ArchRecord

That’s definitely true, I probably should have been a little more clear in my response, specifying that it can run at startup, but doesn’t always do so.

I’ll edit my comment so nobody gets the wrong idea. Thanks for pointing that out!

To put it very simply, the ‘kernel’ has significant control over your OS as it essentially runs above everything else in terms of system privileges.

It can (but not always) run at startup, so this means if you install a game with kernel-level anticheat, the moment your system turns on, the game’s publisher can have software running on your system that can restrict the installation of a particular driver, stop certain software from running, or, even insidiously spy on your system’s activity if they wished to. (and reverse-engineering the code to figure out if they are spying on you is a felony because of DRM-related laws)

It basically means trusting every single game publisher with kernel-level anticheat in their games to have a full view into your system, and the ability to effectively control it, without any legal recourse or transparency, all to try (and usually fail) to stop cheating in games.

Computers are a fundamental part of that process in modern times.

If you were taking a test to assess how much weight you could lift, and you got a robot to lift 2,000 lbs for you, saying you should pass for lifting 2000 lbs would be stupid. The argument wouldn’t make sense. Why? Because the same exact logic applies. The test is to assess you, not the machine.

Just because computers exist, can do things, and are available to you, doesn’t mean that anything to assess your capabilities can now just assess the best available technology instead of you.

Like spell check? Or grammar check?

Spell/Grammar check doesn’t generate large parts of a paper, it refines what you already wrote, by simply rephrasing or fixing typos. If I write a paragraph of text and run it through spell & grammar check, the most you’d get is a paper without spelling errors, and maybe a couple different phrases used to link some words together.

If I asked an LLM to write a paragraph of text about a particular topic, even if I gave it some references of what I knew, I’d likely get a paper written entirely differently from my original mental picture of it, that might include more or less information than I’d intended, with different turns of phrase than I’d use, and no cohesion with whatever I might generate later in a different session with the LLM.

These are not even remotely comparable.

Assuming the point is how well someone conveys information, then wouldn’t many people better be better at conveying info by using machines as much as reasonable? Why should they be punished for this? Or forced to pretend that they’re not using machines their whole lives?

This is an interesting question, but I think it mistakes a replacement for a tool on a fundamental level.

I use LLMs from time to time to better explain a concept to myself, or to get ideas for how to rephrase some text I’m writing. But if I used the LLM all the time, for all my work, then me being there is sort of pointless.

Because, the thing is, most LLMs aren’t used in a way that conveys info you already know. They primarily operate by simply regurgitating existing information (rather, associations between words) within their model weights. You don’t easily draw out any new insights, perspectives, or content, from something that doesn’t have the capability to do so.

On top of that, let’s use a simple analogy. Let’s say I’m in charge of calculating the math required for a rocket launch. I designate all the work to an automated calculator, which does all the work for me. I don’t know math, since I’ve used a calculator for all math all my life, but the calculator should know.

I am incapable of ever checking, proofreading, or even conceptualizing the output.

If asked about the calculations, I can provide no answer. If they don’t work out, I have no clue why. And if I ever want to compute something more complicated than the calculator can, I can’t, because I don’t even know what the calculator does. I have to then learn everything it knows, before I can exceed its capabilities.

We’ve always used technology to augment human capabilities, but replacing them often just means we can’t progress as easily in the long-term.

Short-term, sure, these papers could be written and replaced by an LLM. Long-term, nobody knows how to write papers. If nobody knows how to properly convey information, where does an LLM get its training data on modern information? How do you properly explain to it what you want? How do you proofread the output?

If you entirely replace human work with that of a machine, you also lose the ability to truly understand, check, and build upon the very thing that replaced you.

Schools are not about education but about privilege, filtering, indoctrination, control, etc.

Many people attending school, primarily higher education like college, are privileged because education costs money, and those with more money are often more privileged. That does not mean school itself is about privilege, it means people with privilege can afford to attend it more easily. Of course, grants, scholarships, and savings still exist, and help many people afford education.

“Filtering” doesn’t exactly provide enough context to make sense in this argument.

Indoctrination, if we go by the definition that defines it as teaching someone to accept a doctrine uncritically, is the opposite of what most educational institutions teach. If you understood how much effort goes into teaching critical thought as a skill to be used within and outside of education, you’d likely see how this doesn’t make much sense. Furthermore, the heavily diverse range of beliefs, people, and viewpoints on campuses often provides a more well-rounded, diverse understanding of the world, and of the people’s views within it, than a non-educational background can.

“Control” is just another fearmongering word. What control, exactly? How is it being applied?

Maybe if a “teacher” has to trick their students in order to enforce pointless manual labor, then it’s not worth doing.

