Blender.

10 years ago it was scarcely believable that a FOSS package for such a niche purpose could be so fucking good. And it got better in the meantime. If Blender had existed when I was a kid I would have probably spent every waking hour creating stuff with it. As an adult, I get limited time to do that, but I appreciate that it exists.

15 years ago was when I stopped using facebook. It had the potential to be a great way to organize and maintain social connections, but instead it was a toxic environment promoting the most annoying shit, particularly when posted by frequent users trying to broadcast their lives to the world. Simultaneously it did a great job of hiding anything I’d actually be interested to know. Fuck knows how bad it has become in the meantime. It was striking how much it seemed to bring out the worst in people, and equally remarkable how so many people just wanted to wallow in that.

You even get a free cremation. Saves time and money!

AI my ass, they just don’t want people to bypass the paywall

Sure thing bro. No war in Ba Sing Se

Not sure what you meant by “occupied entirely” but a society ruled by the worst, and committed to bringing out the worst in its populace is what I’d call a failed experiment.

I don’t think it’s as simple as people being like us or not. I’d say most people put their interests and the interests of their families first, most people have trouble thinking for themselves and tend to identify with whatever ideologies they are most exposed to, and most people want to make the world a better place.

So

1. yes we are being isolated, divided, set against each other. Communication networks are being extensively manipulated, and potential dissent can be suppressed quite subtly like that.

2. I draw no distinction between “folk like us” and people who conform and imitate. I’m not an exception, though I do at least try to be aware of it. Formation of a large scale movement will make all the difference. Of course the billionaire class will fight tooth and nail to prevent this from ever happening.

3. Again, no distinction. I’m selfish and I benefit from economic inequality. But I can see that the system is working toward disaster. And I think most people see that to some degree. I don’t think it is the best we can do as a species. The problem is that the world’s most powerful people are mostly trying to stop us from making it better.

I don’t know what the answer is but I think raising awareness matters. Perversely I think that some good may come out of the Trump administration, because it serves as a model of the abuse of power, and it really ought to help people see who the real enemy is. Maybe we knew all along, but it was more comfortable to live with it. Maybe we’re at a point where we can’t live with it any more.

Time to reset the experiment with different parameters

It really is amazing, all the insights, the discoveries, the knowledge, the artistry, the technology that the human race has acquired. Historically, every time we thought we knew the limits of our potential, we have gone far beyond those limits. Except that we still haven’t figured out how not to hand over control of everything to the absolute worst of us. Like literally put our most deluded narcissistic psychopathic pedophiles in charge of the entire fucking world.

The Gargamel Research Institute

Well… yes? AFAIK that was Alex Jones talking about endocrine disruption caused by atrazine in herbicides. Frogs turning gay seems a silly thing to focus on, but the health and environmental effects of herbicides and pesticides are a valid concern. By turning it into a joke, intentionally or not, he was doing his bit to invalidate serious discussion of the issue.

So weird that companies waste so much time trying to find ways to stop me from stopping them from wasting my time.

Maybe they should do a study in exactly where the ad revenue comes from. I strongly suspect that people who use ad blockers, and people who potentially generate revenue from ads, are two non-intersecting sets.

That’s not by accident. Every right wing conspiracy is a ridiculous pastiche of the shit they are really getting up to, or intend to in the near future. No doubt Pizzagate was invented to make people incredulous about claims of secret cabals of kid rapists in elite circles. Every accusation a confession.

I agree with what you’re saying, but also I think that after a crisis like the current one, there is potential to seriously examine general questions of how we got here, what systemic problems have led to this, and what weaknesses in our systems have been exposed by this. It’s a unique opportunity to fix what is broken, because all serious people can find common ground in the understanding that things have gone to shit lately and that it does need fixing. It’s a rare chance for good faith discussion and significant change. Well-informed proponents of positive change might actually be heard and taken seriously.

The dangers of false propaganda using image manipulation is one important consideration but there are many, many others. You’d probably want to start with the failure of democracy in the USA and how the electoral system needs to be reformed.

Previous presidencies have indeed done that, but that’s why this particular situation gives me a glimmer of hope. The rot is at the point where it all needs to be ripped out. All branches of government are loaded with MAGA appointees, the supreme court is politicized and disgraced, the whole Republican party is complicit in crimes against the nation. Business as usual just isn’t an option any more. I’m not saying that things are automatically going to get better, and unless there is a major cleanout of the Democratic party, it’s doubtful that they would. Just saying that there is a chance now that didn’t exist before.

I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, obviously it’s a bad thing in the short term. I’m sure the current administration will continue to lie in more egregious ways. For example, if there were no clear bystander videos, would the DHS be releasing doctored bodycam footage to show Alex Pretti pulling his gun and trying to shoot ICE officers? Does that sound far-fetched? It’s technically feasible. It might seem too big and blatant a lie, but that lie has already been told in words from the DHS and Trump administration. Why not embellish it further?

And of course it’s enormously dangerous because no matter how blatant the lies are, there are many people who will accept them at face value, because they are too uneducated, or too locked into the “us and them” mentality to ever doubt the story that their team is selling.

So how could it be a good thing? Well, if the USA manages to rid itself of this cancer, the Trump administration will serve as irrefutable proof that government institutions cannot be considered intrinsically trustworthy, or relied on to act in good faith. There needs to be checks and balances like never before. That was always true, but knowing it and being able to act on it are two different things. The Trump administration’s eagerness to lie, cheat and cause suffering, even in the most clumsy and blatant ways, shines a clear light on dangers that were already there. It is an exemplary model of the abuse of power, and I hope that one day we will be in a position to take lessons from it. Maybe I’m being overoptimistic. It seems like the lessons learned from Nazi Germany were mostly the “how to do this” kind. But there is a chance to make things better here, not just better than they are now but better than they were before.