Wait, it’ll actually let you use local LLMs?

That would legitimately help me out. I use LLMs a lot for simple data restructuring, or rewording of explanations when I’m reading through certain sources. I was worried they would just do a simple ChatGPT API integration and have that be the end of it, but maybe this will end up being something I’d actually use.

I find those kinds of chatbots useful, but those aren’t the ones I encounter 90% of the time. Most of the time, it’s a chatbot that summarizes the help articles I just read, giving faulty interpretations of the source material, that then goes on to never direct me to a real person unless I tell it multiple times that the articles it’s paraphrasing aren’t helping. (and sometimes, they have no live support at all, and only an LLM + support articles)

TLDR; “weak people have to conform to social consensus otherwise they get hurt I guess?”

I, on the other hand, am a big, strong, high T alpha male, that isn’t worried about what anyone thinks! I am a free thinker, and I know my opinions are correct because I instantly based this entire opinion on a subjective, anecdotal view of the world that I then extrapolated meaning out of, the best evidence! /s

Oh yeah, it’s definitely useful for that!

Since LLMs are essentially just very complicated probabilistic links between words, it seems to be extremely good at picking the exact word or phrase that even a thesaurus couldn’t get me.

I primarily end up using LLMs through DuckDuckGo’s private frontend alongside a search, so if my current search doesn’t yield the correct answer to my question (i.e. I ask for something but those keywords only ever turn up search results on a different, but similar topic) then I go to the LLM and ask a more refined question, that otherwise doesn’t produce any relevant results in a traditional keyword search.

I also use integrated LLMs to format and distill my offhand notes, (and reformat arbitrary text based on specific criteria repeatedly for structured notes,) learn programming syntax more at my own pace and in my own way, and just generally get answers on more well-known topics a lot faster than I would scrolling past 5 pages of SEO-“optimized” garbage just designed to fill time for the ads to load before actually giving me a good answer.

I have never once found an “AI” feature integrated by a corporation useful.

I have only ever found “AI” useful when it’s unobtrusive, and something I chose to use manually. Sometimes an LLM is useful to use, but I don’t need it shilled to me inside a search bar or in a support chat that won’t solve my problem until I bypass the LLM.

The problem is that the Network Effect keeps people trapped in the original social media network silos.

No matter how much you want to leave, if the other options simply don’t have enough users to meaningfully engage with the topics you’re interested in, then it’s very hard (but not impossible) to switch over.

A lot of people on Twitter might be part of micro-communities that simply don’t have any presence on Lemmy or Mastodon yet, or they might be there to follow a specific person’s updates on a given project, which can’t exist on the other platforms unless that person decides to migrate themselves (which necessitates losing access to the majority of your fanbase at the start, and hoping they’ll all choose to move over solely because of you.)

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to migrate, but it’s not as easy as a lot of people make it seem by implying people can just switch whenever they want to without major consequence. For a lot of people, switching would mean losing an entire community completely, or being wholly cut off from the people and topics they were previously following. And as much as they might not want to support a social media oligarch, if they switch, they have a lot to lose before it possibly gets better for them.

There are people who think that “positive” or “negative” words have a magic-like effect on natural processes.

From what I’ve seen, this was originally popularized in 2004 by Masaru Emoto’s book “The Hidden Messages in Water,” where part of his claims were that snowflakes would develop differently in containers labeled with negative or positive emotions.

Naturally, this turned out to be a complete lie, but many people, such as those in the original post, still believe that words can somehow influence things like mold development on food.

I love this approach, balances user freedom & privacy with moderation & voting pattern analysis by the public.

ActivityPub might mean some data is slightly less private, but that doesn’t mean it has to be.

The network effect is one hell of a drug.

If you’ve got the money, and just want to reduce clutter, get some adapters for existing standards like USB-C cables instead.

I have multiple Micro USB, Micro-B, Audio Jack, and Lightning cable adapters that take up less space than one single USB-C cable.

I feel like this says more about these students’ schools, rather than the students themselves.

How have I never heard of this before!? I’ve been looking for exactly this for ages now.

Already spinning up a docker container!

I completely get that.

I mostly have just thought of housing as a different kind of beast, since unlike working a job, I don’t have to invest in real estate to save for a house or retirement, but doing so might make it easier to accomplish that.

The biggest problem is definitely going to be full on landlords and private corporate investors, but I don’t want to add any more to that problem, no matter how small my impact might be.

TLDR; I want to protect against systemic risk factors, as most of my net worth will be in the market, unable to support me during a financial emergency. It could also carry possible tax benefits, and make it easier to sustain mortgage payments on a home.

