souperk

Well, I can see your point of view, after all computer science has been used for a lot of sinister things in our time. However, science is a neutral thing on itself, how we use it makes the difference.

A great example are corporate social media vs the fediverse. While we can all see the good a social media platforms can offer, they way corporate social media have been shaped introduces a lot of problems. Given the circumstances I may argue they were a necessary step, but it's definitely time for change, and a lot of people (including us right now) are working hard for that change.

Social Computing as field would study this change, how people made decisions, and how it influenced both their lives and the society we live in. It involves asking questions like: How the fediverse came to be? How the transition could have been faster? Or, How it can be used for the greater good?

Of course, these questions can be shaped in an exploitative way like: How the evolution of the fediverse could stopped or slowed down? How the fediverse could be exploited for the gain of the few? etc...

In the end, I believe the question is who is more powerful, a few people with a lot of money, or a lot of people with little money? Right now the few seem to have the upper hand, but if the access to resources is the only difference, then I believe that we can be optimistic as science and technology have always been about doing more with less resources.

The 21st century has been mostly focused on finding new applications of existing technology. A lot of things are changing in pretty much every aspect of life, but nothing is entirely new.

The internet has really changed the shape of our world, but, even though it really kicked off after the year 2000, it was invented during the 20th century.

Something to keep in mind is that humanity is redifining what counts as an invention, a lot of ideas are created all the time, so the bar has been raised significantly.

Also, we need to keep in mind how big corps have been killing innovation in the name of profit. New products are being created all the time, but they are bought by bigger companies and burried. This is happenig because these innovations carry a certain risk that an established company with a good revenue flow is not willing to accept.

Personally, I am excited about the field of Social Computing, it is still at its infancy and has a lot of potential. The main idea is to create alogirthms based on human interactions that solve real world problems. A few questions one may ask include: How misinformation is being spread, and what is the optimal way to fight it? How do we fight corruption and authoriative power? These questions have been approached by a lot of fields, but creating algorithms and proving their effectiveness requires a deep understanding of computer science.

Don't come to Greece, over tourism is a huge problem here...

I feel pretty much the same way... Do you feel more lonely than before your excitement run out?

It's so ironically beautiful that accessing the report costs $1.3K...

O mighty pirates of the high seas, I need your help!!!

As someone whose country reelected a party that outright ignores EU regulation, I wish you a better luck...

Reminds of the "out of sight, out of mind" phrase which is used a lot by the ADHD community. Essentially, we tend to forget stuff either because we are hyperfocused on something (common ASD trait too), or because our working memory sucks. As a result, whenever something gets out of our sight, we tend to forget about it.

For example, yesterday I almost burnt my food because I decided to quickly reply to a message. Before I realized it, an hour had passed and I was rushing to the kitchen to save whatever I could.

Are you experiencing something similar?

Thanks btw, I wasn't aware of the term "Object Permanence", here is a wikipedia link for anyone interested:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_permanence

Object permanence is the understanding that whether an object can be sensed has no effect on whether it continues to exist (in the mind). This is a fundamental concept studied in the field of developmental psychology, the subfield of psychology that addresses the development of young children's social and mental capacities. There is not yet scientific consensus on when the understanding of object permanence emerges in human development.

I wish a good day back at you 😁

While I agree with most of what you say, I have a personal anecdote that highlights the importance of performance as a feature.

I have a friend that studies economics and uses python for his day to day. Since computer science is not his domain, he finds it difficult to optimize his code, and learning a new language (C in this case) is not really an option.

Some of his experiments take days to run, and this is becoming a major bottleneck in his workflow. Being able to write faster code without relying on C is going to have a significant impact on his research.

Of course, there are other ways to achieve similar results, for example another friend is working on DIAS a framework that optimizes pandas in the runtime. But, the point still stands, there are a tonne of researchers relying on python to get quick and dirty results, and performance plays a significant in that when the load of data is huge.

I don't really have an answer, but I am pretty much in the same situation. A big problem for me is the troggers I cannot avoid, like economic problems, the heat wave, having sleep issues due to leaving in a noisy area.

I have noticed that sometimes I get an intense feeling, I cannot describe it, but it happens sometimes when I am triggered. When I notice it, which is rarely the case, I try to look for potential triggers.

Hopefully, someone will have a better answer, I am interested in reading the answers myself.

The wilipedia article was an interesting read. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre

On 2 June, Deng Xiaoping and several party elders met with the three PSC members—Li Peng, Qiao Shi, and Yao Yilin—who remained after Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili had been ousted. The committee members agreed to clear the square so "the riot can be halted and order be restored to the Capital". They also agreed that the square needed to be cleared as peacefully as possible; but if protesters did not cooperate, the troops would be authorized to use force to complete the job.

According to Ezra Vogel, Deng at 2:50pm told General Chi Haotian that his troops could use all possible methods to clear the square.

On 9 June, Deng Xiaoping, appearing in public for the first time since the protests began, delivered a speech praising the "martyrs" (PLA soldiers who had died). Deng stated that the goal of the student movement was to overthrow the party and the state. Of the protesters, Deng said: "Their goal is to establish a totally Western-dependent bourgeois republic." Deng argued that protesters had complained about corruption to cover their real motive, replacing the socialist system. He said that "the entire imperialist Western world plans to make all socialist countries discard the socialist road and then bring them under the monopoly of international capital and onto the capitalist road."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping (Chinese: 邓小平[a]; 22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Deng rose to power and led China through its process of Reform and Opening Up and the development of the country's socialist market economy. Deng developed a reputation as the "Architect of Modern China" and his ideological contributions to socialism with Chinese characteristics are described as Deng Xiaoping Theory.

PS Not OP, I just searched "Deng political leader" and found the above wikipedia article, the age matches so I think this is the person OP is referring to, but I may be wrong.