Unfortunately we fed this current iteration of AI with human behaviour (not only that: human behaviour on the Internet...)

It's a large difference in concept but potentially only a small difference in outcome.

These days, the amount of background services that Windows runs just makes it feel as if Windows itself is increasingly malware. You don't need a virus present for modern day machines, with massive compute resources, to be bogged down and running like a 486 back in the day.

They're fucking everything.

It is incredibly sad that the US has come to this though. Yet another example of the country self-harming in ways that will leave permanent scarring.

A quote I've repeated before: "The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment".

Headphones on folks while they're out walking is ridiculous and antisocial and if they get hit because they didn't hear a bell then they had it coming. I only use a single earbud at a time so I don't lose my situational awareness entirely, but even that can still wash out the rest of the world noise pretty well.

Then in 2001 was "Series 7"[1] (which I got flashbacks of from the 2013 White Bear[2] episode of Black Mirror).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Running_Man_(1987_film)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_7:_The_Contenders

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Bear_(Black_Mirror)

Trivia for music nerds like me: Mick Fleetwood and Dweezil Zappa are in The Running Man.

All other arguments are moot in the shadow of this. However, if you're talking about how a media company can stay afloat without advertising, then you're getting very much closer to ethical arguments. I currently just point to the first paragraph in such an argument.

The advertising industry needs to sort out its inability to appropriately and safely scale before any ethical arguments are able to put roots down.

> I am sorry for my embarrassing lapse in judgment. :)

But I do agree with the point you're making.

What I notice as different, and I'll try to keep this as minimally political as possible but, as you say, it seems to be an increasing irrational tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater. De-fund the police as an example. I think the positives outweigh the negatives in this example, by a fair margin, but people react to what they're exposed to and the focus on outrage-bait-for-engagement in the current media environment has this an an outcome.

Additionally, the decreasing respect for the rule of law by the leaders of countries only leads their populace into the same kind of thinking. Leading a country backwards from the civilisation that is borne from the application of rules around behaviour and into the chaos that preceded said civilisation (this is a long term process and can be turned around, I'm not saying to start panicking just yet).

Some grey area is OK, and is almost necessary, for the sake of the ability to have the conversation about moving the law to be more in line with societal expectations, but too much grey area leads back to societal breakdown and chaos.

It's interesting, not unexpected and not un-understandable, that your opinion started changing as the dollar value decreased. I greatly dislike what this says about the effect of money on the human psyche. It's as old as time, but this hack hasn't been patched and I don't think it can be: Humans will sell their souls for a price.

I forgive you for your lapse in judgement. You are human after all - not intended as an insult ;)

As staunchly anti-advertising, I wouldn't include advertising on anything I publish personally, but then I also don't publish anything, so I have no pressure to change my stance. I think I've convinced myself that my opinion doesn't matter to those who may be able to earn a decent stream from advertising (as much as I dislike that, and as much as I dislike my opinion being value-less).

I know it's conspiratorial, and I hate that, but it's one of the only things that makes any of the actions of the US in the last year make any semblance of sense.

I don't like to think that, but it remains, for me, a valid scenario.

Their actions are the foundation for everything that came after.