OP, when you say AI is really really fucking things up, what do you have in mind? Setting aside the ludicrous things people say about AI, do you see it directly fucking something up? I’m just curious what is on your mind when you say that.

Gaming now is more amazing that ever in part because we have access to classic games too. If someone thinks gaming was amazing 10 years ago, cool. We still have those games! I’m playing a really old game right now myself and loving it.

I think OP confuses this whole bubble bursting thing. When a phenomenon passes out of its early explosive growth phase and settles into more of a steady state, that’s not the “bubble bursting” that’s maturity.

Tech as a whole is now a more mature industry. Companies are expected to make money, not revolutionize the world. OP would have us believe this means that tech is over. How does the saying go? It’s not the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning.

🤷‍♂️I was here for that too and it was wonderful - I still have a folder packed with wonderful things from that era. But I see that as a totally different thing. I know YT has a ton of trash on like Mr Beast etc. But it also has Veritassium! I use YT to learn so many practical things. I’ve learned gardening, woodworking, plumbing, all kinds of repair and on and on from YT. I also support some creators directly when I feel the urge. And I subscribe to Nebula. I have a full Plex and *arr setup with a massive library collected over years. I still use the shit out of YT! 🤷‍♂️ And I’m on my phone almost all the time so whatever desktop computer programs people run in Docker containers or browser extension spaghetti setups they have to get around this or that… that’s great for them. I’d rather pay $12 than fuck with all that and be tied to my gaming tower. 🤷‍♂️ I don’t consider it having my data stolen if a provider takes notes about how I use their product 🤷‍♂️

I’ve been a subscriber for years. Even though it’s expensive there’s no question that my high level of usage justifies it. I get more per dollar than from Prime Video or Netflix, and that’s for sure.

I’m glad YT still has a zero ad tier. Prime now shoves ads inline during shows even though I’m a paying subscriber. Hulu always has. Netflix will at some point.

“But…” LOL

Let’s not act like executives are the only morons in this world. Plenty of rank and file are leaning on AI as well.

Sometimes I am preparing a high stakes communication for work and struggling for brevity. I will ask AI for help reducing my word count and I find it is helpful as an impartial editor. I take its 25% reduction, sigh, accept most of what it sacrificed, fix a word or two, and am done. It’s helpful.

Right? That’s the entire point.

More steps required to perform something is very squarely within the definition of complicated, no matter how straightforward those steps are.

It baffles me because in many of the quotes they are clearly trying to be understanding and respectful toward those who disagree with this, but then they come out and call them children

Ironically, that’s a really childish thing to do.

I think probably the single most important thing that nobody is saying is that Google have ALL the numbers on this decision and they are not stupid, so it would be silly to assume this will work against their interests. Not only do they know how many people use chrome, their ad network gives them insight into ALL browsers.

Dude if there’s one thing we’ve done it’s listen to far too much of the drivel that man has to say.

It is, though there are more forces than that at play.

Competition is supposed to help lower prices. If one tennis racket manufacturer overcharges, then another can charge less and steal all their sales.

But if landlord #1 owns an house and overcharges while landlord #2 owns a house and does not, it’s not like landlord #2 gets all the tenants. They still just have one house. There is no way for one of them to win by benefitting tenants. They can however both win by both hurting tenants.

I guess where there is too much housing, one apartment building can keep full occupancy by charging less, while another building across the street might have 60% occupancy because they overcharge. But rarely is there too much supply anymore. And rarely are there such head-to-head commoditized situations.

Ah well. The book frankly does look like a fuck toy for Christians. One of those long winded philosophy gasbags that aims to make religion sound epistemologically exactly like science. Whatever.

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I think you’re right to be skeptical. And I think he’s at least a half step more honestly curious than most of the “just asking questions” douchebags. But there is a lot more to talk about on this subject that’s more interesting than whether or not “god did it.”

