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.
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...
ReplyDelete@M - I don't care whether it is fair! They don't have any right to my attention ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe 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.
ReplyDelete@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.
ReplyDeleteI 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)
ReplyDelete@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.
ReplyDelete@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
ReplyDeleteActually 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 :)
ReplyDelete@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.
ReplyDelete