juleiie

I am someone with common sense

Isn’t this common knowledge that there are computers you use for banking, computers you use for windows 98 and computer you use for gaming?

For banking I use macOS/linux, sometimes iOS unfortunately but we all do sins

Poland and Ukraine will hold the candle of civilisation together against all odds

This will be a real test which societies start looting in such circumstances

I fortunately live in a peaceful, cooperative country of Poland that looks down upon such practices unlike us or France or uk

Let the best win. Over and out

Opus did better on medium? Can anyone confirm this somehow? What’s the sweetspot in your opinion?

Shovels and gold aren’t the problem, humans are the problem

either AI achieves hyper-efficiency and triggers systematic economic demand destruction due to unemployment, or it underperforms and sparks a massive tech-sector asset bubble burst

If AI is as good as valuations - it crashes. If AI isn’t as good, it crashes. all eggs in one basket economy.

Every future leads to a massive financial shitstorm

AI is priced in as a technology to end all markets. The last bull market you will ever see.

It’s a miracle markets didn’t notice this “damned if you succeed damned if you don’t” type of inevitable checkmate

I have been building a bunker

I am not so ideologically driven, merely mental health driven but you have to admit that irony of a Reddit communist buying communist merch or identity brand is delicious.

Frankly, pertaining online religions, I am more into anti church, gnostic feminist type of Christianity focused on the way Jesus lived and what he teached as opposed to later perversions of his teachings than either of the nowadays fashionable ideologies or the horror of what Catholic Church has become or always was.

Not that I manage to live such life as Jesus but I consider it significant.

Reading itself is an intellectual and imaginative activity, not consumerism. However, how people acquire and treat books can easily slip into consumerism and overconsumption

When Reading Becomes Consumerism:

Book Hoarding & Hauls: Buying massive stacks of physical books faster than you can realistically read them (often driven by social media trends like BookTok or Instagram).

Aesthetic Collecting: Treating books as interior decor, buying multiple special editions of the same title, or prioritizing how a bookshelf looks on camera rather than the text inside.

Surface Level Consumption: Reading purely for status, volume goals (like churning through 100 books a year for a tracking app), or keeping up with hype rather than deep engagement.

Why Reading Itself Is Not Consumerism:

The Act Is Immersive: Engaging with a story, learning a concept, or exploring ideas requires time, mental effort, and imagination. the exact opposite of passive commercial consumption.

Low Cost or Free Access: You do not have to buy anything to read. Public libraries, used bookstores, digital swaps, and public domain archives make reading widely accessible outside of retail markets.

Long Term Relationship: Unlike fast fashion or single-use goods, a well-loved book is often kept, reread, annotated, or passed down for decades.

So as you can see modern publishing relies on consumerism to drive profits and exist in an economic sense but it is not remotely the same as a pure act of experiencing literature detached from collectible drive or acquisition.

In similar vein you can experience a sunset by consuming a product - a travel agency trip. The act of watching the sunset is not consumerism. Yet the purchase of the holiday trip is consumption.

Buying a brand new, special edition hardback from a massive retail chain is the equivalent of buying the holiday trip. Actually sitting quietly, turning the pages, and letting your mind build a story is the equivalent of watching the sun go down.

However I am not claiming that capitalism or consumerism is inherently bad. No one managed to ever establish the connection in a rigorous scientific way that capitalism is morally bad and eg. Communism is morally good despite countless attempts to prove so. (When Cohen realized that a pure exploitation framework could actually justify inequality (like a naturally gifted person earning millions and keeping it all, à la Robert Nozick's Wilt Chamberlain argument), he had a "Road to Damascus" moment. He realized he didn't actually care about arcane Marxist economic formulas; he cared about human beings having enough to live a dignified life.)

Too much of consumerism is definitely unhealthy and so it is important to know what is consumerism and what isn’t to apply the antidote once in a while while keeping the economy we all profit from in a good shape.

Honestly most often it isn’t actual kitchen nerd stuff but just hyper consumerism under thin guise of “it’s my hobby”, “I am a kitchen/bathroom/garage/phone nerd”. Just an excuse for powerful chemical sensation of buying

I have caught myself in this many times, mesmerised by shining advertisements that promise when I buy this super duper kitchen appliance or material, my life will be finally complete.

The worst thing is that it indeed works and you are indeed in heaven for the first two weeks of usage but the thrill fades fast.

To keep up the dopamine you must keep looking for ways to increase your revenue just to make more purchases that feel so good.

Of course this is unsustainable usually so you decide that fuck it, what a dead end, let’s read the books from the library instead.

That tension nowadays between becoming prey to marketing and living authentically I can feel it all the time. Everyone wants to sell me some kind of identity.

In my opinion books are the true cure for it all. When you read the books, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, for completely free, you no longer consume. Government probably hates that.

If everyone did this economy would collapse immediately.

You have never dealt with government if you think asking anything even in good faith and especially in good faith is a good idea.

For some reason every bureaucracy is a host to a type of person that will go very far to make sure everything is in accordance with rules. If you draw attention to yourself they might want to check some ridiculous things that no sane person would ever actually pay attention to.

These are the ambitious bureaucrats and are probably the worst scum on earth. If you watched Andor you know who I am talking about. Not the lady but that security guy. This is the exact type.

Sure, most times you will not meet them but some totally amazing people.

But it’s enough to meet them once and your life could be ruined forever.

The power asymmetry is too strong to risk it.

I would rather act as if I was an outlaw and a guilty criminal with my dealings with government. Guilty, on all accounts. Now.. how to avoid the punishment?

That’s how we think about the government in Eastern Europe culturally. Whether that’s exotic or relatable to you as American, that will be interesting.

I wish Anthropic employees read this… sigh

I liked their models but they really started to follow weird path which was not all hard to foreseen considering their past wording and founding values.

OpenAI seems more relaxed at least and rational instead of cultish.

Lovely competition.