I’m actually ass broke, really. The luck part is right, though. Happened to be born in a socialist democracy with good care and support for all.

And from the other side of that spectrum, I take the maximum prescribable in my country, 72mg, daily, and it’s been good for me. Though I’ve found that I seem to have a weirdly good tolerance or luck in regards to side effects of medications. I’ve only ever tried a few, out of so many, that caused anything undesirable at all.

Not sure if there are differences between methylphenidates though? Mine’s branded concerta.

Oh wow, thank you for the elaboration! Now that you spelled it out like that, I have to admit I have very similar thoughts, albeit in different circumstances, so I can’t really say I don’t see where you are coming from.

In fact, you’ve broadened my horizons, even if just a bit, and I thank you for the perspective.

I can’t say I totally understand the circumstances you live under, but I think I understand enough to know some of how that feels. And I’ve expressed the very same thoughts multiple times, even here on lemmy, so that was a little bit hypocritical of me. Sorry

While your frustration is shared, and understandable, let’s not start throwing death around like it’s some little thing

And this is if we only strictly try and think about this fiscally. The human, social and moral side only expands from this, and are much more important, too.

The thing is, there are no ideal options here. While the 700bn goes to violence, at least in my country I know for a fact it goes to defense, since we very explicitly have no general armed forces, only defense forces. The same is not true for Russia or the US.

But I suppose you are right in that it depends on the specific country. I’m from a progressive social democracy, the world’s happiest people multiple years in row according to some studies, so it’s easy for me to say I’d rather choose the current situation over getting Russia or US conditions here… but maybe the same is not true for all European countries. There are many, after all, and in case of Hungary, for example, I would probably feel the same as you. There wouldn’t be much of a difference, just the flavor of who gets to oppress you and your people.

But there is no choice here, in my country, in which the current social situation remains as good as it is here, and in which we also do not spend any money on defense, local as well as Europe at large.

If the choice is between oppressive leadership, I’d much rather choose my current flavor. People can be who they are here, there’s no militia silencing our voices, and while things could be better in a million different ways, they also could be so much worse, as demonstrated by the two dickswingers, Russia and USA.

In an ideal world we would not spend on violence. I agree with that. It’s a waste. It leads to people dying, especially innocents. But it’s not an ideal world. And until it is, the choice has to be between different flavors of bad, I suppose, and personally I would 100% always choose the flavor in which I feel safe, happy and supported as a gender identity and sexual minority with mental health problems and adhd. And I would hope that most would do the same.

Because the alternative is just going to be fatal for me, at least, and a lot of people like me.

Edit: And yeah, you can pick out my points and their details in many ways, but the fact that the alternative can be picked out in so many more ways, remains. It’s all relative. I don’t see it as a good option to sacrifice good, just because it is not perfect, and get an outright horrible outcome. I’d much rather just try and help things remain at least good…

Edit2: Also, to address the “everybody wants to invade you” part: The US has declared it will start expansion and assimilate parts of other sovereign countries. One of those being part of Europe… An European country is currently deep in a defense war against a nation that has also declared that letting my country gain independence was a mistake and that is listed in multiple writings of prominent leadership members as one of the next countries that will be part of Russia “again”. So I don’t think everyone wants to invade us, not by a long shot. But there are countries that have been very explicit in their want, or even need, to fucking invade us and start enrussificating us.

The fact that you aren’t even considering these things, things that are well known and plainly and openly broadcast by these dickswingers, in some cases for many decades now, just tells me that you fail to understand what it actually is like being an openly stated target of assimilation. You make it a joke, as if nobody ever wants to conquer anyone, but it’s just fucking fantasy to think that. Right now, the same country that has stated my country “is in fact” part of their country, is, in real time, fighting a war of assimilation not too far from our borders… I get that this might not be close to you, you may live somewhere far away and don’t know this, but it hits a bit different when you are actually here. I can’t even imagine what it is like for Ukraine…

I do hope you could also try and expand your point of view and gain some perspective. The world is fairly shit in terms of things like this. Pretending otherwise won’t change that. The moment you blink, the nazis and oligarchs just do what they already have told you, over and over, what they will do. And next thing you know, you are being raped in a prison for being “a deviant” and your murder is then hidden away as your peers continue to face this reality.

Yeah, well, say we successfully block any further military spending here in the eu.

Is Russia going to stop their spending? USA?

No?

Then what will we do when they come for us next?

This wouldn’t be a factor if our nations were almost alike and no practical changes would occur should they conquer majority of Europe, but most of Europe is comparatively in another sphere in terms of progressiveness and social stuff. Compared both to USA and Russia.

