I mean no offense, but it sounds like you have poorly developed social skills. I used to as well.

You could try reframing it in your mind:

It’s not faking, it’s practice.

If you pick up an instrument for the first time to practice, you will sound terrible, and possibly be discouraged, but if you practice for hundreds of hours you’ll be able to play it for real.

Babies and children aren’t born knowing how to express interest or sympathize. You certainly weren’t. Children have to learn how to do this. It is possible that you need to practice if you want to build intimate relationships. There is no shortcut to this.

(35, he/him) This is how I met my first girlfriend, in reverse. I was lonely and had mentally committed to making a friend in a manic episode. I saw her on a bench reading and asked if I could sit next to her. I had a book with me too, and began to read. Then, I asked what she was reading. We became friends, and later dated for 2.5 years.

I’ve spent a lot of time wandering around hoping people would talk to me. I used to feel like it was worthless, because 95% of the time no one will talk to you, but those odds aren’t so bad in hindsight. Go into public 100 times a year and you’ll have 5 decent shots at making a friend. Make one friend a year, and you’ll probably have more social opportunities than you want to deal with.

I’ve met people randomly in public like this perhaps 6 times.

There are other factors other than randomness:

1. I’m very friendly to people. I like to ask questions once a conversation gets going, and I get animated on just about any topic. I talk to myself a lot, so even when I’m not exposed to people I’m practiced, in a way.

2. There is usually an activity involved. Reading a book together, drawing on an airplane, posting art on a blog, taking classes together, being at the same work event, hiding in the same hard to find corner of the library. These are all situations from my life, and they typically involve a shared activity, or a creative outlet. This is probably why people recommend joining clubs / going to bars, advice I’ve never taken, but I see the reasoning.

I don’t mean to project that my social life is great! I’ve been terribly lonely during much of it, and these experiences I’m describing took place over several years. However, if I could boil down my successes, I’d say they cultivating a curiousty in others and publically engaging in my hobbies has been the best way to make friends (and occasionally lovers).

In universe? I wouldn’t say that Batman is anti corporate espionage. He’s constantly breaking the law, just with a few caveats (no killing, not to victimize innocent people, etc). He’d probably tacitly support, or at least not pursue quite so vigorously, competent vigilanties who steal records for publication, intimidate crooked CEOs, and destroy company infrastructure.

https://openai.com/index/how-openai-is-approaching-2024-worldwide-elections/

Here is a direct quote from openai:

“In addition to our efforts to direct people to reliable sources of information, we also worked to ensure ChatGPT did not express political preferences or recommend candidates even when asked explicitly.”

It’s not a conspiracy. It was explicitly thier policy not to have the ai discuss these subjects in meaningful detail leading up to the election, even when the facts were not up for debate. Everyone using gpt during that period of time was unlikely to receive meaningful information on anything Trump related, such as the legitimacy of Biden’s election. I know because I tried.

This is ostentatiously there to protect voters from fake news. I’m sure it does in some cases, but I’m sure China would say the same thing.

I’m not pro China, I’m suggesting that every country engages in these shenanigans.

Edit it is obvious that a 100 billion dollar company like openai with it’s multude of partnerships with news companies could have made gpt communicate accurate and genuinely critical news regarding Trump, but that would be bad for business.

Perhaps now it is, but leading up to the election, I found gpt would outright refuse to discuss Trump in voice mode. Meta ai too. It was very frustrating. It would start, and then respond with something like, “I’m not able to talk about that, yet.”

https://www.wired.com/story/google-and-microsofts-chatbots-refuse-election-questions/

There are plenty of examples of Ai either refusing to discuss subjects of the elections (I remember meta ai basically just saying “I’m learning how to respond to these questions.” Or in the above case, just hand waving away clear issues of wrong doing.

Chat gpt advanced voice mode would constantly activate its guardrails when asked about trump or “politically charged” topics.

Incidentally, no Western ai would make a statement on Donald Trump’s crimes leading up to the election. Ai propaganda is a serious issue. In China the government enforces it, in America, billionaires.

I frequently forget that chrome is installed on my phone. The only time I’m forced to use it is about once a year when I order Papa John’s Pizza takeout. Their checkout page doesn’t seem to work in any other browser.

Something which clarified Zuck’s behavior in my mind was an interview where he said something along the lines of, “I could sell meta for x amount of dollars, but then I’d just start another company anyways, so I might as well not.”

The guy isn’t doing what financially makes sense. He’s Uber rich and working on whatever projects he thinks are cool. I wish Zuck would stop sucking in all his other ways, but he just doesn’t care about whether his ideas are going to succeed or not.

My partner grew up in the rural South East. Says it’s pretty normal to lose power randomly throughout the year.

If it’s anchored into concert blocks, it’s not much different than internal hurricane straps that hold a roof on. They won’t move, or damage the roof, you don’t know that your talking about.

This is actually not a bad idea

I actually don’t think this is shocking or something that needs to be “investigated.” Other than the sketchy website that doesn’t secure user’s data, that is.

Actual child abuse / grooming happens on social media, chat services, and local churches. Not in a one on one between a user and a llm.

I mean, if the ex president of the United States sent out the scam email, perhaps!

I wonder if you could just use your PC to hotspot when you need to use VR.

Yeah, right? I mean, imagine if YouTube when down and just deleted all the videos. People would be up and arms demanding legislative action. There would be endless lawsuits.

As a creative, you rely on platforms to not obliterate your stuff. At least not immediately. This guy has a horse in the race of this site.

That’s not really what the article is about. The author even concedes that such a law would never, and perhaps never should, happen; rather, he feels that corporations will not adopt best practices of preservation unless compelled, and it pisses him off.

The title is deliberate hyperbolic. He’s clearly pissed.

Why is everyone so mad about this? I mean, it’s a salty article, but yeah, it kinda sucks when publications don’t give notice before closing down. I think providing the public, including previous contributors, time to archive content is a good practice.

1. Anxiety is peak

I’ve made a lot of IRL friends online and at work.

If you’re between jobs, consider doing something like Americorps. People of all ages do it, not just young folks, and its temporary. I think of it as summer camp for adults, but you get paid and in some cases housing.

Back in 2017 I was super into VR. IDK what the communities are like now, back then the demographics were older, but I got a big social fix from it. An oculus quest 2 or 3 is affordable. Almost all the best games are social, “face to face” talking. It’s like having a public arcade in your closet.

I made the most friends back in 2011 by posting art online and commenting on other artists’ things. People love chatting about their hard work. I ended up meeting loads of them in person. If you can find a space of creatives, whether it’s a bluegrass club, DND, discord book club, whatever, you’ll have a good time.

And, don’t beat yourself up about being lonely. Life moves in cycles. Remember, it just takes meeting one extrovert to suddenly gain a crap ton of friends. Or, maybe you’ll collect them one by one. Regardless, I feel you. Be well.