Most people aren’t super involved with AI, and basically use it passively. In the same vien, up until fairly recently, social media was generally seen as a good thing because people enjoyed it and it wasn’t common knowledge (not that evidence didn’t exist) all the negative impacts it had. Thats not to say social media, or generative AI shouldn’t exist, but the topic is more complex, and most people don’t engage with that complexity and simply do whats easiest or what marketing tells them to do.

surely they wouldnt have invested trillons on it if it was garbage

Investors throw money at stupid stuff all the time. Tech in particular tends to be volitile and speculative. I mean, right before AI, it was NFTs, and before that, “the metaverse”, and befors that blockchain. All of these were said to be gigantic new technologies that would revolutionize every industry and every aspect of life, and each had billions (trillions?) of dollars invested in them. Each of them lasted about a year before their value collapsed and they were realized to be overpriced dead-ends and empty marketing.

This kind of “I am immune to snakebite because of my religion” thing has a history of getting people killed.

Was this a case of overreliance on faith? Seems to me more likely that its just that the idea that a snake could bite him and it will hurt that is too complex for him to understand.

I’ve been slowly transitioning everything to Linux. I’ve been using Kubuntu so far, but have been encountering enough issues that I might have to go back and redo it with a new distro at some point.

For transparency, I’m a second hand source, close to multiple people who lived across the region.

Generally, the region is both extremely distrustful of government and outsiders, as well as being extremely prone to superstition and magic thinking. Obviously, there is the spectre of colonialism, but more recently than this, governments in the region are generally corrupt, violent and unstable on a scale westerners would find unbelievable. For example, (if I remeber right) Nigeria recently issued new bills but then much of the money “”“disappeared”“” before reaching banks and other organizations. The president claimed snakes ate the money. More relevant to this, with the inconsistent enforcement of laws, doctors are often unreliable or outright dangerous, such as giving sugar pills instead of medication. I have no idea of the authenticity of this (which is part of the problem), but from my own circle, there were stories of patients of the last ebola outbreak taken for quarentine, and then left unattended to or without food and water. Given all this, its not suprising that they wouldn’t trust outsiders taking people away.

At the same time, there is an abundance of superstition and magical thinking. I’m not sure how much of this is cultural versus reglious versus trauma and oppression versus lack of education, but belief in conspiracies, witchcraft, demons/spirits, and other such stuff is widespread to the point where it make the American south look tame. This is fed into further by the same sorts of social media rumors and misinformation that have become popular globally, but with far more gulibility and far less ability to disprove them (due to lack of education, and lack of local resources).

Taken together, you have basically the perfect cultural environment for this sort of anti-science movement.

And we all know how easy it is to buy an ARM board, install Linux and add all the ethernet ports one desires.

We do?

I’d say the worst are when…

• You outplayed your opponent, but still lost

• The opponent is toxic

• Your teammates are actively throwing

• You put a significant investment into the game

Of those, usually only the last is true of chess. I’d say most Esports titles are worse. Nothing is as bad as being locked in a game of CS or Dota for an hour with a griefer, while the game is clearly otherwise winnable, and the opponents spend the whole game gloating about how good they are.

I mean, people do, although terrorist isn’t a super accurate label for him. Terrorist implies using violence to create terror for a political gain. Trump generally is more acting out of sheer stupidity and malice rather than for any deeper political agenda. Terms like violent madman, fascist, war criminal, murderer or wannabe dictator are more accurate.

No, altough they do tend to be good at picking out vulnerable people and manipulating them.

I think you’re misunderstanding the premise of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character. A big part of definition is that they are almost entirely without flaw, and are generally (although not always) meant to be an author’s self-insert. Light and Tony Stark for example, are both intelligent but also stubborn, arogant, privileged assholes who are practically defined by their flaws. Superman could be considered a Gary Stu, esspecially in some of the earlier and simpler iterations but he’s honestly such a simple character in general that his lack of flaws doesn’t stand out.

The examples that do come to mind are Kirito from Sword Art Online, some versions of Batman, or Butcher from The Boys comics specifically. These are characters that are portrayed as unambiguously good, near perfect men who win every conflict are uniquely capable of solving every problem. Kirito is almost universally disliked, Batman depends a lot on the iteration but generally isn’t well-liked as a character, and I’ve heard nothing positive about The Boys comics (although its less popular in general).

As for why there is more criticism of Mary Sues, I think its not directly because people are harsher on female characters (not that they aren’t) so much as because they’re more common, esspecially in popular culture. Writing fiction is more cultural acceptable for young girls than young guys, so you end up with more amateur writers writing Mary Sues. In professional projects (notably often led by men due to industry sexism), it tends to be a matter of design-by-committee where they pick a man as a lead to match the male majority, and just throw in a token strong woman as an afterthought.

Now, not every character or show has to be relatable. Peter Parker works because he’s an everyman; however, the opposite can also be true, and people like fantasy escapism. That’s why soap operas about wealthy people or sitcoms about financially stable families are popular, because it’s a form of escapism this goes for Mary Sues and Gary Stus too.

I think a big distinction here is where the enjoyment comes from. You can have a story with a Mary Sue/Gary Stu that is still enjoyable, but generally that specific character adds nothing to the story themselves. For example, if you enjoy Sword Art Online, its for the setting, or the action, or the self-insert-fantasy. Its not for Kirito, and any time you put any focus on him, the story gets weaker. Compare that to, for example, Light, who has meaningful moral complexity despite his unmatched abilities, or Saitama, who despite his infinite power is made relatable through his struggles of daily life. The problem with Mary Sues/Gary Stus isn’t their power or self-insert nature, its the focus on a character who is flat, incapable of growth, and/or trivializes any plot.

That part was to vent.

Generally, I post either hoping to inform others, or be informed by others. Unfortunately, the lack of discussion/activity here is a pretty major disincentive to continue posting.

Unfortunately, I’m looking for more “pure” casual games, rather than ones that are primarily puzzle or arcade games. Something more akin to Cookie Clicker or Bejeweled’s zen mode rather than Tetris or Brickbreaker. F-Droid doesn’t seem to really have much like that.