The secret ingredient is exhaustion

Thank you for your kind words

I’m glad that my experience has struck a note with you

The right-wing government quickly turned out to be that and more. When they started to agitate people against people fleeing from war-torn Syria to win the next election, I did a full 180, volunteering to help and going to protests, remembering the time when I was trying to get by in

Are you from Germany?

I think I can answer this one. I went from being a skinhead to a (what I think is) more well adjusted person.

I wish I could write you a neat list of things that happened in order for the shift to happen but it wasn’t as clean as that.

I hit a rock bottom in my life and realized that I cannot go on any further like that. I had a sort of epiphany where I realized the floowing. “If everything I do will be criticized, then everything is permitted”.

It somehow gave me the freedom to drop everything I ever was and change myself in a way that is more freeing to myself. (If that makes sense to you). I emigrated from my country so there was no peer pressure; I talk to my family extremely rarely (once every few months), I cut off all my old “friends”. I changed the way I dress and how I carry myself through the world. I have also stopped being a believer that also altered my worldviews a lot.

I have started reading a lot more (but I have also changed my media diet), I have started learning how to draw (at 35) and generally being a sh*tty hobby artist and doing it for the joy of it. I deleted all my social media accounts, disabled history (suggestions) on youtube, unsubscribed all my streaming services and generally do as much as possible to avoid the algorythm.

I consistently go to art shows to enjoy looking at art, I go to cheap theatre shows, and dream of being able to buy tickets and see a world-class ballet show or a musical.

AAAND! I actually went out of my way to go look at the pride/CSD/gay Parade and cheered from the sidelines on.

Now don’t get me wrong. Even though I like much more the new version of myself, it wasn’t all roses. This change has immensely strained my relationship with my wife and children to the point where we were separated for over 2 years. It’s still extremely difficult for her to accept “the new me” even though in my mind I just dropped the “facade”.

I still struggle with finding new circle of friends. I do have a lot of people “in my circle” but those people come and go. I tried to make friendships with LGBT people, but after telling them that I used to be something else and that I’m changing myself, they tend to drop me like a hot potato. In general people are having much harder time making sense of the new me than before.

I’m of the opinion that both are true for different reasons.

First there is a certain fatigue with social media, I would say that social media per se are falling out of fashion (due to many reasons beyond the scope of this post). The social media is mainly failing because of bad Algorithmic feeds, but algorithmic feeds aren’t AI. There’s many things that many people are trying out as an alternative to social media; some to the point of ressurecting the Personal Websites and Link-Rings (as their methods to not participate in the “big tech sh*tshow”).

Second there’s a strong dislike for AI among many people and many CEO presenting it/ expection godlike results from it.

What I personally believe that many people mistake the correlations of theese two things as causation. Yes, they both suck, yes both is happening at the same time, but one has not caused the other.

Oh wow, that’s a fascinating topic.

This is something I’m looking forward to, because I assume it would be more expensive than we think. I hope to the point where it’s more prudent to pay a skilled worker than XY of money for slop. Currently AI is being indirectly “subsidized” through many high ticket investors, and that besically finances our “slop”.

I pray for the day when the AI companies have to “pay the piper” and start charging realistic prices for the use of AI.

I am biased because ATM I have to fight tooth and nail to keep my job because my CEO thinks that he can just upload the company logo to AI, and that AI would shit marketing back.

It just so happened that in Stuttgart there were protests and police in fact did blow one guy’s eye out of the socket in a very similar way you said.

I thought that you’re referring to that.

You’re from Stuttgart

w they can get Grok to fart out a logo or a poster in 15 seconds and not have to talk to an artist, they’re all set.

As much as I would like it not to be true, I think that you’re right.

Even though the “posters” and “graphics” that AI spits out are just awful/distasteful/etc. those very things are 80% of what people hire graphic designers for. (I know I am one). Most bosses want something NOW! If it looks presentable, it’s good enough.

