ear7h

> Everyone now has the ability to go viral and make it big financially, so it does feel like much of our actions (even if that's not our goal) are shaped that way. A random person may not want to be a rich, famous Instagram influencer... but that doesn't stop them from acting similarly (posting photos for likes).

This is a good point. Though I think I'd phrase it as: the ubiquity of the revenue streams means all behavior plausibly looks like profit seeking behavior. I don't mean to be nitpicky, but I think the problem or danger lies in the effect it has on the observer, rather than the actor. To me, it's not so bad that someone might engage in profit seeking, as a little treat or way of life, but that this seems indistinguishable in social media means I engage skeptically to what could be genuine social behavior. "The only winning move is not to play" if you want to avoid being a pawn in someone's profit game. But this comes at the cost of killing the social game, the reason I'm on the app to begin with! Of course, I could just log-off; but also not playing the (profit) game could mean ignoring goal, while still making moves in the social game.

Curiousity is characterized by the pursuit for the answer, not the ability or speed to find the answer. You can still be curious without a google search bar, and I often find those pursuits are (1) much more rewarding and (2) stick around enough to become knowledge.

I think this has to do with the fact that the public has caught on to greenwashing. One example that sticks out in my head is the "save a tree use a plastic bag" thing. I think the appeal to environmentalism was enough to change customer behavior, or at least not cause resistance, but the real motivation for the change was probably financial.

Throughout this diatribe I think you had multiple opportunities to see the value of human life. That you didn't, makes me think you actually don't value your own life and while that's entirely your right. But, to project onto others that they're "in denial" for valuing their own, their families', or complete strangers' lives isn't the radical ultra-rational flex you think it is.

To pick one mere point where you might have chosen to value life otherwise:

> They're not a rare thing like say, gold.

You mean the gold that's a relatively common chemical in the universe? You're comparing the elementary particle formed by astronomical processes to somethings which (even if metaphorically) exists only within organisms so complex we have yet to find signs of similar complexity in the universe.

What you say is cold, but hardly truth.

> At least it is a lot more realistic than silly 3D animation approach used in many previous movies (e.g. "hacking the Gibson" on Hackers, or the much worse portrayals on Swordfish)

One of the things I love about Hackers is that it portrays the feeling of hacking and programming to someone who might not have done it. Yea I think a lot of people have the green text hackerman image when they think about hacking but it hardly conveys what's happening inside the head of the hacker, it's just something cryptic magic that solves a problem and advances the plot. In Hackers, the Gibson is a space, somepeople live there and oversee it, other's have to transport themselves (there's a montage with fast shots of a subway, then computer circuit boards, then the "buildings" of the gibson that work really well imo). Not every film has to convey all of this but I really appreciate that Hackers does.

This idea of LLMs a vehicle of midlife crisis is fascinating. I'm not sure if it's just about "throwing the fastball" though. Most of the usual midlife crisis things are a rejection of virtue. For example: buying a porsche, pickign up a frivolous hobby, or cheating on your wife, these are irresponsible uses of money, time, or attention that a smart, dedicated, family man wouldn't partake in.

In relation to LLM usage I think there's two interepretations. 1) This midlife crisis is a rejetion of empathy, understanding, and social obligation however minute. Writing a one-sentence update on an issue, understanding design decisions of another developer, reading documention are all boilerplate holding them back from their full potential in a perfectly objective experience. Of course, their personal satisfaction still relies on adoption of their products by customers (though decades of viewing customers through advertising surveillance has stripped away the customers' humanity from their perspective). Or 2) economic/political factors such as inflation, rising unemployment, supply chain issues, starvation of public services, and general instability means doing the usual midlife crisis activities are too expensive or risky, and LLMs present a local optmimum allowing them to reject societal virtues (eg. craftsmanship, collaboration, empathy) without endangering their financial position. Funny enough, I feel this latter point was also a factor of the NFT bubble (though, the finances were more clearly dubious).

This identity politics/virtue signaling seems off topic.

> I havent used Loops

I think the worst repercussion of consuming short form content is that it gives the _consumer_ a false sense of engagement. That their passive consumption endows them with knowledge and credibility, leading to the deluded belief that a display of disintirest such as this one is 1) appropriate and 2) a profound condemnation rather than the petty, irrelevant whine that it is.

I would have thought someone of such extensive life experience would be more comfortable with the uncovering of an unknown than to characterize it as "driving division and strife". It is undestandable to have a chip on your shoulder in the face of the ageism rooted within the tech industry, but my "digital hermaneutics" is simply a fact and not an attempt at toppling your "stats/prestige" of being a day-1 git user, there is no need to be defensive about it.

Does asking rhetorical questions count as effective argumentation?

If I do enough sealioning will my unsupported thesis be belived?

What about imposing my modern perspective into a chain of historical events to prove my own perspective?

Further, I'm going to use technical jargon to get around Occam's razor.

You seem very serious about this, I think wasting time on something silly could be good for you.

I wonder what was happening 6 years ago that gave him a chance to develop and explore the hobby.

Wow you're so right, you did such a good job asking computer mommy to confirm your priors!

But actually, that's not the goal here. AI, at least the kind of products that need dedicated datacenters ie. generative, isn't critical infrastructure. The focus is on documents, collaboration tools, file servers, single-sign on, databases etc. that are seemingly monopolized by US providers.