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hello let's talk about 10 things to do
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instead of Doom scrawling that was cool
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Doom scrolling brain ride being
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extremely online Internet poisoning swap
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nothing content journalism 12 hours of
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screen time whatever you want to call it
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it's hard to deny just how many of us
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have been gradually lured into content
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Addiction in this video what we can do
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to fight it to get our lives back based
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on a key lesson that helped me beat a
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different kind of
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addiction so used to be addicted to
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drugs and alcohol not anymore yay stop
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it anyway one of the key lessons that I
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learned about sobriety is this idea of
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replacement over removal so let's say
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you drink a lot of alcohol and you want
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to stop if you just focus on removing
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that alcohol from your life and not
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actually changing your life around it
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what this might mean is you going to the
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pub sitting there with your drinking
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buddies and just not drinking and that
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is going to be miserable and incredibly
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hard all you are going to do is think
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about how good a beer would be and how
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much you don't have one that's removal
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replacement on the other hand says well
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what if instead of going to the pub and
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not drinking a beer you go rock climbing
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and not even think about beer that's
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replacement baby and that is what I want
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to do for this list I want to take a
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reason as to why we consume so much in
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our phones how it looks and then what we
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can do to replace instead of remove this
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so keep getting the hit somewhere else
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one give yourself a research project why
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so we don't default to Mindless
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consumption mindless consumption as a
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default so what this looks like is
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scrolling with no goal just basically
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being like I will go on my phone now and
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not having an intention to remove this
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would be like putting your phone in a
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lock box which does work admittedly but
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if we are trying to I don't know go for
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replacement here what this would look
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like is strolling with a goal instead of
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mind less consumption it's mind full
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consumption which I Define as a research
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project mindset so you know when people
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research stuff they have a goal they're
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like all right I want to find out
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everything that I can about those I
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don't know alien mummies in NASCAR Peru
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right now when you go to consume content
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you have an intention you want to find
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out information about something
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specifically if you want to take it to
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the next level you might even want to
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compile notes gather your research and
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you might never need this information
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but that's not the point the point is to
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feel agency you are using the internet
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instead of the internet using you two
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take advantage of compulsive unlocking
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compulsive unlocking the thumbs do it
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not us you know just go and then muscle
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memories already on like one of these
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bad UPS you got Instagram Tik Tok Reddit
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this one and then your brain just starts
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melting so here remove would again just
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look like not using it which can be
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really really tricky so replacement is
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hijacking the muscle memory and
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repositioning apps that will do you good
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in place of the apps that will do you
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bad so if your thumb keeps going to
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Instagram now it's going to go to
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Wikipedia or Merlin a bird watching app
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and what I like about this is there's
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kind of like a disappointment that you
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feel when you're like oh this isn't
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candy this is information and then you
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feel a second disappointment not in the
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situation but in yourself for being
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disappointed because you're like oh oh I
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have been lured into content addiction
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damn it but yeah what we're trying to do
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here is interrupt the compulsion Loop so
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by not giving yourself the reward that
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you're unconsciously expecting you get
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this Moment of clarity at best you're
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like oh I don't want to do this anyway
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and at worst you end up using an app
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that makes you hopefully better yeah
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three Pinterest and Chrono photo why the
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big old dopamine H so the way that Doom
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scrolling and brain rot does this is by
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serving us headlines and endless content
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how terrifying is the endless scroll it
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just doesn't stop that is an incredibly
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predatory design feature I do not like
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it it's weird anyway the way that we're
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going to replace and not remove this
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isn't by simply taking away the phone it
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is by finding that big old dopamine hit
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from something that doesn't come with so
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much baggage yeah dude so take Pinterest
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right Pinterest for me is social media
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without the self-consciousness because
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what I do like about social media is
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seeing inspiring stuff I like seeing
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creativity I like seeing art I like
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seeing other people's Talent right but I
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hate thinking about myself because that
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really interrupts the process and if I
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have an account on something like
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Instagram then it's like everything that
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I see I'm going to be having this second
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thought where I'm like you should do
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that why aren't you doing that you suck
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it's just pointless Pinterest however I
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can just look at the art it's good and I
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still got that dop me hit of Discovery
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if you prefer the big old dopam mean hit
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of information uh may I suggest Chrono
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photo holy moly dude I love this game so
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much so basically it's like geoguesser
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but for historical photos you get served
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a photo that was taken anytime between
