As a scientist who has ended up gradually becoming more of a programmer, I battled through the SICP after seeing the cult following it has. It’s a weird, but good book, and I couldn’t imagine a book like that using anything other than Lisp

“this is a big Butt”

Nice.

I don’t think it’s a lowering of expectations — it feels like more of a qualitative difference. Like, the thing I’m looking for now is for someone to have given a fuck about what they’re trying to say. “Earnestness” is probably a good word for it.

Another factor in this is probably the fact that I was one of those kids who was at the top of my class for my entire school life, then went away to a prestigious university that just made me ramp up the pressure on myself even more. For a long while, I had built so much of my identity up around being smart, which led to me becoming overly preoccupied with ensuring I appeared smart too.

To give a concrete example, I’m a scientist who isn’t particularly well read, and for a long while, I held myself back from really engaging with the humanities, because I felt like I needed to stay in my lane and not make a fool of myself by having ill-informed or incorrect opinions on things like art or literature. I was too up in my head to be able to read a poem and actually have my own emotional response; internally, I’d be orienting myself around what seemed like the “correct” response. Ironically, being overly preoccupied with appearing smart led me to act quite dumb (though fortunately I met many delightful humanities nerds while I was at university, who were excited to both help me learn bits of the technical theory, whilst also being enthusiastic about my own crude, unrefined opinions).

So yeah, I used to be overly fixated on ideas of correctness and good execution in basically everything, and that made me hold back from engaging with my passion for the world, for fear of being wrong. I guess the point I’m making here is that my recalibration with respect to AI has also come alongside a personal arc in which I am learning to open up and let myself care about things without having to be good at them.

For instance, I am a deeply mediocre musician, but I have a lot of fun jamming with friends. I wouldn’t have been able to do this 10 years ago. So when I see someone being courageous enough to actually try to say or make something meaningful, I respect the guts of it, even if the execution is not great. A human can learn how to communicate better, but an LLM will never be able to actually give a fuck about what it says

Well you see, silly, it’s because the billionaires deserve to be at the top of the hierarchy, whereas baristas deserve to be at the bottom. Taking from the rich to give to the poor is just disrupting the natural order of things, which will lead to all sorts of mess.

Society needs a permanent underclass to function, and if the wage slaves are no longer struggling to keep their head above the water, then they might start having funny ideas about radical systemic change, and that’s bad for everyone (especially the wage slaves — their silly ideas will blind them to the humble satisfaction of living a life in the place where they belong)

(This is all sarcasm, of course, but a disconcerting number of people do actually believe things to this effect. I felt like I understood the conservative mindset a lot better once I saw someone explain core ideological motifs of conservatives along these lines.)

I don’t know anyone like you describe (at least, not nearly this level of bad).

But I want to offer a more positive contra-example. Since AI has become ubiquitous, I have become a lot more forgiving of mediocrity in human made stuff, whether that’s a piece of art or other media, or simply someone trying to articulate themselves, but poorly. I’m way more likely to work harder to try to understand the point that someone is making, and to see the thing I’m engaging with as an earnest attempt to communicate with another person.

In a weird way, I think that AI has made me a better person because of this. It’s reminded me of what things truly have value

Yeah, I agree.

I’m someone who, when overwhelmed by life (often), opening and reading emails is disproportionately difficult for me. The idea of spending the time and energy to read an email that someone couldn’t even be bothered to write is offensive to me

I’m sorry :( I’m currently homeless, and thus my only access to WiFi is at public locations like coffee shops (and libraries, but my local library is well used and so quiet that I’d be even more of an asshole to do calls there).

Though I am admittedly part of the problem, I confess that this has, if anything, made me more judgemental of people who engage in calls like this in an assholeish manner. For instance, I try my best to be as discreet as possible, as well as choosing places that are busy enough that my voice is more likely to blend into the background noise (I’m fortunate that my headphones are quite good at picking up my voice).

Yeah, it scares me too. Though it does give me some comfort to exist in communities like this, where people are well informed of the kind of fuckery done by big tech and other asshole corporations, and thus are not surprised by this kind of news. Although it’s pretty grim that we all recognise how fucked things are, it’s within communities like this that I often find my will to live be bolstered.

Maybe it’s to do with the average political inclination of folks here, or maybe it’s just that Lemmy has a high concentration of creative, nerdy people who find joy in making or sharing cool stuff. Or maybe I’m just so burnt out that I’m desperate to construct and/or clutch onto anything remotely meaningful ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Regardless I find it reassuring to see so many people trying their damnedest to forge something good — not in ignorance of the world being on fire, but precisely because we need good reasons to live now more than ever.

