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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 25th, 2023

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  • Perhaps the main use for technology is increasing the amount of inequality society can tolerate without collapse. I can’t fix inequality – that just seems to be what the humans want.

    However by investing in surveillance technology, computer vision, and AI I could perhaps help our society to bear unbounded amounts of inequality indefinitely, without collapse. Social collapse is a less-than-zero-sum game, whereas an unequal society is still generally more-than-zero-sum. So I posit that the latter is objectively better.

    … Are you suggesting that we increase inequality to make the world better? Like we need an overlord, be it robot or human, and the rest of the population needs to be placated, worked to the bone, and easily replaced?

    I gotta assume I am just vastly misunderstanding something in this argument, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what it is. Is it just sarcastic?


  • Not only that but on the technical side it is a TERRIBLE idea.

    Obsolescence is affecting all technology faster and faster. Would you fuse an iphone to your body? In 8 months they’re releasing a new one. Even if you decide to go open source, you can’t connect it to an OS or a computer because then updates are required

    If it has network capabilities it needs to be constantly updated for security, or else your prosthetic leg becomes part of a botnet launching DDOS attacks like those toothbrushes. Even worse, what if instead of a ransomware attack it’s literally becomes a ransom. Want your bionic heart to keep beating? Gonna have to pay the hacker who cracked it.

    It gets even worse if the company that builds it goes belly up. At least with a peg leg you can carve a new one, once software gets involved you lose all control unless you’re building it yourself.

    Just last year Poland literally had to hire hackers to hack their own train because train manufacturers artificially locked them down when they were repaired by a third party.

    ownership of electronics is getting absolutely shady fast and you want to integrate them into your body??? You want to give it access to your brain??? Imagine if someone hacks your brain computer interface Elon Musk!





  • Earplugs can handle it even better. I originally bought them because I work in AV but it’s really nice to be able to just crank down all the audio in the world. A decent set of acoustic earplugs can be bought for 8 bucks at a guitar center. I highly recommend acoustic because they don’t make everything sound muffled, just quieter. If you find it helpful then you can shell out for something a bit nicer.

    Even if you’re not autistic, it helps drown out the noise to hear people in a bar, it protects your hearing, and really does help with feelings of being overwhelmed. Doesn’t FIX it, but it does help.








    • A house
      -- Just purchased, closing is closing in soon.
    • two cars
      -- completely mandatory. We couldn’t possibly bus, we have two used cars approaching two decades old and we’re dreading the day they croak.
    • a healthy relationship
      -- married in July
    • a career
      -- For me, finally started the career I wanted two years ago, after a decade of trying to become a programmer I finally am. Wife might be in a career now, she’s not quite sure. She’s happier where she is than Target, but that’s a low bar.
    • livable wage
      -- livable with the ability to go on vacations (mostly anime and comic conventions)
    • 2.5 kids
      -- don’t want them at the moment.
    • a dog
      -- … two cats

    I do NOT in any way feel like I’ve earned this. I have been saving to buy a house EVER SINCE I paid off my student loans. I dumped all my money for YEARS to get that debt off of my books and after I did, I immediately started saving. Didn’t even change my living habits because they were habits at that point. I didn’t even have a GF at the time. I just knew that I wanted to be ahead, because I knew that it was going to be a slog when I was finally ready to buy a home. Just like it was a slog to get into my career, just like it was a slog. I wanted to be AHEAD I wanted a good home. And after all that effort I got…

    half a duplex for $305,000… Cheapest we could find if you don’t count badrealestate suggestions on lemmy.

    All that effort and I barely have a home. barely. We could’ve taken a larger loan but, shit happens. We could’ve been laid off, One of our cars could’ve needed to be replaced, We could’ve been disabled, We could’ve had our identity stolen, We could’ve been scammed, We could’ve been robbed, We could’ve come across a cop who didn’t like our faces, We could’ve missed payments because Wells Fargo SUCKS and have our credit killed.

