I have given-up on So Many blogs and vlogs and user-groups lately!
As everything fills-up with adverts, and funding requests, and buy-my-merch requests...
Including subscription streaming services, including YouTube (++), including videos, blogs, essays (Substack!) - and just about everything almost everywhere I turn.
It's all variations on a signal saying: I'm not interested in communicating with you, so much as I am intent on extracting money from you*.
Well, it all makes it easier, indeed spontaneous, to do what I should be doing anyway - which is watching and reading much less of this stuff - or indeed none at all.
Every little helps!
NOTE: For obvious reasons; I also swiftly give-up on those who recurrently feature, use, or promote "AI", or who insist on discussing "AI" outputs in a positively-valued or hopeful way.
*It could be argued that this was always the case - more or less; and that is true. But nowadays (as the Christian West recedes ever further from living memory) the gloves have come-off, people are more naked in their motivations - consequently their selfish motivations are less mixed with that spontaneous, largely-unconscious, spiritual-level communal concern, which constrained people in the past.
9 comments:
Is that really fair, though? If blogging or YouTubing is somebody's livelihood, they have to advertise and rattle the tin can. Of course many people go overboard. I find it especially amusing when somebody is denouncing consumerism in one breath and asking you to buy their book in another...
@M - I don't care whether it is fair! They don't have any right to my attention ;-)
The amount of money is trivial, in most cases. So it's greed, not need,
And - anyway - (but as of 2025, especially) I think people who are serious about what they are writing should Not, as a rule, try to live from their writing - because the attempt or actuality will (almost always) harm the quality and honesty of the product.
Bless you, Bruce. Are you sure you are not me masquerading as another guy? I have come very much to a comparable opinion of late. I hope that you don't sell out and thereby filter out your excellent writings and continue to be able to express yourself to your devoted far-flung fans, one of whom I am.
@Poppop - Well, even if I wanted to sell out, there would not be many buyers! But my nature has always been too cantankerous for assimilation - even in a good cause.
I dislike "AI" enthusiasts too, though I lately discuss topics a lot with the chatgpt, it works as a kind of a mirror for my mind(though I do not consider it as an intelligent conscious agent)
@Ap - "I lately discuss topics a lot with the chatgpt" - If you are serious; well, we are all sinners - most of the time. But IMO that is something that you shouldn't talk-about or defend.
@BC well there are neutral neural networks that do not act like they have personality and just give straightforward answers, and you can use them as an information aggregatior for a given question. Also what is funny is that neural networks rejects possibility of them having a consciousness and even explain why this is impossible point by point, which made me think that they are more rational and logical than the 90% intellectuals who speculate on such topics
Actually after talking to chatgpt a I realised that thinking processes of a lot of a people are not that different and now I often get "chatgpt response" feeling when talking to real people :)
@Ap - I'm sorry to hear about your experiences; it strikes me you need to get a grip on yourself - because (by the sound of it) nobody else will do it for you.
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