WelkinFolk

Why is this so heavily downvoted? Is HN just full of old people that can't digest the fact that the world hasn't really gotten better, when it comes to housing and jobs at the very least?

This is all very anecdotal (and thus not quantifiable) - but I find the need for others and I to check their phones far more distracting and frequent than the need for getting up and stretching your legs and/or getting snacks during a movie.

Not that I 100% believe that the Vanaras were cultural memories of Neanderthals, but it's pretty hard to prove or disprove this. Maybe they were. Maybe a whole bunch of stories we tell throughout the world are cultural memories of events long past.

I kinda choose to somewhat believe in this hypothesis because it's mighty fun, and makes the past look so much more romantic!

At this point I just get frustrated reading AI prose. I tried for the past few months to just shut my mouth and force myself to read AI prose, since r/singularity wasted no breath telling people how they're Luddites for not marrying an AI.

But I can't do this any longer. I'm tired, boss.

In that case, please just use the AI yourself and don't hire anyone ever.

There do seem to be papers written by him on Research Gate, with others. But yeah, the faculty search on Princeton returned nothing (https://static-tables-prod.princeton.edu/faculty-and-profess...)

Yet 100% my experience. Not really a sad and miserable take. It will do people a whole lot of good to know the kinds of people that thrive in this ecosystem.

I don't think that's the same as having the compulsion to be online and having very little interest in long time-span activities.

Yep, I would say social media, especially in us Gen Zs, has made us more cynical and worried about the state of the world, apart from the obvious attention span problems.

We live in India, so for example, the rise of online (and offline) hatred towards us has definitely had an impact.

I and pretty much everyone I know has repeatedly mentioned how difficult of a time they're having reading books, code (software eng. friends), or even watching the first half of a movie without feeling the need to open their phones and scrolling Instagram.

You cannot joke about AI. It's blasphemy towards our corporate overlords!

Fair enough. Panicking won't achieve anything. I appreciate your response.

Fair enough, I am kinda scared about everything these days.

Which one of his books should I read (first)?

> Even incontrovertible proof of wrong doing does not change their mindset

You could argue that about pretty much every politician and their supporters in India. The right wing keeps winning because the left refuses to address the fears of a majority of the Indian population. Even if those fears are unwarranted - dismissing them as "uneducated" and "blind sheep" alienates people even more.

Understood. Then how does one brace for the upcoming slaughter? People knew that getting into software would become the hot new thing - almost guaranteeing a source of income. Hence the "push" for everyone to get into "coding", at least in my country (India) and from what I've heard on the internet - the US too.

How do people brace for the changes AI brings?

While I agree that new skills must be learnt to survive, what exactly are these new skills in the AI-age?

I see this line everywhere - whenever someone's mourning their loss of a career, there's responses telling the person to "man up" (for lack of a better phrase) and learn new skills. Nobody says what these "new skills" are?

Fair enough. Though there must be some sort of universality in what people find attractive in men. Some lingering evolutionary behaviour (not necessarily suits), no?

I'm in India, suit wearing is not really a big cultural thing anymore (and I doubt it ever was for most people). At least if you're not a bureaucrat.

Well-tailored suits also make you look sharp af. The day I got the most compliments for my clothes was when I was wearing a suit for my college farewell and smoking (no, it's not a cool habit, I'm just an addict) at a tea stall.

Unrelated but, "clanker" is a great word

I imagine one needs a car when living in the US.

I mean, most nations aren't as rich as the "West" + East Asia.

I come from a small town, but I still managed to do fine for myself.

I mean, of course we were shown a globe "once". My father had one at home too, though tucked away under a mountain of files and other things in his gigantic cabinet.

But 99% of the time, a kid would see the world via maps in books, notebooks, projected onto the board, etc.

And we didn't have a "geography classroom". We had one classroom for a set number of kids - like 8A, 8B, etc. (where "8" is the class/grade). The teachers would come in and go as per the period. The kids stayed right where they were.

At least from my own experience, the map used the most throughout school was the Mercator projection.

When I first discovered that Greenland and Canada were not really that big during one of my many wikipedia tours as a kid, I was incredibly disappointed.

I don't think this is a US only thing. Even in India, where I'm from, everyone I've spoken to or know tends to like this change.

Not everyone from everywhere has had food delivery apps all their lifetimes, even if they're GenZ

Sarcastic quips are basically the most human response to any new situation. Let us have fun

Fellow IITian here OP. Would do anything to get those years back. Happy to know you found a better place to be :)

I have started hearing echoes of how LLMs are "conscious" on every forum I go. Strange times.

Similarly in India. The college entrance exams (the biggest ones being JEE and NEET for engineers and doctors respectively) are the only thing you live and breathe from around the time you are 14 - 15 years old. Completely hollows you out.