They’re not tricking students, they’re tricking LLMs that students are using to get out of doing the work required of them to get a degree. The entire point of a degree is to signify that you understand the skills and topics required for a particular field. If you don’t want to actually get the knowledge signified by the degree, then you can put “I use ChatGPT and it does just as good” on your resume, and see if employers value that the same.

Maybe if homework can be done by statistics, then it’s not worth doing.

All math homework can be done by a calculator. All the writing courses I did throughout elementary and middle school would have likely graded me higher if I’d used a modern LLM. All the history assignment’s questions could have been answered with access to Wikipedia.

But if I’d done that, I wouldn’t know math, I would know no history, and I wouldn’t be able to properly write any long-form content.

Even when technology exists that can replace functions the human brain can do, we don’t just sacrifice all attempts to use the knowledge ourselves because this machine can do it better, because without that, we would be limiting our future potential.

This sounds fake. It seems like only the most careless students wouldn’t notice this “hidden” prompt or the quote from the dog.

The prompt is likely colored the same as the page to make it visually invisible to the human eye upon first inspection.

And I’m sorry to say, but often times, the students who are the most careless, unwilling to even check work, and simply incapable of doing work themselves, are usually the same ones who use ChatGPT, and don’t even proofread the output.

“1 in 10 people believe they are not at risk when using illicit sources to watch TV, film or sports.”

ONE in ten? Man, they’re even bad at cherry picking statistics 😂

They even cite a study with only 1,000 participants for their statistic that “32% OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN VICTIMS OF FRAUD”

In the title, at least. The body of that claim’s card says that it’s the people, or someone they know that have been victims of fraud.

Gosh, I hate dishonest scare marketing campaigns.

“Why sex?”

10/10 starter question, no notes.

I’m not an expert on the process, but anyone making a custom repo should be able to store the F-Droid repo on GitHub.

It looks like you wouldn’t need to make the app open-source either, as it should be capable of just accepting an apk file. (and possibly auto update from any GitHub releases page, not sure on that though)

Again, not an expert, I haven’t made an F-Droid repo yet myself, so I may have understood something wrong, but it looks relatively straightforward according to their guide

This wouldn’t make it available to users through the default preinstalled repo in F-Droid (which is heavily privacy-focused and limited in scale) but it would allow any user to just click a link or scan a QR code to add your repo to their F-Droid app.

I’m not an expert on what automation options they might offer, but I know Aurora Store will essentially just pass through anything you do on the Play Store since it’s just a frontend, and for F-Droid you can host a repo where you place any updated APK to automatically make it available to anyone linked to your repo.

I know alternative payment options are probably a nightmare to properly set up and integrate, so it may not be worth the increased cut of revenue you’d get, but I’m really glad you’re considering it!

I look forward to trying the game when it comes out :)

I love this and I haven’t even used it yet! 😅

A few things:

• I love the idea of paying one-time to play offline, but it’s not currently very possible to do in-app purchases on a ROM like GrapheneOS, which you mentioned in the post as being something users (myself included) have. Will there be a way to pay outside of the in-app purchase dialogue to get access? (i.e. donate through bmac, then link account to app temporarily to confirm) I’d definitely like more of my money to go to you, rather than a play store fee.

  Additionally, will there be a direct APK download at all, or will it only be available through the Play Store? (obviously privacy-preserving frontends like the Aurora Store exist, but it’s nice to have an APK download too 😊)

• Thank you for making privacy the default setting, while still letting users share more if they want to. This is something I always love to see!

I’d 100% sign up for the beta right now, but since my GrapheneOS phone doesn’t have the ability to use the Play Store beta features, I’ll hold off on that so I don’t take someone’s spot :)

(in response to him selling the family home)

“My family took it well,” the 53-year-old told the New York Post. “My wife’s super supportive. My kids are probably better for it, if we’re keeping it real.”

Just another demonstration of how the Hedonic Treadmill effect means becoming a billionaire won’t meaningfully improve your life compared to the negative impact you inflict upon all of society by taking millions of dollars of worker’s and consumer’s value from them!

I, too have seen the ability of Sci-Hub to give me free access to research papers.

It’s terrifying how easy it is to get access to scientific literature for free! Wouldn’t recommend to anyone.

How have I never heard of this before!? I’ve been looking for exactly this for ages now.

Already spinning up a docker container!

it’s getting so hard nowadays

It’s definitely not easy, but sometimes we just do the best we can, even if it’s not the most that could be done.

