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We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

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Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#191

Post by simianparrot »

daymanstep wrote: post #123
anovikov wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> For years, i tried to lose weight with gym and dieting. I failed, and now i know i probably never had a chance to, it was a scam all along. In what way is dieting a scam? You literally just eat less, and you will lose weight as long as you're on a calorie deficit.

I have yet to meet a single person that doesn't lose weight steadily but surely down to a healthy level by even just _attempting_ 16/8 intermittent fasting combined with at least 30 minutes of cardio every day -- even a brisk walk will do as long as it makes you warm and sweat. Even if you miss some days with cardio and only manage 12/12 with intermittent fasting some days, it's literally impossible for the body to gain weight this way. I'm sure there's one medical outlier among ten thousand or something, but in my 39 years I've never met a single one. Cardio is tougher the more you weigh, and intermittent fasting restricts carbs naturally.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#192

Post by whimsicalism »

mantas wrote: post #169
IgorPartola wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to offer an alternative explanation than AI to this. Shit is just too damn expensive. If you want to go hang out with friends it will cost you $4-8 for a cup of coffee. A dinner starts at $50/person. A trip to an amusement park is over $100 easily. The median individual income in the US currently is just over $65k/year or about $32.50/hour. That means half the workforce makes less than that. When an 8oz cock…

The problem is that people immediately think that socializing is consuming. It’s always an option to chat with people sitting on a park bench. Or at one’s home in a kitchen. Coffee can be home-made in both cases.

the homeless issue has caused cities to underprovision amenities like benches

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#193

Post by mantas »

mystraline wrote: post #179
mantas wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that people immediately think that socializing is consuming. It’s always an option to chat with people sitting on a park bench. Or at one’s home in a kitchen. Coffee can be home-made in both cases.

In my smaller city, parks and benches are populated with homeless people of various types. At minimum, the benches are used. Worse off, a significant minority are actively violent with a good dose of various untreated mental illnesses. Crossing them is not good for your health. And it also makes kind of a terrible environment to talk with friends, while avoiding drug needles. Even the public library has similar probl…

Looks like you guys have bigger issues than socializing and expensive coffee.

Here it’s not uncommon to meet some rowdy people out and about. Not necessarily homeless. But it’s not hard to find some silent corner to enjoy some coffee from a thermos.

Other option… Maybe head out to nature trails? Chat while walking at enjoy some coffee at a rest stop? Even few kilometers from the city homeless are unlikely even whereever you are…?

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#194

Post by johnfn »

IgorPartola wrote: post #142
stdvit wrote: post #97

> Even in a world brimming with easy distractions—TikTok, Pornhub, Candy Crush, Sudoku—people still manage to meet for drinks, work out at the gym, go on dates, muddle through real life. They actually don't. Everything from dating and fitness to manufacturing and politics is in decline in activities, and more so in effect and understanding. You can't convince (enough) people anymore that it is even important as many…

I’d like to offer an alternative explanation than AI to this. Shit is just too damn expensive. If you want to go hang out with friends it will cost you $4-8 for a cup of coffee. A dinner starts at $50/person. A trip to an amusement park is over $100 easily. The median individual income in the US currently is just over $65k/year or about $32.50/hour. That means half the workforce makes less than that. When an 8oz cock…

I don't buy this explanation. There are plenty of things you can do together that don't cost very much - or anything at all. You can go take a hike. You can go to the park and hang out, or play a board game. You can go to a court and play pickleball. Heck, go to the library! All these things are free and many people do them.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#195

Post by monktastic1 »

gchamonlive wrote: post #153
IgorPartola wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to offer an alternative explanation than AI to this. Shit is just too damn expensive. If you want to go hang out with friends it will cost you $4-8 for a cup of coffee. A dinner starts at $50/person. A trip to an amusement park is over $100 easily. The median individual income in the US currently is just over $65k/year or about $32.50/hour. That means half the workforce makes less than that. When an 8oz cock…

I second that. Everybody is quick to jump the gun and blame the victim, while all this can be easily explained by the insane lifestyle we are forced to subscribe in order to survive in this crazy cut-throat productivist job market.

