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by probelm 1030 days ago
Counter culture is there it’s just abstract now:

wfh

automating away exploitative labor

intentionally not having kids/imploding nuclear family as the norm

<50% in US are convinced god exists

local AI/ML threatening copyright rent seekers

steam/proton

online retail impact on brick and mortar

1 comments

>wfh

Spearheaded because of huge pandemic "extreme condition" measures, with more to come.

>automating away exploitative labor

And relegating of pesky ex-workers to slums Soylent Green / Ellysium style.

>intentionally not having kids/imploding nuclear family as the norm

Massive demographic collapse, with societies full of older selfish adults, Children of Men style.

><50% in US are convinced god exists

But 99% still worships money and the rat race as god.

>local AI/ML threatening copyright rent seekers

And non-local AI killing the livehoods of artists and creatives, for the benefit of AI corporate overlords.

>online retail impact on brick and mortar

Consolidation of consumer market on a handful or corporate behemoths, Robocop style.

You say all those things as if they're good...

(And the fact that "steam/proton" even makes the list as something of similar importance is cherry on top)

Point to a period in time when things were perfect?

Go in semantic circles if you want, these things are displacing old cultural norms; they run counter to established culture

Maybe log off the fucking internet where you spin in circles in vain seeking a perfect solution and tackle those problems you called out? Nah, much easier to be an energy vampire from your armchair

Here’s let’s lean in:

So sad for Hollywood artists who covered for pervs and leches; if it’s about the art they can “slum it” in local theatre; capitalism never owed them glamorous lives as humanity never owed them deflating themselves for a handful of pretty people

Taxes are an option for dealing with corporations but you're keen to propagate mopey whiner on the internet rather than “tax the rich”

steam/proton undermines Windows market share, you know that thing produced by big corporate you so hate

wfh has people talking about QOL more than money and the shitshow that is hustle culture

…you’re crying about your chains, too unimaginative to see the bits and pieces around you that could serve as a lock pick

I never meant to imply Heaven on Earth was around the corner. Was responding to the idea there’s no counter movement to contemporary cultural norms

Social norms are not immutable physics https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37258231

>Point to a period in time when things were perfect?

Things getting worse is not refuted by things never having been perfect. There are periods of time when things were better and periods of time (including extended for centuries periods of time) that things were crap. Even more pronounced and evident regionally. We, in many countries, are getting on a crap slope.

>Maybe log off the fucking internet where you spin in circles in vain seeking a perfect solution and tackle those problems you called out? Nah, much easier to be an energy vampire from your armchair

Who said I don't "tackle those problems I called out" outside the internet? And who said I'm optimistic about the potential of my interventions, or the preventability of changing the outcomes in general?

Maybe not assume and make it personal with ad hominems?

The rest of the points I find either wrong or irrelevant. I'll give an example instead of bothering to answer to each:

"So sad for Hollywood artists who covered for pervs and leches; if it’s about the art they can “slum it” in local theatre; capitalism never owed them glamorous lives as humanity never owed them deflating themselves for a handful of pretty people"

The point wasn't about Hollywood actors or screenwriters, as if they're the only creatives (or even the ones more) threatened by AI. It was more about the rest of the already squeezed fields, illustrators, graphic designers, musicians, and so on.

But even staying at the "hollywood artists" here (which I didn't even have in mind in my argument), the counter-argument that AI taking their livelihood is fine because they "covered for pervs and leeches" is non seguitur BS.

First, if you work at a company and your boss or some higher executives are scumbags, do you also "cover for pervs and leeches"? Or you just work there, and words like "cover" should be constrained to those actually covering misdeeds?

And would the AI discriminate and only reduce the jobs of those that e.g. covered for Weinstein, and not those who called him out? Or will it only replace highly paid actors, and not eg. lowly VFX artists and other such jobs? This is more bile against "those rich Hollywood actors deserve what's coming at them" than an argument about the impact of AI on the film industry.

>…you’re crying about your chains, too unimaginative to see the bits and pieces around you that could serve as a lock pick

Yeah, let's see how this "AI will liberate us" work our for us. I've seen the same stuff play out when the web arrived and "information wanted to be free".