Everyone has their own unique threat model. A random everyday person will have less need for personal privacy than, say, a government employee that works for an intelligence agency. Do what you can to protect what matters most to you, but don’t stress if you can’t upend your entire life to improve your privacy.

there are so many more important problems

You can support multiple solutions to world issues at the same time, without needing to make any individual one the most important one, or completely throwing out your other beliefs.

Privacy protects you from anything ranging from annoying ads, to targeted election misinformation, is key to dismantling the surveillance state that is regularly used to silence opposition to current political powers, and protects your right to free speech in a world where every government wishes they could control you just a bit more.

Privacy protects you from self-censorship. It keeps you safe from people who might want to harm you or your family for your views. It lets you protest oppressive policy.

Companies make money off your data. And what are these companies contributing to? Global warming through ever-expanding datacenters running AI models you didn’t ask for. Political campaigns that endorse monopolies. The exploitation of third-world countries.

By taking away their ability to sell you for profit, you indirectly reduce numerous other harms.

I just can’t remember why I thought it was something worth fighting for

The world is crazy. It’s not weird to let things like privacy fall to the wayside when seemingly larger problems pop up, but privacy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Everything is interconnected, and privacy directly impacts these other issues.

It’s okay to just do what you can. the world isn’t perfect, and neither are we.

Privacy directly helps dismantle systems of power, surveillance, advertising, and manipulation. So if that’s worth it to you, then keep fighting.

And recently, Mozilla has been trying to develop a privacy-preserving ads business.

I’m not a big fan of ads, but if Mozilla can actually make ads that don’t track users, and are uninvasive, they might be able to garner some market share in the ad space, and distance their revenue from Google even further.

I think we’ll probably see a phone comparable to at least 2022 specs in the coming years, since they seem to release a new model every 2-3 years, with pretty decent improvements each time. Especially with their growing partnerships with chip manufacturers, it might even be possible to keep prices more reasonable too.

I currently use a phone released in 2022, and it’s perfectly functional for all my needs. Would more performance be nice? Sure, but yeah, I don’t actually need more than that.

If Fairphone could reach that mark, I would consider my next replacement phone being a Fairphone, although the lack of GrapheneOS support is kind of a deal-breaker for any phone purchase for me right now.

Even if you buy a phone that isn’t a pixel, then you just end up giving money to a different privacy-invasive corporation that will continue to partner with Google for search deals and surveillance advertising.

Pixels have wide aftermarket repair parts available, relatively reasonable pricing, and the largest support from custom roms since they all test on Pixels as a standard device. (same with app developers)

Pixels often have longer update periods than other brands, and many custom roms provide extended security updates on top of that.

Android development is guaranteed to continue supporting at least the Pixel phones over all others, it’ll be easier to repair down the line, and the money Google makes from the sale is nothing compared to the money they’ll lose by having less power to surveil you.

And as much as I like Fairphone, the specs just aren’t worth the cost currently, although they are catching up as time goes on.

I personally use a Pixel with GrapheneOS, and it works better than any phone from Samsung I’ve owned in the past. (plus it’s usually a bit easier to unlock the bootloader)

Just make sure that, no matter what phone you buy, you don’t buy it through your carrier, as that will make your bootloader un-unlockable unless you pay off the full payment plan and have a carrier that supports unlocking the bootloader in the first place.

Both jokes can be true 😅

The real difference is just that it’s a database, with no single person/entity in control. So in the case of banks: A bank can arbitrarily raise fees, a blockchain only does so if the majority of the public running it comes to a consensus on doing so. A bank can freeze your assets if they don’t like a recent purchase, a blockchain can’t. A bank will usually make sending money to friends or family across borders extremely slow and expensive, a blockchain won’t. A bank might not accept transfers on holidays, a blockchain is up 24/7/365 globally.

At the same time: A blockchain will be so public, that all transactions can be seen by anyone. With your bank, your transactions are only visible to them (and whoever they sell them to). (Unless you use a private currency like Monero or Zcash) A blockchain will usually be slower for redundancy, a bank’s database won’t. A blockchain records data permanently, a bank can delete data you don’t want after a certain period of time.

It’s really just different databases for different use cases. Many people in developing countries use crypto for daily purchases because banks won’t give them accounts, and at the same time, many people won’t use crypto for everyday purchases in places like the U.S. because their bank’s infrastructure is faster and more convenient.

I personally have had more success sending money to friends, paying for my VPN, and spending money on holidays, using crypto rails, compared to my bank, but I’ve also had more success with everyday purchases using my bank, because it’s just more convenient.

The gist is really just that blockchains are a ton of computers everywhere recording the same list of transactions permanently, under a certain set of rules, and a normal database is just that, but under one person/company’s control, with more arbitrarily change-able rules. Your use of them is really just up to your preference regarding security, privacy, speed, and reliability.