So for mold, low enough doses aren't poison? Can't you just say this about anything. If you have poison in a low enough dose it's not poison. So it means jsut about nothing to say alcohol isn't poisonous because you can have a small dose of it.

Fentanyl is actually much more toxic than the mycotoxins produced by mold (which I'm guessing is what you're referring to), and yet fentanyl is generally recognized to be a useful drug because of its therapeutic effects. If something has no possible therapeutic, recreational, nutritional, or culinary effect, while being toxic, it might be fair to characterize it as a 'pure poison'.

The big psyop/trick is that "AI development has to slow down" and not that we hit limits with the technology or the technology is immature.

Either way it's a win-win for whoever sells that message because you make the makers and the warners the center of attention. And when they say "we are considering slowing down" they mean "if we get enough money to slow down we'll do it". And of course they never want you to think AI is a technology employed by humans who need be changed, not the technology. So as long as you engage this massive straw man to focus on the wrong thing you do nothing to hold the leaders accountable for their harmful and selfish actions and decisions for society.

The message was directed at the employees. Their work may slow down, but that doesn't imply that all work will slow down. OpenAI also has this technology that purportedly can do the work without employees. In fact, if the employee work isn't starting to slow down then OpenAI has bigger problems given the business model that keeps getting promised to investors.

Ah I see. I didn't read the article and just shared my opinion about something unrelated. Thanks.

I think we should describe a new effect infecting mainstream society:

- AI companies and the rich have increasingly pushed an agenda on the populace that most people didn't want, and the foundation of work in AI was formed by theft.

- Theft of creative work from millions of people, and a selective enforcement of law and compromise of investigatory authorities has demonstrated the law, morals, and the welfare of most people doesn't matter for people in power.

- This is the real "less collaborative" nature of the world where we find ourselves in. Add to that the increasing push for war by our leaders and rich too, people often shielded from the consequences, and you have a net less collaborative world.

It actually isn't even AI, but the same people pushing it are the same ones compromising collaboration for most people.

AI providers are pretty much the end boss of rent seeking, that’s for sure

Yes but what about “analytical purposes” what does that cover and can you turn it off? I have found out you cannot. It’s the Trojan backdoor to your data.

And I have been proclaiming a cry of “your data for analytical purposes is being stolen” (you can’t opt out of analytical purposes) and people perhaps astroturfers straw man back to “just turn off training bro”.

Yeah. Remember yall: you CAN NOT opt out of analytical purposes. And you also cannot get a guarantee that it doesn’t give them your data to steal for their business.

Right before COVID I stumbled across mens groups, they were a way I first learned I could get my underlying needs for getting seen met in a way no other mechanism in society offered.

Society was trying actually to meet this need in so many other pseudo forms, but where it fell short and what I needed was:

- a safe space to share what my experience without needing to be fixed or someone giving me unsolicited feedback

- place where competition was turned off (sports groups, board game nights, video games etc had previously been this but since they were competitive they met a different need)

- a cadence that met regularly and where space for me to speak with structure was a requirement

I liked this so much I even formed one in DC before I was pushed away for work to an abusive Dallas Capital One environment (which my men helped me navigate while my coworkers accepted the abuse being blind to it). I Highly recommend trying a mens groups, find one on Facebook or Google, or try the project mankind groups or No Mr Nice Guy’s Dr Glover runs one online. The one I was a part of longest is also open: embodied masculine (more extreme embodiment based group) but starting off get your toes wet first.

I am wary of meeting with more than about 2-3 men at a time, because men in larger groups tend to socialize through banter, toilet humor, or talking about fucking women (which I like to do sometimes but don't want to talk about); just lame topics I'd like to avoid completely. Also, even without competition, a pecking order gets established.

So, men's groups don't solve the problem of the lack of healthy regular socializing with 2-3 good friends, which for men in many countries has fallen off a cliff since the smartphone and Covid.

I find men's groups with more structure do help with those problems you described. I wouldn't be so early to dismiss and suggest considering it with an open mind. At least for me and many others I Know, men's groups with a clear order of gather to discuss, and require and ask for consent before giving advice, with that recurring meeting being the main source of socialization; do not have as much of a pecking order nor lame topics. They have more authenticity and connection with the pretense being around connection and acceptance without performance.

If you want regular socializing with 2-3 good friends though, I think the friends made from a men's group would be closer to what you are seeking than from a random hobby-based group.

edit: in re to "even without competition a pecking order gets established" my experience has shown this to be oversimplifying it. The "pecking order" in a mens group is way different from a different group. the pecking order in men's groups with a structur-based leader, is that the leader gets the "alpha" status if there was one and if they are a good leader they aren't there to abuse that privilege. But since they should be providing it professionally (paid service) it isn't mixed with friendship as much. At least the "pecking order" there is oriented around serving you rather than random socialization without that purpose.

I really like this answer. I wish there were a men's group near me.

It's likely there is, though it might be difficult to find. One place you can look is the local unitarian universalists. These can vary widely, but often you'll find them open to all religions (including non-religious), and full of open, curious, non-judgemental people.

One thing about UU's is that it's not dogma based. There's nothing you have to believe to be a UU. Instead, it's covenant based. You are in the community when you adhere to the agreements of the community. These are usually things like mutual respect, deep listening, etc.

I mirror this. Also, if online is acceptable, I recommend the options I listed in my OP.

All the "AI will kill us all" posts are straw manning that humans are the ones who will kill other humans with AI. Those same humans are silently now preparing bunkers and hoarding food and resources for their survival.

Don't fall for another rich man's trick.

