Wait like as opposed to before today? Today’s release is moving 4.3 from experimental branch to the long-term stable branch (or whatever they call it)

Nobody is answering the prompt lol. Everyone says all of this shit all the time.

You live long enough to never feel at home. Sure the loneliness sucks or whatever, but who do you root for at the football game?

Having to buy new shoes for the rest of eternity. You know how much work I’ve literally just put into finding shoes that 1) don’t suck and 2) aren’t made with slave labor? It’s impossible. Drives me insane. I’d found my own shoe company once I become immortal rich just to fix that problem alone. Maybe other stuff too we’ll get there

I suppose on that note: it seems like a really bad idea to become a public figure after a while. Like you obviously don’t want your immortality found out. You have to have like illuminati power before that point though, but it could happen at any time. Like if something happens and you become a news item (i.e. helping someone out and a video goes viral online). Not saying everyone is all that close to going viral, but over a sufficiently long lifespan you’re effectively rolling that dice a lot.

I think the saving grace of the Internet is in the small holes that arent populated enough for these big actors to care about. If you’re influencing a nation, you probably aren’t going to inject your AI slop into a tiny proboards or like the forum on Gaia Online.

Aphantasia is neat. I have to wonder how it affects the way we see the world. I’m 1. It doesn’t really take concentration, which I see on here? it’s not any harder than just a simple internal monologue anyways. But that’s always in motion whether I want it or not so 🤷

That’s including lights and reflections, but like that’s constructed by me, and so I might imagine a light reflection incorrectly. again just like I might have a definition incorrect for internal monologue.

Anyways, sure. Imagining is part of it. Like placing yourself in the situation in front of you. I don’t need adult videos to do so though. But like, having full HD imagination doesn’t replace videos of any kind, or else I wouldn’t watch YouTube either ya knoe

I keep a lot of my TTRPG PDFs in my drive. I’m wary of Google generally, but I do have to admit it was pretty cool to see it pick out bits and bobs from my PDFs with not-very-much guidance on my part.

(edit: God I’m sorry about this big ass wall. I ranged and rambled. It’s too early to write this much lol. Tl;Dr 1: law enforcement. Police don’t need a warrant to buy your info. In the US, we have warrants for a reason. Constitution outlines restrictions on "unreasonable search and seizure. 2: Consent. Like, I should have the right to just say no. It’s my data, let me be part of the conversation. 3/4: Safety and equity. It’s still illegal to be gay in some parts of the world. An insurance company or an employer could check your race online if they wanted, whether or not you’ve made that available. )

The problem extends across a few metrics.

First, probably the most tangible. The police can and do use data purchased from civilian companies to bypass regulations. For example, you don’t need a warrant to check phone contacts if you can buy it. You might be saying you don’t do anything illegal to worry about. Have you ever been to a protest? Have your friends? If climate change bothers you, could you see yourself going to one?

Protests are frequently targeted by law enforcement. Even if you think that would only happen if the protest becomes a riot, you don’t control the crowd. If you’re there but not rioting, your phone location can be used as proof of participation. There is precedent, too. They used location data to arrest capitol rioters. IMO those were good arrests, but how many BLM protestors were arrested based on phone data?

Second, consent. Even if I change nothing else in your mind here, consider that we might simply value our personal data differently. I should have a right to be part of the conversation about me. Let me pay $20 to use a product without observation. Products should be up front about what is collected too (GDPR has helped lots with website tracking). Facebook is known to collect “shadow profiles”, where data is compiled on you even if you aren’t on the platform. I should be allowed to say no to that, for any reason, simply by virtue of it being my information.

Third and fourth go together some. Safety and equity. People are still killed for being gay. Legally. And the collection of data on people enables that. Just buy data off of Pornhub to identify who is browsing their gay section. And if someone is found in a country where it is illegal to be queer, all you need is a list of their contacts to find more. Maybe Apple refuses to unlock their phone for you, but that’s okay. Just buy their contacts off Meta.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory

But that’s the straightforward issue of equity. Consider someone who has gone to jail. They’ve done their time, they’ve reformed, and now they want to rejoin society. The judge even goes so far as to expunge their records. Well, a background checking company can buy that info still. And that’s just talking about criminal acts that should be reformed. Maybe you don’t care about that. What about crimes that just target BIPOC? In the US, weed is legalizing, slowly. People were still arrested for it, and that history is indelible, regardless of the official record. If even the US Justice System wants to wipe the slate, than the slate should be wiped.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_in_the_United_States_criminal_justice_system

Special mention to Google btw. Good and bad. They do a lot to tell you what and how they collect data, and how they anonymize it. Purportedly don’t sell your data, since they also own the ad network. Like you say, I’m not really worried about the ads, and a lot of their products really are good enough that I don’t mind making that trade. However, I do take umbrage with the idea that it’s fine still. A company does have analytics on their ad campaigns. John Oliver did a funny bit where they put an ad targeted towards Congress. He got a couple of hits too, with their location and had the power to fingerprint their browsers if he wanted. Once you click an ad, you’re in the care of whatever site put that ad out. That means they collect whatever they want on you. Additionally, theyll know what ad brought you in. So if you put an ad out targeting “pregnant people in Texas looking to make a trip”, you’ll have a list of people that Google thinks match.

This whole post misses a lot of nuance and context. It’s a social media post, ultimately. I’m not sure I have enough mental capacity right now to hunt down more links, and I’m about to start my work day. I don’t have any trouble with folks who don’t care – frankly I’m jealous. I’m annoyed that I can’t just use products like most people and not care. It’s just everywhere. Walking down the street I’m on someone’s TikTok, meaning Facebook, YT, Bytedance could get my location without me even interacting with them (shadow profiles from earlier). When I got a covid test recently, I had to download their stupid app to fill out a form. That app has the power to collect endless data points about my phone. Buying concert tickets means signing over my information to your favorite ticket vendor. It’s just endless and exhausting for me.

Not to be contrarian, but b) could well be a full decade of work and numerous individual projects

This is good and bad to me. I like the idea of a series of little neighborhoods. You know your home well, and have a place of comfort if you don’t feel like dealing with the wider world, but it’s all still very accessible (or ideally very accessible. Discovery is an ongoing issue without for you algos). Forums were nice, but it was always annoying if you were on more than one proboards (or what have you) and you were switching sites to see your variety of friends. Discord solves the same problems, but I also don’t trust that company at all.

Reddit gave you that comfort zone for certain topics, but only if it’s not a popular or contentious one. And like it’s nice to be able to have my comfort zone be more diverse than my 5 favorite topics.