In my opionion AI would hollow out the “entry level” tasks that small to mid-clients hire graphic designers for. What I think would survive are the “big ticket” projects, where human expertise would be hired. But again, those projects are few and far inbetween, and only a handful of designers are able to deliver work on such a high level.

I’m glad for you that you were lucky to have such friends

I used to own a business with employees. It was a small company objectively, but in a small town where I’m from that was a HUGE deal.

The company survived COVID, but due to total chaos with supply chains that happened after covid, my business got on hard times. I saw the writing on the wall, and started firing my employees and closing the company in order not for things to get any worse. I closed my company and landed a job in another company; a never missed a single salary.

It’s absolutely shocking how quickly everyone drops you once they hear you’ve gotten on “hard times”. All my friends, relatives, in-laws… EVERYONE drops you like you’re burning pile of shit. Want to call an old friend for drinks? You’re out of luck, nobody is taking your calls anymore, because now you’re a “failure”.

And let me repeat once again that I haven’t gotten into any BIG trouble, just closed everything down before it did actually SHTF. It’s just the optics of “being in a bad place” and poof everyone’s gone! You’re on your own now.

Oh boy yes. It’s absolutely brutal how quickly everyone drops you once you hit hard times.

No, and that’s a good thing.

To quote John Water: “If 8 milion people like it, then it’s probabbly not good”.

Exactly. Most men tend to stop celebrating their birthdays in their early teens.

Yeah, there’s a certain age after which you kinda stop caring about your own birthday.

Hmmmm, I find that to be a fools errand as long as Reddit is “alive and kicking”.

It took a troublesome Windows 11 for people to start migrating to Linux (even though I firmly believe that the numbers of poeple switching to Linux are inflated). (I myself am a Linux user).

Or to be more blunt. Reddit functions in something that can be called Mature Product Phase, and/or Saturated Market. And as long as you have a big main Brand that isn’t suddendly making bad decisions, you’ll always remain a niche product. Take Coca-cola for example. For 99% of people the default choice is Coca-cola, not because they have a strong prefence for it, but because it’s an easy and safe choice.

People who drink other brands drink it BECAUSE ______________ . And as long as Coca-Cola doesn’t do something to give that BECAUSE to the average Joe there’s just no incentive to switch.

The same goes for Reddit. We’re all here because we have our own BECAUSE why we’re here. And as long as something doesn’t happen that would give that BECAUSE to the average Joe, Lemmy would remain a niche product.

That’s not a sign that there’s anything wrong with Lemmy, It’s just the reality of how the Market works.

Exactly that! I have noticed the same phenomena, and it annoyed the hell out of me. All the music exists to please the algorythm.

But more than that I noticed it on myself.

I actually googled it, and that’s how I came across the book “Filterworld” that goes into it even further. And yes, all we’re all exposed to is the same crap that the algorythm likes, so our tastes get narrower and narrower to the same 12 songs.

There’s an amazing quote by John Waters: “If 8 million people like it, then it’s probbably not good”

Oh wow, that’s something that’s been bothering me lately a lot. Not just avoiding Ai generated music but developing my own musical tastes and not having the algorythm-served taste that I mistook for my own.

Here’s what I have learned so far:

• I have switched from listening music on youtube to listening music on my Digital Audio Player aka good old mp3. It forces you to put your own music there instead of just letting it play.

• I have installed the RSS reader and follow many German and English music magazine/websites and look there for what I could like

• I have also started asking other people like friends and colleauges for recommendations. I have received many good recommendations, but I don’t have to like everything.

I’m fully aware that it’s not a great solution, because it’s a technological step back instead of evolution, but the way music on youtube with ads worked lately has really started to annoy me.

I’m a maultinational that lives in Germany.

I come from a country that at some point in time did use different alphabets other than latin (two, not one). Even though I have all offical documents written in latin alphabet and all are in my native language + English (especially made for easier international legibility), the average german (police officer/office clerk/ etc.) is still unable to find his way around it.

It also just so happens to be that my name doesn’t contain a single vowel, so them trying to pronounce my name usually ends up being funny and lightens the spirits.