Excluding the obvious ones such as politics, what topics can't you stand listening to people talk about?
For me it’s detailed describtions about people’s dreams.
Not only doesn’t your story make any sense, but you’re also telling me about something that didn’t even happen. It’s kind of like telling about an event, and then ending the story by saying you just made it all up, except with dreams you begin by telling it’s all made up. I’m already not interested before you even started.
Stuff that’s entirely subjective, like their enjoyment of TV shows, movies, how they feel about religion, etc.
I get that these things mean a lot to the speaker, but its just a statement I can either agree with or disagree with. I can’t really have a conversation, since it’s personal preference.
That’s rough. My heart goes out to you on that one. If you don’t mind me asking, what is it about for example a movie that you have trouble conversing? Is is a lack of caring about the movie itself so it is along the lines of you can say you liked it or not but were not invested enough to talk about plot points or which actors did well?
I try these days to just think of the characters and see if they had a purpose of being there, and if they did, what that purpose was to see if maybe it could have been better represented. All of which is opinionated as you said, it isn’t facts so I am never right, but at least I get to imagine a slightly different version in my head for a second that might give me a chuckle.
I didn’t see Star Wars until I was in my twenties. It isn’t a great set of movies. A lot of people really like it. And now power to them! But it’s not a great conversational gambit.
It’s funny no matter which side we are coming from we rarely get checked on our views in our social media curated echo chambers.
In the old days we would have been pulled more to the center due to most people in real life being a little left or right of it.
I still think many really are but that doesn’t sell ads or moves people to vote like what about them outrage or think of the children boogie men do. It’s a shame how polarized we’ve become.
Weed/drugs. You do you, but shut the fuck up about it. I don’t need to know why you think it needs to be legalized and all of the “health” benefits it offers. Just smoke your weed and be happy about it.
yeah i think any problem anyone has with the law should just be ignored
shit i thought when only white heterosexual men could vote was a good thing. turns out non white heterosexual people disagreed. god thats annoying that they talk about wanting rights and stuff.
just live under threat of prosecution and be happy dumbass.
Can’t stand listening to tech “evangelists” talk about tech. It’s so hard no roll my eyes when someone goes on and on about how the _____ (block chain, AI, whatever buzz word we’re on now) will change the world. Like yes, but not in the way you are describing because it clear you fundamentally misunderstand the technology. I work in tech and there are really cool projects out there, and discussions with my peers are really insightful. However, when a person starts telling me how excited they are to get I chip in their brain to control their phone, I can’t help but wonder if they already have brain damage.
Usually it’s culture that’s not their own, from a position of expertise. Theres a fairly good chance of putting out some really bad info and it can also come off as racially or culturally insensitive - which I want no part of. Extra cringe when it’s your own culture that they’re talking about and you’re put in that awkward position of having to do an ackchyually…
Because paladins should genocide X people or lose their powers or batman does not have free will and other silly assertations like that that’ll invariably pop up. It doesnt hold up beyond a surface level glance and almost never even actually matters, but people have really long and exhausting debates over it anyway.
Anything that you can tell they don’t know much about but they still talk about it like if they know. I guess that’s more of a type of person that a subject but I don’t mind chatting people up about what they like most of the time
I either don't talk to people much except for cutesy convos about weather or something or I know them well and im generally cool about whatever they want to talk about. At first I thought you meant online things which omg there are so many things but I block and subscribe my way to getting what im interested in.
(And here I go, talking about the stuff I don’t want to listen to other people harp on about! Haha.)
It’s mostly because I used to handle regulatory documentation for a food company, and as a part of that I read a LOT of mommy blogs/health blogs/etc. and discovered people are shockingly uneducated about the actual science of nutrition–but more than happy to talk about their ignorant misinformation at length, and gather followings online for it. People are also uneducated about the history of nutrition and food regulatory agencies and say a lot of stupid things there too.
You kinda see the same sort of problems arising that caused the anti-vaxx mindset. Anti-vaxxers come about because vaccines were so effective at preventing once-prevalent childhood diseases that people grow up without actually knowing people who got sick from those things, and they start tilting at windmills instead due to a lack of personal experience with the deadliness of certain diseases. (They attack the vaccine helping them, instead of having the experience to be scared of the disease.)
Likewise with food, food safety with pasteurization and such has been SO effective that you have things like raw-milk advocates crawling out of the woodwork because they’ve never actually heard about a toddler’s kidneys being damaged for life from salmonella. Apparently to them, their “freedom” to eke out…oh, some tiny unconfirmed extra “nutrition” from unpasteurized raw milk…somehow outweighs the very real risk of actual human beings becoming ill and dying. But historically back in the day tainted milk was a very real danger, killing kids and elderly and making others sick, it was a public health menace. The discovery of pasteurization was ground-breaking because it fixed that public health issue. But people who don’t know their history and haven’t seen with their own two eyes someone getting really sick from raw unpasteurized milk get fixated on some hypothetical damage being done to them or their freedoms if they can’t get or drink their raw, unpasteurized milk due to laws or regulations. They’re completely willing to let real people die on their minor molehill. Mostly because, as with anti-vaxxers, they haven’t seen what life is like when people are getting sick left and right from this stuff.
