#gtcasp

[blochberger]

Why “GET THE CAT A SCRATCHING POST”?

Because above all, I need to be kind to myself. We are creatures of habit, and if my brain is set up to think “if feeling anxiety, then go to phone” that’s what I'm going to have the instinct to do. Nobody is able to just flip a switch and quit social media and smartphones without having any difficulty or negative feelings arise. 

When your cat is scratching the couch, you could be mean to him, call him a bad cat, and withhold love from him because this negative reinforcement is the only way you’ve been taught will fix a problem. But all you’ll do is make your home an uncomfortable place, and lead the cat into a conflict between the desire to not get yelled at and their natural instincts to relieve stress and maintain their nails. I think deep down a lot of people, not everyone, knows this is true, and would never treat a cat this way. Why then, when I make a mistake, when one of my brain pathways does what it’s designed to do, do I treat myself this way? I’m never gonna make a change in myself by getting mad at myself. I need to get to the root of the problem, and buy the cat a scratching post.

[blochberger]

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[blochberger]

I used to have this idea that I wanted to BECOME INTERNET FAMOUS, probably for the majority of my teenagehood. Then, the more I made the Internet my whole life, the more daunting and awful it felt to be known by anyone on the Internet. I didn't want to be Perceived by any Internet People.

Ironically, stepping away from the Internet is what made it feel like having people who follow me who I don't know personally actually isn't so bad. The difference being I now have a strong offline support network, so the reception of things I put on the Internet is no longer intermingled with my sense of community and social well being. I think it would be cool and sexy for people to call me cringe.

[blochberger]

Google used to be a good resource for finding information. Now that the useful information has been pushed aside in favour of AI Overview, and previously before that it was pushed aside in favour of sponsored results, it's lost a lot of its previous usefulness. For a brief period after the release of ChatGPT I thought that AI would become the new Google searching. As time has gone on and my opinion of Gen AI has deteriorated, I've realized how biased and dangerous that is. I came across this poem recently:

And it sort of got me thinking, while this sounds lovely, it's not like this is a new thing to Gen AI. Prior to Gen AI, I would Google recipes or ask reddit for advice instead of asking my friends for recipes and advice.

But I think this enshittification has given us the golden opportunity to recreate what humans did prior to Google and Reddit. Let's start calling our friends for dinner ideas again.

If I don't know what to make for dinner, instead of Googling recipes, I want to ask a friend for their favourite recipe. 

When I was looking for information about grants for PhD programs, instead of Googling it, I asked a friend who was knowledgeable about the subject and I got way more out of that than just Googling it.

Obviously I don't have a friend who's an expert on any topic, but I used to believe asking people for things I could just Google would bother them, but I think in a world where we're all desperate for connection, a lot of people would love to share the knowledge they know with a friend.

[blochberger]

What a Fool this person is, don't they know their actions will cause them to receive Negative Internet Comments?