Spiro sucks, and I’m currently on a pretty massive dose. Looking forward to dialing it back after my valerate takes hold.

It’s a complicated dance. Before my egg cracked I was on T pellets and they gave me superpowers. Nothing much bothered me and I got in some epic workouts. But I felt two-dimensional. I eventually realized what I actually should do, but fully withdrawing one hormone suuuuuuucks unless it’s smoothly replaced with another one. Suppressing T by itself is not a good time.

I always thought it was funny how the right uses commerce as the solution to all problems when it’s inherently exclusionary. You have money, you get things. You don’t, you starve… Government is supposed to be inherently inclusionary- all people are guaranteed inalienable rights by dint of their existence.

If we have to use capitalism, it should be backstopped by a system that continues to deliver when markets fail. This idea that we should run government like a business is ridiculous.

Not to worry, we will cover the expense.

The feeling of constant acceleration is valid. It will only get more intense in the coming years, so consider this your practice round.

In spite of the marginal results a lot of current LLMs can deliver, they are making a difference in some areas of work. I’m a data engineer and working with an agent over the last few months has been a revelation. You have to wrangle it just so, but with an adequate context well-defined, you can plow through months of tedious due-diligence and fine-tuning in days.

I wouldn’t trust it for medical advice… yet… but the time will come when it stops being “ai” and becomes like autofocus or voice transcription or shopping cart suggestions, just another tool. Something else will take on that mantle, and be a different, even more disconcerting mixed bag.

There was a book that came out about 20 years ago by Ray Kurzweil, named The Singularity is Near that discussed this phenomenon in detail, and so far has been prophetic. It will help you understand what’s happening and what’s coming next.

Welcome. I too disagreed with the wrong people on Reddit and can no longer participate there.

Yeah presently Lemmy is not Reddit-scale. But, it also is not Reddit-moderated, or Reddit-algorithmed. I find I can sign into Lemmy, do a bit of scrolling and commentary to scratch my itch, and get on with my day. No dynamic selection designed to retain my engagement through emotional manipulation, a far lower population of malicious bots and actors, and generally more thoughtful discussion.

Quality beats quantity. Federated social breaks the toxic monoculture. Distributed media like this is able to support a broader diversity of people. In the end, this is the future.

Is this related to the idea that as soon as artificial intelligence can be applied to a specific use-case, it ceases to be magical, hand-wavey magic and becomes auto-focus, or shopping suggestions, or voice transcription?

To the 18th century doctor, our state of healthcare is literally science fiction tales of wonder. Resurrecting the dead, replacing organs, changing gender… impossible! Now it’s just healthcare.

The “waning days” are not waning fast enough. Too much time will pass and we will forget all of these monstrous people did and said all those horrible things.

Transgender tech person here. I’d generally agree with you.

In the last 5 years I’ve lost 160 pounds, instituted an aggressive exercise program, started a longevity-focused supplement regime which includes radically changing the function of my endocrine system to focus on estrogen. Somebody who hasn’t seen me since starting would have a hard time believing I was the same person.

All of this is really only possible due to the technology and research we have access to. Bioidentical hormones, anti-inflammatory drugs, anti-androgens, metabolic support like GLP-1 agonists, etc, as well as the basic over-the-counter supplements… are all backed by many decades of research by armies of scientists on proper formulation and dosage. Not to mention the advances in wearable tech that continually track my physical condition, combined with staggering levels computational power that synthesizes the whole picture.

The march of advancement is ongoing. We are soon to enter the era of personalized medicine, where my genome can be analyzed to produce custom viruses and mRNA that deliver precisely defined instructions to fix or alter specific aspects of my person. This doesn’t even touch on surgical innovations.

I think what the kitten-eaters dislike is not the tech but the -ism in transgenderism. The notion that I should want a change they find culturally icky, but can’t dispense with without also doing away with all the other stuff they do want. It drives ‘em nuts, lol. As long as we live in a free society, I get to do whatever I want. So, their solution is to make the society less free, but just for this.

That targeted disenfranchisement easily broadens to persecute an entire credo that naturally occurs around people such as myself. I also live in a city, have electric cars in my drive and solar panels on my roof, and subscribe to crazy notions like everybody should have guaranteed access to medicine. This is apparently an existential threat to the straight, white, male, Protestant, suburban fossil-fueled strip-mall American Way. I’m well and certainly on a number of lists. In case they’re reading this, Ka$h Patel can eat the peanuts out of my asshole.

I aim to live for a long time, in good health, as the person I envision myself to be. The only threat to that are the right-wing psychopaths… but I contribute too much to the precious economy to be written off completely. It vexes them, which amuses me.

That darn constitution, keeps getting in the way of people exercising their freedom to hurt others who make them feel uncomfortable.

“I cared most about the characters, and the fact that the characters were all together at the end of the series was the thing that mattered most to me,” he told PEOPLE. “And so I found that really satisfying because, as actors, we could say goodbye to each other in those final scenes.”

Right, because its all about actors’ experience. Meanwhile the production was making the conscious decision to fuck the audience and throw out some dumb-ass half-baked hand-wavey pablum so they could run out the clock and get paid. They landed the plane with the last drop of gas in the tank.

Lost could have been a grand unification of science fiction and fantasy with a solid character drama as a foundation. Instead they turned it into a soap-opera that insulted the intelligence of a dedicated audience. I’m still holding a grudge about it.

In the states, though, solar is woke and gay, and thus doesn’t get any financial help(currently). Farmers that live hand-to-mouth in the old model, getting drip-fed agri-subsidies, don’t have a way to soften the blow of the capex needed to push through the expense barrier, even though the other side is cleaner and more profitable.

Homeboy might be more credible without that fucked-up haircut. Seriously, are you that disconnected from the world of normal people that you can look in the mirror with that ‘do, consider it critically, and say, “yeah, that’s just what I’m going for"

There are some things you need a shared workspace for. Most of what we do in the US, having converted largely to an email-and-spreadsheets-based economy, does not.

My full-flavor, everyday workspace requires a comfortable chair, decent internet, and intermittent access to elecricity. It fits in a backpack. All of my coworkers are similarly equipped. Our 40-person startup has a minuscule office that we couldn’t begin to fit everybody in. We are making lots of money.

Yes, and yes.

It’s telling that the defining event in his political transformation was a serious neurological injury. We’re all apparently one brain bleed away from right-wing authoritarianism. Also, nobody seems surprised that somebody diminished from their former selves will naturally move to the right. Its almost as if that worldview is more suited to people who aren’t accustomed to thinking.

Under His eye.

At least you got the tender version.

Typical boomer nonsense, conflating anti-zionism with anti-semitism when it’s convenient for argument’s sake. I feel like there should be more depth from Carville, but then again senescence is a bitch.

WHERE do I find that gigantic USB delete key?

They couldn’t have been sober, then.