My parents asked when I planned on having kids, and I answered something along the lines of “I love my unborn children FAR too much to consider bringing them into this hell-hole.”
…that was maybe 5 years ago? They haven’t TOUCHED that topic since, lol.
I said the same thing to my parents and they said “Well if you enjoy life, so will your children!” They were really stumped when I told them I wouldn’t exactly say I “enjoy” life.
That’s weird because the world is in better shape than it was when I grew up. You have drills for what to do in active shooter situations. I had drills for what to do in case of a nuclear war. I don’t think it’s as much to do with how bad the world is vs how bad the economy is for young people… and I"m not even sure if it’s statistically worse. Certainly housing is worse. Are there any other metrics that are really worse? (This is an honest question, I"m not looking for a generational fight. None of us have any control over when we were born.) Wealth inequality has gotten worse, but it was pretty bad before too.
I guess what I"m really arguing is that I think there is too much negativity and pessimism in our society especially amongst the young. Some things do suck. But finding someone who you love and then deciding to start a family with them and creating a small pocket of a better world seems 100% worth it to me.
Economy is a huge one. If minimum wage kept pace with cost of living, it’d be something like $30 per hour today. That’s one of the hardest points to drive to older folks, cuz they see shit like pushes for $15 and think it’s ridiculous cuz theirs was only $5 and think we’re asking for three times more than what they earned; and simultaneously that the difference is only a factor of three. The cost of everything has left our earning potential in the dust, so we’re having to cut things like health insurance just to keep a roof over our head. Boomers had it WAY easy financially, but so many of them feel like they have a super human work ethic cuz they paid for college by working a summer… that shit doesn’t work anymore.
Climate is another hard hitter. We’re actively watching a mass extinction event kick off, and we know what needs to happen to fix it, but the people with the power to do anything about it don’t give a fuck, so the rest of us get to just watch helplessly as our planet dies. This situation is going to be worse and worse for every incoming generation, so shouldering our potential kids with that burden would be one of the cruelest things we’re capable of.
Then there’s culture. You’d think we’d have at least made some progress here, but no. The Nazis are back, white supremacism is rampant, and christofascism is a rapidly growing cancer that our political and justice systems don’t seem able or willing to address. All it takes is a meme on Facebook for WAY too many parents to abandon their children’s safety by denying them vaccines. Women are being denied healthcare and imprisoned for things like a miscarriage.
…and that’s today. Everything I mentioned is in a nose dive, so how much worse is it going to be in 5? 10? 50 years?
Who in their right mind would look at the dumpster fire we live in and think “Yup! This is a suitable environment to raise a kid!”? I know a lot of people just want their ‘bundle of joy’ but that’s completely ignoring the kid’s perspective - damning them to all ^that is selfish to a borderline evil extent.
Past generations wondered “Wow, I wonder what the future will look like?”, but nowadays we only think “The world is fucked and it’s only getting worse.”
I know doom thinking is bad and all that, but there is just so little reason to become excited about what’s to come
Let me suggest you find different corners of the internet to lurk in. I can’t imagine going back to a time before the internet, but one of the things it’s very good at is spreading outrage, bad news, problem after problem. If it’s getting overwhelming, maybe it would help to change your view. I’m not trying to sell you a picture of everything being perfect, just that there have always been big problems and the difference today is hearing them non-stop. Make it stop. Get a more balanced life picture.
That’s one of the hardest points to drive to older folks, cuz they see shit like pushes for $15 and think it’s ridiculous.
You might talk about income inequality here. A low minimum wage is not as much of a concern if you think those are all part time jobs for teenagers. I think a lot of people don’t really understand that with the shrinking middle class, there are way too many adults actually stuck in jobs close to minimum wage
I started replying in detail, but just let me suggest that you look around more. It’s always the bad news that makes headlines, outrage over disasters, but that’s not the full story. Every fear you expressed here also has measurable improvement, even if it doesn’t make headlines as often. Everything is getting better in many ways. We’re doing our usual muddling from one crisis to another, but there’s no reason to believe we’re finally doing a Thelma and Louise
Climate change and the loss of biodiversity is going to be catastrophic. The world is getting better by many metrics but that’s worthless if we can’t solve climate change.
Ten years ago, all too many people wouldn’t believe climate change was happening, even in the face of all the facts, and we were doing almost nothing about it. We were driving full speed down Fury Road.
