striker
2mo ago
My working theory: All those are great songs, but what makes them great is not JUST the notes and lyrics and performance. These things didn’t exist in a vacuum. What made them great was how people experienced them together in time and/or space, and responded to them together in time and/or space. This is why I’m hopeful that human art still has a bright future, but that bright future must take place offline more and more. (I appreciate this sounds ludicrous to anyone who’s lived their entire life with and on the internet.)
striker
2mo ago
I feel this. My immediate thought on listening to one of those Suno tracks: “We’re going to get a thousand Sabrina Carpenters now”
striker
2mo ago
mark my words now, the first large music festival showcasing ONLY AI-produced music will be happening inside of 5 years.
Maybe, and maybe there will be sufficiently large cohort of people who want to go that it becomes a viable vehicle for the entertainment industry.
Much more likely, I think, is the move away from AI / digital art because people realise they need something human. That something human will be delivered not on screen or via any digital mechanism, thereby creating high demand for real life events (everything from spoken word poetry to pop-up tiny stage theatre to large concerts). The price inflation of tickets for gigs and live sports events is a symptom that shows this need for a real experience is already happening. It’s growing and not yet been adequately catered for.
I can't find myself caring one bit about it because the good stuff slowed to a teeny tiny dribble over two decades ago. As far as I'm concerned there is nothing left for AI to drown.
My perspective is that this isn’t strictly true. It just seems that way because algorithmic media (Facebook to Netflix), instead of expanding the window of exposure, narrowed it and homogenised everything within it. Thirty years ago in my small town in Europe, I had more choice in my local video rental store (where there was a whole section of foreign language films, that was updated frequently) than I get on all my home screens and feeds now, no matter how far I drill down.
Edit: I believe the “good stuff” is still being made, but its audience and distribution network is not part of the great algorithm fork. It’s elsewhere, it’s curated, and it’s often offline. Interested in the new avant garde. I suspect it’s here, it’s just not where 50-98% of people spend their time.
striker
2mo ago
The question for the age:
“How would I ascertain or estimate this information from an unbiased source?”
I read it all, oats, and I empathize greatly. A few things:
- Reading the dates, I'm probably ~20 years older than you, so I'm likely closer in age to your father than you
- Common ground. My parents also split acrimoniously at approximately the same age (I was 13/14) and the tone, if not the detail, of your experiences mirrors a lot of what I experienced. It's horrible, and it leaves a lasting mark. I was lucky enough to meet my wife when I was in mid-20s, and we're together since (married 17+ years, two kids), and while we wouldn't overtly describe ourselves as conservative, we live 100% a conservative relationship and life by most measures.
- On experiences of depression / self-worth. I've never been suicidal so your life went much further than mine in this regard, but I understand some of what you went through. Depression (major depressive disorder, call it whatever) recurred in my life every year for 20+ years. The story I tell myself is that it related to the family break-up (which took me from overnight from idyllic countryside life of quietude/solitude/animals+birds/farm-life to urban living / single parent / rougher friends who'd kick out lamp-posts, underage drink from cans in fields, get chases from the cops for fun etc.) We had no money instantly, and our mother worked 12-hour shifts in a grocer's to make ends meet. My dad contributed something, but I don't believe this ever came generously/willingly, and one year (1994) he took off with friends for a 2-3 week holiday a few thousand miles away while that year my mother needed help from a poverty charity to pay for Christmas. So I told myself a story that crap life and zero expectations and no self-worth went back to this time, but it was probably influenced by other factors too, most notably genetics: one strand of my family (my mother's) is blighted by depression, all the women are or have been in some form of treatment, all the men suffered in silence and never ever spoke about it, just "took to the bed" in a black mood for days or weeks at a time. [My mother also spent a few months in and out of mental institutions before the marriage broke up. I don't know if her severe mental health problems had a big causal effect on the bad marriage, or whether the bad marriage had a big causal effect on the severe mental health problems. Either way, she was on the mend a few years after the break-up and is quite healthy and stoic still, as she nears 80 and is still very active, only retired from work this year -- the same grocer's shop she worked those 12-hour shifts in 30+ years ago.
