“Keep this thought handy when you feel a fit of rage coming on—it isn’t manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier. A real man doesn’t give way to anger and discontent, and such a person has strength, courage, and endurance—unlike the angry and complaining. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.”
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 11.18.5b
Translation of old text in old context, tho I prefer 'humanly' over 'manly'.
@kzeta @Bongolian @pluralistic
When you think about it, LLMs are the ultimate way to censor and manipulate information. You hoover up all the information that other people worked hard to create then you add your layer of censorship and manipulation on top through additional training.
By its nature the evidence of doing is completely un-examinable, since once trained, it becomes a bunch of meaningless encoded numbers in a black box.
You are all much happier, smarter and wiser than you think, its more a matter of being un-distracted now than acquiring anything in the future 🙏
@Daojoan There are still some fairly intriguing small-time indie podcasts presumably done by enthusiasts with spare time or recordings of IRL events/talks, rather than as businesses.
Their episodes are often short and sparsely released. Could be a month or more before a new one comes out, and such small podcasts are hard to discover, drowned out by the big names.
I think these are always here to stay and that I enjoy more anyway. I don't need to listen to hours of distraction each week.
@pgiulan oh yeah FF is still my main browser, but I like to use some chrome based browser as my secondary, and for some specific tasks.
Ublock Origin is finally blocked on Google Chrome.
That means I finally have the excuse I need to delete it as my secondary browser and install something else instead. In this case Brave browser.
I'm already pleasantly surprised by Brave as a nice chromium-based web browser on its own merits.
"All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way."
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.6
The commonality being "in the present moment". We don't need to cultivate these these three... we only need to return to the present moment and we always find them.
It just occurred to me that Linux will soon be compatible with far more PC hardware than Windows is, because Windows 11 requires a TPM and updates for Windows 10 are about to stop.
Its still a bizarre experience walking into a computer store and seeing Windows baked into everything more tightly than ever, and now with added "Copilot".
The most impressive part of this demo were the Tron-like bicycles which were much faster and cooler looking than the driverless cars - which were in some kind of awkward confused walking-pace traffic jam most of the time.
Just saw a video presentation by a famous man, for a fancy new EV car model, which is fully autonomous and has no steering wheel/pedals.
This car is for absolute suckers.
With no controls its 100% reliant on internet-connected proprietary software to even move an inch. The producer of that software could pull the rug, charge a high subscription or go out of business any time, leaving its owner with a brick.
Fans make a big deal about being able to "own" the car. In reality they own nothing.
@obu I very much appreciate that you quoted the main point of the video in text, so I can learn something in 10 seconds of reading instead of watching a 7 minute video 🙏
I like this idea of getting grounded in reality and pointing out the obvious, though it may seem boring and not sensational enough for the ordinary noise-ridden internet.
I feel "taking things for granted" is an important habit that proliferates dissatisfaction and pushes us to want more and more - an important aspect that fuels the "system" and stops people effectively changing it.
Anyone who wants to change things could probably do well by starting by losing this habit.
@impermanen_ I agree.
I also think its a view that allowed the people who believed in it most strongly, to so far dominate in said imagined "world", over those who did not believe it.
However, now we mostly remain stuck in this word-made hypnosis, and we face the great suffering it causes in ourselves and others.
The mainstream internet lures us with dopamine, kills our creativity, makes us into sad noisy powerless complainers, expends our time on pointless distraction, buries the pathways to escape... then empties our wallets.
Don't complain. Just leave. Help build the alternative 💪
#Enshittification #indieweb #fediverse #OpenSource #selfhost