I know you said to avoid the “just don’t connect it” advice, but I frankly think that’s your best bet without shelling out absurd amounts of money. I hate the concept of smart TVs, so like you I tried to find a reasonably priced dumb TV. Had zero luck. Instead, I bought a 55” Hisense TV (U8K) about 6 months ago, and have never once connected it to the internet. I think it’s technically a Google TV, but I wouldn’t know, since I just connect my devices to it, no internet necessary. It’s a gorgeous display with amazing picture quality. All the features are enabled, nothing was stuck behind an internet-wall. I don’t regret it.

This makes me sick. Or rather, them sick. Or, whatever, this was a totally fucked up and inexcusable thing to do.

Single-shaming is real. It’s particularly nasty because it can often come from family, friends, and strangers alike. And the media does it constantly.

Most governments are set up to support and value married folks with tax breaks and incentives, fuck everybody else.

Guess who’s less likely to be able to buy even a small house because you need at least two huge incomes these days to even qualify? That’s right, single people.

I’ve been single for about a decade, and I’m overall pretty happy. Every once in a while I do find myself in a self-inflicted shame spiral, but I always tell myself “Bertram, this is your life, live it however you want to live it.”

That said, I’m not opposed to finding a partner, somehow, but I’ve built a nice little life for myself so it’s just not a priority. Especially because I wouldn’t even know where to start…

You’re totally right about the SEO industry. My comment wasn’t meant as an endorsement of SEO, I agree it’s one of the internet’s most fundamental problems. I’m just so frustrated by how consistently google lies about these things. Their first impulse, in so many different situations, is to immediately tell a bald-faced lie, then double down on the lie, and then when the truth comes out, they somehow always seem to get a pass. That’s what’s despicable to me.

But it did expose all the lies google has been telling about SEO and how it works with their algorithm. Basically all the times google was asked “so are you sure you don’t do x, y, or z to prioritize certain sites?” They said no, emphatically, despite some very clever folks who had a pretty good idea of how things were working based on independent tests and experiments on SEO. So google was lying all along, while trying to convince the experts that what they were seeing wasn’t real. Pretty despicable if you ask me.

This is the only answer I’m okay with. Keeping government away from it would be a challenge, but an easier challenge to handle than our current cesspool of for-profit media companies.

Same with elections, they should be fully funded by taxpayers, and not a single cent of private money should enter the equation. Depending on the office and the size of its constituency, every candidate gets the exact same amount. You accept a dollar from a corp? You’re automatically disqualified. Imagine how much harder candidates would have to work for their votes.

I want to know who goes around giving a single downvote to entirely personal and uncontroversial comments. Happens to almost every single one of my comments. I’d rather have five or ten downvotes than just one. I dunno, I know I shouldn’t let it bother me, but it does.

Pretty sure the answer will be a knock on your door, with the strong possibility that you’ll never be seen again.

The reporter’s use case actually makes a lot of sense to me. I would never buy one of these, but I wouldn’t be opposed to using something like this if I ever ended up with one.

It’s not like I stand in front of it and watch a whole movie in my kitchen. But I like to have the T2 Tennis Channel on while I scramble eggs or pop on a news show while cooking dinner. Plus, it’s nice to have a kitchen screen that doesn’t take up counter space.

Knowing people like him, he would probably take the obvious literary warnings from a book like that and use them as inspiration for how to build an even more dystopian nightmare.

The article could have ended after the very first sentence.

Art is subjective.

When I was growing up, we called these “sweatshirt jackets.” So, yes.

NO. Just no. Once this consistently works and is out in the world, it will be pretty much impossible to block, and WILL be abused. And then we’re all completely fucked. No one wants to know what’s going on in my head, just like I don’t want to know what’s going on in anyone else’s head. And don’t try the “but if you have nothing to hide” crap…EVERYONE has things they want to keep to themselves.

I can see the allure for disabled folks, but I personally don’t think the benefits for a few outweigh the massive negatives for the many. Though I’d be curious to hear from some people who could benefit from this.

If this eventually becomes mainstream, I’m out. Total hermit life for me.

Yeah I hear you, but I think that’s actually a big part of the problem. We the plebs want AI to free us from slaving away our lives. But Altman and those like him will never have the same motivations as us, so I’ll never trust them to develop the technology in a responsible way that actually benefits the majority of people, not just the tippy top of the absurdly wealthy.

I do not trust this man to do anything in my best interest. He is a disingenuous and untrustworthy messenger, and if allowed to continue unchecked will end up the overlord of a new hyper-capitalist dystopian nightmare. I’m genuinely afraid of this guy and people like him.

I’ll remind folks that this is a man with such appalling hubris that he thinks he should be able to raise trillions of dollars to make his own fantasies come true.

Yup yup. Darkreader has improved my entire internet experience, which is a huge accomplishment. Works flawlessly 99% of the time.

I’m continually disappointed that America doesn’t live up to what I learned about in civics class 30 years ago.

I have clear memories of sitting in class as a kid, asking the most basic questions about checks and balances, separation of powers, equality under the law etc. and being absolutely mesmerized by the topics. I remember thinking, “wow, I live there? I’m so lucky.”

When my teacher said “not even the president is above the law” I remember some other kid really trying to grasp the idea that every single person is supposed to be treated equally by the justice system, regardless of their family, job, or religion. It wasn’t a concept that came naturally to everyone.

It wasn’t until high school and college that I finally understood that these were just ideals that we talk about but don’t fully actualize. America is not the unicorn we think it is, but we’re great at lying to ourselves from a very young age. Howard Zinn was a big part of my waking up to reality.

That’s not to say we don’t strive for improvement, but when one of the two political parties is hell-bent on dismantling the administrative state, taking away bodily autonomy for more than half the population, reverting our ‘culture’ and laws to the 1800s, destroying our planet, discarding science, fetishizing killing-machines in daily life and warfare across the globe, and so much more regressive bullshit, we’re not really setting ourselves up to realize those ideals.

So yeah, America is a genuine country, but it’s not what it should be or what many people think it is.

I appreciate the pushback, I really do want to get a more well-rounded sense of Macron and his popularity.

I don’t usually like LLM summaries as a general rule, but since my opinions were admittedly based on vibes and not much substance, this might be a good use for it.

I definitely smell the McKinsey stench now that you mention it.

I’m not French, and my opinion is based on pretty much nothing but a smattering of headlines, but I really dislike Macron. He strikes me as an opportunistic little boy trying to make everyone happy while pissing off his parents (the French electorate) at nearly every turn. He tries to push his way into the global spotlight by meeting with Putin and Xi and thinks he looks like some neutral peacemaker, but we never really see any results other than a small boost to his profile.

Maybe I’m totally wrong, like I said I’m just a spectator. Maybe it’s just his face.