I tried AI a few times over the last few years, and sometimes I don’t ignore the Gemini results from a search when I’m tired or I’m struggling to get good results.

Almost every time I’ve done either, helpful looking hallucinations wasted my time and made my attempt to find a solution to a technical problem less efficient. I will give specific examples, often unprompted.

I also point to a graph of my electric bill.

I also describe the logon script that a colleague (with no coding experience) asked for help with. He’d used AI to generate what he had to show me and was looking for help getting it to work. Variables declared and never used. Variables storing relevant information but different, similarly named variables used to retrieve the information.

First, what do you consider AI?

Algorithms tweaked by ML for a very specific, narrowly scoped task? I have very different feelings on those vs. something like what the tech giants try to insert into every interaction I have with them.

If you had proportional election you would have more parties, because the rest votes don’t dissappear.

The US election system is from the 1800s and outdated.

So, would the better option not be to fight for a better system or infiltrate one of the two parties and change it from within?

I think the biggest problem I have with the way the US has been working is that we just vote for the lesser evil and call it a day, thinking we’ve done our part. We’ve done all we can do. It makes things simple. It makes us feel good.

The real solution is a long, hard fight for change that will actually solve some of our problems. It involves convincing others, fierce public debate, and may result in violence. You will not be alone, but there will also be countless others who may not agree with your solution and will fight you every step of the way. Your opposition may be inspired by a genuine passion for a different solution. They may have an irrational fear of change. Some may simply benefit from the status quo and prefer to protect what they have than solve any problems for the rest of society. It’s so complicated and it’s just so much easier to offload that work to politicians.

Unfortunately, the most powerful among us know this and work as hard as possible to convince the politicians that they know better… or they just buy them out.

Debate the right? They don’t debate in good faith.

an example of a communist government of a major country that hasn’t devolved quickly into a dictatorship

I’m not feeling rage or hysteria, but I find a number of issues with this “test” that could easily cause frustration with anyone who has major criticisms of capitalism. My response is long not because of some irrational anger, but because things are complex and nuanced.

You consider yourself to be “fairly progressive”? I’m going to give you an analogy. It’s not great, but it hits on a few major issues relevant to your “test”. Imagine a MAGA fan asked you in 2026 to “name a thriving woke government agency” or “a government agency that still advocates for DEI” to make a point about your ideals. How does that sound to you?

First, you’d like argue that the term “woke” and “DEI” means different things to different people. That the term has been transformed into some deranged negatively charged approximation used as almost a slur colloquially. The same is true for “communist/ism” and “socialist/ism”. The current US “powers that be” have taken ownership of terms originally used by progressives. Woke was an “eyes open” state of awareness of the systemic racism baked into society. Now it is often considered “naively believing that forced equality makes things better”. DEI was an attempt to correct these systemic issues by encouraging or even enforcing diversity in groups of people who make decisions and influence decisions. Now it, and I’d argue “Affirmative Action” as well, is starting to mean a movement to “give power/opportunity to people because they are minorities whether or not they are sufficiently qualified”. Understand, I’m not in agreement with the transformation of these terms or the sentiment of the new “meanings” but I see them being used in the US in this manner more often. This makes every conversation confusing if you want to have a legitimate discussion of the ideas. It doesn’t help that the terms socialism and communism were never concrete terms to begin with.

Second, you’d be aware that there is literally a powerful force actively attempting to purge the original concepts of “woke” and “DEI” from government agencies. The current administration is working very hard to sabotage any agencies that recognize inequality or try to diversify. The administration has likely broken the law in its efforts to oust any agency leadership who promote these concepts. The administration wants to make the lives of any workers who agree with those concepts very difficult. Any agencies that are based on those core concepts are being spun down or turned into shells that somehow still have a name that implies they haven’t changed but in reality their leadership is working to ensure that the agency now serves the opposite function.

