A major change I observe is that, unfortunately, a lot of political stuff finds place on the front page. In the past something that is likely to appear on the front page of the BBC would not appear here and it was mostly tech and startup stuff (barring the odd thing that would pique curiosity but that too I categorise under' tech'). Anything else was rare.

Also, over time, it seems to have become acceptable to show mild disrespect in communication - pasting LLM output as their own messages, leaving punctuation out (all lowercase messages), reddit meme like messages (this one not as often as the others).

I think some charm the place had is lost and it has become more utilitarian - or more of a hustler's place than a curious mind's place.

EDIT: Forgot another important one: clickbait headlines are more accepted now. In fact, the lack of integrity seems to be a badge of honour sometimes: "if you didn't regret the click, I don't regret baiting it", I recall someone saying here.

I say all this in comparison to earlier.

This is a rather unusual observation I have to say. How did you come to this conclusion, might I ask?

Given how much of general purpose computation we lose every year to walled-gardens/prisons, I think it might help a wee bit now and then.

It is not really complicated but it does require discipline and commitment. Like some other commenters have suggested, a complicated system or a massive to-do isn't as reliable as a simple system which is easy to follow and gives you a quick overview of where things stand. In my experience, To-do systems don't help motivate - they help a bit to stay organised.

(Not as big as the one in Sweden though)

https://apps.ankiweb.net/docs/manual20.html

It's a film trying to show the adventures of Indiana Jones.

EDIT: Also I see that the proportions differ based on the type of socks.

I took the liberty to make a few assumptions in my questions but you may also note that it is likewise with your line of questioning.

Cheers,

As for me, I can go to bed in peace without worrying about world peace and world hunger. I never claimed otherwise. If one were to accuse me of hypocrisy in this matter, I'd expect some evidence before I consider the possibility that there may be a point to it.

From two comments, it is hard to see whether your usage of "you" is rhetorical or whether you mean me in particular.

The easy case is the latter and for that I'll say that, I would be rather surprised if you had an accurate idea of what kind of a life I led and how much suffering is in my day-to-day life.

Let's go to the other instance, where you are speaking in general using the rhetorical "you". Here, I agree that there is a lot of suffering in this world. I'll take a specific case of it - hunger. There are a lot of hungry people in this world: even children dying of starvation. We have only considered humans so far. Imagine a little kitten somewhere abandoned by his mother (or just lost) and crying out in hunger (I've found a few like this). The question then arises: How can you eat any meal in peace? Does anyone have a right to eat in peace as long as involuntary hunger exists? Are they "permitted" to eat without guilt or shame? What if one eats a sandwich? What if it is rice? What if it is rice and chicken? What if it's an ice-cream? What if it's chocolate fondue? What if it's a king's feast?

I was unable to see any other natural end to that line of reasoning except a monastic life. Does that mean that when a butcher buys ice-cream for his little daughter, this act should in fact give them both guilt and shame instead of joy? This is not a simple matter if you were to think about how to thresh it out by taking both sides and pitting them against each other in your mind.

I have lived among people of very "opposing" cultures (different countries). Guilt features prominently in one of them. In my view, it is a kind of abuse to foist such a mindset on a young mind and teach a child that one has to look at an activity so natural and important as eating (or sleeping) and feel guilt or shame because of it. How does this not increase suffering? If one's ideal is to work towards diminishing suffering in this world, is causing more of it (to others or to oneself) the right method? In either case, why? And then follows the rationalists question to the idealist: "Will that work?"

If I were to be entirely honest, I do not think this medium can serve well to settle this matter. If we had met in person, I'd have been happy to share a meal with you and learn where each of us is headed. Not that that would settle it of course but it is much easier to debate such matters in those circumstances. I wish you luck and hope that you find a path to what you seek.