Sometimes I find myself thinking that I wish I could put my head in the sand and find some bliss in the ignorance of it all. I don’t really want that though. Real hope is built on a comprehensive understanding of the problems we face, with a hearty dash of some potentially irrational defiance.

Good start

I have commented elsewhere already, but I think it’s good to correct people when you know someone’s pronouns are different to what was just used.

I am cis, but I am in community with many trans people, and am pretty good at remembering and using the right pronouns for folks. However, I wasn’t always like that — I only found my queer community once I got to university, and I remember that I would often slip up when talking about an nb friend (who was actually the first person I met who used they/them pronouns).

I only got good at using the correct pronouns because of the support of friends who would firmly but non-judgmentally correct me whenever I messed up (and explain to me that I shouldn’t make a big deal apologising if I did make a mistake).

My friends doing this helped me to get good at this much sooner, as well as shielding my NB friend from the emotional stress of correcting me; They once snapped at me when I slipped up, and later apologised and said that whilst they felt they were reasonable to correct me, that the anger they expressed was not deserved, and that it was basically overflow anger from having to deal with university bureaucrats and ignorant students who were not even trying to get it right. My point here is that I was a good faith person who was genuinely trying to be better, but my mistakes that occurred in front of my nb friend risked triggering a lot of stressy-upsetty feelings relating to being intentionally or callously misgendered).

I think correcting them is reasonable. If they are an ally, they will take it in their stride, correcting themselves and moving on.

Additional context for this perspective: I am a cis woman who uses she/it pronouns. It makes me feel uncomfortable when people use they/them for me, because it evokes a gender anxiety in me, similar (but distinct from, obviously) to what a trans woman might feel if someone used they/them pronouns for her. I did “try on” they/them pronouns for a while, way back, and it made me feel deeply uncomfortable in a way that made it clear that they weren’t a good fit for me.

Whilst I agree that they/them is better than he/him in this context (and there may be instances where the situation doesn’t feel conducive to correcting someone), I also think that correct pronouns are correct pronouns, and incorrect ones are incorrect. Like, there is, in some sense, a clear binary here.

A lot of progressive folk tend to default to they/them pronouns for people they don’t know, and I have been very proud of myself lately for telling people that I use she/it pronouns, and politely correcting people if they get it wrong thereafter (I may stick to telling people she/her if I am in a less queer space). Given that I don’t regularly experience gender dysphoria, the little splashes of dysphoria I feel when people they/them me are fairly tolerable. However, I have found that when I do check people on using the correct pronouns for me, it feels very good. I think it comes down to agency (especially as I am a cis person who has thoroughly interrogated the question of “Am I a woman tho? Because if you’re not, that’s totally chill — you have options”, and concluded that I am, in fact, a woman. It makes it feel like more of a choice than if it was just foisted upon me against my will (I mean, it sort of was foisted upon me, but I put a load of stickers and spikes on my AGAB, and now it feels like mine)

I’m on porkbun and am quite happy with them. Been with them a while, but when I first purchased my domain name, they were one of the cheapest and looked decent in other ways too

Commenting to pin so I can reply more fully when less sleepy

Yeah, I second the advice of keeping a journal. It doesn’t have to be something that you continue indefinitely, but it can be invaluable for this initial period, especially if you end up trying out different meds.

The journal doesn’t need to be super detailed, and you don’t need to be perfect in recording stuff everyday (that would be ideal, but we don’t want to let perfect be the enemy of good), but some rough notes are good. Where relevant, include info about if there’s anything that might be contributing to your mental state (e.g. if you got very little sleep the night before, or if you had lots of caffeine).

Also, try not to forget to eat. Adderall doesn’t need to be taken with food, but I found it useful to ensure I did, so that I wouldn’t forget to eat, as it’s an appetite suppressant. Through keeping a journal, I found that my foggy days were more likely to be the ones in which I forgot to eat

Some ADHD medications (like atomoxetine) need to be taken every day, in order for them to be effective, and they take a while to be effective (much like antidepressants). And you’re right that Adderall isn’t like that, and is likely to start being effective straight away.

However, there is still an acclimatization period of sorts. For me, this was discernible in the fact that initially, I had a few minor side effects, but after a while of taking my medication every day, they disappeared. So like, on the biochemical level, there is some impact of taking it regularly. But there’s also the more human side of adjusting to stuff — as I outlined in another comment I left on this thread, once I found a medication that worked for me, I needed to develop new strategies to actually manage my focus and routine and stuff (the meds helped, but they weren’t a silver bullet is what I’m saying).

It’s possible that maybe Adderall just isn’t for you. I was first tried on instant release methylphenidate (basically ritalin, but unbranded), and I think it improved my focus. However, it also gave me brain fog that negated any benefits.

