• IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    80
    ·
    1 year ago

    I think about that often … we are lucky.

    For those of us just a bit older, we know a world before an internet and worldwide communications. We also saw it come in and take over the world.

    I don’t like the details and what happened, how it happened or what went wrong … I just feel fascinated that I happened to be born when I was because I got to this unbelievable change.

    It’s like being the generation that saw the world switch from horses to cars … or candles to electricity.

    It’s a monumental shift in human civilization and we got to see the start of it. And I don’t mean just my generation, everyone reading this now is still living inside the infancy of the modern internet and communications. It will change so much more in the future. It may be good, it may be bad, it may be neither, it may be both … but it will definitely change and we’ll look back on this moment in time and either be nostalgic and think of it fondly and quaint … or remember when things were a lot better.

    • MBM@lemmings.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      31
      ·
      1 year ago

      Honestly, the fact that I can just talk to people on the other side of the world with zero effort is wild

      • sping@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        And for no charge.

        However, having had a voice chat for an hour this weekend with someone 200 miles away, I can tell you that 30 years ago it worked so much better it’s not even funny; it was just expensive.

        My phone provider (Fi) gave me an internet connected call rather than use the cell voice network (proudly telling me it was encrypted). It was full of dropouts and there was a serious latency that really inhibited conversation. I switched to a few other options like WhatsApp and the audio quality improved but the latency did not, and even got worse. Young people may be barely aware that a 200 mile phone call had tiny latency - you would not know there was any - because there was a literal wire connection between each end and communication was at the speed of light. Even transatlantic calls had minimal latency unless it went by satellite.

        Sure today we can do it with video, but frankly, for a chat, I don’t even see much benefit. I’d certainly choose voice-only if it meant zero latency, and sadly I seem to have chosen a mobile provider that does its best to prevent that.

        • Night Monkey@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Thet sounds like a problem with your Internet or with your phone company. I use that feature all the time and it works flawlessly

        • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          The latency thing drives me nut as well. It depends a lot on the provider though.

          Microsoft Teams is the worst in my experience (though it has gotten better), with 1 full second of RTT not even being out of the norm.

          Discord though? It’s great. They built it for gamers, who need to be able to give information quickly, and it shows. At work everybody is accidentally talking over everybody in Teams due to the latency, then you get in a discord call and it’s like you’re in the same room. Insane that latency does not factor much or at all in Microsoft’s KPIs.

      • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        He’s being sarcastic because only rich people can afford four blueberries with the money left over after paying rent. The rest of us pay 90% of our paycheck for rent then starve because we don’t have enough money left to buy four blueberries.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I live near Austin, and home prices have tripled since 2019, driving more people to apartments while cities ban new apartment complexes.

        I’ve been fortunate enough to get a few promotions and double my pay in the last 18 months, but with the increases in rent and other expenses I actually end up having about the same amount of disposable income as when I made half as much money, and rent is a higher percentage of my expenses than it was before my raises.

        And I haven’t moved into a more expensive place. I’ve lived in the same place for a decade now.

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      it’s funny cuz at first glance this looks like generic reddity sarcasm, but it made me think: while a lot of people paying half their wages to rent are in poverty, a lot of people with expensive homes are also probably living outside their means. all I know is my rent ain’t anywhere close to half

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    36
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I have to stay on social media. Somewhere, there is injustice happening and only I can stop it.

  • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    26
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    The only thing I live for is the gay people in my phone. They are everything to me. When I figure out how to let them out of the phone my life will be perfect.

    • Selmafudd@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      Blueberries here have been ridiculously cheap, same as strawberries. They’re like $1-1.5 per punnet so we’re pumping them into the kids at the moment

      • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Oh that’s good to know. I remember blueberries used to be very expensive, but I don’t pay attention to prices cuz if I want blueberries it’s a rare treat and my brain can only hold so much information, price comparison not being one of those things.

      • ubermeisters@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Idk where you live, but renting is just as if not more expensive than owning a home where I am. Main difference is that down payment, but at least home payment increase your equity.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Yeah, but- and stay with me here- what if those robots made a movie with superheroes in it that costs $1 billion to make and you could see it if you want to pay $20?

    • Chakravanti@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Or pay nothing in money but rather spend your time in learning FOSS which would be necessary to build a Matrix AI. This because if you ever trusted Closed Source Software than you deserve the inevitable suicide that I can guarentee it’s writers wrote upon you.

