Mikina

I just ignore everything, avoid news, especially local or politics. I just don't care, don't plan to ever have children and just hope I'll get to live the rest of my life with my circle of friends playing games without having to deal with any kind of large crisis that would affect me.

Since I have slightly above avarage salary as someone working in IT, I'm counting on not being rich enough to be of interrest, while also not being poor enough (taking my lack of any expenses on family/car/etc into account) that if the living conditions worsen significatly, it will have already been a problem for more than half of a population way earlier and something will have to be done about it. And even if not, I can still comfortably get by even if prices of everything got 3-4 times as much as they are now, so IDGAF. It's a privilege, but I'm at a point where I don't really care what happens to others. For my part, I'm not bringing children into this hopeless mess, and while it's sad that a lot of innocent will take the fall, I also take solace in that a lot of the people who brought it on themselves will suffer for it.

What I mean by that is that it doesn't shove the AI summaries into your face, and they are only generated if you actually click on a different tab.

I just use Kagi, which seems to be pretty good at filtering bullshit by default, and have mabually downranked reddit and twitter, ot any other site I found and don't like. But it's been a long time since I used other search, so I can't compare it much since I'm used to it. Never really had any problems with not finding what I need.

I'm using Kagi, but as of right now I'm not sure if I can recommend it. The last year with it was amazing, but for the past few days I've been getting blocked searches from my VPN out of nowhere. That would be a dealbreaker for me, but I hope it was just a mistake and they will fix it. It's the first time it has happened in the year or so I've been using it.

Apparently, they are also adding a bunch of AI features, but I only noticed it when I was looking up the feature page, and I haven't noticed any of it in my feed before that - so I guess they don't push it on users and it's optional somewhere out of the way, so don't let that discourage you. (Though, it would've discouraged me, if I saw that before I started using it. But as of now it doesn't affect you unless you look for it, I guess)

Other than that, the search is awesome. But since I'm using it exclusively for like a year, I can't really compare it with other engines, it's possible that I'm just used to it.

I've never had issues with looking anything up. By downranking Reddit and using a search engine with a good indexer that downranks bullshit and generated websites, which mine is really good at, I haven't noticed much change from how it was before.

But I agree with the second part. That's something that never occured to me, and it makes sense. I was usually trying to answer questions I knew, and never had the urge to reply "just google it", so it doesn't change much for me, but it's a really good point I never realized.

I highly recommend reading Digital Minimalism, which deals with exactly what you are talking about. It's a great and inspiring read, even if you don't actually go through with it.

From what I remember, it mostly talks about how to approach any kind of technology as a tool, though a pretty simple process - honestly think about what your goal is (networking, getting information about new topics, keeping up to date on events...), and properly decide whether the technology is actually The Best way how to do it, while minimalizing any drawbacks.

Some examples I remember are:

• I have to use social networks to stay in touch with my friends and family. - Is that really the best way? Isn't it better to make sure to visit or call them regularly, so they can tell you what they have been up to, instead of you passively seeing it from soulless posts? If your goal is to have a meaningful connection with them, is chatting in a group-chat the best way and better than talking less often, but in person?
• I have to stay up-to-date on news. - Is endlessly scrolling through clickbait articles for hours the best use of your time? Wouldn't just subscribing to a physical newspaper/journal, that you get to read every day/week/month, accomplish the same thing while also saving you an immense amount of time?
• I need to have a smartphone so I can be reached at any time. - Do you need to have a smartphone for that? Isn't dumb phone way better, since you don't get distracted with other stuff? And are you sure that you have to reply immediately, and it won't wait until the evening? Will setting up regular 30 minutes per day, to check and answer your personal mails/IMs be sufficient, and if someone needs to reach you immediately, they can always call you.

Most of the arguments in the book were thought-provoking, and from what I've tried implementing, it has made my life a lot better. For example, switching my phone to a dumb phone (and carrying a powered off smarthphone that I can make a hotpost for, if I really need an app for something) made my away-from-computer life a lot better and peacful, and it was really easy to get used to that. Once you start considering anything you do on a computer from the pragmatic point of view, and ask yourself what your goal is, and if there isn't a better way - the answer usually is yes, there is.

If I ever wanted to fight against my local regime, it would definitely not be through US and CIA, lol.

This puts to words something I was recently thinking about pretty well, especially the part about being an "advice seeker" and not really being able to solve stuff on your own, which is something I've always attributed to just being a field where you are driven to, especially in school, to have The Correct Solution, and that one always exists.

I mostly struggled with this when I tried getting into art, especially music or drawing. Suddenly, there's no algorothm or The Solution, and you have to figure out something based only on your creativity and judgement, and there's no-one who will tell you "this is the correct answer", which for someone being used to there mostly being one, was something I never managed to get over to this day, because it simply stresses me to the point of creative paralysis.

Thankfully, due to enshitiffication of most of the services I was following, which basically forced me to drop them due to invasive privacy rules, AI integration, or not working in privacy focused browsers or over a VPN, it's getting better. I'm kind of looking forward to OpenAI, Google and Meta finally killing most of the internet, so I can let go when 90% of content is AI generated, 60% of websites wont work without chrome, and the rest is just porn.

I find that kind of unlikely. If they wanted to frame someone just to have a killer, they wouldn't be talking about a "3D printed ghost gun", but just use a regular gun. I, for one, haven't known that it's possible to 3D print a pretty well working, and silenced, gun. And that might inspire someone - acquiring weapons is the harder part of any such murder, assuming you don't want to get caught, and the fact that you can get it without anyone knowing about it makes it way easier.

I admit I'm kinda disappointed. He pulled out almost perfect assassination that looked well thought out, managed to get away with only a few hickups in his plan as far as his face is considered, and then walks around with a murder weapon and a manifesto in his bag? Shame, really. All he needed was to lay low for a while, grow a beard and he'd probably be OK.

I mean, that's literally how research works. You make small discoveries and use them to move forward.

I shudder at the thought of "Programming Inquisition", that would drive around doing PRs and exterminating anyone whose code shows signs of heresy against The One SOLID God.

None of us would make it :D