#progress and technology

[internutter]

Challenge #04096-K078: Isekai Choice

Inside you there are two wolves:

One whispers into your ear the fact that you been isekai'd; and the laws of the old world does not apply to this one.

The other begs you not to turn the Geneva convention into the Geneva suggestion. -- Anon Guest

One of the easiest dead giveaways that you're not in the reality you were born to is the continuing existence of dirigibles. A slightly more alarming one might be an Elf or a Kobold looting what they thought was your body. Or, in the case of a Kobold, chewing on it.

In this case, it was waking up to a robot doing medical care.

Tania stared, mostly because she could see the cogs and gears that were making the machine work. There was also a glowing gemstone in the middle of the chassis, which, after a little squinting, Tania identified as, "A flint arrowhead?"

[Check the source for the rest of the story]

[politijohn]

[reasonsforhope]

100% have been perusing your climate change masterpost, and understand you're probably swamped so feel free to delete of course. But if you can find the time, is there any kind of hope to give in fighting climate change now? Can we save ourselves against the oncoming steamroll?

You hang in there too. Thanks for finding the hope among everything else. It feels so bad rn but I have to believe it can change. I hope it can.

Yeah actually I do think there is hope.

Things are going to get rough. Things are going to get worse before they get better, both for the climate and for people living in the US (and for people living in lots and lots of other countries that will be affected by the US election results/the ways the climate will worsen as aa result).

I haven't posted about this yet because I didn't want it to come to this, but now that it has, here's something that people have been quietly saying/research has been showing for months:

-via Reuters, November 6, 2024

Renewables, especially solar, are just too powerful to be stopped. They just too much cheaper and too much better, and that's only going to become more true, not less.

Also, I think (and hope) it's actually inevitable that at some point, we'll get to net negative carbon emissions. I think it's like solar: the technology, cost, and planet all make it feel like an inevitable technological trajectory, the same way solar tech is on an exponential trajectory. (IF WE WORK FOR IT, OBVIOUSLY, but also so, so many people ARE working for it, have dedicated their lives to working for it)

I sure fucking hope that's the case, anyway.

(You can find my masterpost on going net negative on what that actually means here)

It is gonna happen more slowly and shittily than I hoped, but I do think it's going to happen.

And if we can get to net negative emissions in time to save ourselves (which I think we will, the rates of advancement in many of these areas are very impressive), then we'll be able to slowly start to undo and heal lot of the damage.

[savagechickens]

Häagen-Bot.

And more robots.

[swap-tech-enterprise]

Public Relations Internship Part A, Customer Swap Stories #2

My name is Michael and I am currently a junior public relations major at Penn State.

When the university announced they partnered with Swap Tech Enterprise (STE) and launched the “Semester in Their Shoes” program, I knew that I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. I would spend the semester in the body of a recent graduate working full time in the public relations field letting me see the day to day life of someone who works in public relations looked like. While participating in the program, the work assigned to you would equate to some of the classes I should be taking but can’t while part of the program, so not only was I gaining real world experience in the field, but I also wouldn’t be missing any credits and would still get to graduate on time. As for the person I would be swapping with, they would get to spend a couple of months living my life and having a break for all the work they had to do. 

Once applications for the program opened I immediately applied in hopes to spend my spring semester working in Public Relations. After months of waiting to hear back, I finally received the email informing me that I was accepted and matched with someone for the swap. I was so excited I could barely contain my excitement in the days leading up to the swap. Finally, the day arrived and I headed down to the STE Swap Bank as instructed. I informed them that I was participating in the program through my school and they quickly gave me a run down of who I would be swapping with other information that I would need to know before the swap. After receiving all the information, the Swap Technician took me to the swap room and began prepping me for the swap. As they counted down, I was so excited that I didn’t even realize I lost consciousness once the Swap Tech’s countdown hit 0. As I opened my eyes, I noticed I was in a different room and knew the swap had worked. However, as I stood up from the bed, something was wrong. Looking down at my hands I noticed they were showing signs of aging, which shouldn’t be the case since I was supposed to be swapping with a recent graduate. I brought my hands to my chest and noticed that I was showing signs of aging as well as my body looked like it hadn’t stepped foot in a gym in years. I quickly ran to the mirror and was shocked by the face looking back at me. It wasn’t the face of a 24 year old recent graduate but that of what I could assume was a 50-55 year old man. 

