In short: the prospect of generative AI becoming increasingly prevalent has been gnawing away at me for a long time now. It's looking like there are no limits that will matter in the near future. But interfacing with generative AI in basically any capacity instills in me a kind of existential horror and revulsion that I don't think I can live with in my day-to-day life. Unfortunately, it seems that generative AI will soon become unavoidable in any white-collar career path, to say nothing of casual exposure in everyday life. I try as hard as possible to shield myself, but I doubt that will be realistically possible for much longer.

I'm in a graduate program, but I'm not confident that my field will still be relevant in five years. Even if it is, I'll almost certainly spend a lot of time interfacing with generative AI, the thought of which makes me nauseous.

Frankly, I'm so disgusted with what the world has become and what it is becoming that it's turning me into kind of a nasty person IRL.

So I'm musing on ways to get out. On finding a way to make enough money to stay alive while having as little contact with the digital world as possible.

Anyone have any experience/ideas?

There's a lot of amazing stuff out there that we take for granted these days, but today's normal is yesterday's dream for the future.

What's something possible/happening now that is decidedly futuristic?

You know, like the idea that I can type these words and within seconds they can be read by people across the globe!

Premise: Pretend that human hibernation/cryostasis is a real technology that's both mature and affordable. You can choose to go into hibernation and wake up at some point in the future to resume your life. It's a safe and reliable process.

You choose when to enter hibernation (could be now, could be 50 years from now or more), and you set your exit either for a certain date or on some condition(s) that you dictate in advance.

You can expect that you'll be taken care of during that time and your rules for being awakened will be followed.

What I'm interested in hearing about:

1. Would you choose to do it? Why or why not?

If you would decide to do it, some follow-ups:

2. How would you decide when to enter hibernation? Would you base it on your age? On specific events in the world?
3. How would you decide when to exit? Would you base it on time, or on certain conditions? Why?
4. What preparations would you take? How would you help your family and friends understand this decision?
5. What would you hope to see or experience once you awaken?
6. How would you plan on adapting to a world that might be completely different from ours on many different fronts (e.g. technology, language, culture, identity, etc.)?

Even though the situation is hypothetical, I want you to base your answers on your actual experiences and life. So, the question is about whether you, as you are living right now, would choose hibernation (either now or in the future).

In an effort to make life feel a little more joyful, I added a new calendar to my calendar app called "Nice things". In this calendar, I'm putting all sorts of nice upcoming things to look forward to (album/movie/game releases, the start of Fall, when my preorders will ship, upcoming eclipses and equinoxes and full moons, you name it). My goal is to feel more connected with the passage of time, rather than letting each day blur into the next. I want things to anchor and ground me each day.

Along the same lines, I'm curious: What are you looking forward to? What things on the horizon have you excited for the future? What would you put on a hypothetical "nice things" calendar?

So from earliest childhood, I have experienced that from time to time the electrical grid becomes unavailable for use and it can take days or even weeks to restore service. I'm having trouble comprehending the scope, scale and plausibility of what changes would need to be made to increase the electrification of everything in the way that is being pushed by policy advisors.

Everyone is pushing electric cars. I think it's a great idea, but I have questions about how the grid can support it.

People tell me that the next big advancement in the workplace is going to be the incorporation of artificial intelligence. Doesn't AI require servers on a massive scale? How plausible is it for AI to reach all corners of society and economy on our existing grid or reasonable expectations for plausible improvement of the grid?

The banks seem to be lobbying for the substitution of electronic accounts for cash. Again, electric power is not always available. Also some people who need to use money don't have homes and can't reliably charge electronics. If I remember correctly the payment system went down in Canada a while ago and people without cash were out of luck.

What insight can you share with me?

Where do you think Tildes will be in 10 years? Will it still be around? How will the world be different from today? Do you think the world will be a better place? Be as positive or morbid as you want. Or, just say something, share something, post a link, tell a joke, give some advice. Then in ten years we can all come back to this thread and have a laugh... hopefully.

