AI is a broad term; of course neural networks and machine learning have been important in a lot of research etc. That’s all great. LLMs…it’s all anyone wants to talk about (maybe image generation too) and it’s junk for any application that matters.

If looms could only make burlap, and the capitalists tried to make burlap underwear a thing, I think the luddites would be wise to say to the public “hey, don’t buy this crap…it’s uncomfortable!” Of course, in reality, auto-looms did a lot of the same stuff traditional weavers could do. I think pointing out that when techbros say LLMs output is great, pointing out that LLMs output is generally garbage is effective. Luddites couldn’t really say that the output was significantly inferior (or maybe it was and people didn’t notice…jesus I hope that’s not the case with this garbage!).

Maybe that’s what we disagree about. To me, the auto-looms are only making burlap and I don’t see any reason to think they’re going to get much better. And they’re lighting the planet on fire :P

I am not willing to capitulate to this kind of BS: “LLMs are very useful and they’re clearly here to stay.” I just think that’s horseshit. That’s what the capitalists who are selling them want you to think, but I genuinely believe if you ever look at it in a critical context you’ll see.

I mean…looms actually seem useful. My experience with large language models is that they’re only useful when the output doesn’t really matter. Like…they’re fine if you’re “searching” for things that aren’t really defined and you don’t really care about the answer (i.e. “what are the five trendiest coffeeshops in Barcelona that are likely to have english speaking staff?” it can’t actually know any of that…what’s “trendy” even mean? Whatever, who cares, go to a coffee shop on your vacation, have a nice time).

But when it matters you just cannot rely on them…They can’t be relied on to use the correct words when precision of language matters, they can’t do “research” or “analysis” in any meaningful sense…like maybe better than a sharp middle-schooler? But not as well as a dumb undergrad.

And I don’t see any reason, understanding what the technology is to think they’ll get better at those things. It’s predictive in nature. You know…like maybe it’ll go from 60% reliable to 90% reliable over the next hundred years because they’ll find some way to focus on high-quality and relevant training data, while still using gigantic training data to get the model up and running…? But since it’s fundamentally a predictive model (trying to predict what a good answer would look like), it’s never going to be able to actually be relied upon for answers to questions when it matters.

And idk what the cost would be when factoring in all the externalities…environmental destruction, energy consumption…hell, even the infrasound from data centers fucking up everyone’s brain…like…there’s just no way this makes any economic sense. Right now it’s all mega-subsidized, but when that comes to an end…is it gonna cost $10 per prompt on average? $50? Idk, but I know everyone using it now will not want to pay for it.

I guess everyone else learned the playbook and started beating them at it

Nice; yeah I don’t know if that’s a thing but if it is let me know I’m sure I could do with that too haha

You’re a hero man! Way to go. You’re a Linux person now ;) I don’t have any save advice because I’m where you were plus two weeks (and with simpler hardware, so you’re probably more advanced than me already)

Anyway that’s awesome! Way to go!

Having never even looked at Linux before I had it up and running on my old MacBook in less than an hour! Maybe another two of playing with settings (mostly for fun), and now it’s just my computer! I’m sure it’ll take extra time to get the things you want to work to go if they’re unusual, or maybe as you point out you may need to keep a windows partition for that.

Nebula, means tv, and dropout =/ none will be the next YouTube but it’s nice to have options I guess

Yeah getting hardware to work may require a bit of fiddling. There are some stellar resources, and some extremely helpful people. Most stuff really does “just work” but when it doesn’t you don’t have to learn everything, just how to fix that issue!

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how painless it is. Obviously if you havae special hardware it may be hard to find drivers or whatever…hell if I know! but I had similar apprehension to you and it’s been a breeze!

Mint is very comfortable for a windows user! If you’re on even slightly older hardware I really doubt you’ll find Windows more comfortable.

I’ve never really watched the guy, so I have no dog in this fight. That’s definitely a dumb-as-nails take. Not anything I wouldn’t expect from someone born to moderate wealth running a company, but not especially malicious.

Hey, can you say more about the Linux install party? I’d be interested in hosting something like that! Did you find or make any resources to help?

Yeah i heard that after posting this! I’ve also heard that archinstall is pretty user-friendly, really! Do you have any thoughts about that?

I remember you saying it might be easier to stick with Mint, which may very well be what i do!

Thanks for the reply

Why?

That’s very true; I still would love to see him guillotined.

It’s because they think they’ll win those lawsuits. They may be right. They’re gonna pull an Alex jones: “oh come on, it’s a bit! Everyone knows it’s bullshit!”

I’m just getting into my first MUD! It’s neat!

This is such awful history; of course it works because it serves the US, but it does blow me away that otherwise well-meaning people continue to parrot it. You don’t have to be a “tankie” to stop spouting this nonsense.

You’re referring to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. That was a non-aggression treaty, not an “alliance.” The soviets would be pretty foolish to make an alliance with a country whose fascist genocidal leader, hitler, made clear the inescapable need to invade the soviet union in mein kampf.

You know who else had already made non-aggression pacts with the Nazis before that? The UK, France, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia. You think they were “allied” with the Nazis?

Hell the Spanish civil war was a proxy war that the soviets had to pull out of to get ready for invasion (much to the ire of western anarchists forever).

No, man. The soviet position was pretty damned clear: they needed time to mobilize. You think they were mobilizing to deal with…what, Poland? Everyone knew what was happening between the Nazis and the soviets. They still weren’t ready, and got slaughtered.

Dislike the Soviet Union for other reasons. There are plenty of good ones. This is nonsense.

Lovely! The hobby aspect definitely appeals, though so does the idea of getting everything running well! Have you heard anything about Manjaro as a user-friendly version of arch? I guess it may cut against the arch ethos of “precisely what you choose to install and nothing more,” but I feel like if it’s any good I could get the sort of ease-of-use that I have with mint while having the option to dabble and experiment more with the guidance of the arch wiki available?

I am very happy with mint. I can imagine making arch more of a project and having a lot of fun with it, and as I said, the wiki really seems like a big draw! I probably wouldn’t swap my daily driver from mint for a while, but I’m gonna put together a desktop to maybe run 24/7 and run a little plex server or whatever. I am interested in the possibility of even running it headless…maybe even streaming games from it to a laptop (I don’t have a very good space for a desktop set up in my home right now…too snug!).

Anyway thanks for your thoughts. Arch does seem really cool but maybe I should stick with something a bit more beginner friendly for a little longer, and come to arch when I’m more “ready,” or when my new little obsession with linux has solidified into a habit or whatever!

e: anyone have experience with manjaro as a user-friendly version of arch?

I’m a newbie, just put Mint on an old laptop and I’m blown away; it really does just work!

I have been thinking about trying Arch next because it’s so well documented. I don’t know maybe put together a little home server or something.

Do you think it’s appropriate for a relative newcomer? I’m excited by the documentation but also a little intimidated by it! I suspect I’ll need to ask for help but would worry about not having read everything there is to read first.