Now, people no longer try to argue it’s not happening. Globally, renewables are the highest growth power generation. Electric vehicles are no longer a niche, but the fastest growth area of personal vehicles. In the US, we’re laggards in adopting but it is already making a measurable difference. We’re squinting ahead at Fury Road, thinking we might not want to go there.
While we may be zooming past our target of 1.5°C warming, at least we have our foot off the gas and are slowing. However , remember the climate is not binary, most of the affects just get worse as we cause more warming and there is no magic number we’re good at vs not good at.tipping points may be a different story, and they become more likely as things get worse, but even that doesn’t mean the end of civilization
Biodiversity is a tough one, though. Barely recognized, the impact is too abstract for most people to understand, and we don’t even have a specific goal or target to try for. We need people to be working on that next, but solving climate change is going to be step one
Your comment does a pretty good job of illustrating the main reasons: further wealth inequality, difficult housing market, and a crazier society that’s becoming more accepting of school shootings/shootings in general…not to mention climate change, more wars, and batshit politics becoming the norm globally. How bout that response to covid? If anything had ever disgusted me about this country it’s how brazenly people were willing to risk other people’s lives because they couldn’t be bothered to even attempt to be safe or consider others safety. As if i didn’t have enough reasons not to have kids before… it seems almost cruel to bring them into today’s world.
For sure, turning a blind eye to all that and escaping into a relationship and starting a family sounds great. You need a good job to do that…or you and your partner may both need good jobs to do that. Who watches the kids then? How much time will you actually get to spend with them? Are you going to saddle your parents or in-laws with the responsibility of raising them? Day care? What point is there in having children if you’re spending most of your time away from them? Disregard all that of course, if you’re rich ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I just don’t think I’m ready to spend all of my waking hours endlessly trying to produce enough income to maintain all the expenses that come with a family, while still putting aside money for the kids to go to college and a retirement fund to boot.
It would be nice to have a family, i just don’t think it’s practical anymore. I don’t believe it’s the simple choice you make it out to be (at least that’s how i interpreted the last sentence of your comment)
Over having nuclear war hanging over your head enough you need drills for it? Yes, it is an improvement. Very much so.
While shooters are way too much of a problem that we’re not addressing, they’re still actually pretty rare. Most people will be never be affected. I’m not trying to stick my head in the sand here or minimize the issue, just add the perspective that sometimes “way too often” is still rare. We need to be outraged, we need to do something, but this is not as likely for most of us as the internet might make you believe
Nuclear war was only a threat for Americans because they were starting the war. They still have this threat they just ignore it. The US is in the middle of trying to start wars with China
I used to scoff at people being pessimistic that society is getting worse. But all the material security and safety is mitigated as climate change is getting worse and scientists are not optimistic about the prospects. And the phenomenon is inducing loss of biodiversity and food and migration which causes social tensions. I agree that the current society is much better off than the previous generations but I’m afraid we can’t say the same about the future ones.
It’s grifting, pure and simple. All those things may be possible but Sam Altman is spewing this line of bullshit to keep the venture capital flowing into his company.
Exactly. As a SW engineer, I don’t know how far we are from an AGI exactly, but I am confident enough Altman and openAi have no idea where to even start.
In Venice he never claims that he will be the one to do these things, at least in that tweet he doesn’t claim to be the one that’s going to do those things.
I’m not sure what the line about creating new realities means. I assume he means VR and not that AI is going to give us the ability to access hyperspace or something.
As a software engineer that works in AI, the “breakthrough” we’ve made is in proving that LLM’s can perform well at scale, and that hallucinations aren’t as big a problem as initially thought. Most tech companies didn’t do what OpenAI did because hallucinations are brand-damaging, whereas OpenAI didn’t give a fuck. In the next few years, all existing AI systems will be through LLM’s, and probably as good at ChatGPT.
We might make more progress now that researchers and academics see the value in LLM’s, but my weakly held opinion is that it’s mostly surrounded by hype.
We’re nowhere near what most would call AGI, although to be blunt, I don’t think the average person on here could truly tell you what that looks like without disagreeing with AI researchers.
“Are those Planters? I’m sorry, I… I have to leave the room. I was beside the peanut when the towers fell.”
Also, take that from the other perspective. The poor bastard in the suit, probably absolutely terrified, knowing the entire time it looks like he’s having a great time from the outside.
I just double checked, because I couldn’t believe this, but you are right. If you ask about estimates of the Sudanese war (starting in 2023) it reports estimates between 5.000–15.000.
Its seems like Gemini is highly politically biased.