Would the 700bn used, right now, in some better causes be worth it, if in somewhat near future we’ll have our minorities in concentration camps, killed or expelled? Our social systems torn to shreds, poverty and income differences rising? The authoritarian/oligarch rule we’d get then would spend that 700bn in many multiples in warfare, but also similar amounts extra for police and other oppressive powers to silence any and all opposition.

I’m just saying there are things worth defending, such as lgbtq+ rights, (comparatively much more progressive and universal) social equality and you know, the basics such as low levels of impoverishment, guaranteed housing for everyone, quality and unhindered education etc etc.

The sentiment is understandable and in a naive sense I agree, but the paradox of tolerance applies here, and it’s not so straight forward.

Sometimes you just have to punch a nazi in order to stop them getting too comfortable and getting bold. Well, right now the equivalent of the nazis here are, and have been, emboldened for over a decade, and it’s unfortunately going to take a lot of punches to stop them swallowing everyone whole and imposing even worse environments and even more poverty for all.

Perhaps the best time was back then. The next best time is now.

I use signal too, exclusively apart from sms or the rare iMessage my grandparents send. It’s been fine. I can’t recall if it was app setting or it just works™, but I get no sounds, and still get notifications so I can check them when I have the time and energy to deal with all that.

Yeah same here, and I haven’t missed it a bit. As a downside, I constantly misplace the thing and have to search for it when I hear the specific rhythmic vibration somewhere. If anyone had something extremely urgent, they’ll be able to call my partner or neighbor or something. And I do check the notifications daily, too, so Im never completely out of the loop.

I’ve noticed, also, that I’m much better at actually answering the phone or answering messages. Former since I so seldomly get any noticeable feedback from the phone, so it feels fine to grab it and answer if it rings and I happen to notice it. The messages, because I read them when I have time, so then I also have time to answer. I used to get messages and read them and I’d be in middle of something, so I’d just think to myself “I’ll reply later”, and I very rarely remembered and actually did.

It feels counterintuitive, but I’m not complaining. Life is much more peaceful. I get all the busy notifications and contacts and news and all that on my own terms, when I’m ready, and it feels great not to be disturbed while I’m working or cooking or whatever.

Just an anecdote, but I don’t think flirting is a specific thing to do per se, so feel it’s more just being honest to yourself and the other and letting it come out, I.e you shouldn’t think specifically about flirting, just say the things out loud you notice in the other or feel inside. Like tell them they look beautiful if they do. You create unneeded pressure when you think it as an explicit thing to do and master, when really, it’s messaging out loud your vulnerable observations and feelings we generally hold inside.

You feel bubbly inside with them? I would just go ahead and say that exactly as-is, without trying to be explicitly flirty or somehow “traditional” or beholden to the norms of what we’ve been taught flirting is.

Bubbly inside is fine if that’s what you feel. Their hair has amazing golden hues in the sun? Just say it if it feels right. You want to spend more time with them? That’s flirting, too, if you just say it out loud.

It’s vulnerable and scary, but it’s not hard or really even a bespoke thing to do. It’s letting yourself be vulnerable and open to hurt by voicing your thoughts, feelings and desires.

It can be fun too, since if the other is also struggling with knowing when it’s fine to voice things like that, you doing it signals it’s fine and you get all the warmth and love and voiced validation for yourself too. You get to hear how they perceive you, what is beautiful or exciting in you, you lower the barrier of just hooking up if it feels right for both, forming thoughts and feelings into words just starts coming more natural and it’s always just fun and exciting and validating, as well as all the other lovely things.

So what I’m trying to say is don’t think about flirting as a thing, just start saying shit out loud when you feel said shit. You like the way they look? Just start voicing it out loud, and it just flows naturally from there if the excitement is mutual.

Much less intimidating if you stop thinking about it and stressing about the concept of flirting as you’ve perceived it from media and such. It’s natural, comes readily for all, when the situation is right. All it takes is daring to take the jump, which is really the only serious blocker, being brave enough to be vulnerable. If you make flirting as a concept a blocker and a source of anxiousness too, you’ll have double the amount of anxiousness and blockers.

Best try and consciously just say things out loud instead. Half the stress and sweat, 100% of the reward ✨

It’s like I don’t give a crap about anything or anyone

Well, there you go. This is most likely the culprit, and it is something one can train. If caring does not come readily, you’ll have to train it, just like reading, writing and other human skills.

Good luck.

