For me, it’s when it’s convenient. Opera has a VPN built in, so why not? I’m not so much worried about the government. I’m more worried about website owners.

No no. You’re right. The algae rythmz just got me. I suddenly believe the Earth is flat and I’m going to go eat some Tide pods.

You’ve never come across something and view it out of curiosity? The algorithms love when you branch out like that.

The problem with tech companies is that they’ve hyped up their tech so much that people actually think it’s sentient. Algorithms don’t love anything anymore than a cake recipe loves anything.

You’re being amazingly condescending to people being abused and guided by the algorithms, acting like you’re above it.

No, I’m being normally condescending which is difficult not to do when people are being pushed around by their computers and phones. It’s like somebody getting manipulated by a light switch. “Oh my god! It knows when I want the light to be on! Get out of my mind!” I’m not acting like I’m above it.

You’re 3 clicks away from conspiracy theories flooding your feed by way of “here’s how flat earthers explain gravity” because your chosen video, the bridge video, and the conspiracy videos are all using the same keywords.

So? I get curious and look at that stuff but I don’t go walled-eyed and start drooling. If I don’t look, it goes away. Or better yet, if it doesn’t go away, I search for videos I’m actually interested in.

You’re not noticing all the “harmless” unrelated suggested content from the games you don’t play like Factorio, Stardew, Hollow Knight, No Man’s Sky, or Star field but it’s there, just as predatory, seeing where you’ll bite. The overlapping keywords and viewerships are there. It’s exactly the same situation.

This is some weird conspiracy stuff. So Hollow Knight and Stardew Valley is trying to eat my soul? This is the same kind of cryptic talk that people freaking out about heavy metal and DnD in the 80s used.

This category association is how people get drawn into deep, dark corners. This is how segmented conspiracy groups converge. This is how the manosphere becomes an echo chamber. This is how self-harm and self-hate content puts someone in a hole by themselves.

That and the search bar. Most people who get stuck in that stuff are seeking it out. It’s what they’re interested in.

You’re acting morally superior without an actual understanding of what these platforms are designed to do.

No, you think these algorithms are way more effective than they actually are. A lot of what you describe happens because algorithms can’t read people’s minds. They’re just dumb machines. Bare in mind that chess AI from the 80s can wipe it’s ass with your face and those mighty algorithms were like 25KB in size. Just 5KB is enough to present challenging AI. This is enough to give the appearance of Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde having different personalities.

And it’s pretty well established at this point that social media is harmful to mental health, is it not?

In the same way it was well established that heavy metal was harmful to mental health in the 80s. The moral panics of the 80s seem goofy to people today, but back then it was just as deadly serious and real as the magical mystery algorithms hacking and controlling our brains today.

The evil YouTube wizardry is currently recommending me videos about the Flax engine, Blender, Satisfactory, and old clips of Norm MacDonald. If it’s telling you to kill yourself, that’s because you’re asking it how to. It’s just matching keywords in videos: user watched video with keywords Einstein, gravity, and relativity therefor, recommend Einstein Oppenheimer clip, Kerbal Space Program review, and Sabine Hossenfelder video. Replace those keywords with nasty ass shit and you’re getting more nasty ass shit.

On Reddit, I always find it hilarious when people out themselves when they’re complaining about porn sites sending them some weird ass videos. “Oh man! I don’t understand why Pornhub keeps showing me videos of women being strangled!” No, no, you don’t understand but I sure as hell do.

This is the modern version of the Judas Priest backwards masking case.

If ICQ held on for just two more years…

Too late. Nobody told me. I thought they all required email. I might sign up for a different account if that isn’t frowned upon.

Are we safe here on Lemmy?

Every other post here I’ve seen is low key promoting violent revolution. So I’d imagine there’s at least one FBI agent hanging around and writing reports.

I’m new to Lemmy. Why does Lemmy.world require an email and Lemmy.org doesn’t? I assumed all the Lemmies and Piefeds and whatnots required an email.

The sick world you live in is online. It’s not real. The world you see through your black mirror isn’t the same as the one you see outside the window. News has always been a litany of human misery. Online news is pure and condensed human suffering.

Between all of the AI hype and the AI panic, my biggest concern is that the laws will be so poorly written that simple algorithms like A* will end up illegal and AI in general will be outlawed. We’ll have a Butlerian Jihad because a bunch of daffy CEOs simply said their machines will replace humans when they can’t. Our children will be forced to drink sapho juice and eat spice so they can work in a server farm made of humans.

Holy shit! I’m sorry, but you guys sound like the worst employees in the world. Drug deals in the parking lot? Coming to work whacked out on LSD? Wow.

I’m not exactly rejecting it, but I can’t afford to build a new computer that can run it till the AI bubble bursts.

This as a life philosophy leads to violent road rage.

Glad about that. I can’t imagine living in that kind of environment for long

It wasn’t bad. One of the skills lost since then was how not to be a fussy Felix Unger bloodhound. You didn’t notice it. People are much more sensitive to smells today. Between the body spray and the air fresheners, the modern world still stinks, it just stinks pretty. The other nice thing was that there was a clear distinction between places that were uptight and relaxed. Today the smell of a church and the smell of a bar are almost the same.

Edit:

Also, one of the skills lost today is handling fire. Back then everybody lit a match or flicked their Bic 20+ times a day. Casually, effortlessly and elegantly handling flame was a skill almost every sophisticated adult had. Today seeing a 26 year old strike a match is like watching a 6 year old strike a match in the 80s. It’s very apparent in films that are period pieces when the actor is kind of terrified of the match they just clumsily struck.

They did that in the early 2000s too. Tens of millions of people became obese over night and we suddenly had an obesity epidemic.

That’s just because he looks like depression.

Sure, google knows I’m a 50+ year old man but YT isn’t pushing me a bunch of videos about retirement and how to keep the damn kids off my lawn. If I made a new account and it knew nothing about me, it might. But right now it knows I’m interested in obscure early 20th Century comic books and early 70s horror anthology shows.

Edit:

I misunderstood what you said. I use ad blocker so I don’t see ads. Sometimes they get through and it’s always Wix. That is kind of a mystery to me.

Algorithms aren’t that smart. Maybe there needs to be general education about how they work so people will understand that viewing a video is like searching for a topic in google so people will understand how much control over what they see and use the technology appropriately.

If you watch a video about anorexia that’s like typing “Anorexia” in Google or pressing 9 on a remote control, you’re getting channel 9. That’s why to me this sounds crazy. It’s like someone complaining their TV keeps pushing the cooking channel at them.

I get some manosphere stuff for the same reason, but mostly ignore it. At the risk of getting beat up here, I like Joe Rogan. His celebrity interviews are entertaining and I like wacky subjects like UFOs and such which he covers. Plus I’m a gamer so I watch videos about guns frequently because I find that fascinating though I don’t want to own one. So that’s why I’ll get recommended manisphere stuff. And I’ll get curious and take a look at those videos, and get more recommendations. But when I stop watching them, they go away. My recommendations are based on whatever I’m interested in at the time.

Everybody talks about Andrew Tate but I have never ever seen any of his videos. Him or Mr. Beast. They never get recommended. I only know about Tate because everybody everywhere else is complaining about him. So I don’t what that researcher did to get that.