>People opting for unchallenging pseudo-relationships over messy human interaction is part of a larger trend, though.
I don't disagree that some people take AI way too far, but overall, I don't see this as a significant issue. Why must relationships and human interaction be shoved down everyone's throats? People tend to impose their views on what is "right" onto others, whether it concerns religion, politics, appearance, opinions, having children, etc. In the end, it just doesn't matter - choose AI, cats, dogs, family, solitude, life, death, fit in, isolate - it's just a temporary experience. Ultimately, you will die and turn to dust like around 100 billion nameless others.
I lean toward the opinion there are certain things people (especially young people) should be steered away from because they tend to snowball in ways people may not anticipate, like drug abuse and suicide; situations where they wind up much more miserable than they realize, not understanding the various crutches they've adopted to hide from pain/anxiety have kept them from happiness (this is simplistic, though; many introverts are happy and fine).
I don't think I have a clear-enough vision on how AI will evolve to say we should do something about it, though, and few jurisdictions do anything about minors on social media, which we do have a big pile of data on, so I'm not sure it's worth thinking/talking about AI too much yet, at least as it relates to regulating for minors. Unlike social media, too, the general trajectory for AI is hazy. In the meantime, I won't be swayed much by anecdotes in the news.
Regardless, if I were hosting an LLM, I would certainly be cutting off service to any edgy/sexy/philosophy/religious services to minimize risk and culpability. I was reading a few weeks ago on Axios of actual churches offering chatbots. Some were actually neat; I hit up an Episcopalian one to figure out what their deal was and now know just enough to think of them as different-Lutherans. Then there are some where the chatbot is prompted to be Jesus or even Satan. Which, again, could actually be fine and healthy, but if I'm OpenAI or whoever, you could not pay me enough.
Appreciate the writing and the author's fortitude in achieving their goals. While I never had friends, neither online nor in person, I cannot identify with this at all - it reads like a strange, obsessive seeking of external validation which I have never felt myself. Maybe I am just disinterested in people in general.
You could either ignore this advice, or take it from me
Be too nice and people take you for a dummy
So nowadays he ain't so friendly"
- Deep Friend Frenz DOOM
i can sort of relate. ive been told by my family that i dont like people much. im also confident in conversation and social situations. i think the latter is true because i feel no pressure to perform and naturally seek novelty to entertain myself
That's interesting. People are really different. I had my own stages to being still not socially normal person. I always wanted friends, sometimes had some, sometimes felt lonely. In case you happen to read this, did you not have friends in childhood but didn't feel bad about it?
>obsessive seeking of external validation which I have never felt myself
if you've never felt it, why are you mentioning it? why are you so focused on it?
A useful psychoanalytic rubric is "there is no negation in the unconscious mind". Negation is a conscious mind idea, the unconscious mind just thinks of things, it doesn't think of something and claim it's not thinking of it.
so, rephrasing what you wrote in the unconscious sense, "obsessive seeking of external validation which I have felt myself": yes, you have identified something, identified with something, interesting, about other people and about yourself. If you are aware that you are not seeking external validation, but also aware when other people do, you have to ask yourself...
if your complaint about this argument is along the line of "no fair, i can't escape from this!", you're getting the point.
You're probably right that him being in denial is more likely then him being super special. But I don't think this psychoanalytical reasoning is justified?
>if you've never felt it, why are you mentioning it? why are you so focused on it?
Because it's interesting / frustrating to find out that the common guidelines to living a normal life don't apply to you, and you pinpoint that fact as the reason?
I can come up with infinitely many negative statements in a discussion and it doesn't mean that opposites of them occupy my unconscious day to day.
You don't. You need to have a goal and clear understanding about why you are doing what you are doing. This is the same with pretty much all activities that require significant effort - motivation is a brief blip that eventually withers away once you start struggling. What you need is discipline, planning, and regular routine. Plan (allocate some time each day/week) and do this regularly. Can't take it anymore? Make a coffee, take a walk, rest for a little while, take a nap, whatever, and then try again. Motivation is not something that you should be constantly chasing in the first place.
Depression, lack of motivation, are functional. They kick in when you don't think your prospects are good, prompting you to step back and think. If you were sufficiently convinced grinding LeetCode was a good career move, you would be motivated. The fact that you're not suggests you should do some research rather than plowing ahead. What do employers really care about? What's the best way to convince them you've got it? Where do you fit in?
> If you were sufficiently convinced grinding LeetCode was a good career move, you would be motivated.
Motivation certainly doesn't work like that in my brain. Consistency in pursuing goals I know on paper are the right choice despite lack of motivation is the only way I've achieved anything.
If you can wed career goals with dopamine, that's wonderful! But I suspect you're extremely lucky.
It takes some competitiveness, and I'm not sure the level of neuroticism it brings (me) is worth it, but "Who are these assholes and what's so special about them" works for me most the time :D
Then there's "Oh jesus how terrifying and embarrassing would it be to not have a great answer" coupled with "The people I idolize the most work in theoretical CS".
It does if you're connected. I've seen many incompetent and under-skilled people given high-ranking positions in tech companies simply because they knew someone.
