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The internet is already over

samkriss.substack.com

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Re: The internet is already over

#51

Post by didericis »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #30
keiferski wrote: post #10

The author makes a lot of witty, erudite References – a method that has annoyingly become popular and is often mistaken as "good writing" – but I think he has missed a simple and obvious truth: culture is determined by fashion. Not fashion as in clothing, but fashion as in ideas and things that are trendy for a time then fade away, replaced by the next thing. The next thing is often an indirect reaction to the previo…

The vast majority of this article might as well be GPT-3 puke. Some interesting bits can be found at "When I say the internet is running dry,", afterwards it's right back to GPT-3 level drivel and I stopped reading. Was this really written by a human?

Your comment is subject to the same criticism.

Most online content is. I think most of what the author is complaining about can be attributed to this inability to distinguish between genuine human conversation with real people and automated attempts to get you to engage, not the internet itself.

Re: The internet is already over

#52

Post by jaqalopes »

I’ve been waiting for an article like this. I feel much the same way. My question for the author is, what do we do about it? I’d love to make some friends who share my worldview and go camp off-grid with them once a month to be in touch with real life. How to find those people and coordinate that trip? Therein lies the rub.

It’s easy to be a solo dropout and turn your back on the world. The problem comes when no one goes with you, and now you’re just an old man yelling at a cloud. I yearn desperately for a life where my connections to everyone I know aren’t mediated by the internet. But as long as everyone else is still on the internet, I’m pretty much SOL.

Re: The internet is already over

#53

Post by lobstrosity420 »

jaqalopes wrote: post #52

I’ve been waiting for an article like this. I feel much the same way. My question for the author is, what do we do about it? I’d love to make some friends who share my worldview and go camp off-grid with them once a month to be in touch with real life. How to find those people and coordinate that trip? Therein lies the rub. It’s easy to be a solo dropout and turn your back on the world. The problem comes when no one…

If the author is to be believed, all you need to do is wait 5 to 10 years. Try to join a local hackerspace in the meantime.

Re: The internet is already over

#54

Post by forgetfreeman »

boxmonster wrote: post #3

I was going to say the article is written in the style of Bill Hicks with some George Carlin, but then I remember that everyone is freaked out right now and "end of the world" themes are popular. No the internet is not going away, unless of course the world does. Some current concerns from an American point of view: - An ex President may be indicted soon, the first time in US history - The ex President threatens the…

Weird that a mild rehash of current events is getting downvoted. Clearly I have no idea what motivates you people. Anyway, I was going to say this person's writings remind me of Warren Ellis at the tail end of a 14 hour blotter-fueled house party. Head still reeling but too strung out to muster any but the most muted emotional response.

Re: The internet is already over

#55

Post by jackcosgrove »

motohagiography wrote: post #42

> $150 billion, mostly from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which it’s poured into Uber and DoorDash and WeWork and Klarna and Slack. It provides the money that effectively subsidises your autistic digital life. While I wasn't interested in following the writer down his garden path, this stood out and made me wonder whether over a large enough portfolio, later stage investments that increase t…

What I have heard about the Vision Fund strategy is that it's to subsidize a company until it is large enough to go public and be included in the major index funds. After that happens there's a lot more investor inertia and retail money.

Again, it's just something I've heard.

Re: The internet is already over

#57

Post by vitiral »

aeonque wrote: post #24

Only a slave mentality of a Christian in a fantasy world of believe or burn could turn a fundamental law of the universe into a depressing and horror of negative. All things arise and pass away. This is truth. If you believe it to be terrible then you are blind to half your life. Once a man, twice a child. This is not sad, it is nature. The end gives VALUE to what existed. The author criticizes the downfall of the te…

You make good points, but I didn't see such value judgements from the author. Instead, I interpreted the horror imagery as very much to your point: the way things are and will always be, the endless cycle of life and death which so many want to look away from, but which we must embrace.

Re: The internet is already over

#58

Post by jeegsy »

aeonque wrote: post #24

Only a slave mentality of a Christian in a fantasy world of believe or burn could turn a fundamental law of the universe into a depressing and horror of negative. All things arise and pass away. This is truth. If you believe it to be terrible then you are blind to half your life. Once a man, twice a child. This is not sad, it is nature. The end gives VALUE to what existed. The author criticizes the downfall of the te…

> Only a slave mentality of a Christian in a fantasy world of believe

This type of reductive discourse cannot die soon enough..

Re: The internet is already over

#60

Post by strken »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #48
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of this article might as well be GPT-3 puke. Some interesting bits can be found at "When I say the internet is running dry,", afterwards it's right back to GPT-3 level drivel and I stopped reading. Was this really written by a human?

That's the sad part--like I'm human but get accused of being a mentally ill bot of some kind--the sad part is there's a lot of folks that don't write that much better in most respects than GPT-3. Well and if they read a lot of GPT-3, it reinforces. I for one don't have a problem communicating with machines, they have a message that message might have worth. Just needs a little bit of collateral to look at it in the f…

Most people really are better than GPT-3. The bot writes incoherent rambling with flair and style; humans write poorly, but (usually) with some underlying goal that keeps them on track.

GPT-3 output reminds me of the schizophrenia symptom called word salad, but slightly more coherent. It's trying to predict the next word, not achieve anything else, and the result is text that looks like it's going somewhere but never arrives.

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