by k310 | 2025-05-28 05:10:53+00:00
Well, IMO, the extreme concentration of wealth and power (yes, technology enabled network effects that countered the egalitarianism that the internet promised) and the fast buck mentality that drives markets Why, I'm so old I remember "value investing" and now we have microsecond (or less?) trading. Yes. technology enabled that.

But the point is that technology can do vast good or brutal exploitation. It all depends on people, and people have lost sight of community and "fair share". The most obvious fact of life is that "you can't take it with you", and families are known to go to war over estates. Some are doing it while "Dad" (Ruppert) is still alive. So, what's the point?

My personal belief system is Buddhist, and what matters is not "things" but what you do with them for betterment. And I found a community of like-minded people.

There are still community activities, whether it be music, conservation, photography, surfing, whatever. In ancient times (mine) we had a singles magazine (some of you might remember Trellis Singles) and a lot of ads were about macho activities (guys advertising) and I agree on shared/group activities are not just ways to meet people; shared interests make for really nice dates, and marriage. My daughter and son in law have wonderful shared interests; diving, travel and so on.

Back on topic, I had a lot of ideas in my career, and was aghast when bosses tossed really brilliant and beneficial ideas onto the floor. Let's face it, socially beneficial ideas (such as free and open source software) are a harder sell than flashy stuff and websites (you know their names) where people are the product being sold.

How to find like-minded and good-hearted people? Well, I joined Hacker News for that reason. I believe in small communities, where people know and trust each other, and where normal social needs and behavior are served. How we relate to others depends on the time, the place, the person and circumstances. Other than email and DM's, the tech world is currently a broadcast medium. Change can happen, a little at a time. It's not easy.

And I have expressed my feelings about AI in general [0]

snip:

I could let AI play music all day, but I wouldn't be engaging with the music. I could let AI create an infinite gallery of pictures, but I wouldn't be running outside in a sun shower to catch a fabulous double rainbow, fully engaged with nature (and needing only minor touch up to make the image match my feelings.)

I experience. I have agency. I co-create. I feel what a composer felt through my hands and ears. Absolutely nobody (else) knew about the sun shower, but I felt it.

The proof that AI has already ruined life is that I sent that rainbow photo to a friend of some 40 years with lens data and it had full EXIF info attached, less location, which can be seen from only one place on earth. He asked me if it was real.

My philosophy is not that we seek meaning in life, but that we live to create meaning, as we write stories with our lives, and exerience the stories of others, stories that touch our knowledge (filtered, not a giant bag of dissociated bytes) and life experience, and as we process them with our minds and emotions.

To destroy meaning is to destroy life. Might as well be "living" in The Matrix. Someone else's idea of life.

Virtual steak.

end snip:

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43942930#43943277