Yep. This is the way. Even if you don't want to/are not able to have a daily routine and such, detaching as many activities as possible from volatile things like motivation,mood,etc is extremely useful. That is the most important part. Early on in life it is easy, since you have a clear set of objectively great things to do - do great in school, do great in exams, do great in college, get a great first job, don't screw up health in growing years. So you can force yourself to do those no matter what. Later on in life (post college) it gets harder, since you have to ensure you're not forcing yourself to do something counterproductive, especially in new fields like SWE, where there's no clear industry standard career path yet, or an industry standard anything really. Academia in contrast you can apply this strategy until a lot later.
It obviously depends on intensity, and is sometimes described as reverse J-curve[1] relationship. Moderate exercise helps, while intense exercise diminishes these benefits and might also increase mortality risk.
I tried it for a while. It's okay, I guess. Typing latency is neither an issue nor a bottleneck for me, so personally, I don't see the appeal. Apart from that, it feels lacking and offers nothing else that I don't already get from VS Code. If I really cared about performance, I would use Neovim.
I find Neovim to be surprisingly sluggish. That's of course after installing extensions, but I don't find it particularly performant. Zed feels way snappier.
Similar situation, but I had (and still have) issues with the heart, and not sure whether they were from undiagnosed covid infection (never had typical Covid symptoms, and all tests for it came negative), or some rare complications from the vaccine.
I started having heart flutters a day or two after my shot and had severe fever (I was 25 at the time), but the former never went a way. I brushed it off as a temporary symptom and typical after shot reaction (well, fever was at least). Heart flutters never went away and I didn't go to the doctor for at least a few months, it became so frequent that I could not sleep, exercise or even climb the stairs anymore without heart feeling like it's about to explode out of my chest. Not the high heart rate, but abrupt, irregular vibrations/twitching and sometimes feeling like you get punched in the chest, just from the inside around the heart area. Anyway, it happens frequently and in any situation, even at rest.
Got diagnosed with third degree AV block. The flutters were due to the significant damage to the heart muscle, which caused the failure of the conduction system - signals from the upper chambers did not always reach the lower chambers.
I am not angry at anyone or anything, just disappointed. It would feel a lot easier if it was some obvious bad decision of mine, like drinking, doing drugs, smoking, or being overweight, but I did not nor were any of these things. I still keep categorizing life as "before" and "after".
>You really don't want to end up with dementia and related illnesses, it totally sours everyone's view of you.
I completely agree that the disease is horrible, but your conclusion is bizarre. When you are in that condition, how anyone views you is the least of your worries.
Framing it as an obsession of rememberance or legacy distracts from the more crucial point: the fact that you will be causing chaotic emotional, psychological and physical distress in the real world to those you cared about. Again we should stop framing it as some weird obession with legacy and instead stick to the facts on the ground.
Many people think badly about the mentally ill act when they are suffering through an episode. Should they be allowed to die by suicide because what people think of them after they come out of psychosis? Should embarrassment be the bar we are setting for suicide?
Of course I don't. Life is a short, temporary experience, and I don't want to spend this time wondering what others think of me. It does not matter at all. I am nothing, just a briefly conscious lump of cells. I will die and turn to dust, just like about 100 billion of others before me. Nothing that I say, think, dream, experience, do, or how I act or look like will ever matter.
Is it generally understood as feeling (being in a particular state of mind) as being lonely or just lacking social interactions in general, regardless of how one feels about it? Those two things, to my understanding, aren't the same.
For example, I never had friends, and generally, I despise people. I have no "social life," and I wouldn't even be able to clearly define what it is without googling. If I lost my voice, I wouldn't notice that it happened for about a week. However, I don't feel like I am missing out on anything. Does that increase my mortality risk by over 30% or not? I only skimmed the sources, but may read it later.
There is a lot of debate and misinformation on this subject. My understanding is this is primarily an aging or elderly issue. For the majority of people, as we age, we mentally decline which worsens health in all aspects. If you are one of the lucky ones who remain sharp until passing, this doesn't affect you as much. If you are more average, the advice is that a social network of some sort will help you as you age.
There was the famous incident involving Gene Hackman. His care taker was his wife. The wife collapsed/died due to Henta virus and he passed a week later oblivious to what had happened to her. If Gene Hackman and his wife had more proactive support network (the kids or friends FaceTime them everyday), maybe this tragedy could have been avoided.
I appreciate the work, and suppose it is indeed useful for creators to gain more views, but as an ordinary YT user, I absolutely hate this. Flashy, oversaturated nonsense that has nothing to do with the video and stupid, surprised open-mouth face expressions are exactly what I don't want to see in video thumbnails.
I don't disagree that some people take AI way too far, but overall, I don't see this as a significant issue. Why must relationships and human interaction be shoved down everyone's throats? People tend to impose their views on what is "right" onto others, whether it concerns religion, politics, appearance, opinions, having children, etc. In the end, it just doesn't matter - choose AI, cats, dogs, family, solitude, life, death, fit in, isolate - it's just a temporary experience. Ultimately, you will die and turn to dust like around 100 billion nameless others.
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