This is a hard one and I think you’re asking the wrong question. This post reads to me like you’re trying to prevent getting into the same situation you were in as a child by thinking through everything.

Notice the underlying assumption that people will always act selfish (“capitalism makes everyone selfish”, “a partner only wants to enjoy your stable life”), are unreliable (“people are only fair-weather friends”, “people don’t want to socialize”) and are always out to get you (“going outside is dangerous, because people want to run me over and fascists will kill me”, “someone wants to wipe out my progress”).

And (apart from your parents) is that how people in your life have behaved? (Like e.g. People in school, early childhood friends, teachers or even strangers)

You wrote that your brain is “constantly thinking about everything and everyone that could kill me or take everything I have”, but I think it’s also what your assuming everyone WANTS to do.

So, is the internet useful? Well depends on how you use it.

You can choose to see the fascists in the streets and get confirmation. Or you can choose to notice the protestors, the actions people are taking against the fascists.

But, if left alone, the internet will reinforce what you already believe, be it true or not. You can use the internet to challenge your assumptions, but it takes as much questioning, soul-searching and conscious effort as doing that in the real world.

And changing a survival mechanism and belief that kept you alive during childhood is one of the toughest things one can do. It’s not impossible, but it requires a lot of uncertainty and finding a lot of little assumptions that were only useful during childhood.

If you talk to people who have pulled themselves out of holes (addiction, loneliness, etc) they are usually pretty clear that the first person to blame was themselves and they are willing to accept responsibility for that. This is what gives them the agency to do something about it.

There is some truth in that, but I think that people who have pulled themselves out, have done a lot of work outside of treating the addiction part of the addiction, because imo addictions are mostly crutches.

Sure, there is the addiction part, but addictions often start as a replacement for something else you’re missing. Be it alcohol being a replacement for a way to unwind after work, porn for missing intimacy and social media/AI replacing a social life/a good friend.

So, those people will often have to fix what is missing in their life and then they will be able to let go of the addiction. This is also the reason why addiction treatment facilities don’t work. You basically take a vacation, all your needs are fulfilled and you don’t need your addiction as a crutch anymore. You’re healed.

Then you get dropped into your regular life and fall back into the addiction, because you never learned the tools to change your current life into a more fulfilling one and the cycle repeats.

The people who think they have a chatbot friend who “understands them like no one else” have completely lost touch with reality, though. This is the bit I find difficult to understand, because at this point I feel like most people should know the basics of how this technology works and understand that what they’re saying is happening is impossible.

Oh, I think, people are able to hold contradicting believes, if they need it, but I don’t think people are stupid. I think those people have, probably for the first time in their life, encountered something friend-shaped, that responds with understanding and empathy, instead of punishment, rejection and anger.

So it’s not that they’re being understood for the first time. They’re just used to getting negative feedback as a form of understanding. Suddenly getting positive feedback feels like ‘understanding me like no one else’, because it is.

Someone that was pushed by their parents to be something special, will only feel that they’re worth of love by being special. And an AI will accept them as they are, because the AI kinda has to. And they become dependent on the validation of the AI, they just need to find a reason to justify it to themselves.

I don’t think it’s that easy to just ‘wake up’. To ‘wake up’ you’d need to have eligible people nearby, invest countless hours into them and be able to meet them somewhere.

And it’s hard, because AI is to friendships what porn is to intimacy.
It’s good enough, doesn’t ask for anything and you can both hide it easily and use it anywhere.

Most people, I think, would gladly ‘wake up’ if someone from the outside would shoulder the risk and invest the time and effort into them to get to know them.
But instead, it’s just easier for one side to tell them how horrible that behavior is and for others to search for someone, who is willing to add a little effort themselves.

So, I think, it’s more a societal problem, that so many young people fall into using easy substitutions for friendships and relationships, instead of the infinitely better real thing. And then the question becomes: How has society changed for young people and how can we help them and keep them from falling into the trap?

Ernst gemeinte Frage: Wie informiert ihr euch über (geplante) Demonstrationen?

Mein Problem ist bisher, dass ich von Demos immer erst dann erfahre, wenn sie bereits vorbei sind

No, Norway and America still exist

Salted chips without the chip. I was mindlessly eating some chips from the bag and suddenly there was this intense salt flavour quickly overpowered by way too much rotten oil flavour. When I spit it out, it looked like a clump of deep fried salt.

The only one one we have left is still trying to convince Agent640

I admit, I’m judging you by that comment alone, but something irks me about that comment.

I’m not arguing that your son might not be a fascist, but “despite how I raised you” and “I’m planning to reconnect with him” are (to me) both indicators that your son has been growing up in an environment where he is often told what to do, while ignoring what he thinks or wants.

Thus, a fascist environment might suit him, because he might find comfort in being used to navigating such environments with clear hierarchies.

So, have you asked yourself why it has come to this? Why did you disconnect from your son in the first place? Was it truely pure Anger, or did you hope for a certain reaction?

Why did you write you are “planning to reconnect”, not “hoping to reconnect”? Why do you need or want your son back in your life? Why would he want you back in his life? Can you accept him as he is? Is he allowed to say “no”? How would a “no” make you look and/or feel? How would a "yes"make you look and/or feel?

Why did you tell him “This is not how I raised you” (“I don’t want you to be like this”), instead of helping him get to the bottom of why or why not he might think fascism is a good thing? Can you understand his decision, even if you might not share his morals? How do you think he feels? Does he deserve an apology?

They should have played Dota 2 instead

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

I remember having recurring dreams in which I would fall into the gap in the elevator or between the subways/trains and the plattform, etc. and then jolt away with a whole-body flinch.

The dreams went away as I got older, but I still grip stuff (e.g. my phone) as tightly as I can if I have to carry it across those gaps ^^

Been a while since I read this paper, but:

The main criticism in this paper is, that the problems are asked and preprocessed in a way that makes them almost trivial. Basically, CPU manufacturers could boast about 10000% faster prime number factorization, if all they were doing was prime number factorization of 2ⁿ

They even suggest, that instead of solving known and borderline trivial problems, quantum computers should instead be evaluated using random problems.

^Also, they should thank their dog in the acknowledgement section^

Canada also doesn’t include VAT in their prices, which - as a tourist - was quite nice, because the total price in euro was roughly the displayed price in canadian dollar. (VAT roughly cancelled the gain in conversion)

In Germany at least, the trucks are cheaper to operate than standard diesel trucks.

Diesel is more expensive and electric trucks require less maintenance. And they have enough range to drive them at the allowed top speed for trucks on highways (80kph) between the mandatory breaks, where they can then be charged and carry on.

The big complaint, last time I read about electric trucks being used, was about the charging infrastructure for trucks.

With two white-green edge pieces, the cube is literally unsolvable

Well, the original comic did need all 4 panels:

The german translation did that to avoid confusion with ‘Elfen’ from german folklore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elf

One could even say it’s a PogChamp

My video game experience tells me: That is one of the highest level armor she can wear.

Obligatory: