I’m actually on my own path and trying to figure out a means to sorta deal with how my thoughts have been turning dark over current politics, in a way. I have yet to read your full post, as I’m at work, but I’ll circle back to it after work if I can.

I quite literally just had a 50min phonecall with a priest this afternoon to discuss attending an episcopal church. Which, turns out, is super chill with a lot of stuff and don’t take things so literal in a lot of cases. In my case, the church I would attend is very affirming and accepting. Some episcopal churches might not be on an individual basis, but the stance of episcopal as a while, far as I have seen, is LGBT accepting.

It’s an offshoot of Catholic, kinda born out of the church of England and Lutheran? I guess. How he explained it to me is that they sorta take the things that make sense and leave the rest. He even said he had no issues with piercings or tattoos, and I’d be welcome as a pierced, tatted trans woman.

As for the biblical sense, there’s a passage I read recently, Galatians 3:28, that felt good enough for me as a tatted up, many pierced trans woman. It reads: Edit: I see you had used this in an argument. My bad. It still seems valid for my overall comment.

28: There is no Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29: And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

I dunno if I even believe in any of it, tbh, as I’m agnostic. But lately agnostic and figuring out my place in the world and internally hasn’t been enough on my own and I’ve been furious at the world for being awful and furious at myself for being furious at the world. It’s been a weird sort of place for me.

I dunno if this helps you any, but episcopal is gearing up to maybe be where I need to go to just figure some stuff out. At the very least, it’s a church that has a lot of volunteering and that’s important to me as someone who has a hard time leaving the house.

Our current ‘AI’ is not AI. It is not.

It is a corporate entity to shirk labor costs and lie to the public.

It is an algorithm designed to lie and the shills who made it are soulless liars, too.

It only exists for corporations and people to cut corners and think they did it right because of the lies.

And again, it is NOT artificial intelligence by the standard I hold to myself.

And it pisses me off to no fucking end.

I personally would love an AI personal assistant that wasn’t tied to a corporation listening to every fkin thing I say or do. I would absolutely love it.

I’m a huge Sci-Fi fan, so sure I fear it to a degree. But, if I’m being honest, AI would be amazing if it could analyze how I learned math wrong as a kid and provide ways to fix it. It would be amazing if it could help me routinely create schedules for exercise and food and grocery lists with steps to cook and how all of those combine to effect my body. It would be fantastic if it could point me to novels and have a critical debate about the inner works with a setting of being a contrarian or not so I can seek to deeply understand the novels.

It sounds like what our current state of AI has right? No. The current state is a lying machine. It cannot have critical thought. Sure, it can give me a schedule of food/exercise, but it might tell me I need to lift 400lbs and eat a thousand turkeys to meet a goal of being 0.02grams heavy. It might tell me 5+7 equals 547,032.

It doesn’t know what the fuck it’s talking about!

Like, ultimately, I want a machine friend who pushes me to better myself and helps me understand my own shortcomings.

I don’t want a lying brick bullshit machine that gives me all the answers but they are all wrong because it’s just a guesswork framework full of ‘whats the next best word?’

Edit: and don’t even get me fucking started on the shady practices of stealing art. Those bastards trained it on people’s hard work and are selling it as their own. And it can’t even do it right, yet people are still buying it and using it at every turn. I don’t want to see another shitty doodle with 8 fingers and overly contrasted bullshit in an ad or in a video game. I don’t want to ever hear that fucking computer voice on YouTube again. I stopped using shortform videos because of how fucking annoying that voice is. It’s low effort nonsense and infuriates the hell out of me.

I like NHL and MLB. Both my teams are on the other side of the country, though. I cannot watch unless I pay out the wazoo. It ain’t worth it. Plus, cable? No thanks. Can’t afford it anyways, really. I used to listen to MLB radio at my old job with the AtBat app but they changed the subscription and it got too expensive.

Plus, it’s just not accommodating to people like me. I mention liking a team and I get bombarded with questions like “who was the 2nd baseman during 1998?” Or “what’s the current batting average for the designated hitter?” Or “who’s the coach right now?”

Like I have to prove I’m a ‘true fan.’ I don’t care about that. I see ball go fast, and get hit out the park, it is fun. I see a hockey player toss a puck across the ice, it is fun. I love games but I don’t know who the developer is by name. Just the company. Dunno where the best loot chest was in the dungeons of Oblivion/Skyrim/whatever. I just enjoy things the way I enjoy them.

After work, I’d rather spend time reading or playing video games or playing an instrument. Watching ads on TV makes me want to pull my eyes out with a fork. Ads on anything.

Overall… expensive. Ad breaks. And sports fans are not a welcoming bunch. Communities for them are awful, and filled with the kind of men who don’t realize it but have every stat memorized and have to belittle everyone about it to prove they’re the highlander of sports. The one and only true fan. No thanks.