    • weksa@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I get to lay in a bed by myself, all of my life. It’s fantastic!

  • Emerald@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    1 year ago

    Image Transcription: Twitter Post


    jordan, @jordan_stratton

    Being alive during this modern era is great. Robots are creating artistic soulless versions of people, I spend half my paycheck on rent and the other half on 4 blueberries, and I’m addicted to a little pocket computer that makes me sad everyday. Fantastic.

    • jettrscga@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 year ago

      At first I thought your entire comment was just

      Image Transcription: Twitter Post

      And I thought yeah… that sums it up.

  • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    I dont care about AI art, I set healthy boundaries with technology and find fulfillment elsewhere, and while income inequality sucks I’m grateful for what I have. You could call this gratitude bootlicking but I call this tweet “Moralizing Depression”.

    • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      You can do both.

      You can be grateful for what you have while realizing that the current state of the world is bullshit.

      • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Yeah, but I unironically believe that being alive in the 21st century is great and fantastic. I’m not sure people here feel that.

    • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      To be fair, the backlash comes from AI being a very real threat to many artistic fields that were already very hard to make a living in. What they have isn’t much, it’s hard to be grateful for less.

      • Fungah@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        It also represents the first. Chance the common person has ever had to make their visions come to life.

        If you look at art as an elitist tradition largely fuelled by the wealthy and supporting only a very, very small number of living artists, requiring a kind of professional leap of of faith that anyone who isn’t blood related to a wealthy person would be called stupid for making, then AI art doesn’t seem so scary anymore.

        If everyone has the ability to create compelling images, audio, movies even, then we don’t need people to spend 4 years in art school and potentially the rest of their life breaking their backs trying to get someone else to notice their art, while contributing to society only as much as whatever job they’re forced to work while trying to make it contributes.

        Few people who aren’t wealthy buy art. And most of the art they buy is from established artists. It’s an oppressive and classist status quo that were all worse off with, that will survive AI nonetheless as the rich place an even greater value on “authentic” art.

        Who AI art is really going to hurt are the people who draw furries, sell prints at farmers markets of copyrighted characters, and create bland soulless corporate visual bullshit for a living. I guess that’s most artists, and yeah. It sucks for them, but stopping this train because Microsoft wants a photorealistic dog dick for their next logo ain’t happening.

        • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          If you look at art as an elitist tradition largely fuelled by the wealthy and supporting only a very, very small number of living artists, requiring a kind of professional leap of of faith that anyone who isn’t blood related to a wealthy person would be called stupid for making, then AI art doesn’t seem so scary anymore.

          Well, I don’t look at it that way. Art is a creative tradition, one that every person is capable of realizing in some form or another (and should, for their own health). Artists are, by and large, common people, too. Millions of them have made that “professional leap of faith” without a safety net because they wanted to pursue their passion for art, not because they thought they might one day make millions off of their works.

          I get that it’s really cool that people who haven’t dedicated their lives to art can now bring their visions to life. But I personally think it’s callous and unfair to call artists the greedy ones in this equation when they’ve, by and large, always been struggling to get by despite what they contribute to billion dollar industries and to society.

          I also challenge that only the very wealthy buy art. That may have been true for much of our history, but the ability to sell copies of their art while retaining the original has given consumers much cheaper ways to enjoy art. And that’s not counting all of the art we get to view/listen to for free, even if it wasn’t made specifically for us. Patreon and similar sites have also created a great way for people to support and interact with the artists they love even if they aren’t wealthy. I think it’s fair to say that we’re living in the least classist era of art.

  • crashoverride@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    I might be in the minority here but I love my pocket computer. Never has it made me sad, and only has enhanced my life

    • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      People are definitely obsessed with their phone machines, but I just think mine is OK and I use it only in small durations as needed. I enjoy using Real Computers far more than the pocket sized ones.

    • explodicle@local106.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      A little bit of a selection bias though; he’s using the worst social network and you’re using the best one.

  • ThatFembyWho@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    chin up, Im sure it cant get any worse

    remembers upcoming elections

    err chin up, if it gets worse, you can always look back fondly on these times

  • Clbull@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    Where I live… try 70% of your paycheck on rent. Heck, a lot of agencies and landlords won’t rent to someone like me unless I was earning £10k more.