I cherish the world in which it is unacceptable to invade your neighbors, kill their people, occupy their country, destroy their buildings and kidnap their children because you dislike their government. Doubly so as an actual neighbor of the Russian menace!

> People keep repeating this as if the promise of NATO membership in 2008[0] was never given

The independent and free nation of Ukraine has the right to join any alliance they want and that wants them. If Russia considers that a provocation, that's entirely Russia's problem.

Disagree? Simple question. I bet you won't answer.

> and the coup engineered by the US in 2014[1] didn't happen.

That source does not at all prop up your insane claim. At most, it suggests that the US meddles.

Russia must be resisted until those responsible for that war are held accountable and Ukraine is whole, free and compensated, and all imprisoned and kidnapped Ukrainians (especially the kidnapped children) are returned.

Once those things are done, I'd be open to a slow process of normalization for the sake of the Russian people.

Opposition can now be met with "it's just a trial, relax". Then you expand the trial a bit. Keep running it until the discourse moves on. And then a few years down the line, when you roll out the full system and people complain, you can counter with "these people are exaggerating their concerns, we've trialled this for yeaaars and there were very few problems!"

Sure. But you can see that for some people (myself included), writing for peers is part of the joy? And that if instead a megacorp places an opaque computer program between the author and the readers, that joy might be ruined?

I used to not worry. I was sure that a competitor would come along and fix search. But the longer that's not happening, the more nervous I'm getting that we'll actually lose search. If a few more years pass in the current state, I'm afraid the majority of people will forget what search was like and default to AI summaries.

I've tried alternatives, including Kagi (not actually relevant because there's no way I'm – directly or indirectly – buying Russian products) and Uruky, but they're not good enough.

(Edit: Added "directly or indirectly" about Kagi to point out that I'm not claiming that Kagi itself is Russian.)

Nor is there anything inherently European about the AI Act. But that one I wouldn't even call dumb. At times misguided and confused, perhaps, but some of its core principles are valuable.

We have plenty of systems where complete accuracy is the only acceptable thing. Computers are great for such things. Until we all get caught up in a way of delusion and start writing those systems as natural prose passed through an improperly understood stochastic machine.

When people start doing it in an entirely voluntary human-to-human situation, like having a conversation online about a topic of interest, I'm gobsmacked.