That's not really the same thing though. They do have a bit of respect for your time and attention, they are writing your damn message already, and you know that because of the dots. The people who prompted this website are leaving the conversation trapped in purgatory until you respond.
None of the skiers I know ski because they want to spend a lot of money, they spend a lot of money because they want to ski. (Hauling yourself up a freezing cold mountain might not sound like much fun but they quite enjoy it.) Nothing but skiing will do.
None of the hunters I know hunt because they want to spend a lot of money, they spend a lot of money because they want to hunt (birds or otherwise.) (Crouching in a tree or a swamp for hours on end might not sound like much fun but they quite enjoy it.) Nothing but hunting will do.
Hobbies are almost never drop in replacements for each other.
My point was that if skiing kills itself something else that scratches most of the same itches will become fashionable among the same demographics. I have no idea what it would actually be (if I did I would invest in it, lol).
Kind of like how the cruising industry has exploded over the past couple decades as the "traditional" US vacation spots have become unaffordable to the masses. It's not a straight drop in, but it's close enough. The same people who used to go to the Poconos, Tahoe or Cape Cod or still do, but they're not being replaced because people see the cost vs the fun you get and say fuggit. The old places continue on but they cater to a small exclusive clientele because the other potential customers are doing something else, probably at the same price point but a better value.
>(Hauling yourself up a freezing cold mountain might not sound like much fun but they quite enjoy it.)
The vodka makes you warm on the inside. (joking but also not)
"We need most of our population working full time to keep ourselves fed because running a farm is really hard" is a technical problem, not a societal one. You can solve it with fertilizer and the cotton gin or whatever.
"There's a bunch of us now and barter isn't cutting it anymore" is a technical problem, not a societal one. You can solve it with coinage and banks or whatever.
"The internet used to be fun and useful but now it sucks" is a societal problem, not a technical one. You can't solve it with a federated twitter clone or yet another secure messaging protocol or whatever.
What? Why? Why would those first two be "technical problems" that we can "solve" with innovation, but that last example isn't? What makes something a technical problem vs. a societal problem?
Generally, if you're targeting behavior of the people or the masses, you're targeting a societal problem.
People bullying other people is not a technical problem. People driving dangerously is not a technical problem. People shoplifting is not a technical problem. All of them have different reasons deep down, and preventing the symptom doesn't solve the problem.
When you effectively prevent bullying, the bully might damage something else or may do self-harm to soothe their demons. Same for people driving dangerously or have to shoplift to survive.
When you cure the root problem, which is generally harder BTW, the problem you're technically trying to prevent disappears, too.
Not even a little bit. Every example given has immediate first order causes and effects that are both technical and societal. And the second order effects are even more entangled. The example of a societal problem given (online bullying) is itself enabled by technology! And there are online spaces where technology solves it.
We are highly adoptable, highly social creatures whose behavior is greatly impacted by our environment, which includes the people around us, the culture in which we live, and the things that technology enables (or prevents) in that environment.
I just think there’s no bright line at all between societal and technical problems, they’re just labels we apply based on our internal views of how they should be solved.
> I just think there’s no bright line at all between societal and technical problems, they’re just labels we apply based on our internal views of how they should be solved.
So, people rushed to propose technical solutions to this. I noted that on-device ADB was the primary vector for sideloading applications and touted as the "ultimate solution" to Google's tightening of Android ecosystem.
Now, the ADB door is closing, yet people are proposing technical solutions, but the problem is not technical in nature. Google's mindset and agenda is restricting Android step by step, and the trend will continue.
At every step, Android power users adapt, will find new technical workarounds and comfort themselves, but the problem is not technical in nature. No technical solution can stop Google from closing this doors because decisions are managerial and rooting from human-nature.
So this is a great example to what I pointed out. Technical solutions can't solve societal problems. The problem is not restricting ADB. The problem is Google's desire to restrict and close-down Android ecosystem. You can't solve it with a patch, but maybe relieve symptoms for a short amount of time.
If one considers this solving, then it's just deluding yourself.
> People driving dangerously is not a technical problem.
Complete bullshit. This problem can be completely solved by a technical, not societal solution: actually working self-driving cars. Once they are available, all your imperfect societal solutions to the problem are not needed anymore.
I don't believe many understands the complexity of a self-driving car. It's not like programming a couple of agents with simulated sensors on a computer.
That future is not here yet, but my point still stands: once they are sufficiently developed (it's only a matter of time, perhaps 5 years, perhaps 20 years), your societal problem suddenly has a technological solution. QED.
"Sufficiently developed" seems like a cheap proof. There are still many non-technological problems above and below it.
For example, how do you ensure everyone on the road has a self-driving car? We've sufficiently developed electric cars, but they're not nearly the majority.
> We've sufficiently developed electric cars, but they're not nearly the majority.
Just to further support your point, sufficiently developed electric cars' batteries still doesn't have the energy density of fossil fuels, so they can't replace any and every use case.
For example, can we carry or generate the energy these cars requires to move unimpeded like ICE vehicles yet? Or, did we improve the procedures and materials so these cars can be extinguished faster, more reliably and securely then their previous generation counterparts? Or did battery recycling methods became cheap and efficient enough yet, so we can reuse these batteries and at least not increase mining on our planet? Etc. Etc.
I'm not against renewables or electric cars, but even in their current form, we need to solve many problems to make them more practical and even less impactful when compared to their ICE counterparts.
Remember that time grok told people not to use it for second opinions on their medical records? ...on second thought that might be an exception that proves the rule.
I don't know why this sentiment isn't more common. LLMs are basically two things:
1. chatbots
2. automation for the process of googling something and copy-pasting the first result.
The only people I know who use it for more than those two things ask them to perform tasks they can't do reliably, don't check the output, and then they're just wrong most of the time. If they had just used it as slightly different google search they'd have been fine.
Putting this into my rotation of excuses. "It wasn't my fault! They were hacking, also my fingers were slippery and the deterministic behavior of psuedorandom number generators guaranteed we would lose anyway."
I mean, yeah. There's enough nukes locked and loaded around the globe to end human civilization as we know it in minutes. Nobody's made a bomb that can fix socioeconomics.
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