I also come from a background of trauma and abuse, and I’m extremely aware of how quickly control of food by someone antagonistic towards you can physically make you ill or sick very, very quickly. A lot of people have hot takes they think only affect them but which can fuck up other people if they were applied more broadly. There’s this disconnect that food is actually needed for people to live…probably because the people flapping their gums have never missed a meal.
You’re right, all any of us do, all day, non stop is gripe or insult American culture. Why only the other day, I was in the shop and when I got to the till to pay, all me and the cashier could talk about was America. “That’ll be £44.99 please love and did you see the latest data about gun deaths in America?” God, we’re so insecure.
You don’t hear about American politicians farting because we decided you needed to, you hear about it because France Info, BBC, Sky News, etc. decided you did, or because you’re on English speaking parts of the internet and the USA represents the largest English speaking population in the world by far.
I feel that way about guns and I’m American. It isn’t a hobby, it isn’t a passion, it’s a fetish. They never want to admit why they’re so adamant on having access to any amount of guns they want isn’t for any practical purpose outside they think they’re cool and they feel powerful owning them. There’s also a subset of gun owners here who have guns for “home defense” but they fantasize about someone breaking into their house so they can shoot them. It’s god damn sick, I hate gun ownership culture here. The last reason people love to trot out is the 2nd amendment will help protect the people against a corrupt government, again playing to the sense that gun nuts are some how on part training and mentality wise to a professional military. If the US government ever tried suppressing the population using the military, no amount of Big Gun-Nut Energy and a closet full of guns will stop the real soldiers.
The only way we’ll ever curb mass shootings is to pass laws restricting gun ownership to the types of guns with low capacities like break action shotguns or low capacity bolt action rifles. Essentially just down to hunting firearms. But that will never happen here, it’s typically right leaning folks who love their guns an unhealthy amount, and right leaning politicians are swing further and further into crazy shit to appease their extreme voting base.
So instead of any good sense gun laws, we get laws being repealed to make gun ownership easier and easier, open carry, conceal carry etc etc. To even hint at laws to bring down the the amount of mass shootings, people screech like howler monkeys. They love the “slippery slope” argument, where any law to restrict any type of gun will lead to the government coming and forcefully taking their guns. They are crazy people.
American - in my life i think I’ve heard two people talk about gun collections. One is an idiot. The other one just mentioned it because she was telling me a story about moving her father-in-law’s things and getting stopped at a federal checkpoint with guns in her car.
"Artificial Intelligence". The marketing has overtaken reality and common sense. Until the datasets are re-evaluated with information given with consent, I refuse to consider this snake oil anything more than a fad.
I was in the grocery store the other day and saw a fridge pack of Coca-Cola that said “taste the new futuristic flavor that was created with the help of AI!” 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Its ONE THOUSAND PERCENT bullshit marketing. It’s like “Pink Washing” everything during Breast Cancer Awareness month.
Either Pepsi or Coke put out a new ultimate flavor. The only difference I could see from reading the label is that it has about 30% more sugar in it than regular Coke/Pepsi.
As a person who loves talking about AI I’d like to note that by AI “we” usually mean AGI (artificial general intelligence) and not generative AI like chatGPT or midjourney.
I love Sci-Fi. One of my favourite authors is Philip K. Dick and I've written stories about AI.
I cannot grant the concession that the likes of ChatGPT and Midjourney qualify for the moniker of AI. It would require lowering my standard for what I constitute to be intelligence, such as having a basic degree of awareness. ChatGPT for example will contradict itself and hallucinate information (not new information, just irrelevant and incorrect information) and can do so in the same response. This is not intelligence, this is the mere imitation of intelligence and that is not sufficient.
The AI that fascinates me is just an idea. No such thing, or really even anything close to it exists. Atleast not yet. It’s more of a thought experiment and a philosophical dilemma. That however doesn’t make me any less worried of it. This technology keeps making big leaps forward.
ChatGPT for example will contradict itself and hallucinate information
So do humans. I agree though. At best GPT4 only shows *signs of *intelligence. Still nothing close to AGI. Can’t deny it’s not impressive though.
When it comes to contradictions and hallucinations, sometimes people will put out contradictory information or act hypocritical, the difference is intention. ChatGPT can't help but make contradictions and hallucinations because it has no awareness of what information it's putting forth. It will very convincingly present incorrect information and not know that's what it's done.
It is impressive. Except it's being touted as more impressive than it actually is and that's what annoys me. The complete lack of critically evaluating these models and then giving into survivorship bias.
That's all aside from the privacy and copyright concerns.
Agree on CrossFit. At my last job, there was a group of people who went together and would talk about it. For hours, every day. Got really sick of hearing about it. My wife even joined up for a while. While she had fun and it was good for her, I just didn’t have the patience to listen to her talk about it and all the gym gossip when she got home. I felt guilty knowing I should be more supportive, but I just couldn’t do it after hearing about WODs all day.
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