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1900 and now and you have to guess the
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year that it was taken but but here's
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the thing so I got real into this game
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and what I found is that all of my
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complacency from using my phone turned
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into curiosity all because I wanted to
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get a higher score so I was like all
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right when were those hats in fashion
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what year did the horse become a car
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what year was this dress in voke and in
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the pursuit of a score you still get
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your big dopamine hit but you also end
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up learning about history and feeling
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connected to the past and just becoming
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I don't know just a whole lot more
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fascinated by things or at least that's
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how I felt massively recommend man all
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righty next one four
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undoomed by our digital environment news
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flash did you know that all this stuff
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is designed to addict what in the words
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of Facebook's first president Sean
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Parker it's a social validation feedback
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loop how do we consume as much of your
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time and conscious attention as possible
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and that means that we need to sort of
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give you a little dopamine hit every
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once in a while it's exactly the kind of
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thing that a that a hacker like myself
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would come up with because you're
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exploiting
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vulnerability in in human psychology and
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I just I I think that we understood this
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consciously and we did it anyway God
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only knows what it's doing to to our
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children's brains that's conning so when
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it comes to the manipulation of our
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digital environment one thing that we
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can do instead of Doom scrolling is to
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phone you can do things like grayscale d
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Google if you want to go hardcore
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Newsfeed eradicators a cool extension
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and this one which came from a comment
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on my most recent video D Arrow
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basically what it does is on YouTube it
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gets rid of the arrows the big red
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arrows essentially it turns things that
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look like clickbait into just normal
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videos with normal titles here's a fun
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example H yeah five create an anti- Chum
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Bucket List this is about putting the
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stuff that you actually want to consume
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in a list and then associating garbage
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content as a trigger to open that list
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the next reason why we Doom scroll or
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just use our phones incessantly is that
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brain rot syrup is tastier than brain
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nutrients you know it's like high
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calorie content it's like ah yummy yummy
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sugar sugar and then you just feel
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terrible for like ages so when I find
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myself watching just the worst content
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here we have some reaction content
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someone's doing one of those ones uh I
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like to ask myself this question would I
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respect someone who consumes this
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invariably the answer is no God no God
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no not at all so why am I doing it so
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with that Loop interrupted we can start
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to focus on replacement what we can do
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instead of Doom scrolling is firstly
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compile a list of things that we think
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will either Inspire or improve us and
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second when we are kind of ke for like
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you know some mindless time on our phone
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instead of just going straight to the
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freaking chum bucket of content you go
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to that list and you actually watch
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something that you have pre-selected for
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yourself to watch on mine I got a couple
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episodes of The Twilight Zone I got a
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hypnosis just want to give it a shot a
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couple of albums I just want to listen
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to as albums and then a few books I
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guess think of it as a a watch later
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list that you will try use terrible
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content as a trigger to consume when
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you're like ah I can do better than this
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six replace a core function of your
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phone with its analog equivalent next
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one why are we Doom scroll good old
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fashioned phone dependency we need it h
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this one I find pretty annoying cuz it's
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like yeah you might be using your phone
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for good you know you are just taking a
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photo of your dog and then before you
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know it you are using your phone for bad
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you now on the X app watching people
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argue about
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honestly nothing anyway so phone
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dependency can go from good use to bad
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use real quick and we Doom scroll
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without even realizing it in terms of
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replacement this is kind of a fun one
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and the others are not fun but basically
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it's about replacing a core function of
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your phone with its analog equivalent so
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instead of the camera app getting a
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physical camera I've been having a lot
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of fun with film cameras lately which is
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probably from Chrono photo instead of
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Music getting vinyl or instead of the
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notes app using a physical notebook but
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basically just acknowledging that these
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are good functions but that you don't
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need your phone for them there is a bit
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of a physical media resurgence let me
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know if you want a video on that cuz I
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very much like it seven if you're going
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to enter the vortex make it a cleaning
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and audiobook Vortex number seven why we
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Doom scroll there is comfort in the
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vortex if you are having a terrible day
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then having like an endless stream of
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content right here centimeters from your
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face is at the very least going to take
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your mind off it so you start and then
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next minute you've got 4 hours in the
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Tik Tok stuper or because brain is sad H
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this is a tricky one so replacement not
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removal for this one I think
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the distraction is actually good
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sometimes what I think is not good in
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this equation is the lack of
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intentionality and the visual aspect