I wouldn't be so quick to divide the world so neatly into victims and perpetrators. Every FAANG engineer I know, for example, could easily retire by mid-40s by keeping consumption in check. Instead, nearly every single one chose instead to "improve their lifestyles." Not blaming them, either, because it's cultural programming -- but until we all learn to slow down a bit and reflect, the madness isn't going to stop.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#196

Post by doug_durham »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #150
ebabani wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way was the gym a scam?

Losing weight is done in the kitchen, not the gym. In fact exercise makes you crazy hungry, which sabotages tons of people's weight loss efforts. It's better to lose weight, learn how your body and calories work, and then start implementing gym work.

I can't imaging losing weight consistently without exercise. Diet is most important. However even for the most obsessed of us counting calories is difficult to get right all of the time. Muscle mass consumes calories and exercise creates a deficit. Both provide margin that help account for calorie counting mistakes. I find that exercise forms a virtuous cycle in dieting. If I go on a 500 calorie bike ride that's 500 more calories I can eat that day.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#197

Post by ants_everywhere »

extropic-engine wrote: post #181
ants_everywhere wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah for sure. But also Orwell was extrapolating from the reality on the ground in communist countries. The scale achieved there was also massive. Your neighbors would turn you in if you criticized the people in power, etc. This is also the reason the Soviets were ahead of the US in trying to train people like dogs (Pavlov's research) and why the communist forces ran brainwashing experiments on American POWs during t…

have you looked at the US lately? if you're concerned for democracy i don't think deepseek is the one you need to be most worried about

It's the one LLM we know of that is specifically trained to be opposed to democracy. Can you say more about why that doesn't concern you?

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#198

Post by al_borland »

1718627440 wrote: post #174
al_borland wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already happening. I keep seeing articles and videos about Gen Z opting for dumb phones and getting into 90s or early 00s era tech. It just needs to reach enough of a tipping point for companies to get behind it, and hopefully not be a fad that just burns out. This part is all very unlikely. The mainstream will have to get really bad. To buy new "90s" stuff, it's not as good as what we had in the actual 90s.…

I think the ones using only "dumbphones" are also the people who don't like companies influencing them. Also the market is already saturated. I get good "dumbphones" for less than 10€. An adult can basically get a new phone everyday. It's really bad, not more people will be using them. My phone has a browser with a cursor(!), and the equivalents of Google Maps and Spotify, that also (would) work offline. But I can't…

I haven’t used a flip phones since 2007. Is there a model I can look up to see what the UX is like today, if it’s not just Android?

From the flip phones of old, the iPhone (first gen) was a massive upgrade in terms of UX, imo. A lot of people avoided smart phones, because they thought they’d be too hard to use, but I think they were actually much easier for the basics. That may be less true today than it once was, as they’ve added a lot of complexity over the last 18 years.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#199

Post by moralestapia »

IgorPartola wrote: post #142
stdvit wrote: post #97

> Even in a world brimming with easy distractions—TikTok, Pornhub, Candy Crush, Sudoku—people still manage to meet for drinks, work out at the gym, go on dates, muddle through real life. They actually don't. Everything from dating and fitness to manufacturing and politics is in decline in activities, and more so in effect and understanding. You can't convince (enough) people anymore that it is even important as many…

I’d like to offer an alternative explanation than AI to this. Shit is just too damn expensive. If you want to go hang out with friends it will cost you $4-8 for a cup of coffee. A dinner starts at $50/person. A trip to an amusement park is over $100 easily. The median individual income in the US currently is just over $65k/year or about $32.50/hour. That means half the workforce makes less than that. When an 8oz cock…

You're right, but also.

Most of my best years with friends I spent little to no money while meeting them.

Just going to the local park and sit down and talk or do dumb things, free.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#200

Post by doug_durham »

CooCooCaCha wrote: post #158
derektank wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the metabolic rate slows down to compensate for the caloric loss from exercise The only consistent way to enter a caloric deficit is to diet, which is very hard for the obvious reasons

Technically yes but not for the reason you think. Muscle and fat are metabolically active, which means they burn calories just to stay alive. If you lose fat, guess what? Your body doesn’t need as many calories to survive. Another factor is the calories you burn not exercising. We burn calories all day, even when we’re not exercising but when people are dieting they tend to have lower energy so the don’t move around…

I would like to add that exercise also helps you to influence where you lose weight. Your body will often choose to lose muscle mass when you are running a calorie deficit. If you lift weights you are stimulating muscle growth which helps to shift your body to lose weight through fat loss.
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