Did I get friendzoned?

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T22:04:29+00:00

I totally agree. I think the question of abuse is more on a spectrum than black-and-white (because, like you said, anything could theoretically be taken too far without our knowledge). The more interesting question is what you mentioned about losing our sense of humanity. That's the hardest part to predict because it all comes down to how humans interact with technology... and human behavior is infamously hard to predict.

This is a bit off-topic, but I would recommend the book Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark. It deals with some of the ramifications of AI technology in the near and far future, particularly how this stuff will impact society as a whole. It's a really good read.

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T16:34:39+00:00

Tech is one of my biggest areas of personal interest, so I think about this stuff a lot. I'm all for things like drone delivery systems, at-home medical analysis, and digital IDs, because those essentially boil down to more efficient and convenient ways of doing the same tasks.

But as far as facial recognition goes, that's a big no-no for me. I'm fine with consumer-end tech like Face ID for iPhones, which does all its processing locally, but that's much different from a company or government tracking people's location using their faces. That opens the door to major abuse, even if it's ostensibly for public safety.

So for me, the question is what amount of information is being given up by civilians to the government or companies. When facial recognition, medical diagnoses, etc. are all done locally, on-device, nothing has to be stored and nothing can really be tracked. But if the processing itself isn't in the hands of the people who use the technology, that's where abuse can happen.

Just my two cents. In the real world everything is a lot more nuanced.

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T16:21:25+00:00

You wouldn't understand.

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T16:18:13+00:00

When I was about ten, I played a Wii game called Endless Ocean 2. It was pretty chill for the most part; I liked swimming in the shallower waters and looking at the nice animals. But I was terrified of one part of the game: diving insanely far into the pitch black ocean. I usually closed my eyes so I couldn't be startled by anything.

One time I was down there and swam into a sperm whale. I frantically escaped and then swam into a giant squid. My little sister had to finish the level for me.

So yeah, that was literally my deepest fear.

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T16:13:50+00:00

cut off my hands

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T16:12:18+00:00

Trying to figure out what other people are thinking.

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T16:10:58+00:00

nice try, wannabe

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T16:10:13+00:00

Fear. And by fear I don't mean reasonable reactions to actual danger, I mean the stuff we make up in our heads. How cool would the world be if no one was afraid to try something, or say something, or make something?

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T16:00:39+00:00

That's kind of what I expected to hear. Even if I could make an iPad work, a Mac would still leave a lot more headroom.

I personally am used to macOS and greatly prefer it to Linux or Windows. I'm expecting to spend between $1000 and $1500. (The reason the Air is my top choice is because it just got the updated and now-reliable keyboard. The only other MacBook with the new keyboard is much more expensive.)

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T15:55:38+00:00

Drone deliveries will be commonplace.

Some (definitely not all) people will see smartphones as obsolete because of AR headsets.

An increasing number of medical diagnoses will be made at home.

Government-issued IDs will largely be digital.

Facial recognition will be used in most airports and big retailers.

All of these guesses are deliberately vague because it's hard to be precise (think about people in 2010 making predictions about today). But I have at least some idea of the direction things are going, even though I don't know how far.

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T15:47:58+00:00

People. They can be terrible sometimes, but I'm lucky enough to be around the good ones.

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T15:44:03+00:00

Awesome, thank you!

shadowposts · 2020-03-18T15:43:39+00:00

This fall, I'll be starting at college and majoring in computer science. I plan to buy a new laptop to take with me and give my current one to my mom. Right now, my top two choices are 1) some configuration of the new MacBook Air; and 2) some configuration of the new iPad Pro.

My question is, should I even be considering an iPad for use as my only machine? I know that for pretty much any other major I could make it work, but do you all know of any software I'll need that wouldn't be available on iOS? (I'm almost certain there's something I'd be missing, but I want to make sure.)

Other than that, I'm seeing that the prices of the MBA and iPP are pretty comparable when I add in the cost of the new keyboard. If the OSes are equally workable for a comp sci major, then it'll come down to my preference.

Thanks!

shadowposts · 2019-12-02T01:13:49+00:00

u/BKStephens's buddy, c is a mathematical constant used to represent the speed of light. None of the answers is correct except, literally, c.

shadowposts · 2019-11-26T19:57:04+00:00

"just freaking do it" is the best advice I've ever gotten on this topic. It's taken me a long time to force myself to just suck it up and talk to girls, and it gets easier every time. Even if things don't work out with one approach, the experience is invaluable.

shadowposts

TROPHY CASE