In December, a lot of people make plans and ask about what you want for the next year. But a year is a long time, and maybe it's not a good idea to have a rigid plan for such an extended timeframe.

Rigid plans lead to frustration when, inevitably, circumstances force us to change our perspective to varying degrees. Dreams are put on hold, objectives shift and adapt.

So I am not asking about the entirety of 2023. I'm asking instead: what do you hope to achieve in the first semester of 2023?.

As usual, anything goes. Big or small, personal or professional. Whatever you want to accomplish is good for this thread.

I'm curious to learn what's on your mind. Cheers! ;)

I have these 2 quotes here. This quote is apparently from this book, cited in this article:

If the two parties do not develop alternative programs that can be executed, the voter’s frustration and the mounting ambiguities of national policy might also set in motion more extreme tendencies to the political left and the political right. This, again, would represent a condition to which neither our political institutions nor our civic habits are adapted. Once a deep political cleavage develops between opposing groups, each group naturally works to keep it deep. Such groups may gravitate beyond the confines of the American system of government and its democratic institutions.

Assuming a survival of the two-party system in form though not in spirit, even if only one of the diametrically opposite parties comes to flirt with unconstitutional means and ends, the consequences would be serious. For then the constitution-minded electorate would be virtually reduced to a one-party system with no practical alternative to holding to the “safe” party at all cost.

Wow.

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution. -John Adams

There is also this text from the Pew Political Typology of the US in 1999 which I found somewhat funny:

The polling shows more compassion toward the poor and less hostility toward immigrants. A greater percentage in this survey than in the recent past think the government should do more to help needy people, and fewer express strong support for tightening our borders to further restrict immigration. Both of these trends may reflect the increased economic satisfaction and diminished financial pressure registered in this year’s survey. Gains in economic contentment have been greatest among upper income groups, while people in the lowest income category report less financial pressure but no more financial satisfaction than in the mid-1990s. Unexpectedly, despite these trends, Americans report no greater satisfaction with their wages than in the recent past. In fact, middle-income people are less satisfied than they were in 1994.

DAMAGED AND SCUFFED, MY HANDS HAVE BEEN CUFFED, BUT I DON'T PLAN TO GET HUFF, FRANTIC AND PUFF OR PLAN TO GIVE U-

That has aged pretty uniquely if you see it as the immediate effects of neoliberalism.

Anyway, do you have anything to share?

I am an introvert, I hang around online most of the time. But, I've cut off most of the social media in past couple of years, now my online presence is reduced to whatsapp, tildes, youtube and sometimes reddit. I take in news from well respected sources, although most of them are left leaning.

Even after significantly limiting myself from news and social medias I cant help but feel world is getting worse everyday. Climate change, Increasing support for far right politics, increased consumption of fake news/propaganda etc..

I am going through some personal job related issue myself, I don't know what I am working towards. Why the hell should I waste my energy and time if I can't even see a better future? I don't think I am depressed, I am sad and frustrated that I dont have anything to look forward to.

Surely there are people in here who dealt/ dealing with this. How do you cope with this? what do you tell yourself when you see another fuck up from the world?

P.S: English is not my first language.

2020 vision: Where will we be within a decade by Telegraph

The world in 2020: A glimpse into the future by Independent

What will life be like 10 years from now by Eric Zorn

10 predictions for the world in january 1st, 2020 by Paul Buchheit

Feel free to put any more predictions you found or comment on these predictions.

I personally see:

• The enaction of the progressive policies that have been continuosly amplified over the last 5 years during the election of Bernie or Warren (in the US, be it after 2020 or 2024)

• Increasing regulation of the Internet (be it the breakup of tech conglomerates, increased pressure by VC investors for the companies in the red to turn a profit or more surveillance by 3-letter agencies in bad faith)

• Increased tension between the US and China as China becomes increasingly more powerful especially over tech companies

• A recession which throws the item in the top 15 years down the line.

• Automation and AI begin to become more pressing issues during the next depression, leading to people taking candidates like Yang more seriously.

• "Apophis 2029 is gonna hit the earth." "Finally."

