Did you talk about it? I could imagine the subconscious mind takes some inspiration from stories it has heard recently… I knownmine does

A microsd card with the plans for a fusion reactor, a step by step manual of how to achieve world peace and utopia, and enough shitcoins and dubious patent claims to overthrow the economy if needed. Plus all the Epstein files, the truth about JFK and all the dirty laundry of all world leaders. Throw in some nuclear access codes of various countries for good measure. Covered in Epoxy. Oh, and I want my whole body to be delivered to my family, stomach contents included.

Tbh, it has been a while and maybe I am confusing it with another city. But it just felt… like nothing special. No reason to be there. Mediocre at best, lame at worst. Big ugly cities usually have a thriving subculture, or surviving there is an experience by itself at least. But it just felt like the city equivalent of the word “meh”

Cheap Chinese Amazfit Neo. Basically a fitness tracker with a Casio-like look.

The one advice is, use gadgetbridge (https://gadgetbridge.org/). Replaces the shitty bloated spyware vendor app with something that does not sell your sleep pattern to the highest bidder. Downside, of course, is that you lose features and not every watch is compatible (or in different states of compatibility)

Ohh, how do you do that? That sounds cool!

The best decision in my life was to get a trade/industrial degree after school. I met some great people, I met some horrible people, and most importantly, it taught me to show up every morning with a clean T-shirt and an appropriate greeting. Sounds banal, but isn’t.

Then I went to college, out of a mix of “I don’t want to do this for 40 years” and no good offers in my region. But I still wonder how I would have ended up if I didn’t go. I was happiest in tech support, believe it or not. We were pretty free in what we did as long as the tickets were solved. If the queue was zero, nobody asked where you were on a Friday afternoon. Good times.

Paris is shitty for tourists who follow the main path. It certainly has many cool places and things if you care to look. You just won’t see any camera wielding Japanese tourists there. And of course it has all the crime and poverty problems you expect from a city that attracts anything and anyone of note from the whole country.

Now Lille, that felt off. Or any place on the Mediterranean in winter.

My two cents as an outsider: there are two parties in the US, the conservatives and then the Republicans.

If you are desperate, you vote for change. Any change. That includes the candidate that promises to spit in your face personally.

Don’t confuse “intelligence” with conformity. There are lots of farmers’ kids who are intelligent by common standards, but either got conditioned into pretending, or deliberately pretend to fit in. I’ve met someone in college who was very intelligent, had a well-paid job doing ML stuff, and decided to go back to the countryside with their partner because they simply enjoyed life and the people there. As you said, conformity equals comfort and safety. I’ve met at least one guy who could turn the “redneck” on and off at will. One moment, he would enjoy doing complicated engineering shit or talking about politics and philosophy, the other he would enjoy bragging about the dumbest shit while drinking the local liquor.

I have been Kevin. I arrived at work, half asleep, went to the drip coffee maker, put in the grounds, poured in the water, and went to the morning briefing. Five minutes into the briefing, I realise that I never put the pot back under the thing. Now, it had a valve, but the valve does not prevent the filter from overflowing… yeah. Made me wake up really fast.

I’d rather be the dumbest in the room than the smartest :)

I sincerely believe that one should make an effort to at least sometimes go out and meet different people. Sure, there are people who you don’t want to meet, cruel, uncaring, hateful, and so on. But that is not based on intelligence.

I’ve met my share of not-so-bright people. No funny stories, I don’t want to make fun of people for being “stupid” either.

But I’ve been in a sports club with some very intelligent and not-so-intelligent people, I’d argue that you can find a good cross section of society in there.

One guy seemed to have some kind of mental disability, and also quite a fan of alcohol, which didn’t help either. He was being “mentored” by one of the older guys in the club, and he was, generally, doing an ok job at “life”, given the cards he was dealt.

Another guy just wasn’t that smart, in the traditional sense. Nice, friendly, hard-working, well organised, with a strong sense of right and wrong, with a wife and a child and all that. Thinking of it, he has a (presumably) happy family, while I have a college degree and am shit-posting on the internet in my underwear by myself. One of us is winning at life, and I feel it isn’t me…

Then, I’ve specteted a class for a rather low-skill job in a not-so-nice city once. Not special ed, regular class for people who want to get a certain (rather low) post-high-school certificate. I’ve sat with some people, and they were on a visit to the town electricity provider, who was trying to teach them (on a high level) how a power plant works. With one guy I was sitting with, there was just no chance. The concept of how burning gas turns a turbine, which turns a generator, which makes the lights go on just didn’t fit into his brain. Super nice guy, but that was just out of his reach.