This is not the direct result of a knowledge cutoff date, but could be the result of mis-prompting or fine-tuning to enforce cut off dates to discourage hallucinations about future events.
But, Gemini/Bard has access to a massive index built from Google’s web crawling-- if it shows up in a Google search, Gemini/Bard can see it. So unless the model weights do not contain any features that correlate Gaza to being a geographic location, there should be no technical reason that it is unable to retrieve this information.
My speculation is that Google has set up “misinformation guardrails” that instruct the model not to present retrieved information that is deemed “dubious”-- it may decide for instance that information from an AP article are more reputable than sparse, potentially conflicting references to numbers given by the Gaza Health Ministry, since it is ran by the Palestinian Authority. I haven’t read too far into Gemini’s docs to know what all Google said they’ve done for misinformation guardrailing, but I expect they don’t tell us much besides that they obviously see a need to do it since misinformation is a thing, LLMs are gullible and prone to hallucinations and their model has access to literally all the information, disinformation, and misinformation on the surface web and then some.
TL;DR someone on the Ethics team is being lazy as usual and taking the simplest route to misinformation guardrailing because “move fast”. This guardrailing is necessary, but fucks up quite easily (ex. the accidentally racist image generator incident)
Of these, I’d like to point out that unironically Uber is the obvious choice for Best. Hear me out…
Outside of the really big cities, taxi service was trash. You had to find a number and a phone, the price was almost impossible to figure out in advance, and none that I am aware of were doing anything to keep up with the times or improve anything. The competition that it hurt deserved some pain.
People can now paw drunkenly at their phone and generally arrive home safe. Easy access to rides has almost certainly saved lives. I don’t think you can say that about any of the others on the list.
But wait! I’m not saying that Uber is good. I’m just saying that, theoretically, you could start a service like Uber that isn’t hot garbage, that has employees or at least better paid contractors that take home a more reasonable share of the money. Hell, a local government could create a ride hailing app that passes the entire amount back to the driver, and it would be a net benefit to society. Though at that point, maybe they should have just been looking into better public transportation and planning instead.
No Uber driver ever scammed me into paying double fare or refusing credit cards.
Uber is objectively a cancer upon society. They should legally employ their drives and pay a fair wage with prices to match.
All I’m saying is, it takes a real shitty industry for Uber to still be the better option. Every “innovation” in the picture is a complete joke and should never be used even for practical purposes, except Uber…
Every “innovation” in the picture…should never be used…except Uber
It’s the holidays, there are a dozen(+) people in your family, and you want folks to fly in from out of state and have the kids play together in a living room while the adults cook together in a kitchen.
VRBOs are sold out.
Is Airbnb OK, if you respect the neighborhood (as best you can while still doing a short term rental)? If you rent from a family who happens to be out of town and not from a superhost with a hundred homes?
If you rent from a family who happens to be out of town and not from a superhost with a hundred homes?
If there were some way to ensure this was the case, then I agree with you. As soon as you get people treating this as a business, it becomes a problem.
Like with most things that are successful on this list, AirBNB isn’t inherently bad, and there’s no reason why you can’t hypothetically have an ethical, positive experience. But it followed the typical late-stage capitalist enshittification script, and to have that experience you have to fight through many many barriers erected by both the company and hosts to maximize profits.
I’ve had some very nice experiences with AirBNB back when it was a startup, and when you were interacting with hosts who actually lived in the places you were staying. But at this point I’ve fully stopped using AirBNB and hotels are now a better, cheaper experience unless you find a unicorn property/host. 19 times out of 20, AirBNB is just a nightmare of hidden/high fees, abusive corporate “hosts,” and AirBNB being absolutely, reliably unwilling to help mediate or solve any problems.
Just from a logistical perspective, holiday cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen sounds like an absolute nightmare, especially with Airbnb where you’re at the mercy of the host for how well equipped it’ll be.
Wait before you hear of inter-city transit and a company called BlaBlaCar. While by their own claims they just organize people to give someone a ride while going to the same town, the way to really min-max it was to get a retired, nearly scrapped bus, act like multiple virtual vehicles, and then carry 10+ people without any legal safeguards for them. The’ve got some pushbacks and the service now is less tolerant to such cases, but that’s still insane. Yet, for various reasons, people take it over dying public infrastructure like official bus depots, trains, for it’s cheaper and stops when it crosses town instead of being based in a distant station on the edge of city limits. They weren’t great, but they were at least career drivers looking into each other with some minimal checks, timetables, that municipal power could regulate. And then there’s a rando (even if ex-driver) who bought an old vehicle and drives it until it either pays off or they get asleep behind the wheel on a highway leading to dozens dead.
