Following on from here. I’ve thought about this a little and I agree that it can be a source for strengthening practice. It reminds me of the story of a monastery (perhaps Zen?) where there was a really obnoxious monk who went around upsetting the other monks. All of the monks in the monastery got together and complained to the abbot. No matter how much they complained, the abbot would not do anything about it. Eventually the abbot died and it was discovered that he actually employed this rogue ‘monk’ to intentionally try to propel the other monks into unwholesome mind-states by way of a test. Maybe that’s what is happening here?
Anyway, for me, I have enough dukkha to deal with without adding more (as the admittedly scant research seems to suggest). So I had two options. Stop using DD or modify what I was seeing. So I’ve spent 5 minutes and written a little extension for chromium browsers (I currently use Brave) to hide the ‘like’ functionality from this site. I call it heart-block So now my interface is heartless - No place to give a heart on posts, no counts of hearts, no list of users who have approved of my post.
I’ll see how I get on without the ‘likes’ functionality over the coming weeks. Will I miss the approval seeking? Will it devalue my DD experience. Will I be tempted to add the likes functionality back in? It’s just a switch. It should be a nice experiment.
Now normally I would’ve just liked that, but I now have to actually post my approval.
I needed an Android solution also, so I’m using the kiwi browser for this, and it works! I’ve never written an extension before. Didn’t realize it was this easy.
Maybe we should all revert to “manual” liking more often? I don’t mean in the comments. Can you imagine the astronomical length of future rebirth threads if everyone expressed their approval of each other in the comments? But the PM facility would be good for that. A simple “Hey, I really appreciate your contributions to this forum” can make someone’s day
It’ll likely be my most liked post since I’ve been on this forum. How ‘stoked’ am I now? We’ll see how long you can keep this up over the coming weeks.
Hey that’s really interesting: the heart emoji (not to mention, a large variety of more expressive emojis) will still remain usable, even if the like/heart feature is shut off. For people to express gratitude, satisfaction, approval, agreement, care, etc, they would need to, get this, actually articulate it. Clicking the heart in comparison is almost like a “cheaping out”, an ersatz form of such thoughtful articulation. I hereby articulate approval:
Furthermore, the removal of the heart/like feature would also place a check on people who are moreso out just to “game the system”, trying to “farm” hearts in whatever way they can (perhaps lacking sincerity and authenticity, covertly “playing to the crowd”). This subverts the sort of people trying primarily to build up reputation; people who are driven by ego, to build up as much fame for themselves as possible.
Why is that such a bad thing: reputation seeking? Well, if that’s taken to a Machiavellian level, then a great way to build up one’s reputation, is by looking for any, and every excuse to tear down others. To put someone else down, through winning looking-to-pick-a-fight-style debate, is a way to bolster up one’s own reputation. Which is very spiritually not cool, as is attested to in many great suttas, such as in the Attakhavagga.
My experience and view about these virtual issues and how to adapt to them personally (so it is just my philosophy of life which may not be for others) are:
Learning to see liking and disliking as neutral is an essential part of the path. I think today we are becoming far too avoidant of any disliking and too much addicted to liking. How can we learn from life if we try to create an environment where we only feel safe, accepted, conducive to our ideas and mind. One of the worst thing that social media have done (and I speak here with some knowledge from my former career) is the creation of “avoidance” of what make us “uncomfortable”. Different ideas, different views, criticism, different religions.
Since we can block, complain and have a new tool to adjust everything in a virtual world, that seems much easier to tailor to your suitability.
So the virtual world becomes more and more distant from the real one when it is much more difficult to avoid encountering differences and with that ideas, behaviours and attitudes that we may feel uncomfortable.
The result: we try to do to reality what we do with virtuality: block, eliminate, become part of enclaves of “agreeability” (i.e. small group of people like “us” who we like and like to be liked).
Unfortunately, not only this is disastrous for society and how allergic we are becoming to everything that does not fit our ego and identities but extremely bad for the mind.