- On curing / overcoming depression / self-worth problems. I will preface these by saying it's still work in progress, I have no complacency about this, but reality is that for the last 8/9 years I have been free of depression. This has coincided with a few factors. (a) I stopped working jobs I found I couldn't do. My daily energy pattern is completely unsuited to 9-to-5 jobs I was working. Afternoons from 2.30 to 4.30pm are always the rock-bottom of the 24 hours for me, so basically every day of my Monday-to-Friday working life was ending on a major downer. I've been self-employed for all but four months of the last 9 years approximately. That four-month stint, I took a job in 2023, and was immediately reminded, and with great force, why I couldn't work those regular jobs. (b) I got physically healthy. I'm not ripped, but I went from very overweight (my weight was between 16-18 stones, or 225 to 250 lbs) to correct weight in about 3-4 months, and managed to keep it off ever since. This wasn't easy - I got some help from a nutritionist, who took me off all gluten and dairy for a month or so, and I immediately had a clarity of thought and lack of brain-fog that I don't think I had felt in 20+ years. I eased back onto all foods several months later, but the habit and mindset changed forever. Yes, I still fall off the wagon from time to time, but I eat much less sugar, much less junk food and drink much less alcohol than I needed when I was coping. Around this time I also started running too. Very slowly at first (5kms in the local park, lumbering around slowly in a walk-jog), but I immediately loved having run. I didn't look forward to running, and I didn't like the actual running, but the afterglow was real and made it worth it. After a couple of years that changed, and I hit the trifecta of all three. That was about 5-6 years ago, and now I couldn't imagine life without running. I'm doing my third marathon in a few weeks, and if I avoid injuries, I'm on track to go around 45-60 minutes quicker than my first.
- On finding a mate, my recurring rule of thumb is that we're mammals, and therefore any relationship that is too focused on mind (intellect etc.) is destined to have a greater chance of unhappiness. The body is powerful, so anything where your body gets moved is good. Other people have mentioned dancing, and I'd agree with that -- I did a community fundraiser through my sports club a number of years ago, and I danced tango with a partner in front of 750 people in a big hall. We trained for that a couple of nights a week for 6-8 weeks and it was among the best few months of my life. It was seriously enlivening. (Tango is sexy as hell, but the others who did foxtrot, etc all had a great time too...) Also I think it might have been you on another thread where we chatted about tennis? Any sport or activity that gets your body moving, and has room for social stuff around it, is great. Just make sure to get out of your mind (literally, not alcoholically or chemically!) and into your body as often as you can.
- Well done on how far you've come. Things were shitty when you were coming up, as they were for me and tens or hundreds of millions of others. Those shitty times helped to make you who you are today. Ernest Hemingway wrote in A Farewell to Arms: "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry." That line - "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places" - I think that line, and reading good fiction and good poetry in general, got me through a lot of dark days.
- Religion / faith We were raised Catholic on sufferance, and I haven't been practising for many years. But my belief in God never went away. I don't think it's a humanoid God, and I'm not sure there's a He looking down on me and guiding me or protecting me, but I do feel a very strong positive connection to some form of divinity (universe, cosmos, nature ... Napoleon Hill called it "infinite intelligence", which I liked). This divinity is always present, I just need to tap into it. I also believe this divinity sits at the origin / bedrock of all "religious experiences", on which organized religion was eventually built. So yes, I have faith, but it's a strange and chaotic form of faith, but it's mine. The only thing I halfway regret about this is I never have anyone to talk to about it.
Good luck with everything.
S
striker
2mo ago
Re sweaty as hell, I’m probably wrong about squash - that can work up a heart rate. Good luck with it - it’s an amazing game. (If you’re also a cerebral type, David Foster Wallace’s essays on tennis are well worth seeking out…)
striker
2mo ago
FWIW, I think I arrived here circa early 2024 (maybe a little before). What attracted me and kept me are discussions on culture war topics that went everywhere they needed to do but didn’t descend into farce, acrimony, vilification and hatred.
striker
2mo ago
Not in the US, so can’t speak to your local experience. But yes, lots of tennis clubs in Europe have social calendars as long as tennis calendars.
(Edit: badminton, squash etc. work too. There’s something about the body movement involved in racket sports that is (a) inclusive - I’ve played against 90-year-olds, (b) not to excessive - so you can chat over a beer or coffee afterwards without being sweaty as hell and (c) a lil bit sexy.)
striker
2mo ago
This is all excellent advice.
This especially:
“Do not spend time at home. Meet as many people IRL as possible.”
