It was to wipe the news cycle. It worked. Do you remember what it was? Does anyone?

The internet had always been full of those gun boner guys fantasizing about taking up arms against threats to freedom. Younger me had no clue they were the tyranny themselves.

Videos anywhere from 10 to 60 minutes at an anxiety inducing attention disorder riddled pace. Yet all the information can usually be boiled down to a 5 to 10 minute read. It makes no sense. But actually it does because these “infuencers” are modern day infomercial salesmen. The point is to keep you watching so eventually you’ll be persuaded to purchase product. Unfortunately I think probably anyone under maybe 25-30 has no clue wtf an infomercial is so the analogy is lost on those who could use it the most.

There’s a whole thing in sports psychology about what happens when you give kids millions of dollars. Not only that but they are the top in the world at what they do. They were raised to believe they are a special breed of human. It’s not just the top pros who get multi-million dollar contracts. It can happen to the kids who don’t even make it pro too. It mindfucks a person.

I’ve been saying for a long time this kind of thing happens in tech too. I grew up with a lot of guys who’ve made various levels of success in tech from average guy to multi-millionaires. It happens. They really do live in another reality. I don’t think it’s much different between the pro-sports bubble and the tech bubble. They live and breath tech. It’s their whole life. Replace tech with sport. Not much different.

One notable difference is that sports actually recognizes this phenomenon. It’s a known studied field of psychology. They make an effort to engage athletes in the community and stuff. Things that keep individuals grounded in reality.

I don’t think such things exists for tech. If anything they believe whatever latest antics they’re up to is what helps the community and helps themselves keep in touch with reality. Because what the world needs is one more world changing app, another bright idea for a startup that is totally making the world a better place and absolutely not strip mining human sanity for profit.

This happened in the earlier years of Android. Developers were FOSS until people helped them get the app to a polished state. Then close it and charge money. Make a big push to promote the paid app.

My family mellowed out a lot after the parents of the baby boomers died. The boomer generation gets a lot of flak online but for us it was the prior generations who were problematic.

There’s no going back anyways. I’ve tried making new accounts. It’s impossible to post anywhere.

The account vetting filters block me everywhere. Can’t post unless I’m a vetted poster. Can’t become vetted because I can’t post to begin with. I can’t be bothered to seek out and karma farm on random subreddits that aren’t a mess of filters.

Yep. “Work on yourself” sounds right but where’s the rest? Nobody has an answer except the far right who use that as an opening to groom them into the incel politics/culture war army. Usually the answer from everyone else is “figure it out yourself”. Because you’re supposed to be a big man. And men just figure shit out.

That’s a traditionalism that is still being upheld. Especially by left leaning. It’s not very progressive to uphold traditional gender stereotypes is it. These are guys that need help. And you tell them “work on yourself” in other words just figure it out bro. Oh, they figure alright. Figure right into the very thing you all hate so much.

As you said these topics are hard to broach. Why then does “clean your room” and “take a shower” come so easily from a certain type of person.

Just like 3D film and television. The VR stuff surfaces periodically with another iteration of the tech.

It’s ultimately about ad money. They haven’t cared it’s humans or bots either. They keep paying out either way. This predates long before the LLM era. It’s bizarre.

It’s pretty much a case of the POSIWID. The system is meant to be genuine human engagement. What the system does is artificial at every step. Turns out its purpose is to fabricate things for bots to engage with. And this is all propped up by people who for some reason pay to keep the system running.

Grim milestone and barely a peep about it in popular discourse. Everyone needs to prepare personally for the consequences.

For one thing I’m not expecting food prices to level off for the rest of my life. Everything’s just going to get more scarce and expensive. Is it possible common foods we enjoy now we may never have again at some point?

On a lighter note. I got a new winter jacket in 2019. Between covid and the rapid decline of cold winters I’ve barely worn it.