Think about this: to be exposed to all the possibilities of lives and what we like and dislike is like the food bowl of a monk. Everything goes in it: the food you want and food you might dislike, a neutral one. All together. Sometimes the mix may be ok, others repugnant.
Now, why do monks do that? Because it helps to reduce our mental attachments to like and dislike and the senses. Now imagine that a monk can pick and remove what disturbs their palate each time. Block some food donors because well they dislike the food or it does not look nice or does not suit their nationality …the bowl will become useless.
Today we do that. At the minimum discomfort of the “I”, we want to remove, suppress, silence, adjust what the “I” tells us it dislikes.
Doing so, we become more and more trapped in all our dislikes, arrogance, fears, incapacity of copping and learning and incredibly, we also become the bully, intolerant, rigid and so on person that we dislike or criticise in others.
I think it is time for many following the Path to retake the bowl of life and go for an alms round as a proper monk accepting the discomfort of other’s thoughts and ideas and opinions “, even of our own thoughts and way of life, learning that liking or disliking are really empty on the Path.
In my opinion, it could be helpful to develop one’s liking and love a bit further.
Now there is a one can push if one likes the content, but that doesn’t say it all, IMO.
I could use a , when I like a post.
And for posts I don’t like, there could be the one could push, that communicates that I don’t necessarily like what’s written, but I love and respect the being unconditionally and wish them all the best.
So whenever there is a post that many don’t like so much, there would be fewer or none but a lot of
To counterbalance this statement, there is such a thing as suitability, in the sense of monks/nuns maintaining their digestion working properly. It’s very common for Westerner monks and nuns to encounter serious digestion problems when they live in Asian countries, while ordained. I have many a story to tell from my own experience, but won’t do so here, to spare you the graphic details.
Suffice it to say, that for the sake of supporting conditions (sappaya, which is a legit teaching of the Buddha; it isn’t just about reducing craving and aversion), oftentimes it’s wise to avoid unsuitable foods. I draw a distinction here between unsuitable and undesirable food.
I wonder why we are so concerned about what drives others? And in which way can I assume beyond what my mind tells me what people want to use the “heart” for? Should we become police officers of intent and emotion and try to force others (through psychological manipulations) to our standers as to assume that we have a better standard than others?
Albeit I am always for improving systems, I am concerned also about my egoistic intention behind such types of desires, in particular, if it starts with criticism of assumed behaviour since we humans are so ready to project intentions to others (who we do not even really know) to make our minds feel better and righteous.
I have learnt on my skin and from my behaviours that most of the time this approach is something maybe I should learn to observe and see the real reason behind the appearance of wanting to improve things. Indeed if we assume the worst about others we even do not know, it tell us something more about our own mind than not the reality of the assumed behaviour and intention of others.
. With Metta
That is correct venerable and I remember that experience during my own temporary ordination, but at the same time it is a process of training, and if I may not be wrong, that does not change the practice of the others. In other words, nothing is changed to impose behaviour to others. Only they make some exception for that individual without yet changing all the aspects to accommodate who needs more time to adapt to the food.
I am great supporter for accommodation since all feet are for different shoes. I am a bit more concern when the attempt is to try to change the feet.
Fault-finding in others (imbued with ill-will) would be blameworthy.
Tactfully dodging around the legit “dark triad” personality types of the world (when it’s the case that we are truly not projecting, and are not deluded) is praiseworthy.
I find that if I post a question and receive ten replies, I feel obligated to ‘like’ every one of them whether I actually like the reply or not. I feel like if I ‘like’ eight of the replies and leave two ‘unliked’ then those two people - who put time and effort into replying to my question, but I just happened to not particularly like their reply, will feel slighted and experience negative feelings. Which is alright, we can’t live in a nerfed world, we have to expect to feel negative things, but still…
I think the karma/like/whatever system is overall a negative thing as it tends to evolve itself into, as an obligation rather than something that should be used sparingly, reserved to be used only as an award for a truly rare/worthy post.
So now my interface is heartless 
- No place to give a heart on posts, no counts of hearts, no list of users who have approved of my post.
, when I like a post.
- but close enough for jazz.