Mm… yes. You might well be right. I can see a number of otherwise inexplicable things that point that way.

That said, while they’ll undoubtedly capture a significant amount of the market, I don’t see any way they can monopolize it - computing technology is simply too common and even mundane.

Still though…

I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that a lot of the backdrop for the AI arms race is a competition to see who can succeed in paywalling the internet as a whole.

Machine learning is more in the nature of a side business. The primary goal of scraping the entire internet is to then strangle the original sites by denying them traffic, so that the data the corporations have stored away in their centers is all that’s left, and anyone who wants to access it will have to pay them.

It’s essentially rent-seeking on the largest and thus most brazenly evil, scale the world has seen yet.

And made just that much more evil by the fact that it’s all based on content that they’ve stolen from us in the first place.

People complain about the evil of landlords, but it’s nothing compared to companies like this.

Landlords at least nominally provide some sort of ongoing services. There are no necessary services a font company could possibly provide - there’s no maintenance, no upkeep, no ongoing costs at all. This is just pure, and purely evil, rent-seeking.

Um…yeah. About ten seconds of critical thinking also shows that language is not the same as intelligence.

normies

I think you missed the point of this thread.

Do you have the internal monologue, when not reading?

It depends on the situation.

I actually have it sometimes when I read - like when I’m reading something purely conceptual, like a question on a forum.

Basically, as near as I can tell, if it’s a written description of some tangible thing or place or event, I jump straight to visualizing it and the words don’t really register. But if it’s conceptual - an expression of an idea or philosophy or such - I “narrate” the words to myself.

I also have an internal voice - my own - when I write, presumably because I can’t directly share my visualizations, so have to translate them into words right from the start.

When I’m not reading, it seems to split broadly the same way - I only have an internal monologue regarding things that are conceptual. If it’s available to my sensorium, then my consciousness of it is simply those sensory impressions without the accompanying words, so no internal monologue.

But if it’s something conceptual, or something I’m sharing with someone else, then I translate it into words.

This reminded me of a sort of similar topic, and curiously enough it’s about reading, and might provide some insight into your question.

Some years ago, I happened on a thread in which the OP asked people whose voice they “heard” when they read.

I couldn’t even make sense of that question. The only time I “hear” voices when I read is when a character speaks. The rest of the time, I not only don’t “hear” the words - I’m not even really aware of them. My eyes follow the lines while my brain instantly translates the words I’m seeing into images and concepts and the like. And yes - it’s like a movie playing out inside my brain, and yes, I’m a #1 on this chart.

But apparently there’s a not insignificant number of people who “hear” a book inside their heads just as if someone else was reading it out loud. Instead of visualizing things, they remain focused only on the words - the representations - and somehow glean from them alone the necessary details.

I wouldn’t be surprised if those people are also generally #5 or thereabouts on this chart, and again what it is is that their brains don’t directly envision things but instead rely on descriptive representations.

I don’t get how it works either, but self-evidently it does.

Um… no. I’m an anarchist.

And you sound like a helicopter parent who’s balanced on that fine line between hysterical tears and explosive rage because somebody at the playground said something mean about their darling USSR.

It didn’t. And I’m an anarchist.

If you’re going to rely on ad hominems, you should at least try to make them somewhat accurate and relevant.

Stalin was the leader of the world’s first socialist state

Socialist state is a contradiction in terms.

Stalin was CEO of USSR Incorporated.

Funny that this is the exact same “logic” the libs use to try to defend running a pro-zionist, pro-corporate, pro-billionaire slimeball in the last US presidential election - “But Trump was worse!”

Right - that’s the new Christian Single Commandment - “Thou only need bother to be somewhat less evil than those other people over there.”

I watched it in person, sort of.

I was living on the Florida Gulf Coast at the time. From the Gulf Coast, a shuttle launch was just a bright bead drawing a thin line up from the horizon, so it wasn’t any sort of spectacle, but it was something interesting to watch if you happened to be outside, which I was.

And it was obvious even from there what had likely happened, since the bright bead suddenly flashed, then went out, and the line went off sideways.

One of the definitive 80s songs, and one of my all-time favorites.

You must be using the All Trans Anime Porn All the Time app.

I just use Firefox for Android and sort by New by default and I don’t recall seeing any trans anime porn. Ever.

Huh.

What I get from this is that you’re so determined to counter my “thesis” that you’ve stooped all the way to broadly hinting that I’m mentally ill, and I have to wonder why - what it is that compels you to respond to a broad statement about a nebulous group of people with a specific, demeaning and wholly unsupported broadside aimed at a single individual you don’t even know.

No matter though - I stand by my “thesis” such as it is - extroverts are for all intents and purposes emotional vampires - and I not only don’t think your objections are convincing - I don’t even think they’re particularly relevant.

The concept is that people in their day-to-day lives, and particularly when dealing with stressful situations, find themselves emotionally drained and have to “recharge.”

The exact distinction between introverts and extroverts is that introverts “recharge” by being alone, while extroverts “recharge” by being around other people.

Or more precisely, introverts not only don’t get their emotional energy from others but can’t get it with others around, while extroverts not only do get their emotional energy from others but can’t get it when they’re alone.

And what that means is that introverts gain emotional energy by manufacturing and stockpiling it, while extroverts gain emotional energy by draining it from others.

Or more simply, that extroverts are vampires and introverts are their cattle.

Which is exactly what extroverts are, essentially by definition.

It goes even beyond that.

Extroverts are for all intents and purposes vampires.

They aren’t “rescuing” you. They’re capturing you, so they can feed on you.