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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • It would probably seem less daunting if we knew that these great technological innovations couldn’t be controlled and hoarded by a small group, but were instead widely available for the public to use on equal ground. And further, if we would all equally share in the efficiency benefits, rather than just a small group.

    Like, if my boss told me half my job was being automated by ai, but I’d still get the same salary and only have to work 2.5 days per week, I certainly wouldn’t complain.






  • I would recommend against expecting to change the world. This isn’t because you can’t or shouldn’t try to. You should definitely try anyway. But very few people individually end up changing the world in a significant way. Progress is built on the backs of countless people each pushing a little to together push a lot.

    Aim to find one specific area that you can become very skilled in and use that to improve things in a small way. If you’re lucky, you might end up having a big impact, but you’ll hopefully feel less depressed if you don’t.

    For now, focus on trying out as much of the world as you are able. Learn to be present and appreciate what you can do now. I spent a lot of my youth so obsessed with the future that I missed out on a lot of experiences. Things suck; however, there’s a lot of cool stuff out there anyway.



  • Your first sentence hit the nail on the head. Most Americans travel nearly exclusively in their car. Why would they get out of their car to use a vending machine when McDonald’s has a drive-thru? Or if they are willing to get out, why wouldn’t they just pick up fresher food from a restaurant? Moreover, mobile ordering has solved the issue of having to talk to people.

    The US does have some vending machines like this, but pretty much exclusively in areas with very high foot traffic, like airports, train stations in major cities, etc.





  • This would be terrible business if any pharma worked this way. The vast majority of potential treatments fail either in the lab or in early phase trials. It is not very likely that’d you’d be able to on-demand develop a novel treatment for symptoms before one of your competitors figured out your already-discovered cure. That would be unless you patented the cure, but by the time you spent years developing a new symptom-only treatment and testing it through each phase, you’d have a few years at best before your exclusivity on the cure patent expires and thus your treatment becomes worthless.

    Pharmas are run by the same short-sighted wall streeters as every other corporation. Actually successfully executing this sort of long-term plan would require thinking further ahead than a few quarters, which they are not capable of doing. A new cure is a big stock boost now that they could never resist.





  • Not being in constant contact with everyone you know, and not having a neverending stream of notifications assaulting you via your phone.

    When you got to see relatives who lived far away, you talked about what had been going on in their life because you probably had no idea.

    You read, listened to, or watched the news when you wanted to, unless someone you know told you sooner.

    If you had to wait somewhere without a book or magazine, you just sat there with your thoughts. During childhood, you learned how to be bored and practice imagining things.