So my question then becomes, what will realistically be lost if CTFs move to a form that requires teams and individuals to sign up?

That's such a non-reason. If your competition cannot enforce the rules of the competition, then what's the point? Does the CTFs specifically need to be 'open'?

So the obvious solution is to fully ban AI and AI generated tools? To destroy your own hobby just because AI can semantically be considered a tool, seems very stupid to me. If the point of these CTFs is to practice and measure your skill, what becomes the point of the competition once everyone uses AI?

For a dutch person (and I suspect many other countries), life is not measured in the amount of 'cool' stuff you have or do. To me life is about friends, family, health and purpose. If I have that, I'm perfectly happy for every week to be the same as the last, for the rest of my life.

Perhaps this is for the best? I assume if they did intend they would be mostly saying 'no' to everything?

Now things might get actually accepted by willing participants, which might allow it to snowball and gain traction, which might convince one of those 3 to join at a later date.

That's not true though. It's 'a lot', not infinite. Not everything affects the output that our brain produces.

As far as we're currently aware the brain IS deterministic. If you were able to perfectly duplicate a brain and it's environment/state, the resulting output of that brain will always be the same.

Are you saying that people with advanced Alzheimers lose consciousness? That's not the case. Although it might become hard for people with advanced Alzheimers to demonstrate their consciousness, that doesn't mean that their consciousness isn't there.

Let's not sane-wash what they did here, they didn't just 'forgot to pay for the books', they deliberately and illegally downloaded and used material that wasn't theirs to use.

If you or I did that, we would be jailed or sued into destitution. In a fair world we either should change copyright laws (allowing for anyone to freely pirate all media), or Zuckerberg needs to go to jail.

If you say something like "I hate that people don't see the real me", LLMs would say "yes it's understandable that that would make you upset" basically confirming your reasoning as valid, while a therapist would ask "why do you want to people to see the real you?" or "What is in your words the difference between how people see you now, and how they would see you if they saw the 'real you'?". These kinds of questions force you to explain and identify your assumptions and reasoning.

LLMS are more like friends, providing a listening ear, but otherwise just nodding along.

edit: To be clear, this is why llms are NOT a good replacement for therapy. Using llms will likely only exacerbate instead of mitigate.

All this talk about retribution, what would you think you will get out of this? What do you think would happen if all your bullies would call you and tell you they're sorry for what they did to you? Would that erase any of the memories you have? Will that suddenly make you approach each social interaction without worry and with confidence? Will that help improve how you feel about your self?

I think the answer is a resounding 'no'... The required changes between you and your 'best self' are not within them, but they are within you.

> that it's what you need to do to make those who wronged you to regret their actions

Why does your goal even include these people? Why do you keep letting these people play a part in your life? Your goal should be to live however you want to live, and to disregard these people