"I hate it but I have to use AI at work or else I would lose my job" / "I have a mortgage, spouse, and/or other dependents and can't afford to lose my job"

They say they don't like it and it's soul crushing, these are exactly the folks that should be resisting, yet they don't. Do I believe them that they hate it if they won't do anything to stop it?

*sigh*

Zero solidarity. No empathy for anyone but themselves. We should be reaching out to them, but ... how? 🤷

Dreaming of arguments as to why two groups of people shouldn't kill each other, including impassioned speeches on why it's okay not to follow in the steps of ones ancestors, is not a particularly restful way to sleep.

Or, after waking up and going back to sleep, of cave dwellers in an advanced tech wasteland beset by failing infrastructure, insect swarms, bounty hunters, and fellow space travelers (less stressful but still very busy).

Sometimes I wonder if I could turn dreams into stories.

I often see folks talking about The Government [is bad] or The System [is rigged]. We use these terms in their abstract to mean *waves hands wildly* everything all at once. But these aren't naturally occurring phenomenon/mechanics or autonomous entities; we gloss over, dare say we "other", that these are all *Other **People***.

If you want to change or abolish The Government, or fix The System, you first have to figure out how to establish rapport and then organize with Other People.

What was the point of creating the "approximate" location setting option if literally every app refuses to work if you don't give it precise location? That it can tell the difference negates the point too.

Map? Weather? Dating? Notta.

Clickwrap licensing is where many things took a turn for the worse; the lopsided "agree or get nothing" in combination with US "rule of law" basically saying "as long as they say they're going to screw you over then it's fine" gives no reason for them not to.

I was recently made aware of a Tumblr post from 2017 that is still highly relevant today in 2026: "Everyone will not just"

"If everyone would just..."
- join a union
- boycott [store or service]
- stop pre-ordering digital games
- donate 2$/month to wikipedia
- say "no" to their manager / employer

Or the classic:
Step 1 - Raise Awareness
Step 2 - ???
Step 3 - Problem Solved

This isn't to say that these things are impossible but that action needs to go past Step 1 and to answer Step 2.

The ones who die in their 20s, 30s, or even 40s, especially of substance overdose, the preventable ones that society has failed? Those are the ones I mourn for the life they will never get to live.

Living past 60 isn't a given and sometimes the quality of life isn't worth it. I'm 40 now, this year, and there's no telling what the next 20 or 40 will hold for this body.

But no aspect of our society, nature, or history is surprising or unexpected in any way; someone foresaw and was ignored.

"at the age of 80"

I'm not sad or hurt; I'm satisfied they got to live as close to a long life as any of us can, had the opportunity to do many things, and hope they had the health to enjoy it. That they're getting headline news means they've had a greater impact than any average person.

We remember them for being part of our formulative years, then we do the only thing we can: we pick up the torch and carry it forward for those who remain, and for those who come after.

Getting called a bot is becoming par for the course for online discussions.

https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1vmy4c2/going_into_game_dev_finally_but_sheesh_ai_bros/p3hecs6/?context=1

One more reason on the pile for why I feel like disengaging in broader discussions online. There are enough disingenuous, repetitive, or irrelevant commenters to wade through that it feels like being personally involved doesn't matter as much to me anymore.

Me: I'd like to get out for a bike ride or something. I should go out at 4pm when the UV index drops to safe levels.

Forecast: Ooohh, sorry, best I can do is high chance of severe thunderstorms. See, off in the distance on the radar: large and severe and slowly approaching.

Yesterday: dark clouds on the horizon, tiny droplets in the air, otherwise nothing until after 7pm.

Today: Same?

I appreciate the rain but with this weather it's difficult to get out if you're not a early morning person.

This post inspired by yet another Trending post explaining why the UK is uniquely unequipped to handle the current heat wave and how if climate change wasn't a sudden and unexpected thing then they'd be totally fine.

Or maybe by the umpteenth "Why isn't anyone doing anything" replies to posts about American politics.

Or the holier than though attitude both take when responding to problems the other has.

It's all a mystery. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

All the Europeans/British complaining about their heat wave sound exactly like Americans complaining about their government.

All the Americans talking about the European/British heat wave sound exactly like all the Europeans/British talking about the American government.

Both were known well in advance and both could have started doing something about it a decade ago, and yet neither did.

"Why isn't [someone] doing [something]?" 🤔️

Commentators that present Republican behavior in a manner that is relatable to Democrats are feeding their audience copium; positing it as maybe they'll change, or someone will break ranks, or it won't be as bad.

They or former officials may say contradictory things, wring their hands, send "signals", or hold off on some things for now, but they haven't stopped. It's the equivalent of "we regret getting caught" versus "we regret our actions": there is no "resigning in disgrace" point left.

It _feels_ like we were so close to moving the needle away from a dependency on slavery (servitude, wage slavery, ...) toward a more equitable society, and then LLMs exposed how few people actually care. It doesn't matter what the personal, economical, or ecological harm is as long as _someone else_ is the one to pay the cost (for now).

I know both points are pretty far from the whole truth, even as generalizations, so I will just hold the line, for myself, and hope things get better.

Goodhart's Law [^3]: Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.

Lucas Critique [^4]: It is naive to try to predict the effects of a change in economic policy entirely on the basis of relationships observed in historical data, especially highly aggregated historical data.

The Lucas Critique is new to me but embodies the grain of salt necessary when "Economists say"

[^3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
[^4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_critique

December 2023: "The consumer sentiment index says things are really bad but everything else says it's fine; oh well, the index must be wrong 🤷" [^1]

November 2025: "Actually, turns out lower income folks are spending relatively less while middle and upper income folks are spending more. Oops 😳" [^2]

I remember listening to the 2023 episode and being frustrated that they were completely blanking on their later realization.

[^1]: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/01/1197955840/planet-money-consumer-sentiment
[^2]: https://www.npr.org/2025/11/21/nx-s1-5616629/consumer-sentiment-spending-wealth-gap

Getting out for a walk on this lovely 27°C early spring day (before it threatens to snow again tomorrow night) and I hear a non-stop crinkling sound from the side of the paved trail. I locate the source of the sound and lo and behold #DangerNoodle #Snake slowly slithering through the crunchy leaves.

Have you heard the advice to "manage up"?

Maybe it sounds empowering, I've mostly heard it in the context of someone trying to grow their career, but the more I think about it the more it sounds like an implicit acknowledgement that management doesn't know how to do its job. You're not a manager, why should you have to manage your boss? That's literally their job and you're expected to do your job and theirs? 😒

We gotta stop promoting folks to managers and then not training them. Or anyone.

Hi, yes, I would like to buy one of these "I'm ready to assist" for only 4.99. 🤦‍♂️🫠

So... I took a glance further down the rabbit hole of getting started with GrapheneOS and in particular "degoogle"... and I'm ready to run screaming from the entire thing.

Some of the presenters have that "fear for your life" salesman vibes. The links to cryptocurrency are concerning. Then I noticed some of them are rubbing elbows with, or are, fascists and realized it's the atheist alt-right pipeline all over again: Everyone is out to get you and only these guys can help you. 🤦

I needed a new phone so I decided to try the #GrapheneOS thing. The install went smoothly enough.

Now the question is: How to I migrate my old phone to the new one? How do I install all my existing apps and configs? *crickets*

"Manually"? "[Using] encrypted methods or direct connections"? What?

This is why there will never be a "Year of the Linux Desktop". The FOSS doesn't matter if it's this hard to use.

I could have hit "Transfer from existing device" on the stock OS and been done already.