Can you opt out of sharing data for “analytical purposes”? I think you can’t. And what does “analytical purposes” even mean?

I think people straw man the whole data argument on “opt out of training purposes” and ignore the mandatory analytic purposes. Which probably includes figuring out trends and important research problem data to steal from users and even business ideas.

I don't think there is as much IP theft risk on the analytical side. That to me implies they're tracking behaviour (what you click etc) more than taking the raw data

no analytic purposes lets them get your whole chats they just can't train on it.

Have you considered getting involved in local civics?

I only ask because like you, I felt similar. But I also grew up (I’m 35 now) with a big disconnect from civics life and always felt “someone else would save me”.

Now I see I was the problem all along: I never participated in what was a fragile and very delicate system of governance which requires my participation. Still figuring out what that looks like, but first confronting that my actions “didn’t change anything” (which I’m sure you can admit is a big propagandistic myth to disempower us) let me take my first tiny action locally which is reach out to my civics association for signage repair. I suspect from there I will level up and better understand my government to play a role in shaping it. I’m also building something to solve this problem of low participation which is exciting!

I know where you are coming from. I do engage with the society while not in the way you've mentioned. Very regularly attend plays, meet a few friends (the number has reduced but these few have been regular), play team/group sports every day. There's place I go to teach twice a week. There are few other things. But let's not get into that. It all feels empty now. Motions. The hope of a personal and intimate future is just gone.

See, the personal life is dead to me (I've not given up, no. It's not just there!). At least what and who would have been accessible to me in 2020 and it was. I spent quite some time to bring my physical fitness, health, got back to sports and I was so happy. There was that glimmer. Then a mass layoff and sadly at the same time the burnout meant I was not ready to look again but I kept on rest of the things. And when I tried to get back to things it was evident that the ground beneath shifted entirely. Now, it seems, there's no point. Not in the defeatist way, because I've seen that "there's no point" before, but in the sense that there is really no point. I am about to be 40 in a few months time and almost every venues are closed to me to explore social life in any meaningful way I'd find desirable. In some settings the fact that I have financially independent and have decades of runaway for my currency and lifestyle doesn't matter. Everything gets tied to employment and even then when you look around, whether it's finding a group or exploring looking for a partner (especially this!), it all feels bizarre and completely alien. It's not only the double whammy of two events that wiped out my early and mid 30s, but it also depends on what society and culture I am in at this juncture. And no it's not my fault or anyone's but this happened, and not being alone in it doesn't make it any better.

Do I feel fortunate? Well, that's the wrong question, because when you are unhappy with your pair of shoes, you can always find someone without any shoes and I wish we functioned that way, with that arithmetic rationality, but we don't; at least I don't.

The biggest problem is - the wish to live this life (I don't even have any doubt there, because if I had it would have been simpler) and wish to do something and dreams of a fulfilling, exciting, and passionate personal life hasn't diminished a bit, but, at the same time it is clear that there's no more of that - most of that. That's the gripe - this tug.

(Hey, thank you for engaging with me. This was very kind of you. Even though this is not really hn discussion material so I can't even explain what I am going through. I might even make it look like everything is fine, and even hunky dory for me, and I am just whining. Or maybe I am).

Hey you're welcome. I enjoyed this. The deep, intimate connection with a stranger (or not) is fulfilling for me - and I feel this is hn discussion material. Technology and what being a hacker was about is changing fast, and beyond that, would we be honest if we said hacking and creating with tech it is disconnected from our personal lives?

So what are you looking for? What do you want out of this thing called life? I wonder what advice you would give to yourself now, 20 years from now, and whether you have really lost hope permanently or are just struggling to find it again?

There are vague dreams of some sort of professional fulfilment (call it success as society calls it; monetary gains again ie an income stream; the feeling of making something that is tangible at some level - it might be a software; and definitely not feeling almost obsolete and this time for no fault of mine at all) and all of them get checked by non-vague wish/dream/yearning for personal fulfilment - a partner, a family, possibly a child, a simple house et cetera. The pain is I might already have the money, had I been younger, and if I fight enough might get more. But the rest? Well, the 6-7 years just wiped a lot of things. A lot of these things are not feasible for me now. Not in a setup, or a partner who I'd have wanted to be with - that combo just doesn't exist anymore. That's gone for my existence in this world at this point in time at this age and at this professional and financial status.

This is getting muddled. The pain is the time is lost and there were certain fulfilments I'd have wanted to have in this period and that's gone for me.

Hah. 20 years later? I'd advise myself to try and go back to 25-28 again and think seriously about getting married or actively date while there was still time and work strictly for money because later either that changes or that'd mean remain stuck in same orgs for long and for what - low salaries and a good team/work? See, I right now want satisfaction and bit of money but I want to tell my younger self to just earn filthy amount of money one way or the other. I can see that disconnect. But had I had "that kind of money" and that could just be, let's just talk numbers for a moment, 2-3x of what I've right now and I could have sped up and make better efforts at getting what I want from my personal life.

I am scared I have lost hope for good but if there's something there left I want to try and get that. I am trying everyday. Maybe that's what hope is, or maybe just the meaningless struggle.

Hey, thanks again. You too, take care.

You're welcome. Always down to connect and hear the struggles of a fellow hacker/tech worker/internet stranger who was vulnerable enough to share an authentic part of themselves with me. My email is hello@mannan.is should you ever wish to reconnect.

And I feel that in there, there's a kindle of hope, waiting to be rediscovered. I think it'll come by surprise and you'll be wondering where it was all along. Or at least, if you have no hope for your life, I do.

Thank you. Very kind of you. Be well