That’s what it is like being openly socialist or communist in today’s world. Everything bad is “socialist” or “communist” - it has been since the revolution in Russia. People have a knee jerk reaction on hearing those words. It’s strongly associated with North Korea, Stalin, and the CCP. Endless stories of violent authoritarianism, surveillance states, and the suppression of free speech. Tons of media - Animal Farm, 1984. As an aside, consider the violent suppression of climate or pro Palestine protesters, or the use of surveillance technology to spy on citizens… in capitalist nations.

Back to my point - if you are advocating for socialism, the West will work diligently to prop up existing capitalist leadership to prevent your success, possibly even help them rig elections. Propaganda will be spread among your population. If you manage to get elected, expect to be labeled extremist or even terrorist. Expect embargos, sanctions, and other economic warfare. Expect actual terrorists funded by the West to attempt to sabotage your nation. Expect or attempt to perform coups. Lobbyists would be throwing money you desperately need at your nation if it would just capitulate. Yes, even citizens might work against you because they are quite wealthy and powerful and your going to upset that. Or maybe honest citizens who’ve heard capitalism is great and socialism is bad and they don’t want to live in a bad nation. What’s the most effect method to survive a situation like that? You are under siege, paranoid, distrustful, woefully outmatched. Use your authority to defend your ideals and your hold on the government, sell out and become corrupt, or get squeezed out by a political opponent (or ally, trust noone) that is working for and funded by the West looking to restore their influence over your nation. Now you have a dictatorship.

This is maybe not what some would consider great advice but “you aren’t ready for a relationship” isn’t really fair. As you said:

But how do I get matured?

For me, a vital part of growing as a person has been experiencing the messiness of life. Failing and learning.

I’ve known the situation you described - planning things with someone you have a real interest in, someone who seemed interested in spending time with you. Placing high importance on the event in your mind only to have the event fall apart because it wasn’t a priority for them. Feeling upset and even jealous. I told her I was upset that she blew me off. It did not go well and she lost interest. That’s not to say this will happen to you, but my experience helped teach me to regulate my interest and my expectations because I didn’t want that to happen again. I also became more mature.

Yes, you should try to find a few friends if you don’t have any. Making new ones is hard but it’s important. I’m not exactly neutotypical and socializing is not something I enjoy most of the time. Still, it’s something that has been valuable to me. It’s kind of like a lower stakes relationship. You like them and care about them - you want to be helpful, do right by them, etc. If you feel clueless about interpersonal relationships you should make friends.

When my previous long-term relationship ended, she was very social and her friend group had become my friend group. I’d only had a few of my own friends and they had moved away or we’d been growing apart. When things ended, I needed to find new friends so I know how hard it can be. I recommend you find something you enjoy, offline if you can, and do that thing with people who also like to do that thing. For me it was board games, video games, TTRPGs, climbing, and hiking. I don’t love all those things but I can get enough enjoyment out of them for it to be worth expending the social energy maybe twice a week, if I had the energy for it. Eventually, after doing this for a few years (while I was in my mid 30s), I found a few people I got along with pretty well. They are now my friends. As a plus, doing things with them is less socially draining and keeps me socially active to a degree.

Regarding romantic relationships, you’ll need be the judge of whether or not you are ready. I think it’s fair to give it a try as long as you can handle failure in a healthy way and don’t have abusive tendencies. Obviously, every single one of my past relationships didn’t work out and I don’t think there was a single one of them where I could not have done better. They fucking hurt like hell but that pain taught me a lot about relationships and about myself. It felt like the end of the world, but it wasn’t. No amount of advice or self reflection would have taught me those important lessons without the experience and the pain of losing the love of someone I cared so much about. As long as you can learn from your failure - forge yourself into a better person - I think you can be ready.

I’ve been in a romantic relationship now for several years. My previous relationship was longer but like all of my other relationships, the failure and lessons learned helped me to recognize and improve on some of my flaws. It also helped me to to better understand and communicate my own needs and priorities. It all helped to create a healthier foundation for my current relationship.

I’m not usually impacted by celebrities but I was hit surprisingly hard by the death of John Bain aka TotalBiscuit on YouTube. Why? He just kind of seemed like a regular, fairly young gamer and decent dude who just wanted to let people know whether a game might be worth buying… and then suddenly surprise, cancer. A shit ton of treatment and four years later, gone. It just felt like a reminder that life is random and unfair.