Turns out that Chris, the manager of the public relations team I was joining couldn’t secure any volunteers for the swap, so he elected to step up instead. I started demanding that they swap me back now, but per the terms of the contract I signed when applying for the program, it stated that if no recent grad volunteers could be available, the head of the team could step up in their place. Upset with the circumstances, I reluctantly got dressed and headed to Chris’s apartment in Midtown, as I was now going to be living at his place in New York until the end of the spring semester in May.  I quickly took a picture and sent it to my parents, as they wanted to be updated once I was settled in.

To say my parents were shocked was an understatement, but they also knew the terms I agreed too when applying for the program and told to stick it out as May would come soon enough and I could get back to my body. They also told me they’d keep a close eye on Chris in my body to make sure he didn’t do anything I would regret after the swap so that calmed my nerves a bit. Figuring I had nothing better to do, I prepped for my first day on the job tomorrow. What should be an exciting time in my life has now been ruined and all I can do now is finish what I signed up for. God, May can’t come quick enough! 

[seilon]

imagine being edwin payne and going to hell in 1916, then escaping hell and coming back to earth in the late 80s. the technology and culture shock would be fucking insane. like we joke a lot (rightfully) about his lack of understanding in the internet, but what about the instant shift he had to have made from occasionally getting to listen to classical music through a pre-radio gramophone, to hearing bass-boosted synth-heavy new wave pop blasting from nightclub speakers on every other london street corner? electrical appliances were basically just barely being introduced to the average home in the 1910s, then suddenly edwin has to wrap his head around every house having a refrigerator, a washing machine, a dryer, a microwave, a television– let alone what all this stuff is and what they all do. and let’s not even get started on social progress– women having rights, men on magazine covers wearing flashy makeup, legitimate interracial marriages existing, etc etc etc.

all this to say; he’s doing pretty good for someone that had to try and catch up on 70 years of technological and societal progress– not quite getting what the internet is yet seems pretty understandable in the scheme of things.

[jisreal64]

You know, I find it very annoying that artists, animators, actors, writers, and a bunch of other people bitch and whine about how much they hate generative AI and want it in its entirety to be banned and criminalized while at the same time loving stuff that either humanizes AI or portrays it in a positive light, like Murder Drones, The Wild Robot, Futurama, Detroit Become Human, My Life as a Teenaged Robot, Star Wars, and Free Guy; as well as talking about how much they love and/or fetishize ai characters like T-800, HAL 9000, and Ultron; and how they support robotkins and AIkins; like, my sibling in Christ, NO YOU DO NOT!!! If characters like Roz, Wall•E, Karen Plankton, Jenny Wakeman, C-P30, B.E.N, BMO, and Uzi Doorman were real, you would not be friends with them, nor would they be your waifu/husbando/babygirl, YOU WOULD BE ACTIVELY ADVOCATING FOR THEIR SEGREGATION AND/OR EXTERMINATION DUE TO THEM TAKING YOUR JOBS AND USING TOO MUCH WATER!!!

[pratchettquotes]

"But I'd always understood, sir, that Unseen University was against the use of movable type?"

"Oh, I think it's time to embrace the exciting challenges presented to us by the Century of the Fruitbat," said the Bursar.

"We...that's the one we're just about to leave, sir."

"Then it's high time we embraced them, don't you think?"

"Good point, sir."

Terry Pratchett, The Truth

[internutter]

Challenge #04469-L085: When in Doubt...

A: are you sure this building is up to spec?

B: trust me I had the best engineers working on this project everything this geometrical perfect to ±0.003 tolerance.

A: I may be a lowly contractor, but the wall is 92° from where I’m standing.