I say this every time this comes up, Taxis are trash, the only reason they’re decent in big cities is because that’s the only place you’ve got real competition.
Everywhere else has a single company, at best, and a lot of the times it’s a one person LLC. Even my midsize city has a single person LLC taxi and Uber.
Uber the company is cancer, Uber the service (Or idea/concept whatever) was exactly what was needed. No more calling dispatch and being told “It’s just around the corner” for 3 hours or them realizing I’m not local and taking me the LONG way around or even just taking fucking card lmao
Yes taxi companies were trash but Uber/ride shares forced them to evolve. Big city taxi companies now have all the same features as Uber. (route and price in advance, app for requesting a ride, info about your driver, safety features, card payment, and scheduling.) I’m now back to using taxi companies. The price is actually lower on busy days as they don’t surge charge anymore. I’ve actually become a “regular” at one taxi company and they know me and I know the drivers. That’s something that would never happen using Uber. The only time I use ride share is when I wasn’t able to plan ahead. (like when my car broke down, and I needed a ride asap.)
Big city taxi companies now have all the same features as Uber
But weren’t they saying above that big city taxi companies were basically the only decent taxi companies already? Them getting better doesn’t solve what Uber is providing an alternative for.
Enough people were pissed off at cabs that Uber took off. Instead of cabs looking inward to improve, they decided to act worse. I know Uber has room to improve but if that is the reaction from big cab, Cabs should be completely removed from society. Cabs were a complete fail.
That depends where you are. Many cab services have improved in various cities. Of course tech is a part of this. GPS helps avoid fraud. Uber didn’t invent that, but it helped advance implementation.
One cab driver blackmailed my friend for money to return a phone to her she left in the back seat. One of my friends was threatened to be raped by one and busted her wrist to get away from them. I’ve been physically threatened by cab drivers who want to get sex from women they think are alone. they are protected by a union which is clearly corrupt. I been left out in the cold with a busted ankle. They wouldn’t even call an ambulance for me.
So the last thing I want to hear is ‘depends on where you are’ cuz apathetic words are not enough to undo this damage.
People can now paw drunkenly at their phone and generally arrive home safe. Easy access to rides has almost certainly saved lives. I don’t think you can say that about any of the others on the list.
This cannot be overstated.
A close friend of mine almost got robbed when taking a dodgy cab home. Driver did a detour to a rough part of town, told him to wait and then went into a random takeaway. When he saw the driver come out with four other guys wielding cricket bats, he bolted out of the cab and ran away.
Uber had unquestionably made taking cabs back home in England both safer and more convenient.
Budapest banned Uber due to pressure from taxi drivers union which ended up implementing an app and matching services. It took a while to mature, but the quality of the service definitely beats that of Uber now.
Alas, public transit is already really good in Budapest, so mostly only people that were using Taxis before Uber existed are using the services now. Except that you are less likely to get scammed on fares and be the victim of CC fraud due to the streamlined app process.
I really don’t get why you would allow your tv Internet access anyways. A huge number of them carry tons of spyware that not only is on the TV but creates backdoors into your network.
I have a TCL even, but it’s not allowed on my wifi network at all. Have its Mac addy blocked, all my smart TVs are blocked. Wish they sold more non smart TV’s these days.
Some TVs automatically latch on to any open network they can find, to do their connected thing, even if you don’t specifically give them access to your wifi.
I think you missed the point. It isn’t about your network or what good security practices are, it’s about what the TV does or is trying to do if you don’t connect it to your wifi. Open networks are out there whether we like it or not and some TVs will try to use them to call home.
Even that would be technically incorrect. I believe you could put an A record on a TLD if you wanted. In theory, my email could be me@example.
Another hole to poke in the single dot regex: I could put in fake@com. with a dot trailing after the TLD, which would satisfy “dot after @” but is not an address to my knowledge.
I’ve had issues with this in using govt emails too. DOD accounts all have multiple dots based on branch and dept. It broke so many systems and emails never went through.
Not to mention the history and lore of such things are immense in well-documented European and Asian history. The majority of that fantasy stuff comes from ancient cultures and societies peppered around those geographical areas. I’m sure that would be much the same everywhere if it weren’t for the lack of it being so heavily documented.
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