After a 20 minute walk to a food place, motivated by hunger and excitement and a personal self-satisfaction in choosing exercise over ordering food, you think about the nice grub you’re going to get.

You think about how nice it is that even though every other place closes inexplicably at 5pm on a workday making it impossible for working people to go to due to socioeconomic factors beyond your understanding, you think how nice it is that you actually found one place that is open, even after 6pm.

You’re not without doubts, but on approach across the empty partially unlit parking lot, you see it. The lights are on, the sign is on, and you think you can make out some activity inside.

You feel a sigh of relief as you approach. “The time on Google maps must’ve been correct”, your think. The lights inside are on, and there’s employees walking about, making food, you gently push, the door, feeling the worn metal on the door push plate replacing the handle, and the door swings open.

You barely hear the electronic bell meant to alert the crew inside to your presence, your lungs fill with the smell of freshly made Burrito Tortillas toasted just right and refried beans and Beef and Guacamole.

Then, but in a flash:

— “uuuuh, we’re closed!”

You jerk a bit and withhold any mean words, you’re better than that, you’re trying to be better than that. But you can’t leave, your channel your energy towards inquisition. The art of the mind. Science. You seek resolution.

— “how comes you’re listed as open on Google maps?”

You mumble out coming off somewhat frustrated, not at all the inquisitive philosopher you pictured yourself to be. You collect yourself.

—“You’re still making stuff, and you’re closed?”

Puzzled, the person responds:

— “oh it’s UberEats only”.

The words seared into your brain forever. The fall of Rome. The end of an era. Destruction of institutions. End of communism. The rapture. The west has fallen, millions must eat. Bread and circus no more, the only clown left is you.

Snake Jazz episode from Rick and Morty comes to mind

I state my opinions on the internet without adherence to any particular side or filter for pacifying and self-censoring what I genuinely believe or facts that I know with certainty and back it up with reason, logic and evidence.

IRL this seldom annoys anyone unless I’m overly impolite but I try to be polite generally.

Oh god the lemmings are optimizing posts for engagement. We are approaching peak content

Clearly non-functioning in this case as the wrong has been started already

Truly awesome that this hobby is getting coverage! I’m very very lazy when it comes to self-hosting, by far my largest project was moving off Spotify and archiving all my playlists.

Rotating 3 API keys for spotdl and a YTP free trial for that sweet sweet 256kbps AAC then Musicbrainz Picard to label correctly all the music (automatic was nearly almost always wrong), then automating rebuilding the m3u8 playlists followed by the insane work of correcting all the little imperfections. Must’ve taken me like 2-3 weeks of just working on it most of the day.

But the result? A proper offline music library with all my main playlists with each song at the proper position and order in my playlists with the correct (Spotify) metadata using correct versions of the songs in at least 256kbps AAC (and many cases FLAC and where available non-vinyl hi-res).

Tossed on an old dell workstation I got for £50. Hosting navidrome where my JF, Qbittorrent-nox and Immich live. Using symfonium on my phone. Can access remotely via OpenVPN. Couldn’t be happier.

Yeah I’d wish for a better alternative but fundamentally any society needs some way to isolate wrongdoers to prevent them from doing wrong and it’s the only option we presently have.

I’m fundamentally anti-private property and copyright. So I’m definitely pro AI art. Once it’s on the internet - it’s there forever. It was always being scraped, you just get to see the results now.

That said I don’t like AI being shoved into everything. The fun picture recombination machine shouldn’t be deciding who lives and dies. Content sorting algorithms and personalized algos are all bad too, it shouldn’t take agency away from people.

I also really hate that as soon as normatrons figured out you could ask it anything they just let it do their thinking for them. No fucking willpower at all, just give up thinking as soon as the opportunity presents itself and trust the oracle, but this time a website instead of a bible. God I hate normies.

Would you have any idea on how to preserve food if you didn’t have a fridge?