That was an example of a situation where time zones make sense. Any time it is important where the sun is in the sky, the time that it occurs will differ depending on where you are in the world. When is lunch break? When do backups run? When can you see the eclipse? If we weren’t in an interconnected world, it wouldn’t matter much but we need some convention to communicate information that is dependent on where the sun is, as that very often dictates human activity.

It seems like a universal time makes sense but I can’t think of a way to get around the fact that activity will vary according to timezones anyway.

And there are no other external factors that could possibly influence their compensation besides their objective “worth” to the hiring organization?

Edit: To clarify, might personal bias from the employer lead to a higher compensation? If two CEOs are interviewed and one went to the same college as several members of the board, or if several members of the board know one personally, but the known CEO isn’t as accomplished… is it possible that the CEO benefitting from bias is going be hired? Will the benefitting CEO receive a lower compensation, higher compensation, or the same compensation?

Is it possible for a CEO to lie about their ability and get hired under false pretenses? Is it possible for a CEO to be hired for political or “public image” reasons rather than talent/productivity reasons? Are these reflected in their compensation?

I suppose the context of condiment vs. ingredient is enough. I don’t think many recipes use ketchup/catsup and most meals don’t leave tomato sauce out to be used as a condiment.

What I consider ketchup/catsup includes much more sugar and vinegar than what I consider tomato sauce. Is that not the case where you are from or is there a different word used?

We should stop using time zones

Check this out. I’m a business with at least one office in every US state. You want to know when my New York office opens so you can come by. Instead of seeing “Offices are open 9 AM to 5 PM” You now need to check every office… by state… by city? Time zones would be helpful even if we all used GMT, so that you could easily determine which time zone a business is in to set a reasonable time to be open.

DST can fuck off though.

The actors and athletes get paid a lot because someone is willing to pay that money, and they are willing because only a miniscule part of humankind has exceptional skills/talent.

I see. So you are saying that every CEO is paid what they are worth?

Their Dogs Were Astronauts - Progressive, Djenty. Hard to pick a favorite track or album.

Opeth - Started as progressive death metal but they have gotten more chill and progressive and experimental over time. Favorites for me are Blackwater Park (on the harsher end of the spectrum), Windowpane (chill end of the spectrum), Reverie / Harlequin Forest.

It uh… actually doesn’t.

Don’t know about getting money back, but it is something of a coop. My link includes a recommendation to vote “withhold” in the current election, why they recommend the action, and how to do so.

REI. Just another corporation in a “Good Guy” costume. https://www.ourrei.com/2025-rei-board-elections

Union busting, problematic supply chains, pulling PPE from staff. Hell, officially supporting Trump’s pick for Secretary of the Interior because I guess they can’t help themselves.

Kathleen technically fills the specified criteria if you remove the context of the conversation, which is whether or not Lucas shared a morally acceptable portion of the billions of dollars of wealth generated by LucasFilm that he took for himself, including the $4 billion he made personally from it’s sale to Disney.

Your other two of your allegedly obvious examples are absolutely not from LucasFilm and one of them has a net worth of $20m, which is definitively not “hundreds of millions”.

I presume, therefore, that you either argue in bad faith or don’t try very hard. In either case, you aren’t worth my time anymore.

I could throw a dart on a list of names and get such a person.

Fascinating. You respond with the president of LucasFilm who started, more or less, months before LucasFilm was sold to Disney in 2012, an actor who has had an amazing career well beyond anything related to LucasFilm, and an actor with a career is admittedly most associated with the Star Wars Franchise (though he’s done a lot of voice work in unrelated franchises) but who’s net worth is only about 20 million.

So 1/3 are actually part of LucasFilm, and that one didn’t really work under Lucas. Ford did star in a two franchises under LucasFilm, but he is not part of LucasFilm.

Thanks for wasting a few minutes of my time.

If you can name another person from LucasFilm that also had, at some point, several hundred million dollars, I’ll make an effort to look into that claim.