually awakening and connected them with the world, who wouldn't think twice about stealing from an old woman's purse, robbing people, or worse. I know alcoholics who claim they don't have a problem and think drinking is just good fun, but are also violent assholes when they drink.
I think you are making a very important point here, but unfortunately getting downvoted for stating it so cynically. A more productive way to phrase it would be that people's self-report on a drug's effect (beyond the pure subjective experience of the trip) can be very misleading about alleged positive effects, and can be very incomplete about any negative effects.
kobenni commented on How do you block addictive websites in a way that can't be easily undone? · Posted by u/kobenni
NextDNS can be set up to block stuff, and then you can use it at the router level and on the machine level so even on mobile internet, sites will be blocked.
Parental controls generally and there is a range of accountability software too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accountability_software
Thank you for the suggestions.
Regarding NextDNS, can it be setup in a way that is difficult to disable? Or could I just disable the user application on my phone and use my unfiltered mobile internet? Same for accountability softwares, are there any that go below the user application level to stop me from simply disabling them?
Google parental controls seem cumbersome, as apparently I can only block domains in Chrome and will thus also need to block other browsers. But I will play around with it and see if I can make it work for me.
kobenni commented on TikTok is harming children at an industrial scale afterbabel.com/p/industri... · Posted by u/cwwc
Just children? I've had to block social media for myself because of how addictive it was / how much time I was wasting.
I will say though, if you are trying to watch videos more from an educational perspective then it can be useful. Although, I would advise getting an LLM summary of the video, and then speed reading the summary in order to determine if their is any useful content in there.
Could you give a description of how you block social media? All methods I found so far can be undone within seconds.
I've been looking around for a book like this that has scientific/engineering topics presented in a bite-sized fashion so a teenager (or even adults) can discover which ones pique their interests and are worth a deeper dive.
Would this book work or is it a bit too simple? Does anyone have another book to recommend?
For mathematics, there are the Princeton Companion to Mathematics and the Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics.
kobenni commented on How University Students Use Claude anthropic.com/news/anthro... · Posted by u/pseudolus
>As someone already said, parents used to be concerned that kids wouldn't be able to solve maths problems without a calculator
Were they wrong? People who rely too much on a calculator don't develop strong math muscles that can be used in more advanced math. Identifying patterns in numbers and seeing when certain tricks can be used to solve a problem (verses when they just make a problem worse) is a skill that ends up being beyond their ability to develop.
Yes, they were wrong. Many young kids who are bad at mental calculations are later competent at higher mathematics and able to use it. I don't understand what patterns and tricks you're referring to, but if they are important for problems outside of mental calculations, then you can also learn about them by solving these problems directly.