“I think the potential of what the internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable. I think we’re actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying.” No, it’s not just a tool. It’s an alien life form!”

David Bowie, 1999

We should not stretch the analogy that the human mind is like a computer. Yet the internet arrived overnight and exploited hidden vulnerabilities in both – first in our computers, next in our minds. Here the analogy is apt. We’re still figuring out how to cope.

The Ping of Death and the Vulnerable Mind

The year is 1997. After getting home from school, John logs into AOL Instant Messenger (aka AIM) to chat with his friends. John’s friend, Steve, sends a link to download some .mp3s. Three seconds later, John’s screen turns blue and his computer starts rebooting.

Weird. Computers crap out for no reason sometimes. Oh well.

John stares at the bios screen as his PC slowly restarts…

Three minutes later, he’s back on AIM.

Where were we? Ah right – downloading .mp3s from Steve.

Steve sends the link again. Three seconds later, John’s entire screen turns blue again, and his computer reboots.

WTF! This is annoying.

Steve, meanwhile, is laughing his ass off. What John doesn’t know is Steve has been using the link to send John a ping of death. A normal “ping” is when two computers say hello. A ping of death, however, is when one computer says hello but also punches the other in the gut – sending unexpected data. The receiving computer would then show a “blue screen of death”, and need a reboot. Hence, “ping of death”.

The Wild West of Technical Vulnerabilities

The ping of death was one of hundreds of “vulnerabilities” in that era. Everyone’s computer was like a valuable house with all of its doors unlocked, and the internet created a highway for thieves and pranksters to walk up and poke around.

It was possible, for example, to browse files and printers people who lived on your street, just by opening “network neighborhood” – a program built into Windows. This wasn’t malicious, it was literally functionality that came with the computer. Did anyone realize their printers and files were wide open? No. Windows exposed them by default.

Looking back, it seems completely insane and naive – that we unleashed the internet upon such vulnerable computers. But foresight was impossible. Vulnerabilities are only obvious in hindsight.

It took about 20 years for the technology to “harden”. Firewalls at multiple layers, mandatory software patches, virus scanners, encryption, malicious software detection, locked doors by default, and so on.

The Wild West of Cognitive Vulnerabilities

Today the human mind is like the 1997 PC – a sitting duck. It is easily exploited, not in the sense of glitches, but in the broader sense of absorbing contagious information, algorithmic bias, bizarre social cues, addictive technologies, and conforming to tribalism.

A few themes really stand out:

• Addiction: 1930s “Skinner box” experiments showed how variable rewards (unpredictable food pellets for lever presses) create powerful, persistent habits – animals (and humans) keep responding long after rewards stop. Modern apps often leverage this principle: likes, new matches, viral posts, or feeds arrive unpredictably, making phones a slot machine for dopamine.
• Negativity bias: threats grab attention first and hold it longest because spotting danger kept our ancestors alive. Algorithms learn what we click on – and outrage, fear, or “threats” (real or manufactured) reliably drive engagement, so they serve more of it.
• Misinformation: We can be overloaded with conflicting information, misinformation, and endless takes until we’re exhausted, cynical, and unsure what (or whom) to trust. This isn’t just distraction – it’s a kind of learned helplessness that keeps us hunting for clarity that never quite arrives.
• Performative: Platforms reward visibility, not nuance. Expressions of anger and exaggeration spread faster than careful analysis, encouraging users to perform outrage publicly.

Our minds have always been vulnerable in these ways. The internet simply introduced an amplifier, magnifying these risks to unprecedented levels.

Unlike the PC, human vulnerabilities cannot be “patched”. Unlike the PC, people are free to adopt ideas they like, join the tribes they like, and be addicted to the things they want to be addicted to. In other words, not everyone will agree there’s even a problem.

Unlike the wild west of technology, the wild west of vulnerable minds is still very wild.

How We Got Here

Here is a bellwether timeline:

1990-2010 – the PC-based internet takes over the world.

2007 – the smartphone era begins – 24/7 connection via apps.

2018 – the Center for Humane Technology is founded – rings one of the first alarm bells: our technology is engineered to be addictive, and algorithms boost outrage.

2021 – the book “Constitution of Knowledge” exposes how “truth” is being crowded out by inaccurate information – consensus reality is harder to maintain.

2022 – the book “Stolen Focus” illuminates the hazards of the “attention economy”, expanding arguments of the CHT.

2024 – the book “Anxious Generation” exposes how children are negatively impacted, especially in early years by being chronically connected.

In summary, 35 years after the launch of the internet, and almost 20 years after the launch of the smartphone, we are getting clearer about what the cognitive and psychological damage is. How much longer before conversation turns into relief? Even in the most optimistic scenarios, it will take many years…

Top-Down vs Bottom-Up Defense

Top-down change is whatever government and industry eventually do (if anything) to protect us against addiction, misinformation, and mental health pitfalls. It’s tough to predict what will happen, and when. We are seeing some early signs: phone-free schools, EU regulations on platforms, and features like screen time. Small drops in a big bucket.

Bottom-up, on the other hand, is protecting ourselves. This could be with mindfulness, digital minimalism, or thoroughly understanding our minds – i.e. how we can be manipulated and exploited, the nature of our information environment, and how we can consume information safely. In other words, looking out for ourselves is something we can do right now. This is not bulletproof, of course. But it’s something – a sort of “mental immune system”.

Reason for Optimism

We should not stretch the analogy that vulnerable minds and vulnerable computers are the same. Yet they are similar in the sense that the internet arrived overnight and exploited hidden vulnerabilities in both – first in our computers, next in our minds.

Technical vulnerabilities were immediately obvious and fixed in about two decades.

Cognitive vulnerabilities are harder to see. People are fuzzy. Many of us have a hunch something is wrong, but agreement about problems and any solutions are unclear.

Still, there’s reason for optimism. More and more people are trying to understand and explain this dynamic, so we can actually do something about it. We’re trying to figure this out. It’s just going to take a while.

Explicitly describing the problem is a foundational step.

Self-Investigation

In the short term, Self-Investigation feels like the best shot at protecting ourselves. By understanding our blind spots and vulnerabilities, we can better appreciate how the outside world interacts with and influences them.

(There is no perfect formula for Self-Investigation, but for those not already familiar, a starting place is here).

Discussion

This is posted to reddit for voting and discussion:

The Ping of Death and the Vulnerable Mind
byu/JesseNof1 inSelfInvestigation