Venting Technology being re-packaged for the lowest common denominator

[oneirataxia]

This obviously isn't related to my depression, but it's such an immense object of frustration I have for the world around me. I like data hoarding and saving movies, shows, video game ROMs, Flash games, and all kinds of other stuff onto physical drives. Today, I looked up the price for a 5 terabyte WD HDD, and saw that it had skyrocketed by $70 from January 2025, which is when I bought one last.

This really pissed me off, because what is the payoff? My ability to preserve my memories, internet history and any kind of digital media from our digital Library of Alexandria, made much more difficult so kids can fry their brains on racially-motivated videos of AI fruits getting cucked? The inability to trust any digital artist in passing ever again? Typing a search into Google and having the AI give you a blatantly and confidently incorrect answer? I genuinely can't name a single time I've witnessed any positive utilization of generative AI. And I really don't like to defer to popular opinion, but every application of it that I have ever seen is destructive and harmful in some capacity. Even the "art" that is churned out by this technology is always dull and uninspired. As I said, you can generate ANYTHING you imagine, and all people seem to use this on are fake videos of cats playing instruments. I've seen nothing genuinely and truly imaginative to come out of this technology.

This extends past AI and into my disillusionment with the Internet overall. We have this infinitely vast range of capabilities when it comes to coding and web design. We can create whatever we want and fully realize our imaginations. Now all of that has just been co-opted by the lowest common denominator so they can farm social points off of TikTok dances. Every facet of the human attention span has been meticulously studied and manipulated, and our futures have been sold to the highest bidder. YouTube altering its thumbnails to be huge and altering its search to just give up on showing you related content 5 results in before it just starts vomiting Shorts recommendations makes me really believe tech companies are deliberately designing their software to make you stupid. It's so nothing, and it wants you to feel nothing—it's as if everyone nowadays has a socially accepted heroin addiction. I know this is a very Reddit rant, but it's all so frustrating. Nothing works, nothing's fun, everything's addictive, everything's uninspired, everything's broken. When will it end???

 

[myriapoda]

oh no ur on point, because tell me why there's so much prioritization for AI that's actively making the quality of life going down. never was a good college student, but tell me why this professor required us to use it for a basic assignment. it's shoved in every facet of every search engine, phone, laptop, etc with no way to fully opt out. i'm also interested in having my own media collection, but it's damn near impossible when it's up in the hundreds.

digging into the obvious environmental cost of it, someone tried to justify the water shortage saying that the meat industry was also contributing factor. well no shit, people actually need to eat, wtf is AI doing for people besides worsening the job market and allowing slop work. what's worse is that i see older people who are in control of our politics and economics fall for obvious racially motivated AI slop videos because they have to fabricate their 'truth'.

i genuinely hate yt, everytime i open that app to watch a video im immediately shown yt shorts with no way to change it because there are no options.

Nothing works, nothing's fun, everything's addictive, everything's uninspired, everything's broken. When will it end???

that ab summaries it, i've been interacting here on SaSu and discord because everything else is absolutely draining. do hope u find a discount HDD tho, best wishes