    All of these things DIDN’T happen to us, so we got to purchase a house. Because if any of those things happened to us, we would’ve dipped into savings and we wouldn’t be purchasing a house in our 30s. All of those things that could’ve happened were completely out of our control. (except for Wells Fargo, you can choose to not be fucked by Wells Fargo by LEAVING Wells Fargo)

    So… there is no plan, only a lottery.


  • Well, I just recently got married in July. We’d been together for 5 years before that point, we survived COVID in a rather stress inducing state.

    • My wife works in banking, with secrecy requirements. I work in AV, testing equipment that records everything it sees and hears. We couldn’t even be within earshot of each other. She was forced to work in her bed and I was forced to take up half the living room with 2 baker’s racks of AV equipment. Still went through those two years being able to look back fondly at being able to take a five minute break to scream into a pillow and get a hug after a particularly stressful problem, meeting, or office politics.

    I completely understand where you’re coming from, but just like how you can’t imagine a partner you want to spend the rest of your life with. I cannot imagine someone ever replacing my wife, and I don’t even want to entertain the notion of losing her.

    • well what if it’s insert_celebrity_crush_here?
      -- that’s not my wife, not interested

    • well what if it’s your wife but she never says no to you?
      -- that doesn’t sound like my wife at all, I’m not interested

    We just mesh incredibly well. We both grew up in problematic households with a disdain for our parents. We both grew up poor. We both care more about financial security and safety than trying to get it all. I feel like we’re a team, at all times. Not having her beside me would be like playing football with only half the players.

    I will say, this is gonna sound weird but stick with me. Don’t… don’t chase a monogamous relationship.

    I think too many people get hooked on this idea that you must have a partner. You must marry before you hit 35. You must fuck before you hit 19. Just don’t think so hard about it. Geography, life events, mistakes, opportunities, are all at place with literally everyone at all times. COVID especially through a wrench in every life plan in America. I feel so bad for anyone who hadn’t gone through college yet. Just… find enjoyment where you can and balance that with building your future and if both those points can be met with the same activity. DO IT. Whether it’s a partner that you can’t live without and you wanna keep, or a group you can’t live without. You need both those points in life. Do whatever makes sense.


  • He’s being called a neanderthal because he seems to agree with a lot of fringe opinions.

    I mean that’s just a symptom of the biggest complaint about him. He’s really gullible. He’s not malicious, but god damn he does not notice a liar when a liar is in front of him. Genuinely I do love his long form content, I love how people can go off topic with him, but some of the people he brings on really should be going in front of Jon Stewart instead.

    Like… here’s an example of someone clearly lying, dodging questions, and genuinely being sketchy. He’s gotten a bit better but would Joe Rogan push this hard against somebody? If someone dodges his question, how well does he bring the topic back to it? Joe Rogan is great when everyone is there in good faith, but would you want him in your corner if you’re stuck in a timeshare conference?





  • Found a link to the thesis.

    So far it requires a spellcheck, a grammar check, An entire paragraph spends way too long setting a premise and then an example that does nothing to its premise. His entire intro was a ramble that confuses me to what the hell this was supposed to be a thesis about.

    Like there’s a single line that says this essay is about “a set of right-wing intellectuals who have come to be labeled the “Conservative Revolutionaries.”” It took you 2 and a half pages to communicate that to the reader, but I still have no idea

    • Why should I care about this group?
    • Why do you care about this group?
    • “Who have come to be labeled” implies this label has come recently. This was a group from WWII. Why can’t you just say called?

    He then moves into those questions, briefly, again with just galling grammar scattered around. Acceptable in a first draft but certainly NOT a final.

    I had to stop reading about a quarter of the way in. It just reeks of padding. I’m not surprised it’s plagiarized, it’s entirely quotes and trombone speak.
    What the hell did he get as a grade? Even if it wasn’t plagiarized it couldn’t have been a C.