Mastodon Archive

'The pretense of many “AI friends” pieces is that it is somehow unprecedented that a consumer product would change how we feel about ourselves, but that is just the premise of consumerism in a nutshell.'

robhorning.substack.com/p/reality-raids

Maybe everyone knows...structural violence...is simply, at this point, the structure of American life, and it is treated as normal

newyorker.com/news/the-lede/what-the-murder-of-the-unitedhealthcare-ceo-brian-thompson-means-to-america

Calm dot com has raised $217 million
Headspace $178 million
I've spent thousands on therapy

@skeletor more effective than all

Friend: "Well, what's interesting is [Huberman] sounds like he's asking questions for himself, related to his [trouble with relationships]."

Me: "'I am an asshole, and all this money and attention is making it worse. Is there a way to fix it without getting rid of the money and attention?'"

This came to me as a friend was (once again) telling me about something he learned listening to Huberman and I replied, "Now when Huberman does a podcast on the ill effects of listening to podcasts by bros citing bad studies, we will have come full-circle."

For the other eschatologically-minded here, I have a new plan:

1. I start a podcast composed entirely of witty takedowns of popular podcasts
2. That podcast becomes popular
3. A black hole forms as I implode

"If Substack — and Bluesky, another platform getting a lot of love these days — does not enshittify, that would be a miracle on the order of the loaves and fishes"

blog.ayjay.org/substack-vs-indie/

so I pop open my RSS reader, see lmika.org/2024/12/05/how-i-ship.html which references my blog as the "via", via blogflock.com/list/Qj5Gq which is sweet and like wow I'm in good company there

nice cosyweb moment. thanks @lmika

...and "feeling that I’ve been falling short in what it takes" is just reality, the sine wave of life. Courage builds, slowly, with each wave

If you're not already following/participating in the delightful masto-based Advent(ure) by @nash ...you can catch up and start now! :)