They tried me on the extended release methylphenidate after that, which had similar effects. Then they tried me on dexamphetamine (basically Adderall, but slightly different), and it worked really well for me. So maybe you might need to try other medications (such as methylphenidate, or a time release version of Adderall, such as lisdexamphetamine (branded = Elvanse, I believe), or even one of the non-stimulant ADHD meds, like atomoxetine or guanfacine.

However, I would also note that whilst for me, getting onto medication that worked for my ADHD was like a miracle, it wasn’t something that solved stuff on its own. I remember that when I was fairly newly on dexamphetamine, I spent an entire day organising my Spotify library. I suddenly had focus, but I needed to learn new skills and strategies to be able to manage that. I also find that I am still pretty scattered brained, and bouncing between topics at a mile a minute. However, I do find it easier to follow conversational or thought threads, to help keep me on track.

It’s super interesting to me, because there have been times where I have been unable to access my medication where I was even less capable of functioning than before I had medication. I felt bad about this at first, but a friend explained that it’s no wonder I was doing worse than before I had ever had medication for ADHD, because back then, I had loads of coping strategies to mitigate my unmedicated ADHD. They weren’t bad strategies, but they were built for a particular context, and thus when I started on medication, I gradually learned new coping strategies that fit with the version of me that was medicated, discarding the old strategies.

In short, maybe Adderall isn’t the ideal med for you if you feel like you’re still scatterbrained, but faster. However equally, being medicated doesn’t stop you from being ADHD — you’ll probably always have a higher than average level of scatteryness and context switching. Also, it’s likely you will need to build new coping strategies for the version of you that’s medicated, and that will take time.

Edit: I wanted to give an example of one of my coping strategies. So I have found that even when I am decently focussed and medicated, I struggle to focus on one task for a long time (unless it’s a task that I am enthusiastic enough about that I get pulled into ADHD hyperfocus, a fun but dangerous path that I have learned is healthy, in moderation). So rather than fighting my instinct to constantly be switching contexts, when I have lots of Tasks to do, I will let myself cycle between them — I half-jokingly call this “ADHD circuit training”.

What this looks like in practice is that I might spend a chunk of time trying to write an essay for university. Then once I find myself encountering resistance to this task, rather than pushing onwards, I switch to a new task, such as tidying up my space. Then before I become fatigued with that task, I might spend a little bit of time doing some fun reading. Then maybe I might organise some of my files (a task that feels productive, but isn’t particularly). Then I will go back onto my essay task.

I do still need to hold myself accountable to doing some of the more boring tasks (like, I don’t just give up if I am not immediately making progress on the essay), and I find it works best if, at the beginning of the working day, I decide what tasks I will likely cycle between (so I don’t get too off track from my goals). I also need to set myself some time boundaries — I tend to find that 90 minutes working on a task is enough time to build momentum without being too long. I might take small breaks within this 90 mins, but in general, it’s a good guideline. It’s mostly useful because it means I can set a timer, and it means I don’t lose track of time too much.

For the tasks that I really enjoy (like the fun reading, or mundane organisation tasks that feel productive), the time boundary helps ensure I don’t get drawn into spending too long on one task. I’m fairly adaptive with it though, but that’s because I’ve gotten quite good at recognising when I should push myself and when I need to be kind.

However, I must emphasise that what works for me may not work for you. Someone else on this thread suggested you try various time management and planning strategies that you may have tried in the past but found unhelpful, and you should also not beat yourself up if some of those don’t work for you either. You’ve got to find out what works for you, and develop your own understanding of what battles are worth fighting and when it’s better to just lean into your natural way of working.

Line Khan made incredible headway in actually enforcing the (actually pretty good) antitrust legislation that already exists, but alas, she’s not in the role anymore (since Trump entered office, I think)

Despite this, I have no doubt that we’d see some pretty efficient antitrust stuff against Steam if they did subsidise the Steam machine, due to the efforts of the competitors to Steam.

The thing is, I do think that Steam has a monopoly, in that if they suddenly turned evil, it would have a disproportionately large impact on the overall gaming ecosystem. However, they only got to this position because they understood that piracy was a service issue, and did legitimately better than most of their competitors

I’d love to mind my own business, but I’m currently melting in a historic heatwave caused by assholes billionaires and petrochemical executives continually adding gasoline to the fire that is the climate crisis

I have only bought stardew valley once, because I only game on PC, but I definitely would buy it for multiple systems if I used them; it’s already such good value that I feel like I’m stealing. I do love a passion project.

I wonder if ConcernedApe has a proper desk yet

I get that the official body probably didn’t have the resources to be able to clean it up, but imagine if there had been a compromise solution in which volunteers could have done this work but with the guidance of a professional, sanctioned by that official body. That seems like it could have been the best of both worlds. It’s a shame that this ended up as it did