Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

I have successfully tuned up Instagram now to where 99% of what I'm shown is videos of gorillas, bears, and/or elephants. Consequently, I love Instagram! It's great!

same here I've got over 500 FB friends but I feel like my entire feed is like the same 10 of them over and over again. I deliberately try not to interact with certain people/groups because I don't want them filling up my timeline forever.

if u r on desktop for fb, you can click "feeds" and it will present you with a chronological feed with (afaict) no ads/algo content, dont know how that works on the app since i dont have it on my phone

(nm there will be ads but i have a fb ad blocker extension on firefox)

I use a chrome extension for Facebook, the Newsfeed Eradicator. bless it, i never look at facebook any longer except to check up on a few specific groups and friends… but no feed, chronological or algorithmic. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicator/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg

facebook vaguely able to follow real people in a web browser, the app is terrible. nobody I know actually posts on it, the few parents I know who would put fun kid stuff on there are social media avoidant or put things elsewhere.

so if I open the app 80% of the feed is posts from recommended groups and due to search history and other group membership it’s all people doing home repairs in novel (wrong) ways

stone cold freaks.

Breaking news: The OpenAI drama is real.

We checked our data and last night, SF saw a spike in low-quality sleep. There was a 27% increase in people getting under 5 hours of sleep. We need to fix this.

Source: @eightsleep data

— Matteo Franceschetti (@m_franceschetti) November 20, 2023

sure sure yeah yeah lol

these people (the mattress people and its customers) are freaks whether or not that is true to be clear.

It was really cold last night (under 50F), also there were a ton of friendsgiving parties.

the shivers up my spine when i hear the word “friendsgiving”

Friendstaking parties are the way to go uh wait.

Algorithms and AI and streaming everything just seem to make many of the more joyful aspects of Life a pretty soulless endeavor.

Actually my least favorite part about social media is how in life we probably only have limited space in our minds for our social lives, and we should emphasize quality over quantity, but these apps and sites just mean that no one ever really goes away and it's more difficult to let the natural fadeout of peripheral friendships and casual acquaintanceships occur. Or worse still, people you forgot ever existed decide they want to find you and then they add you on Facebook or Instagram or whatever and there they are again, when they really should have been gone forever.

Before/after. See what I mean? There's just no comparison. Which would you rather hang in your entryway? How did the AI 'know' exactly what the starting pic needed to complete it? Amazing. pic.twitter.com/SGQOsagQJK

— sonch (@soncharm) November 16, 2023

sometimes i really think these people are trolling.

could be

I mean, I guess that might be giving them the benefit of the doubt too much.

i do think that one is a troll

Friendstaking parties are the way to go uh wait.

that guy's been doing this bit for a while. AI is bad but i also feel bad for anybody who thinks that guy is posting in earnest

Using AI, I was able to take some old painting and make it better. First the painting. Notice how old and colorless it is. And you can't even see the girl's face. There's just no info to work with here. So blah. pic.twitter.com/qyyyjLLRnZ

— sonch (@soncharm) October 20, 2023

yeah, definite troll

i am assiduous in declining cookies, do not have a FB Google or Amazon account, and i don’t see any of the algorithmic interest shit you guys are talking about which is exactly how i like it. the only chink in my armour is my Whatsapp account, have no idea how i’m going to get rid of that but afaik nothing in my posts there get leaked into an online profile

congratulations (and please retire the phrase 'chink in your armour' from your vocabulary)

not sure I agree with that.. maybe we could retain it as an actual word and not a slur

sorry it never occurred to me!

xp to andy

the latest rolling thread on race is thataway -> Rolling Thread on Race 2022

your 1500 word essay on why 'chink' should be retained as a word and not a slur is due on my desk by 9 AM sharp tomorrow morning, or i'm failing you for the semester!

provide an appendix on 'niggardly'

the shivers up my spine when i hear the word “friendsgiving”

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Tuesday, November 21, 2023 11:51 AM (seven hours ago)

way out on a limb here but let me guess, you have healthy relationships with your parents and/or inherited a bunch of money from someone.

for others, friendsgiving is for those who lack those kind of nuclear safety nets, god forbid you get the shivers or... the vapors!

check your privilege? :-)

suspect table's objection is less to "having friends" and more to "talking like a rejected buffy script all the time", or maybe to "reifying the nuclear-family definition of thanksgiving by presuming the necessity of a neologism", or even to "that neologism's very syntax implying that its coiners take the word 'thanks' as having something to do with mom and dad", not that i or anyone else can rly know what goes thru his head as he and his clan stroll the innermost gardens of table manor

yeah just call it thanksgiving its not like its named famsgiving

have had many very enjoyable thanksgivings w friends rather than family and you know what i’ll do it again

Tracer, way out on a limb again but gonna assume you have not had a turkey dinner in the 21st century.

well look out below my friend, i am riding that gravy train to turkey town on the reg (tho i have been known to mix it up w duck and rooster)

:O

As a non-american, Thanksgiving isn't less cringeworthy than Friendsgiving as a title (quite apart from issues of holy fucking shit take off that pilgrim hat)

photos of American ILXors gathered at thanksgiving/friendsgiving with pilgrim hats on plz

xposts to Steve Shasta, I didn’t see my biological family for Thanksgiving or many holidays at all from 2006-2017. it certainly is privileged to have homophobic parents who question your “decision” to be gay all the time!

But really, difficult listening hour gets it down— it’s a cringeworthy word. I don’t like the holiday for many reasons, but even in those years when I spent it with friends or my roommates, we called it “Thanksgiving”.

also fwiw one of my books is named after a sandwich which is named after the holiday— I’ve thought about the word a lot.

My understanding of Friendsgiving is that it’s an extra gathering with non-family on Friday

mind going all kinds of places trying to align this with the youth saying “it’s giving” about all kinds of things

ILX IS INVITED TO MY HOT THANKS-TAKE

I would have a FAPsgiving with all of you!

My understanding of Friendsgiving is that it’s an extra gathering with non-family on Friday

agreed. the idea that this would happen before Thursday is heresy. That's just dinner!

idk if its proper but people def call having day of thanksgiving thanksgiving with friends friendsgiving

sad but true

"friendsgiving" is when you just watch the Thanksgiving episodes of Friends all day

In that context it sounds like a ritual where you sacrifice your friends on the fourth Thursday of November, which tbh is making me come back around on liking the name

Everyone here is awesome and I’m thankful, but how about let’s-get-over-ourselves-giving i think that might be most in keeping with whatever fictional spirit of the day there is. NB i’m told I’m usually wrong.

(That was not in response to the Friends joke but it still works)

Um, please look at the thread title... there's another thread for this line of chatter

The search results disagree with you