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Bored of It

paulrobertlloyd.com

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Re: Bored of It

#331

Post by 9rx »

hersko wrote: post #223

This is insane. We have created the greatest tool in human history and people are complaining. I can use it to help me code, fix modeling issues as I learn CAD, help me troubleshoot the issues in my two-stroke leafblower engine and can consistently walk me through complex leetcode algorithms. It literally knows everything and people still complain.

> and people are complaining.

Not about the tool, though, but about people (who, granted, have some connection to the tool, even if indirectly).

We've had people for hundreds of thousands of years, so fair to say that they have become quite boring.

Re: Bored of It

#333

Post by cdecl »

lurk2 wrote: post #258
cdecl wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually convinced that "marketing", as such, can be completely orthogonal to profit altogether. Any sort of communication of a novel thing would fall under this banner, but I learn about new FOSS projects on here every day because the maintainers and developers are willing to 'advertise' them to me.

> Any sort of communication of a novel thing would fall under this banner Yeah, that was what I was getting at. I believe it in theory, but in practice I find all advertising to be the sort of implicit-mugging the grandparent is describing. > but I learn about new FOSS projects on here every day because the maintainers and developers are willing to 'advertise' them to me. That’s an excellent counter-point. I’ve had t…

> I find all advertising to be the sort of implicit-mugging the grandparent is describing.

Unfortunately, it's a useful thing that people have used to prey on our inquisitive simian brains.

Personally, I'm in favor of doing things like banning billboards &c, but it's hard to draw a line on banning advertising in general.

Re: Bored of It

#334

Post by [deleted] »

terhechte wrote: post #71

I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the na…

[deleted]

Re: Bored of It

#336

Post by spencerflem »

lurk2 wrote: post #258
cdecl wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually convinced that "marketing", as such, can be completely orthogonal to profit altogether. Any sort of communication of a novel thing would fall under this banner, but I learn about new FOSS projects on here every day because the maintainers and developers are willing to 'advertise' them to me.

> Any sort of communication of a novel thing would fall under this banner Yeah, that was what I was getting at. I believe it in theory, but in practice I find all advertising to be the sort of implicit-mugging the grandparent is describing. > but I learn about new FOSS projects on here every day because the maintainers and developers are willing to 'advertise' them to me. That’s an excellent counter-point. I’ve had t…

I think the motivation is important. Many FOSS projects are sharing something the author considers useful to the world, as a way of making it better in a way that they know how. Its a lovely gift and I'm happy to know about it.

Others are there to promote lock in to some cloud service, or increase the authors rep as a 10x hacker and those are skeevy because the author is skeevy and did not have joy in their hearts.

All corporate ads ate the second kind.

Re: Bored of It

#337

Post by Ukv »

lesostep wrote: post #155
thih9 wrote: post #70

> You know what I’m talking about, even though I’ve not mentioned it. Many comments here assume the "it" means AI. Is that certain though? As in: is there a line that without doubt would point to AI? In my view this text could just as well be about the iPhone (written 15 years ago and published today). Perhaps this makes "it" even more boring; i.e. that when the process ends with one "it", it starts again with a new…

Can't be an iPhone, iPhones don't need plants to power them and lakes to cool them. Could be tech in general though

Average phone allegedly uses 30 kWh per year (charging + data transfer)[0], which in turn uses about 26 gallons of water[1].

Which I feel is well worth it for the value each user gets out, but does start to add up to lakes and power plants worth of water/energy when there are billions of phones.

[0]: https://www.bryceenergyservices.com/2024/10/03/the-total-ene...

[1]: Using same electricity water intensity as used in https://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.03271

Re: Bored of It

#338

Post by [deleted] »

nisa wrote: post #140
jsheard wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The younger generations do seem to be embracing AI more, but mainly because it can do their homework for them without requiring them to learn anything. For now at least, until curriculums have time to adjust to this new reality.

It's creating devastating effects in higher education here. I'm a bit older but did a masters after working a few years and I've now decided to quit because most - if not all - students just upload the sheets to an llm and copy the output. Group projects used to be really intense and interesting here - now my partners in the group-projects ask me to explain their code to them. It's not an ivy-league university here b…

[deleted]

Re: Bored of It

#340

Post by mapt »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #266
lurk2 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfect marketing campaign/tactic literally hypnotizes you into dropping all your money on an arbitrary good or service. It is isomorphic to somebody mugging you. I like the quote and despise advertising of any kind for mostly the same reason, but you could apply this logic to any kind of business and it starts to fall apart. > The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfec…

I'm willing to go along with this hypothesis. So first step is to end capitalism, then we can see if we still hate ads?

You don't need to "First, we end capitalism" to recognize a problem that has already gone out of bounds and promises to go further.

Hawaii bans billboards, and has, since 1927. Look into that. They manage to do so without some kind of slippery slope that ends in authoritarian oppression, or some kind of guillotine wielding anti-corporate mob. There are lots of ways to limit the harm without trying to completely erase our political economy.

We used to ban gambling. Gambling was regarded as slightly harmful. Now we have legalized gambling, and we've plugged it into modern marketting, and the harm has expanded to the point that some of us regret the entire idea; The gambling industry is in the process of consuming all of sports entertainment. "Decriminalization" of small gambling concerns and an almost total ban on paid advertising is probably, it turns out, a better outcome.

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