Once I passed, my family decided that I’d get over my fears by forcing me to drive, every single day, for weeks, with the whole family in the car, yelling, mocking me…

As I’m sure you’re well aware, this is not only a massive dick move, but the worst way possible to “help” someone in your position learn. It’s a training method I actively discourage at work, as someone who’s nervous should be allowed to focus on the task at hand and not have to worry about making their trainer angry. I’m a quality inspector who directly observes and evaluates indivuals performing work, and I’ve found it’s almost always best to back off and remain quiet unless a clear safety issue presents itself. I am utterly and completely baffled by their choices, that was an unforgivably stupid way to handle the situation, and I hope you’re doing okay.

This is, as others have mentioned, a time to take things in small steps. Drive in off peak hours, small distances, and at average speeds until you build confidence. Adopt a mantra of “slow is smooth, and smooth is fast” as you develop skills and gain confidence in new situations. So long as you’re not impeding traffic, you’re under no obligation to meet or exceed the speed limit, tailgate, run yellow lights, or do any of the other bullshit things sloppy and impatient drivers often do. Worry about yourself and your car, drive defensively, and remember you aren’t responsible for someone getting upset just because you drive safely.

This isn’t exposure therapy for anxiety, and thrusting someone into a situation that makes them deeply uncomfortable never helps. Instead, think of it as practice and skill development. Confidence and reduced stress will build with time as patterns and skills are reinforced, but only if you develop your abilities at a natural pace instead of forcing the issue.

Remember, it’s always been predicated on the idea that success proves worth regardless of circumstances, especially for American conservatives. It’s a myth built to serve those with power and privilege, a shield that protects their ego and image, and a gag for any talk of social or economic equality.

Our founders paid lip service to egalitarianism and ridding ourselves of kings, then created a system that allowed for the rise of a new sort of royalty. Instead of titles and land, it’s wealth that creates power and is inherited by children.

Universities don’t just sell knowledge, they sell opportunity and status, and the bar has to be high enough to ensure that only people the powers that be find deserving can climb over it.

You’re when it comes to finding affection. Which is precisely why my approach fell flat.

While the environmental problems and the market bubble eventually bursting are bigger issues that will harm everyone, I see the beginnings of what could be a problem of equal significance concerning the exploitation of lonely and vulnerable people for profit with AI romance/sexbot apps. I don’t want to fully buy into the more sensationalist headlines surrounding AI safety without more information, but I strongly suspect that we’ll see a rise in isolated persons with aggravated mental health issues due to this kind of LLM use. Not necessarily hundreds of people with full-blown psychosis, but an overall increase in self-isolation coupled with depression and other more common mental health issues.

The way social media has shaped our public discourse has shown that like it or not, we’re all vulnerable to being emotionally manipulated by electronic platforms. AI is absolutely being used in the same way and while more tech savvy persons are likely to be less vulnerable, no one is going to be completely immune. When you consider AI powered romance and sex apps, ask yourself if there’s a better way to get under someone’s skin than by simulating the most intimate relationships in the human experience?

So, old fashioned or not, I’m not going to be supportive of lonely people turning to LLMs as a substitute for romance in the near future. It’s less about their individual freedoms, and more about not wanting to see them fed into the next Torment Nexus.

Edits: several words.

Well, that’s certainly not the direction I expected this conversation to go.

I apologize to the necro community for the hurtful and ignorant comments I’ve made in the past. They aren’t reflective of who I am as a person and I’ll strive to improve myself in the future.

For a while I was telling people “don’t fall in love with anything that doesn’t have a pulse.” Which I still believe is good advice concerning AI companion apps.

But someone reminded me of that humans will pack-bond with anything meme that featured a toaster or something like that, and I realized it was probably a futile effort and gave it up.

Yup. The Internet was going to demolish barriers and let people communicate mind to mind without prejudice. We were going to democratize information and science, put the power in the hands of the people, and put an end to pointless conflicts.

Far fetched? Sure. But we should never forget what they stole from us. The most complex and powerful machine humanity has ever created, a collaborative project built in the spirit of cooperation and empowerment, is being monoplized and exploited so some high functioning sociopaths can get rich.

You okay bud?

Not a lot of opportunities to ride naked where I’m at, but I’ll try to remember this as sort of general safety information.

Nice! I’m still pretty new to cycling, but I’m looking forward to getting some longer rides in as time goes by.

Sounds awful. Sorry about that.

A little, but I started out as a lousy climber so…

It keeps my weight further back on my sittin’ bones rather than on the ol’ gooch and associated bits, and that’s where the padding is thickest on the seat. But everybody’s built different.

Yeah, no one would have even blinked at that from what I recall. Unless you tried to take it onto a plane or into someplace high security like a courtroom it was something so mundane that it wouldn’t have been brought up.

Making an issue out of it would have been akin to saying “Did you hear about Bob? He always has his car keys with him. Watch out for that guy…”

Honestly, after scrolling through this thread, I gotta wonder when carrying a pocket knife became something abnormal to a decent percentage of the population.

It was never universal, but as young lad in the late 1900’s it was unremarkable for most people to have at least a little pocket knife with a nail file on them most of the time and never anything sinister. There were places you couldn’t take them, but for the most part we lived our lives surrounded by people with concealed knives and never thought twice about it.

Never tied an onion to my belt though.

EDIT: If it’s mostly a backlash against the EDC crowd, I kinda get it, but still it seems pretty harmless in moderation.

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Check out the Gerber Armbar.

I carry a skeletool from time to time. Same deal. It’s light, simple, and the pliers work well.

Same here. Growing up, you got a pocket knife for Christmas or your birthday some time around middle school (usually a Swiss Army or Boy Scout knife) and it was just a thing you carried like your wallet or house key.

Multitools changed the tradition a little, but didn’t end it. Largely it meant another round of all us kids getting a multitool for Christmas.

I’m not a big EDC guy, but I still habitually have a good penlight and one of these on me most of the time: https://www.gerbergear.com/en-us/shop/multi-tools/all-multi-tools/armbar-drive-onyx-30-001585

The scissors and screwdriver come in handy more often than the blade. So these days if I give knife/tool it tends to be something like that rather than a Jackhawk 9000 sort of thing.

The phenomenon is sometimes called the Naccism of Small Differences or the Law of Triviality. It appears in just about any group of people to some degree. It’s a wild and weird little bit of human behavior.