B: I-impossible I had it tripled checked before installation!

A: there’s a mountain goat licking for salt around 90 m above us -- Anon Guest

Architect Blaine looked up. Sure enough, the beast in question was perched on an apparently vertical expanse. Sniffing and licking the otherwise plain concrete. There were distant specks further up that also had to be goats.

"NO! We used the best satellite and laser technology! This was computer aided in every single step. This is impossible!"

"So," said Contractor Arde, "None of you took out a spirit level at any time?"

Blaine sneered down their nose at Arde. "This is a work about the pinnacle of technology. A monument to progress! No need for stone-age tools at all. Computers! Lasers! Artificial Intelligence! Every ninety degree angle measured with the most advanced technology that humanity could concoct. No physical tools beyond the construction machinery. It was meant to be perfect... Perfect."

[Check the source for the rest of the story]

[politijohn]

An interesting article worth the read

[whump-in-the-closet]

hmm sorry generative AI isn't another trademark use of progress it's qualitatively different the tradeoff isn't efficiency it's your independence

[clone-trooper-cheese]

He helpin

[wherenightmaresroost]

the problem with ai isn't that it's ai it's

evil companies pushing ai to devalue labor and creative products.

misconceptions about how ai works, leading to people attributing it an intelligence and sentience it does not have, which feeds into

misinformation, the decrease in effort needed to create disinformation, and the sudden increase of skill needed to spot falsified info. 3a. this includes content creators using ai to flood searches with low-quality articles and inaccurate photos, people not being transparent when they use ai for their images, and things that make it harder to do casual research online

lower threshold for doing hard work that polishes skill, leading to over-reliance on a very flawed tool.

the tool itself isn't the problem. it just exacerbates things that were already problems before.

[carnithing]

when r they gonna come out with technology that can reform your bones and muscles and turn ur skin transparent so the flesh underneath is visible

[rook2ii]

I'm working on revising the first (and second i guess?) chapter of that slay the princess x steven universe fic i was talking about writing and i just. really felt the need to draw this little scene from it.

ft. my working gem designs for cheated, hero, contrarian, and cold

I promise that I'll actually upload the fic at some point lmao i just wanna finish revising it first

[swap-tech-enterprise]

Public Relations Internship Finale, Customer Swap Stories #2

Hi there, my name is Chris and I am the manager of one of the teams at one of the most elite public relations firms in the country!

When I received a request for a swap within the Swap Tech Enterprise (STE) “Semester in Their Shoes” program, I was super excited as I would be able to train and teach a member of the incoming generation of public relations field. I quickly got to work trying to secure a member of my team who would be willing to swap with Michael, but none were willing to step up. Eventually, I had received a firm no from all members of my team, so I reached out to STE and let them know they would need to reach out to another firm to secure a body for Michael. However, they informed as per the contract both Michael signed when applying for the program and the contract that the company signed as a participating industry leader, I could step up and do the swap with Michael instead. I was nervous at first, because not only would the work load be way more than what he was expecting, but he would also be getting a body twice his age and I would be robbing him of 5 months of his golden years. However, after a lot of deliberation and talking with my manager, we decided it be best to move along with me swapping with Michael not only to keep a good relationship with STE, but so that Michael can gain the experience he was promised when accepted into the program. My manager ensured that he’d be there to help Michael out whenever needed as he would be stepping into a role way out of his caliber. With everything settled, I informed STE of the decision and headed down to the Swap Bank on the day designated. This wasn’t my first time use STE to body swap as I had used it before when going on company business trips, so I quickly settled in and the Swap Technician initiated the swap. Waking up from the swap, I immediately felt more rejuvenated as I was now a 21 year old college student again.

Getting out of the bed, I went to the bathroom and was not disappointed by the sight in front of me in the mirror.

Michael definitely took care of his body, most likely thought eating healthy and going to the gym a couple of times a week. I couldn’t wait to get back to his place and explore more of my new body. For the next 5 months I am Michael, without any responsibilities whatsoever I am going to live it up the fullest until May gets here!