[jrflowers]

> a billion people are using an app that adds absolutely nothing to their lives each week

I like this reasoning. If something is popular it is objectively good. For example 21.7% of adults on earth use tobacco, so it must be good then.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.PRV.SMOK?name_desc=f...

Except for TikTok, which is bad because people share their experiences of chat bots not being very good on there.

As an aside, “dumb” is subjective, though if we had to put a label on it, “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels” sounds like it could be something?

https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872

[andymasley]

I think basically everyone using tobacco knows it's bad for them. They're not stupid. This is another example of people being basically aware of their situations.

[bpt3]

You realize people can be aware of the negative consequences of their actions and still make a "stupid" choice, correct?

I would say that's true using a strict definition of the term, and is definitely true for common usage of the term.

In the future, you should just tell people up front when you're going to redefine terms to suit your needs (in your article and in your posts here, you apparently define "useful" as "providing immediate gratification with no consideration of any long term effects" and you seem to be define "stupid" only as "making decisions without full knowledge of the consequences" above) rather than confusing nearly everyone who reads your writing.

[andymasley]

The dictionary definition of useful is “Able to be used for a practical purpose or in several ways.” How am I going against this definition?