I’m mostly trying to ensure that if, for instance, my entire emergency fund is drained from a major medical emergency (or something similar) during that time, I have something I can rely on that is generally more stable to sell during that time, which will overall carry lower tax implications on sale than stocks that have already appreciated significantly more.

Plus, once I get to the point of being close to owning a home, I want to ensure no major financial event could potentially significantly impact my ability to afford mortgage payments.

I plan on investing as much of my income as I can to retire as early as possible, which means the majority of my liquid cash net worth will just be in my emergency fund, with a smaller additional amount in savings. I would prefer some level of extended, more stable assets, that will still grow at least a bit over time to meet my financial goals, but won’t be subject to as large drops as the whole market.

I don’t plan on investing much of my portfolio into real estate if I do decide to go that route, only 5-10% total, more as a hedge than as a primary strategy. Most of my investing is still in comparatively high-growth index funds.

I appreciate that take.

I just don’t want to be yet another contributor of many to a problem, y’know? Like how even though corporations are by far the largest contributors to climate change, I still try to reduce the excess emissions I possibly produce whenever I can just to help a tiny bit more.

I’m still investing in the stock market regardless, I just want to make sure that diversifying my portfolio won’t have an outsized negative impact on others since, well, that would suck. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not sure if it adds any more clarity, but to be fair, this question was about morals, which is entirely subjective based on personal opinion.

Thanks for your addition to the conversation though, I appreciate it!

To be clear, I wasn’t talking about liquidations, I was talking about actual market performance. Housing is necessary, even during a financial crisis, whereas unnecessary purchases of goods from corporations become secondary. Thus, housing can stay more stable while stocks crash.

While the market does always go back up, to some degree, I want to be at least slightly more resistant to the possibility of a major failure, (i.e. multiple major tech companies going under from some highly unforseen event) that could lead to entire stocks not existing to go back up again in the future.

I would also theoretically be investing via publicly-traded REIT funds, which could be liquidated in the same manner as stocks.

Wouldn’t that then mean that there would be no rental apartments available and everyone would be forced to take a loan and buy a home?

Not exactly, first off, I mostly mean real estate that is required for survival. Housing, not including the types of places you’d use for a quick vacation stay like hotels, corporate office real estate, etc.

If there weren’t landlords, there would be a significant decrease in housing prices, due to a few factors, namely banks now offering lower-rate loans (since the higher-paying institutional investors are out of the picture), higher supply availability (instead of investor hoarding of empty rentals for property value over use by humans), and generally larger amounts of capital available to spend on new homes, rather than rent payments going to alternative asset classes in wealthy investor portfolios.

It also doesn’t mean no rentals would exist at all, but that properties wouldn’t exist solely for the purpose of being rented. (think someone renting a portion of their existing house, or adding an ADU, instead of buying an entire single-family home solely for the purpose of renting it as an investment.)

Landlording is only a problem because it reduces the supply of housing available for people to own directly, and by the extent of it existing, increases housing values. If existing properties are partially used as rentals by those who have extra space to spare, any of the issues I mentioned functionally don’t exist.

You will eat here, and you will be happy about it! 😡

it’s getting so hard nowadays

It’s definitely not easy, but sometimes we just do the best we can, even if it’s not the most that could be done.

Everyone has their own unique threat model. A random everyday person will have less need for personal privacy than, say, a government employee that works for an intelligence agency. Do what you can to protect what matters most to you, but don’t stress if you can’t upend your entire life to improve your privacy.

there are so many more important problems

You can support multiple solutions to world issues at the same time, without needing to make any individual one the most important one, or completely throwing out your other beliefs.

Privacy protects you from anything ranging from annoying ads, to targeted election misinformation, is key to dismantling the surveillance state that is regularly used to silence opposition to current political powers, and protects your right to free speech in a world where every government wishes they could control you just a bit more.

Privacy protects you from self-censorship. It keeps you safe from people who might want to harm you or your family for your views. It lets you protest oppressive policy.

Companies make money off your data. And what are these companies contributing to? Global warming through ever-expanding datacenters running AI models you didn’t ask for. Political campaigns that endorse monopolies. The exploitation of third-world countries.

By taking away their ability to sell you for profit, you indirectly reduce numerous other harms.

I just can’t remember why I thought it was something worth fighting for

The world is crazy. It’s not weird to let things like privacy fall to the wayside when seemingly larger problems pop up, but privacy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Everything is interconnected, and privacy directly impacts these other issues.

It’s okay to just do what you can. the world isn’t perfect, and neither are we.

Privacy directly helps dismantle systems of power, surveillance, advertising, and manipulation. So if that’s worth it to you, then keep fighting.