This, over any period of time, is high-effort, energy-sapping and will at times make you question your will to live, but if you have an ounce of personability to back up experience and skill, getting out there is exactly the right thing to do.
striker
2mo ago
Tennis club. One that balances play time and social time. Lots of opportunities.
striker
2mo ago
This distinction is a good one, and also shows why the whole free speech argument is a death spiral. There is no freedom of speech. There is just the idea of freedom of speech.
striker
2mo ago
I’m not following. Can you elaborate? Meme how? Functional to dysfunctional autism how? Who are the natural enemies? Who are the psychopaths?
striker
2mo ago
A friend is a pharma chemist for 25+ years, has avoided the career ladder skirmishes so just does his hours / shifts in the lab. Chatting to him recently about impacts of technology, AI etc and he said that was discussing it with a colleague recently. The colleague said that “The only AI I see around here is Another Indian!”
The Indian hires are skilled, good workers, good colleagues etc but general sense is that they work for 10-30% lower salaries, work overtime / weekends without pay and take less annual leave / holidays. (This is in EU, not US)
striker
2mo ago
Will do the cafe test tomorrow. Worth a shot to see if the issue can be raised outside these four walls.
striker
2mo ago
Cheers for the curiosity. Will aim to report back on progress. It also happens when not plugged in, so I don’t think it’s the circuits. Environmental issues - will be interested to try to triage those. Radar path, that would be a wow!
striker
2mo ago
Yes that’s the next step with them - their expert opinion is that the fan is fine, but they’re also out of ideas and they want to replace fan next. I just wanted to try to make my own diagnosis, as I’m not sure I’m fully faithful in their advice right now.
striker
2mo ago
I’m fairly clueless, but I think it only has one fan, and it seems to be spinning fine (including at different angles).
We’ve had it at multiple different angles, stand and flat. In the shop the guy had it on its side for five minutes.
It seems to happen in the house with almost nothing running (we disabled all boot apps) and with RAM and CPU under no pressure.
Shop guy said extremely unlikely but possible is some sort of speaker interference in the house, but I just can’t believe that’s a possibility. Will keep investigating and observing here.
striker
2mo ago
Ludicrous little laptop malfunction question. It’s my daughter’s, for schoolwork, Minecraft and Discord, not much else.
- Dell Inspiron 16 5635
- Windows 11 Home (x64)
- 2.00 gigahertz AMD Ryzen 5 Processor
- 850GB storage, 4GB integrated RAM
- Less than two year old, malware clean, no other issues.
Few months ago started making swarm-of-bees buzzing sound, making it effectively unusable. Brought to repair shop for some expertise. They said fan was dusty, cleaned it, nothing else required. Got it home - buzzing started within few minutes again. Back to repair shop, they’re mystified. THE BUZZING NEVER HAPPENS IN THE SHOP. I recorded a video of the sound, so they believe me, but they can’t find anything wrong. Took the back off in the shop, powered it up, left for 20 minutes - fan running no issues, no abnormal sounds.
Took it home, and a few minutes after booting, swarm-of-bees buzzing starts again.
Software is fine, hardware seems fine, everything seems fine, and technicians have no clue.
Any motherboard nerds have any ideas?
striker
2mo ago
I get it, false equivalencies are everywhere (there are probably five or six in this thread) and the general level of doublethink is so extreme it would have made Orwell think twice.
But…
Don’t ghoulishly dance on the grave of a recently murdered conservative activist
to me is ghoulish in and itself. It’s illustrating a point by selecting language and imagery that bears no resemblance to what it’s trying to describe or critique. Another false equivalency, maybe.
If everyone would just get offline a bit longer, talk to (and listen to) real people in the real world, and see them as more than just 2D avatars or label representations of some oversimplified worldview, things might slowly start getting better for everyone.
striker
2mo ago
What I’ve observed over the past 7-8 days has been general insanity everywhere, with people on both sides failing to have any awareness of their own insanity as they use unreliable information or malevolent lies to judge those crazed loons on the other side. This (Kimmel situation, all the over the top responses and false equivalencies) is just another example. Woke left or “woke right”, it looks all the same to me. (European, no US political affiliation, interested observer from afar.)
Similar vibe (sassy red-haired female with socio-culturally relevant songs), you should look up CMAT.
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