Used DDR4 sodimms on eBay. Got 2x8GB for 35 pounds.

That sounds very US specific ngl.

Because almost every aspect of the modern high-tech industry is an oligopoly. No small-time maker could even hope to compete with big brands like Samsung, Asus, Intel, AMD or Nvidia even if they had decades worth of credit to catch up due to how the current system reinforces “first past the goalpost” advantage.

Malicious tech is not something you “vote with your wallet” against. That’s neoliberal copium and propaganda.

States need to step in, regulate and control makes of digital goods and services. Unfortunately, we have the reverse going on right now.

While you’re in that mood check the documentary Hypernormalization from BBC. Explains a lot.

And when it ends check the year it came our for extra oof.

Now search for Roblox child exploitation on YouTube to watch a 30min dive that will make your soul weep. Whiskey optional.

You have no idea how convoluted and over engineered the ad serving tech is on Facebook/Meta. It’s basically an arms race against ad blockers.

Unless I’m mistaken, Ublock Origin recently admitted that they basically just can’t allocate resource trying to fight Facebook’s ad system.

You have it wrong, people don’t despire nor are envious of your success.

People are just aware of this kind of “rags to riches (or just middle class)” transition based on hard work is the exception, not the rule. Countless people work as hard as you did, maybe more, and yet will see almost no improvement in their socioeconomic class.

More importantly this “success story” is so often used by capitalism and neoliberal supporters as “evidence” that “system works” and all you need to do is work hard. Which is, frankly put, just propaganda when we can all see that the main statistical factor for becoming rich is just how rich your parents already were.

Absolutely. AI (at least the LLM, generative style we all know these days) is basically a force multiplier.

It’s just that the force vector we have right now is (self)destructive.

Typa shit that neoliberal asshats write to defend and whitewash billionaires.

Yes tech is tech, but the form it takes is, in part, defined by our system and needs.

The current state of AI industries for example would be vastly different if we didn’t have both world governments and financial institutions bending over backwards to give them credit while techbros also have the accumulated capital from the last two crisis due to governments failed to regulate and punish sufficiently.