Edit: Ok, here's some non-political predictions:

• Mojang runs out of already existing biomes and dimensions to overhaul in minecraft, so they'll shift their development focus to adding more unique biomes, worldgen and mechanical depth and maybe some sort of progression to the game (more complex combat, more dimensions, more bossfights, more mobs like the iron golem with better attacks, more Redstone components, more unique worldgen). By the time this happens, hytale will already be a big competitor and great at al this, causing high controversy that Microsoft is stealing their ideas.

• This also applies to mobile phone makers as they get rid of all notches, bezels and ports and so they either focus on specs and battery life and nirvana is supposedly achieved at 1600$ per phone, in making the phones as cheap as possible , which makes people get mad about the working conditions of the laborers or in even more exclusive wearables like now.

• A new manned moon landing, finally. This time the whole journey will be streamed live on an 8k camera via starlink.

• The (further) normalization of anime, similar to what happened to gaming this decade. More people from more different backgrounds will be watching anime, and they will be less focused on self-depreciation because of it. They will watch anime in public, and will demand more and better anime from the production teams in Japan. The more diverse audience will mean that fanservice will be gradually less effective and non-tanned black characters will appear way more often (and someone will lose their shit over it).

• HN finally comes up with a site redesign, mainly to make it clearer which threads are which. The new design is similar to Tilde's now and HN usage grows 3-fold.

I am not even remotely knowledgeable about economics and stocks so if any logic in this is flawed, please tell me why.

If it happens (which seems likely but not a given) I think the most likely offenders would probably be companies like Uber and WeWork because they kept going with their current practices (mainly unsustainable and sometimes still unprofitable) to the point where venture capitalists decide it's too risky an investment to make and the stocks eventually crash in these companies and the whole market soon follows.

I know this is a relatively stereotypical new years post, but I'm interested in seeing what everyone here on Tildes wants to do to improve themselves for this coming year. Personally, I want to devote more time into language learning, which would include spending more time watching foreign TV, studying vocab, etc.

Today I got into a conversation with my coworkers about how cursive is all but dead with our students. We adults all grew up learning it and were often forced to use it even when we didn't want to, but it has been out of vogue in American schools for a while now, so most of our students legitimately don't know how to read or write it. Opinions as to whether or not this was a bad thing were split. Some people considered the skill unnecessary and were happy to see it go the way of the dinosaur. Life moves on, they said--and the skill was inessential anyway because students could simply print instead. Some even took things a step further and argued that print was also going to become outdated with the prevalence of computers and phones. Nevertheless, others argued that cursive was important and valuable for kids to learn, particularly if they wanted to be able to sign their names or read documents written in script (e.g. old letters from family members, historical documents, etc.)

The discussion then continued to analog clocks. Being able to read them is still technically in the curriculum standards for many states, but it's the kind of thing that often gets briefly touched on and then discarded. Because digital clocks are so prevalent now, many students never practice reading analog clocks outside of those specific lessons, and thus they never truly master it. While more of our students can read analog clocks than can write in cursive, it too seems to be headed down the path to extinction. Opinions about whether this was bad were much stronger, with nearly everyone agreeing that it's a worthwhile skill rather than something inessential.

The conversation made me curious to hear what everyone here thinks--not just about these but about dying skills in general. What are some skills that you believe will fall out of widespread use in the coming years? Is their departure a good/bad thing?

I feel so cheated- I went into college with no clue what my interests are and got a degree in something irrelevant that doesn't interest me ( BBA in digital marketing).
I was too young when I made the decision to get this degree and in the years since, I have discovered my passions are art and the environment- I can't see myself feeling fulfilled working in any other field.
But now I don't have the qualifications or skills to get into either, and it seems like a bit of a stretch to go back to college and do another four years!

I just don't know where to go from here, I feel demotivated and I wish that college was something that happened to us later in life. I would do things so differently!

I'm taking some time off to figure out what to do next, but honestly...I don't have a clue.

Just random discussion out of boredom. What do you see the world as in 50 years? Possibly war with different countries, economics, technology advancements(of course), space exploration, etc. What does everyone think?