catawampus about AI stuff (TLDR version)

Okay, let's try this again.

The original version of this post had about 700 words of jumbled-up frustrations, thoughts, worries, and teeth-gnashing at the general state-of-the-world things. But after a relaxing evening of journaling and about 6 cups of black tea well after the time you should consume any caffeine if you want to sleep that night, I thought I'd tighten it up. Organize it. If only a little.

The Thoughts I Had

I am so, so fucking tired of AI/LLM anything. And I am tired of having creatives and knowledge being treated as just another metric to monetize. But to crystalize beyond that, I'm stuck. I'm tired. And flabberghasted. And a whole bunch of other words. My German is non-existent, so I can only make a half-hearted joke about the existence of a really long word that would somehow exactly encompass everything I'm feeling.

I know how we got here. I know the answer (always capitalism, the line must always go up, profit over literally everything else, set the world on fire and get rich and not care because by the time those environmental chickens come home to roost, you'll be dead or so insulated you may as well be but either way it wouldn't be your problem) but I'm still asking

how the fuck are people still not seeing this? Is being entertained that important? Convenience? Hoodwinked? A combination of all of those things?!

Yes.

The Links I Wanted to Talk About

Currently in my Instapaper account my brain keeps skipping along an article, "How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers." And I am just floored. As an avid reader who needed remedial help with that (and who currently cannot put down The Expanse novels after watching the show) my heart is breaking for these children. We are failing them: destroying kid-safe spaces (off- and online) and neglecting their education, safety, and autonomy.

Shit, they are determined to have everyone catch these anti-science anti-educational anti-critical-thinking hands, from condemning CRT to prioritizing violence.

I love reading.

I cannot fathom just not reading.

I cannot fathom a world where I'm unable to comprehend and fully enjoy this short story by Sightless Scribbles, The Colonization of Confidence. It is about a writing group infiltrated by some techbro asshole who insists having LLM strip everything human out of a writer's work into something more palatable (monetizable). It's been making the rounds this month, and I'd like to add to it. By the end I was sobbing because it dragged all of my feelings about this shit and laid them out to where I can see and feel.

This is what writing and reading is about.

That is the thing LLMs/AIs can never articulate. Because none of it is human.

And these ghouls don't get it– or, probably more accurately, don't fucking care. They're not here to talk to their fellows. They're here for the money.

Am I just old and remember what it was like to actually talk to each other on the Internet? Ploum's How We Lost Communication to Entertainment got my brain spinning a little.

I may be part of an endangered species.

It doesn’t matter. I made peace with the fact that I will never get in touch with everyone.

That's why I ultimately left Facebook. Yes, it was toxic as fuck, but what got me finally out the door was the realization that I wasn't talking to people anymore. Hell, I wasn't even getting life updates so I could open dialogue– no thanks to the algorithm prioritizing literally anything else. I didn't want content. I wanted to connect and stay in touch. I wanted to be as thought of as I was thinking about these people far, far away.

Content, I can find anywhere. Even better, with RSS I can curate what I want to see. But there are some communities on there that I still miss dearly, and have been unable to reestablish contact outside of Facebook. Which is a fucking shame.

(Aside: have an actual website, even if its just a single page or storefront. Your stuff isn't as assessable as you think when you only have a FB page or Instagram– not everyone has or wants an account just to see your stuff.)

But what hurt the most, though, was that no one was talking to me. Just Messenger was the final holdout and that lasted a good year, but with me no longer engaging with FB proper I was effectively persona non grata. I stopped existing. I erroneously thought that since everyone was on Facebook, they'd be on Messenger too. But until I scheduled my account for deletion, I can count the number of received responses on both hands– out of 220 people and at least 3 hyperactive communities.

I leave platforms that I feel a disconnect with.

And, you know? Whatever. I got my own sites and contact info for a reason. Hell, I even still use email and recommend that if you want me to retain something, email me. Project correspondence? Email. Fanfic and RPs? Email, if it isn't just dialogue. Anything remotely important you don't want to stress-scroll to find later? You better fucking email it.

Okay, I may have wandered a bit there. But there are two more links I want to show y'all.

They Are Doing Their Damndest to Ruin Everything

Cam James' The Project 2025 Halftime Show goes through each completed initiative so far. At this time of writing they are halfway through their objectives. I hope those people that saw they laid all of this out and thought "eh, they ain't gonna do that" feel really fucking stupid right now. If they feel anything at all.

You also have The Authoritarian Stack: How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic America. They're determined to put the screws on the good Internet stuff that has you like, have rights and privacy and shit. It is partly why I'm so gungho about smallweb and data sovereignty.

I'm trying to remind people that the web is much more than the walled gardens of Meta and Google. That there isn't just "content." That you can build your own spaces, fasten your own markers.

The Emotional Shit

I mean, there's always a chance to unfuck. I'm just a cynical bitch who's (whose) faith in humanity never recovered from the start of the pandemic in 2020. Y'all really don't care if some people die/d, as long as things remained convenient and the status quo holds. Not to mention how many of you people still fucking voted for Trump!?

But enough of us has to still give a fuck.

Forget hope; hope is for other people that can hold it. I don't think I can anymore. But I have plenty of determination and the heart of my ancestors that have survived and died so I can be here. Right now.

I sit here gritting my teeth at the injustice, the inhumanity of it all.

But at least I'm still giving a fuck.

And I am determined to see that as many of us make it out of this bullshit alive.

How am I not just keysmashing the hell out of my refurbished laptop right now?

Therapy and meds.

End post.