“It was revealed to me in a dream” type of comment

Alright, have a nice day

Mate, where do I even begin here.

1. People have different opinions.

2. AI can make horrifying mistakes and still on average do its intended purpose. If you catch 90% murderers and 10% innocents, that is apparently good enough for quite a few governments.

Both of these things can be true. It still works if it occasionally throws a few innocents in front of the bus.

As a former teen that - due to other reasons - was socially pretty isolated, at this age acceptance from your peers is everything.

I’ve seen a lot of students at climate and social protests. Back in my day, if you deviated from the norm only a bit, you’d be called “edgy”, “gay”, “misled” and so on. When I look at what would have turned you into an outsider back in my not-so-distant past and beaten up after school, and what some students dare to do today, I have some hope. There are good people out there. They are just hard to see behind all the loud, stupid and malicious ones.

Yes, but: not falling into the slop machine takes willpower and learned skills. Modern social media is like a drug. Many adults use drugs responsibly to have good times, but we all agree that we should keep kids away from them.

A good point of view. Someone, somewhere will fight the odds and carry on. Someone will love, hate, create art, suffer, exploit and be exploited, create new nonsense jokes and slang, and make the same mistakes. Quite literally until the the last lights go out.

Wasn’t a core philosophy of Calvinists basically “god loves capitalism” (before the word was really established)?

Nah, that’s not it. Germany has legal and - theoretically - regulated prostitution, and society is not meaningfully different than, say, France in that redgard as far as I can tell.

There are other issues associated with it, but just that one argument alone doesn’t seem to work based on what I’ve seen.

I mean, congrats on your nihilism. If I cared about neither myself nor those close to me nor some abstract “humanity” or “society”, I would have it much easier in life.

Sadly, I still feel bad when I think of bad things happening to good people, or, even worse, me.

I don’t know about you, but:

1. I have some money. Not much, but I’d like to keep it, because food and rent is kind of required.

2. I don’t have a criminal record, and I would hate it if someone used my identity to commit crimes. At the very least, doors and lawyers are expensive.

3. Figure out how to simulate and scam me and a few million other dudes like me, and you have pretty good chances of getting elected here. That stuff is happening in all major elections now, and the results are, well, I assume you read the news.

4. I would really hate it if you send my detailed porn habits to my boss and my grandma. At the very least my boss would think I’m an idiot and don’t deserve a job working with computers and expensive machines.

Bonus argument:

I’ve been told that for years and nothing ever comes of it cause what do I got worth taking?

I’ve known people who drive without a seatbelt for years, and they haven’t died yet.

You do realise it is not about the physical phone, but what you do / have on it? That’s why I said access, and on the net.

My physical device is worth what, $50 with the half dead battery and all the scratches.

My bank and savings account is worth quite a bit more, and my non-felon status, citizenship of a (for now) democratic country and my private and professional reputation are as well.

Why do you not let someone look over your shoulder when you vote?

And if that is an unfair comparison, look at Cambridge analytica, and how things have gone downhill with AI and all that since then.

If you want some pathos, it is your civic duty as a citizen who wants to preserve liberty in a democratic coutry, to be at least somewhat independent and unpredictable from a state that wants you to be predictable and controllable.

OK, now give your phone and wallet access to anyone on the net.

Including the government, that other government, Kim Jong Un, a pimply broke teeneager in some failed ex-soviet state who doesn’t extradite to your place, Mike the Pervert (not allowed within 100m from any other living or recently deceased human by a court order), Mario NotAMobstero and Ranjin who works for $2.50/h in a scam call center.

Gold angle, I didn’t hear that before

“Maybe nothing to hide, but something to protect” is a nice one.

Das Boot, it is the classic movie about German Uboats from the perspective of the Uboat crew.

It does not glorify, it does not condemn, but the one thing that stays with you is the feeling of futility.

They did all the terrible and heroic things, cheered at hitting convoys, let allied seamen drown because of their orders, escaped again and again, showed fanatism and self-reflection, panic and comradeship, and in the end, when they come back to their home base, it just doesn’t matter.

Why? I have plenty of disk space, a few unused binaries wont hurt me

Yeah, it would still be a massive improvement if it took 20 years instead of 1000.

To be fair, there has always been crap. Sure, llms automate the process of slop creation, but you always had to rely on curation and often pure luck to find decent books.