It’s actually a tactic ICE has used for years. Treat detainees as horrendously as is legal (or worse, if there are no consequences). Most importantly, the entire time ICE will dangle in front of them paperwork that they can sign to consent to deportation without any process.

It’s just a coercion tactic to avoid due process.

I think it would be infinitely better for an LLM to walk a user through the use of the formula in their specific use case rather than do it for them… but that won’t sell as well because most people don’t want to learn to use a spreadsheet they just want to do a thing and move on to something else. This is how it is sold and this is why it is used, in most cases. It’s not a hammer that people misused despite there being nothing in the sales material about it’s usefulness as a bludgeoning device against other humans. LLMs, spreadsheet copilot included, is commonly packaged and sold as a magic solution that will just do the work for you, with an asterisk and fine print stating that it’s for entertainment purposes only and that whoever isn’t liable for any false information or whatever bullshit clause they come up with. People use it as it is sold to them and that’s what worries me.

another optional tool at users’ disposal.

I just had my place of work upgrade me to Windows 11 this week. In order to install office, I was directed by Microsoft to download the “Office 365 Copilot” app which downloaded the office installer. Copilot is not subtle. It may be technically optional but good lord does it want you to know about and use it for everything.

And no, I didn’t try it yet. I will likely be trying it and Gemini soon out of curiosity. Last time I tried to use it I was given hallucinated nonexistant python modules and powershell commands that wasted my time. It’s been a year or so though.

it’s not a replacement for a human brain, it’s an assistant.

This is what I think AI and automation is generally good at and should be used for - mitigating unpleasant or repetitive work so that the focus of the user is productivity/creativity.

This is what this integration is for - it’s not a replacement for a human brain, it’s an assistant. As are all LLMs.

The context is something we disagree on wholeheartedly. Those funding and fundraising for AI and an enormous subset of those using are not looking to use AI in the way we are talking about. The prior are hoping to use AI to extract value from it at the expense of people who would otherwise need to be paid, or they and claim it can do anything and everything. Those using it, many of them, do not have a sufficient understanding to comprehend the solution. They are basically “vibe coding”. Tell the LLM to do something they aren’t knowledgeable about, then keep telling it to fix the problems until they don’t see problems anymore. Yes, spreadsheet formulas are likely simpler than an app but I know people who use AI for Google Sheets and they rarely test any results, let alone rigorously.

Anecdotal, sure, but I don’t have enough faith in humanity to presume everyone else is doing something wildly different.

Edit: To expand, LLMs specifically, are what I consider to be the worst side of “AI”. You can use ML and neural networks to create “AI” (self altering, alien blackbox algorithms) to become proficient in analyzing information and solving problems. LLMs create a situation where the model appears intelligent because it knows how to mimic language… and so now we pretend like it can do whatever people can do.

I think the concern is that you can come up with a number of formulas that will get correct answers for some combinations of values and not others.

If you do not understand the logic of the formula, and what each function does, how do you verify they are correct and will always give you the results you think they will? Double check every result in its entirety?

people not willing to integrate

This is the only “issue” I can think of from my own experience in the US. I imagine some resentment can form if a country has a lot of what I’ll call “culture” for simplicity’s sake. An influx of people with different “culture” might feel like an attack on your own culture. I frankly don’t understand but that’s why I mentioned the base population of the US being large and diverse. Perhaps we’re already such a “melting pot”, at least in the densely populated cities and suburbs, and having so many pockets of cultures is just what I’m used to. I want to better understand but it still just sounds like ignorant fear of a different culture.

Hell, it’s a well established statistic, that many people pretend doesn’t exist, that criminality is lower among the immigrant population. Any population will have some bad apples, but the incoming population is thinning them out if anything.

Can you link me to some credible sources on legitimate problems caused by immigration in Europe? I’m in the US and I don’t see the downside of immigration. Most of the folks angry about immigration here are just being sold a scapegoat.

