I remember years ago movie theaters in Hong Kong allowed smoking. If I remember right, it wasn't in the back, like on planes, but the seats to the one side of the center aisle.
That is fascinating to me. Especially in English composition. The flip side is if it's an adjunct prof making $4k per class (English typically pays poorly) then she's doing the hourly rate calculation and thinking that AI is going to help her with the students. So, a potential solution to this is for the universities to have the willingness to pay their professors and ask for no AI (at least in this type of class) in exchange.
> the bar for signal quality is just really low
During the Covid-era when money was flowing more readily I worked with a series A startup founder on improving their unit economics. They were spending a lot on customer acquisition but after my analysis I realized that they were losing money on each customer. It didn't matter how long you ran the timeline, with churn they never broke even on new customers. When I recommended cutting marketing spend, they told me that they needed to show topline growth -- because that's what investors were looking for. And they knew from experience that the investors didn't dig into the numbers enough to realize they were growing themselves broke.
I like this. Related, this semester I've been using handwritten quizzes in class. A simple change that's been one of the best things as it changed students' expectations of class prep. Kind of do the readings and sort of prep and you can coast in class. But if you need to write out quiz answers you're forced to know the material better as well as maintain the ability to express yourself.
I also use low-point bonus questions to test general knowledge (huge variation on subjects I thought everyone knew).
I'm researching Luddite-style examples from around the world. That is, examples of when people rebel against new technology that they see as harming their livelihoods.
I've been research Luddite movements around the world. Agreed that the topic is timely.
A closer comparison to Sam Altman might be Edmund Cartwright (inventor of the power loom that automated weaving). The Horsfall and Altman situations differ in that Horsfall was a factory owner but didn't create or organize the teams that built the stocking frames. There was also an attempt on Cartwright's life as he was out riding. But like Altman and unlike Horsfall, he wasn't killed.
Forgive me because I'm maybe reading in too much, but it doesn't seem like you're asking how to be alone. It sounds like you might be asking how to deal with your new situation, which must be very difficult. If that's not out of bounds, one suggestion is to try what's called "rejection therapy." That is, make it a daily goal to go out and get rejected at something. It shifts something mentally and I hope it might be helpful for you.
"Giant donations, he’s come to realize, often increase the university’s bills, generating new operating expenses for projects that may have only tenuous links to the university’s core mission. The new fixed costs cannibalize existing funding streams, increasing pressure to grow revenue."
Best quote: "When Alice doesn't need "a neighbour" but needs that neighbour, the one who watched her kids that time, the one who knows she's allergic to peanuts. The relationship is specific, and specificity is the enemy of fungibility."
The memory of what the community was or had eventually vanishes. Jane Jacobs (referenced in the article) was the reason that I learned that the sidewalks in NYC's West Village weren't always so narrow. They were made narrow to accommodate more cars, which in some ways don't help geographic community strength.
The chart you listed is for the years before the CCP won the civil war in 1949. But agreed that many of the problems overcome were also problems that were created after the war.
That's a different question than the included Luddite example, which I take as "what do we do to prevent change?".
Related, I've been maintaining a list of anti-tech Luddite movements here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M_UjOPxpbKMYes5CcWRW...