Sounds like you consume useful information. I wager she uses socials as many: to compare herself to others, perusing a mix of ego-affirming and ego-damning content. These are powerful emotional hooks and oscillating between those states can be confounding. Add a dash of fatalism, which is not hard to come by in this culture, when at a low, and I think it easy to see how one might capitulate.
There are a lot of people out there that think their personality traits are inherent and that their physical attributes are static. In fact, my brother was one of these people. He passed away at 40 years old due to morbid obesity. I attribute his downfall to capitulation by way of comparison. He came to think the hole was too big and that his genetics were too poor to make changes, despite me providing an example to the contrary. Sadly, my parents fanned the flames of his dissonance with their own identity-bound delusions.
So, my guess is that you have developed a healthy personal philosophy and have not surrounded yourself with the type of people or digital content that renders that philosophy dissonant.
Right. Productivity tools, like AI or bloated frameworks, can both lead to mountains of slop. I don’t reactively take issue with AI, especially if it eventually produces better work, but I will always choose the more transparent approach. I take umbrage with deceit and will stay away from systems that seem to be careening toward manipulation and more hierarchical, gatekeeping bullshit.
We all need to contend with the possibility that these intelligent systems become far better than most people and adapt accordingly. It doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice our FOSS ideals, if that applies to you.
Though, I completely understand the reactivity, as we watch many peoples’ life trajectories become financially irrelevant, and the oligarch’s prime the population for a return to manual labor, while dangling that utopian carrot.