I could use a freezer:) Jk, not entirely no, but I’m aware of other methods, given a bit of time I could probably learn how to pickle or salt and jar food properly provided I could visit the library. I understand the key problem is harmful bacteria so refrigeration extends the lifespan of food by slowing down bacterial reproduction and airtight containers prevent new bacteria coming in.

Then depending on specifics there’s always vacuum-sealing and shrink-wrapping machines. If in this hypothetical collapse we still have knowledge and some way to generate electricity, and I wasn’t in a crazy rush, I’d probably build a fridge. I understand the basic principle behind refrigeration.

Would you have any idea on even how to get food if you didn’t have a grocery store nearby?

Yeah? If there’s like societal collapse or something and there’s not just food banks set up by the military or some such I’d go look for warehouses, I know I have the nation’s biggest Amazon warehouse just a few blocks down from me. If not an option, generally I’d hunt animals because on my own I don’t really stand a chance at agriculture, the large lead time won’t help, I don’t know how to hunt, but I’m sure by visiting the library I could learn how to craft a primitive spear with a knife and a sharp stick. Then long-term I’d move towards a saltwater body of water and fish.

How would you organize a party with your friends without a phone?

I’d use a computer ))))

Jk, I could write them a letter, or visit them in person. I don’t know all their addresses by heart, but I could ask others who do, or simply wander about the general area and knock on doors until I find them.

If a computer wasn’t tracking your bank balance, how would you keep track of your money?

I would write down my income and outgoings on a piece of paper and just do the math.

Can you multiply 423 by 365 without using a calculator?

Of course. I’m awful at math so I’ll probably mess it up, but you write down the nominator over the denominator and you multiply each of the top digits by each of the bottom digits, carry any extra to the next more significant digit and sum the results.

If I did it a few times, I could probably nail the correct result.

If all else fails and this is absolutely needed I could go get spare parts and build a full-adder circuit. Heck tbqh in the long term if all my basic needs were met, I could probably deep dive into a book and build a computer, especially if we’re basically talking only programmatic calculation, given 7-8 months it’s not hard, maybe much less if I can use logic gates instead of ICs. If I can use OCs and have plastic and some metal bits lying around making a breadboard shouldn’t be too hard. It won’t host the cloud or do your laundry, but it’ll do your math pretty accurately.

My point isn’t to show off, my point is that we (humanity) hedge our bets. There’s one thing we haven’t outsourced and it’s our thinking. I used to be vehemently pro-AI, but it worries me that people are outsourcing their very thought to AI.

The brain is very expensive evolutionary, and I for one, love having one, you use it or you lose it is the motto for the body, brain included, and I take great care to force myself to think on my own and understand things in as much depth as is reasonable.

Once you forget how to think and solve problems because another faux-brain does it for you, it’s all over, and there’s no going back. Don’t do that y’all.

Bot? What’s with the image?

No one, it’s cuz I cut that shit off before it ever gets to that point. Sorry not sorry but it’s the system we live in. As an LGBTQ adult I never ever speak to children and any interactions would get reported to the police. Better safe than sorry.

She’s a teenager, teenagers who seek to ruin the lives of adults should rot in prison for life, they are not dumb, they know what they’re doing, especially if their way of doing so is abusing their victim status under the patriarchy to their own advantage.

I think communists and socialists and anarchists and broadly leftists do argue for cooperatives and workplace democratisation.

The reason they maybe don’t do it enough is because those businesses in our present environment will get beaten by exploitation mostly.

Co-operatives by nature will sacrifice profit for employee conditions because they have more stakeholders (and shareholders) to be accountable to. Lower wages through exploitation will tend to reduce costs and allow the capitalist businesses to drop prices, and outcompete opponents and secure more investment capital due to higher market penetration, which will allow them to invest in their business, incl. Marketing and product development, and outcompete the more fair sustainable business, until they corner the market and can jack up.the prices and bleed consumers dry and push for laws/lack thereof to exploit employees and cut costs further.