Ultimately I think of him as an engineer, and not a scientist. I think engineering is much more compatible with religion, because they cover orthogonal material. Engineering is all about “how” and religion is “why.” And the image of the great-engineer-in-the-sky is tempting to them, I think.

He asked if the complexity could be reduced or not, so he raised the topic. But he didn’t imply that the thing is too complex and can’t be reduced therefore god. He stopped short of that.

And it is a fair topic for anyone to think about. I’m an “atoms bouncing around” guy and I too want to know if the complexity can be reduced because if not, that means we must have waited a long long time for some of these assemblies to appear.

Okay here’s my full transcript of what he said on this.

“This is fascinating stuff. It also opens up a huge debate. People say ‘how can something this complex come to be out of nothing?’ Well, the logic goes like this. If this motor system is composed of complex individual parts and al these parts work together to perform the overall function of rotating, then how did the individual parts come to be?”

“Did it all have to happen at the same time? Or is there some evolutionary advantage to the cell for every intermediate stage of development? Is 15% of this motor advantageous to the cell? What function would 50% of the structure perform? What were the steps these components took to assemble into such a complex molecular machine in the first place?”

“Scientists are trying to figure this out, and I encourage you to read their papers. Many seem to be focusing on the type 3 secretion system which works like a hypodermic needle that a cell can use to inject other things. This device looks similar but it’s quite different in its protein structure. The complexity and origin of the bacterial flagellar motor is a really interesting conundrum.”

“As I was a younger man and I would read things on the internet and find people saying ‘hey, you gotta believe all this over here.’ People say ‘hey, you gotta believe all this over here.’ There’s a big war going on between science and faith and you’re either in one camp or the other. Get your flag and figure out where you’re going to put your flag.”

“And the more I have matured and started to not really care about defending where my flag is, the more I’ve been able to learn from people no matter where they are. I’m still working on this.”

“There’s a really interesting book I’m reading. I can’t speak for everything in the book, I’m not done with it. It’s called Where the Conflict Reall Lies. And it talks about this interplay between science, religion, naturalism. It’s very interesting. It goes into more into the areas of philosophy and I love it because it challenges me and it’s fantastic. And this is what I would encourage you. If you have your flag in a camp somewhere, I would encourage you not to defend your flag. I would encourage you to look at a flagellar motor and just think about it. Think about how it is and what it be. It’s a fantastic thing to think about. How did this get here? You have intelligence and you get to make up your mind. And I love that about consciousness and I love that about life.”

“And so for me, the flagellar motor makes me happy. I feel joy. You know how when you go outside at night and you look up at the stars and you see all these stars and you feel small and you feel wonder. Thats what this makes me feel like, even though it is small. I feel awe and reverence toward this thing.”

(Okay so far so good, really. I mean it depends a lot on if that book really is just a defense of creationism. But there’s nothing here I can disagree with. And then…)

“And as a Christian, this makes me want to thank God that it exists. I feel compelled with gratitude that this thing is so awesome. So that’s just where I’m at. But what I would encourage you to do is just think critically. You have a brain. Don’t defend a flag. Just think about how things are. And I hope you are happy and experience the same joy I feel about this no matter what you think about it. So anyway, enough about that.”

Okay you’re right. He absolutely turns it to god at the end. It was a really intricately balanced little speech he was making there, and for 90% of it I thought he might be talking to Christians and helping them open their minds to possibilities. He talked about not getting dogmatic. And then he proclaimed “I’m a Christian and I thank god for this!” Which was a pretty idiotic 180 after everything he had just said about not planting flags. And that made me flip and think he was talking to atheists and trying to tickle us into being open to possibilities.

It makes me sad because he’s clearly very intelligent, but if you’re raised on religion it can be extremely hard to ever shed. It’s like getting someone to forget the language they used until they were 10. You can teach them any number of new languages but it’s unlikely they will forget that one.

Ah I didn’t catch that part. I’m going to go watch again.