Admittedly, we’re much more culturally diverse to begin with, harder to get to, and have quite a large base population so maybe I’m comparing apples and oranges.

It’s much easier to replace the business/marketing responsibilities with AI.

Seriously. There is not much of a difference between a business boss confidently making up a solution so as to appear like they know what they are doing and AI hallucinating because it’s a bad look for AI to say “I don’t know”.

Neither must face the consequences for their failure to acknowledge the consequences of being totally fucking wrong.

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.

I’m in no way defending this situation, but what mechanisms would prevent this?

Forgive me, but as someone in the US I’ve had almost daily shower thoughts that, to my surprise, often end with me spouting the same thing that conservatives used to say (empty words, in hindsight).

How can we empower a government to check/modify itself to self correct when it becomes corrupt without the government having the ability to use those same powers to falsely check/modify itself to be more corrupt under the guise of removing corruption when the government itself is actually corrupt.

Basically, how can we create or maintain an organization that is empowered to do “good” when “good” can be made subjective? Or, how do we make what we consider “good” to be objective so that power can’t be corrupted?

All I can come up with is a better informed population and democracy, but that’s a tall order these days.

Be aware of the venue and how crowded it could be. I’ve been to plenty of metal shows in my youth and been waaay to close the speakers. Surprisingly, what fucked my ears worse than anything was when I got invited by a girl friend to see the band “Live” (known for the song “The Dolphin’s Cry”) at a standing room venue. I was only like 20 but still being packed in tight among countless shrieking girls/young women gave me tinnitus for a week and my hearing has never been the same since.

Really though, don’t worry about how you are perceived. Just have fun, but maybe bring ear plugs just in case. Hell, I likely should have worn earplugs for most of my concerts regardless.

They people who most vocally claim it is for use against a tyrannical government are happy that their government is abusing their black and brown neighbors.

Now what?

Now you get to ignorantly blame progressives for what was, ultimately, a Democrat policy failure. Bonus - doing so drives a wedge between Democrats! Yay! Good job!

Now how about you do something fucking constructive.

For me, it’s hard to say one or the other is worse. It might depend on circumstances. Is someone making a false claim of rape worse than someone raping someone, or worse than a child rapist, serial rapist, etc? In damage collectively done to all victims, quite possibly. However, the intention of the false witness isn’t usually to delegitimize the claims of other victims. It’s usually shortsited and desperate - a desire to avoid social consequences or to punish the accused. I suspect such false claims are also more common among a younger, naive, immature population. It’s fucked up and selfish, surely. As fucked up as feeling you have the right to use another person’s body for your own physical pleasure or to assert dominance or whatever shit goes through a rapists mind? I don’t know.

Frankly, I’ve never been the victim or perpetrator of either crime, nor have I even been in a situation where either crossed my mind. All I’m qualified to say is that I wish neither crimes would happen to anyone.

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.

People who pretend to be victims upset me almost as much as people who victimize others (they are not equal, but it is still so fucked up). Victims have a rough enough time already being taken seriously. It doesn’t take more than a few false positives to completely take the air out of legitimate accusations from victims. I wish there was some way to solve this problem.

Mainstream and not unionized.

Apologies, no. My point wasn’t to minimize your reference. My point was to emphasize that things are actually worse. I suspect we may find ourselves in a mix of pre-reconstruction America and a fascist dictatorship.

This is a bucket of five alarm fires. My parents said “We’ve been here before and we’ll get through this too.” but that was month ago. I thought it was naive then and it’s willfully ignorant now.

Congress is behind him and the Supreme Court is pretty much here to run interference. Hell, lawsuits at this point are just an opportunity for the Supreme Court to say “Fuck precedent, fuck progress, let’s roll back the clock.”

If the government violated your civil rights, you yourself have to take them to court yourself to stop them from doing it. It won’t stop the from doing it to your neighbor, they’d need to sue the government on their own. If you win, you the courts can just decide you are a special case and nothing changes. What’s the point of civil rights if you have to personally sue the government to stop them from violating them?

