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.

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!

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.