Same, but as a fun bonus, it’s also the constant source of my many anxieties

Okay, consider my interest entirely piqued. How does it feel watching something like that? You seem like the kind of guy to go have a beer with. That’s a total mad lad move, I would watch something like that in a heartbeat, drop work and all, just go enjoy this absurd result of a gem the universe has bestowed upon us. Even better if it was me in there, not some internet genius I don’t know, but I kind of need to see Empire Strikes back but everyone’s the same guy and sounds the same now

Oh man, whoever’s shielding him has some tight pants on. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of them

I suppose this is exactly why…

To be fair, the entire history of humanity is full of exactly that. These are mostly just aimed at and recognized by the US. Same as Russia currently renaming occupied villages. Nobody else recognizes those, it’s just not that special or important at this point, with all of the other shit going on.

Ultimately, the names of places change. All the time. And will continue to change. It’s just what we do as humans. Somebody uses force and swings their dick around and locally others have to either accept it, silently or whining, or punch the fucker. Elsewhere people fight similar fights and care very little about the other dickswingers far away.

That 20% is just way too optimistic for anything more serious so as it would normally prompt hiring of software engineers.

If the project currently requires human developers as paid employees, it will continue to require that. So in introducing today’s ai, you either pay for the employees and the language model expenses, or you pay reduced employee expenses and the language model expenses, and then figure out a way to fund a complete, unavoidable refactor/rewrite down the line and how to adapt the business model back to sustaining employing the original amount of engineers on top of that lump sum.

If the project never was going to employ anyone, then yeah, using a language model can be more productive. It’s never going to require the amount of stability and cohesiveness a serious application doing serious things would require.

Otherwise, it’s just going to add work and require effort in an amount of multiples that scales with the complexity and seriousness of the application.

And while it does this, it consumes ridiculous amounts of more energy and resources than a human person would. Especially those that are not sustainable, that humans do not generally require in such immense amounts.

It’s going to be a net negative for a good while. If we ever survive the burning of our resources with these current models, maybe we get to something actually serious and usable, but I doubt those two can ever work together.

It also has potential to decrease the quality.

I think the main pivot point is whether it replaces human engineers or complements them.

I’ve seen people with no software engineering experience or education, or even no programming experience at all in any form, create working apps with AI.

I’ve also seen such code in multiple instances and have to wonder how any of it makes sense at all to anyone. There are no best practices seen, just a confusing set of barely working disconnected snippets of code that very rudimentarily work together to do what the creator wanted in a very approximate, inefficient and unpredictable way, while also lacking any benefits of such disconnect such as encapsulation or any real domain-separated design.

Extending and maintaining that app? Absolutely not possible without either a massive refactoring resembling a complete rewrite, or, you know, just a honest rewrite.

The problem is, someone who doesn’t know what they are doing, doesn’t know what to ask the language model to do. And the model is happy to just provide what is asked of it.

Even when provided proper, informed prompts, the disability to use the entire codebase as the context causes a lot of manual intervention and requires bespoke design in the code base to work with that.

It absolutely takes many more times more work to make it all work for ML in a proper, actually maintainable and workable way, and even then requires constant intervention, to the point that you end up doing the work you’d do manually, but in at least triple the amount of effort.

It can enhance some aspects, of which one worth a special mention is actually the commenting and automatic, basic documentation skeletons to work up from, but it certainly will not, for some while, replace anyone. Not unless the app really only has to work, maybe, sometimes, and stay as-is without any augmentations, be they maintenance or extending or whatever.

But yeah, it sort of makes sense. It’s a language model. Not a logical model or one that is capable of understanding given context, and being able to get even close to enough context, and maintain or even properly understand the architecture it works with.

It can mimic code, as it is a language model after all. It can get the syntax right, sure, and sometimes, in small applications, it works well enough. It can be useful to those who would not employ engineers in the first place, and it can be amazing for those cases, really, good for them! But anything that requires understanding of anything? Yeah, that’s going to do nothing other than confuse and trip everyone in the long run, requiring multiples of work to do in comparison to just doing it with actual people who can actually understand shit and retain tens of years worth of accumulated extremely complex and large context and experience applying it in practice.

But, again, for documentation, I think it is a perfect fit. It needs not any deeper context, and it can put into general language what it sees as code, and sometimes it even gets it right and requires minimal input from people.

So, it can increase quality in some sense, but we have to be really conscious of what that sense is, and how limited its usefulness ultimately is.

Maybe in due time, we’ll get there. But we are not even close to anything groundbreaking yet in this realm.

I don’t think we’ll ever get there, because we are very likely going to overextend our usage of natural resources and burn out the planet before we get there. Unless a miracle happens, such as stable fusion energy or something as yet inconceivable.