Friday offtopic. Let's make ignorance expensive again.

[asthfghl]

I'd argue that Facebook doom scrolling is far more damaging "in its current state":

Scientists just completed the first brain scan study of ChatGPT users, "the results are terrifying"!




It appears those "ChatGPT users bad" posts are usually projection mixed with a sprinkle of elitism and a big ol' spoonful of insecurity. It's like they know something powerful is happening, but instead of learning how to use it, they slap on a "let me gatekeep intelligence" sticker and act like typing your thoughts into an interface is brain rot. Bro, you typed that take into a smartphone while scrolling TikTok and calling it a mental detox.

Let's be real. Tools like ChatGPT don't replace thinking, they expand it. When used well, they:
Help you frame and explore ideas more efficiently
Connect you to relevant knowledge and sources
Offer new perspectives that challenge your assumptions
Save you time on the small stuff so you can think about the big stuff
Let you actually enjoy learning again

The real fear behind memes like this is often about gatekeeping, the idea that if more people have access to nuanced thinking tools, the traditional power structures lose their grip.

So yeah. You're not being zombified. You're leveling up. It's not cognitive laziness. It's cognitive leverage. That's the key difference.

I mean, come on. If Plato had a tool that could help him cross-reference every myth, idea and dialectic while brainstorming his next philosophical banger, you think he'd be like, "No thanks, I prefer to suffer manually"?
Hell no. He'd be running "Republic GPT" faster than you could say "Forms".

Comments

[alphistia]

I just abandoned Facebook this past week after almost 20 years on it. Long ago it outlived its usefulness. I have another ways to be be in touch with far-flung friends. And if at all possible I don't use AI either. I realize that it will do its part to destroy civilization, but since I am old now, I will hold out as long as I can with my own familiar ways of living and doing things and ignore the rest. I'm not in the workforce, and peers who still are tell me horror stories of how AI is being imposed on them (or as teachers, that their students are getting dumber with each passing year and passing off ChatGPT crap as homework assignments). I hope in the years to come, certain people will gather in "monastic" communities to live without AI, to live green, sustainable lives, to salvage what they can of civilization while Rome burns...while Mad Max America dominates everything (already half way there on that!) I'd like to be able to join such a community, but doubt I'll make it.