If only a little gerrymandering were the only thing “here” consisted of.

There needs to be legal and political repercussions for politicians lying or misrepresenting the truth. Doesn’t matter if they didn’t mean to, then they should’ve done better research.

Political repercussions? Absolutely. Legal repercussions, without a need to demonstrate that the lack of truth was intentional? Answer me this: If there were legal repercussions for lying, would the current administration be able use it to substantially burden and damage politicians that stand in it’s way? What would prevent them from doing that? How can we ensure that it isn’t used to enforce the often referenced concept of a “Ministry of Truth” in a dystopian future not unlike this one?

I just don’t think people can handle the responsibility of formally bestowing that kind of power on a government and then ensuring it is filled with people who will not use it for their own ends.

For the last decade I’ve had my faith in humanity shattered inch by inch, ignored scandal by ignored scandal. I kept thinking “Oh, this, this must open their eyes to what’s really happening. There is no way they can ignore such a obvious disconnect with truth and reality!” Ten years later, and I’m watching the Supreme Court dismantle a century or more of legal progress. I’m watching Congress gut funding to programs that our most disenfranchised fellow citizens rely on to survive, enrich the wealthiest citizens, and create a gestapo of loyal racist shitbags. I’m watching both political parties attack the protest of a genocide by an allied country.

The most upset I’ve seen the country at Trump is right now. Why? Not because anything I already mentioned. It’s because even though Trump was Epstein’s best friend for a long time… and even though last time Trump was president he let Epstein die while under close watch… we’re just absolutely shocked that Trump is now claiming the documentation Epstein was keeping on all the friends and clients he helped rape children isn’t worth pursuing and doesn’t even exist.

No. I don’t think we can handle the responsibility of empowering people the police the truth. I don’t know how to even get us to the point where we can know what’s true anymore.

Edit: Scratch that last bit. I think the answer is to severely limit wealth and power. If you are rich and powerful enough, you can define what is fact and what is true. That needs to be prevented. Tax the excess, or fucking burn it - I don’t care at this point.

We don’t have to fall into pits of objective truth. If you say something, be perfectly explicit about what is a factual statement and what is your opinion.

All three branches of the US government have been captured by people for whom truth is literally whatever they need it to be in the moment. Thinktanks can vomit up bullshit research to support whatever is necessary, at least delaying resolution and casting doubt on even the most credible, well sourced facts. The media is spineless or complicit.

Or face penalties when your bunk is debunked.

Fucking lol. When you make the laws, control the courts, and have the resources for multi-billion dollar lawsuits debunking is going to take a while, if it ever happens. We’ll see if even the Epstein files get swept under the rug like everything else so far.

Science has already tread the path of “attempting to find truth through the consensus of doubts”. No need to try and trailblaze.

Ah yes, science has managed to blaze a trail right through the bullshit and convinced the the US that we really need to counteract or at least prepare for climate change, right? We’re doing… something… right? We’re not just hitting the gas for short term profits, right? Right?

There is a very real danger of having “lies” be a convenient, established tool to eliminate political opponents. Admittedly, these fucking fascists are perfectly willing to blaze their own authoritarian trail, regardless of precedent, and just find some bullshit reason to revoke your citizenship and ship you off to some gulag without due process. 'murica.

Those with power are only looking to make their own truth. Thinktank research. Controlling the news media. Controlling social media. Hell, even trying to dictate reality via prompt engineering and then purposely reducing the quality of search results to encourage people to rely on biased chatbots.

The fascists understand how to poison the well. They understand how to play the system. They know they can manipulate their base. They know they can manipulate their opponents by appealing to their better nature then taking advantage of any good faith granted by them.

The US is different now. It’s fucked up beyond anything I could have imagined even a year ago. I don’t think standing up for truth and bringing credible sources means anything anymore.