I have met a fair share of people at college as well. There are some people who are kind of unable to think for themselves, regardless of “intelligence” (whatever that is). College is likely the first time they have to figure out things on their own, with nobody telling them how to do it. I remember deliberately giving people tasks that seemed trivial to me in some kind of TA role, like “we used this device $X in the past, but it is too heavy, can you google for something like $X but maybe only 100g max?” and they were completely lost. All they had to do was type things into the search bar, click links, and look for “specs” and “weight”. I can only guess they had parents do everything for them.

Out of pocket cost of treatments internationally should be available with a bit of digging. I believe that compulsory insurance also can make things cheaper, because the insurance company can negotiate with the weight of their customers.

Of course, US health care is a corrupt scam from what I hahave heard.

But for example, for a 3h joint surgery, general anaesthesia, related lab work, an MRI and CT scan plus various bullshit like normal xrays and a couple of days of stay I paid (or would have paid, if arguing insurances didn’t agree on the blame somehow) a bit less than 10k€, maybe around 7k? Western Europe, a couple of years ago. Similar figures are probably available for standard procedures, I’m just too lazy to look them up right now

Actually, this. Got hooked on a bad, dying MMO, joined a guild, founder turned out to be a narcicist asshole, left with some people I barely knew. We ended up still hanging out now and then years later, despite none of us playing any more.

I enjoy chatting with ransoms !

$1M and no hostages will be harmed!

Mate, seek help. No, seriously. Nobody here is qualified to talk about that, I guess, so I won’t either. But do talk to professionals who are experienced with this and bound to some confidentiality. That sounds like something that needs careful treading, since (hopefully) you realised that it’s not some realistic fantasy.

Weeeell… I have only known two kinds of people, those who take a look, and those who lie. I guess I haven’t met many asexuals in my life yet. If you want to have fun, try hanging out at a social spot like the park, pool, cafe or whatever, and watch people watch people.

Don’t be creepy, don’t stare, don’t make someone else uncomfortable, that goes without saying. One glance is a compliment, 10s of staring is bad. Time and place matter as well, someone who wears clothing that stands out at a place where it could be expected to stand out, well, can expect to stand out. There were two guys in crop tops at the gym the other day, and man, those sixpacks had me question my sexuality for a second.

As with all things, if it makes you stop enjoy life, or not be a good part of society, your social circles, family, job and so on, take steps to correct it, obviously, because then it crosses over into compulsive or addictive territory.

And, as a last thing, you are more than the little voice inside your head. That little voice is not going to go away soon, but there is more to life than being horny. Captain of your soul and all that shit. Enjoy your libido to the fullest when you can, tell it to fuck off and shut up when inappropriate.

True.

But off is a lot better than on, still. Modern high-speed radios use quite a bit of juice. So at most, it would keep some microcontroller on for predefined functions, and wake up every now and then. It simply isnt practical to keep the big stuff on for more than a few days or so.

If you want to avoid even that, get a phone with removable battery. Or put it in a metal box. A tin can with a bit of aluminium foil around the seal gets you 60+ dB dampening.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

It will snitch on me, it already does. Somehow we accepted that constant tracking is a cool feature and not a horrifying virus. But it can’t see what happens on the other phone, right? And, I can still turn it off, keep it in a drawer, and that limits most of the tracking. Still, not impossible, but much harder.

Sorry, there must have been a couple of misunderstandings.

That was supposed to be sarcastic

Sarcasm probably isnt the correct word. More like “cynic statement with no contribution to the debate”. I know full well that the US is a shit show, and I am scared shitless that they export their “new” culture to the whole world.

Great, so in your scenario, things will still be great

No. In my opening statement, I clearly said that people will suffer. People are suffering already. More than once, people in my family tree had to suffer through their job being replaced by automation and economic forces.

with the technology they have RIGHT NOW.

Now, this is the point where I disagree: if it is possible with today’s tech, why is it not happening? Why is automation limited to repeatetive tasks and stuff like self checkout?

Either companies aren’t as greedy (unlikely), or the tech isnt quite there yet.

Replacing as many human-powered the is the express purpose of AI by nearly every corporate entity. Stop pretending that it isn’t.

I don’t. Public corporations are, by definition, legally required to be greedy, soulless machines. Salary is one of the biggest, if not the biggest single cost item for most service companies.

However, many of the people trying to convince us that “AI” is there and inevitable are those that conveniently have an interest in selling AI.

I am scared of the societal effects of so-called AI, don’t get me wrong. But not because it will replace “all jobs”. Will it eliminate some jobs? Probably. Are the current prognoses overhyped? IMHO, also likely.

Besides, many issues with today’s society (especially in the US) have nothing to do with AI, like exploited “gig workers”, lack of social security, ridiculously expensive costs of (bad) education, and not enough people being held accountable for their actions if they are rich. None of those need AI, but AI surely doesn’t help either.