It sincerely feel absolutely insane. Completely beyond any party line bullshit - I'm almost as concerned with what Obama would do with this as what Trump would do with this.

This sort of ruling has no place in a democratic society. It is beyond reprehensible, it is utterly absurd.

The fact that it has been basically accepted by the general public - no riots, no large-scale outcry - sends a dire fucking message.

"May you live in interesting times", indeed.

For the same reasons they always have.

The year has little to do with it. The only things we've really undeniably progressed in over the past century are scientific knowledge and the level of technology. Existential philosophy hasn't exactly made breakthroughs recently, to my knowledge.

Each person still needs to find their own answer to the fundamental questions of "why am I here" and "wtf is death and how do I deal with it".

Our mechanical, scientific understanding of reality provides fairly depressing answers to these questions. Religion? Sunshine and roses.

Also, on a more practical factor: childhood indoctrination and cultural inertia. Most people are raised in religion and they find it "good enough", so religion continues.

For better or for worse, spez was correct in claiming that this will just blow over. People in general are shit at boycotts, redditors doubly so - there's barely any group cohesion or leadership there.

The people who see an issue with reddit's current behavior have left, the others will just keep going on a much shittier platform. As it has ever been.

Russia posted a first-quarter deficit of almost 2.4 trillion rubles amid the war in Ukraine.

Putin has absolutely destroyed Russia's economy and population for decades to come, for absolutely no reason and no benefit.

That's just tragic.

Believe it or not, not every corner of the internet has been taken over by astroturfing as of yet!

I'm genuinely just sharing a cool keyboard app that has made my use-case far more fun for me. Another such app I used for a while was MessagEase, but unfortunately they went subscription-based (and also it was slower, even after a huge amount of practice).

You can use most modern phones as a spirit level with the right app! It's really useful when doing projects around the house, not having to run around to find a real one. Quite accurate, too!

Yep. Spez and the reddit admins have gone full mask-off, realpolitik, "do what we say or get the fuck out".

The platform still functions, for now, but this is genuinely the beginning of the end as far as I can tell.

I had initially mentioned the custom keyboard app I was using. I have since edited the post to remove that, since I'm genuinely interested in people's answers and don't want them to think this is an ad.

Northernlion. He's still a cool person in my books, but the moment he started actively trying to maximize revenue is when he began to lose his appeal to me. Nick's - RockLeeSmile's - departure was the first warning bell, but I stuck with him for a long while after that.

I completely get it, though - he wants to ensure a good future for his family.

The phone flashlight is absurdly useful to me. I think I end up using it almost every single day.

Another use that comes to mind is google lens. Really easy and quick translation, and it helps me figure out what various random items are called - thrifting finds or plants, for example.

That was the final straw for me. I don't much care about Apollo, but the behavior spez displayed there sends a clear message.

He will lie, cheat, and do whatever the hell he needs to, so long as it results in profit, or he believes that it does.

There's genuine intention to cause harm, there. And since that's the approach reddit takes to the literal foundation of their community? Fuck 'em.

I use Typewise, with its default hexagonal layout that's supposedly based on the frequency of letters in English. I've gotten alright with it - ~60 WPM on Monkeytype, which is enough that it doesn't feel clunky to use it. And it's quite fun to practice, too!

While I'm pretty sure it's quite possible to write faster with more predictive keyboards, I really appreciate the precision this one allows. Especially since I'm bilingual, which leads to autocorrect and swype getting quite confused sometimes.

I'm still in the market for a better keyboard app. Another interesting one I've tried was MessagEase. It looks really cool and arcane to use, but I found it to be slower in spite of me putting more effort into mastering it.

Yes! There's so many cool apps on there! I wish the play store was similarly browsable.

Ehhh. I get that exploitative techbros and cryptobros have confused the issue by latching onto the AI bubble.

But at the same time generalized artificial intelligence is very likely possible and will be an absolute game-changer if and when it happens. It's easily of similar value to fusion technology.

And it is already bringing truly impressive results into reality - protein folding and diagnostic medicine come to mind.

This is definitely a huge one in my experience as well. Speech isn't great at communicating visual detail. It's amazing how the moment you start drawing you can just see it click in the other person's mind.

I've never had a phone with a stylus before, but you make a good case for it!

Been doing this too! Embarrassingly I still need to refer to my washing machine manual occassionally.

It's a really useful habit!

In a similar vein, I've also got a receipt scanner app - to make sure I've got 'em saved if I need to return or service something.

You're right that they could.

Now look at their past legislation. Will they?

In the same way that computers are basically advanced abaci.

Don't confuse a simplification made to demonstrate the basic functioning to a layman with how things actually work.

LLM's are neural networks, which are based on a model of brain function. There's little reason to believe that we cannot eventually reach similar levels of effectiveness as human brains.

Hell - reaching the levels of pigeon brains would already be absurdly useful.

This ruling is only possible and accepted because the current political climate allows for that, true. Things haven't been fine for a while. But this is a sign that they keep getting worse.

I vehemently disagree with the idea that it's a good thing to have "the curtain pulled back". Realpolitik is and has been true forever - but public perception and acceptance matters a huge amount. These popular illusions and ideals are a part of the calculation of realpolitik.

Society should be idealistic, it should expect better - because those expectations shape the actions of politicians. Our society losing its ideals shouldn't be applauded, it should be mourned.

What a cool question, actually.

In my current situation? Probably a coffee date with someone new.

In a hypothetical "blank slate" scenario? Some easy way to play music. An mp3 player or something among those lines.

Alternatively - I could absolutely purchase a used dumb phone for that amount of money, as well as free calls within network for a year (in my country).