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check this out what we can do instead of
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this is Ditch the visual part of it and
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instead keep the distraction but only in
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audio form and pair it with doing
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something Hands-On basically like
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audiobooks and drawing podcast and
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running lecture and cleaning but
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essentially what we're doing is
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acknowledging the bad mode and that
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distraction sometimes is necessary but
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we are also adding some sort of progress
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to that so at the end of the for
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distraction Vortex your day hasn't
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gotten worse no your house has actually
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gotten cleaner but you've been to the
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gym life's not terrible hopefully eighty
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learn about the world without
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sensationalist headlines all right the
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next reason why we do it this is like
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classic dream scrolling for an informed
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world view sometimes sometimes it's
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informed uh you know you see these
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headlines they like we're all going to
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die uh that's alarming oh man sorry I'm
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looking for my phone cuz I saw this one
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there was like open AI Insider estimates
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70% chance that AI will destroy destroy
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or catastrophically harm Humanity the
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world isn't ready and we aren't ready so
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with journalism you got an article or a
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video or whatever it happens to be and
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then you have the way it's packaged the
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headline and these are two different
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things often done by two different
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people or at least the same person in
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two very different mindsets one of them
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is what they actually want to say and
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the other one is them responding to a
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system where hold on know clickr rate is
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basically the only hope of commercial
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viability so they have to get your
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attention and I know that if I'm looking
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for something on a News website I will
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still take in every sensationalist
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headline and surprise surprise it makes
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me feel alarmed of course it does we're
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all going to die remember for the
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informed worldview the replacement not
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removal is about opting for sources that
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aren't playing the alarm game here I've
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got our world in data I really like that
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website you can get lost there for hours
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and while I'm at it check out Hannah
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Richie's work she's one of the writers
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there she wrote not the end of the world
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it's a great read uh will leave you more
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optimistic about things than I think the
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news will and also slow journalism or
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Solutions based journalism where people
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take time and really try and understand
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things from a point of view that
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empowers you and informs you instead of
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just turning you into a passive audience
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for clicks nine give yourself a Lindy
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detox of course the word slow might be a
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bit of a hiccup and that is because of
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our cultural reeny bias another reason
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that we like to consume so much Doom man
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because it's all happening right now
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this reeny bias we can see it literally
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in the word news it's new the sort of
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undertone that by consuming today's
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stories you are staying informed and the
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weird importance that things get when
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they feel urgent you know posted 5
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minutes ago so in order to overcome this
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what we can do instead of J
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scrolling is subvert it mix up the news
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with some olds so tangibly what I
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recommend doing here is giving yourself
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a bit of a Lindy diet Lindy detox what's
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that Campbell I'll tell you so Matthew
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Lindy was this social scientist who
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noticed that with pieces of media
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however long they had been around
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relevant in the cultural Zeitgeist was
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usually a pretty good measure of how
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long they would stick around so for
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example if you look at an old text I
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don't know like Dante's Divine Comedy
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that's been around for 700 plus years
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according to Matthew Lindy it will at
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least be around for 700 more because it
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has stood the the test of time compare
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this to a video that my friend sent me
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of this kid aing himself on a scooter if
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it was posted yesterday and it's been
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relevant for the entire day we can at
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least predict it'll be relevant for 24
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more hours probably so when it comes to
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Lindy things it's like Lindy books books
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that have stood the test of time Lindy
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movies are movies that have done the
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same thing and I find it's a really good
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way to get over your cultural recency
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bias cuz it's like I've been watching a
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lot of old movies and reading a lot of
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old books lately and damn the thing that
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keeps hitting me is how similar we all
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are I'm like oh man I don't know maybe
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I've got this like belief that modern
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people respond to things differently
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emotionally no not at all it's all the
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same 10 make stuff and finally why we
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Doom scroll because being passive is
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easy and active is hard and generally we
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want to conserve energy so we pick the
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easy option here we have this person
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when it comes to all this stuff just
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consuming yeah here comes the content
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airplane of course in the beautiful
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words of Jersey Gregor easy choic is
00:13:02
hard life hard choic is easy life when
00:13:03
we take an easy option it often makes
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the future a bit harder and when we do
00:13:06
take the hard option it'll make the
00:13:07
future a bit easier so our final thing
00:13:09
to do instead of Doom scrolling instead
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of consume stuff is to make stuff oh man
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yeah get in that flow state it is so
00:13:15
therapeutic and you can just I don't
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know have a much better time than
00:13:19
whatever this is blue light brain rot
00:13:22
and I don't know bombs anyway that's the
00:13:25
list hope you enjoyed it if you have an
00:13:27
interest in Doom scrolling specifically
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like the actual doom and new and check
00:13:30
out this video that I made last year
00:13:32
otherwise try one of these things and I
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don't know have a beautiful day catch
00:13:35
you
