Popular Comments Across MetaFilter

By Rumple in "Two reports of speakers being booed at graduation" on MeFi

Rumple — Wed, 20 May 2026 23:10:10 GMT

I saw someone characterize the rollout of AI as a process to guarantee Wealth could access Skill, whilst ensuring that Skill could never access Wealth.

Sounded about right.

By warriorqueen in "Every intellectual enemy also happened to be deeply unethical" on MeFi

warriorqueen — Sun, 17 May 2026 21:31:47 GMT

The men of the alt-right have always existed on the fringes

CW for misogyny and rape

I'm also thinking about this. Alt-right certainly didn't exist as a term but...I arrived at university in Canada in 1989, during the sudden new idea that women on dates could withhold or withdraw consent...no means no. And it was during that fall that Queen's university residence students put up large banners saying "no means yes" "No means harder" "no means more beer" and "no means kick her in the teeth." The university left those banners up for days before doing anything about it.

At the same time I was in small town New Brunswick at school and I was on the justice committee and we had urine dumped under our residence doors for ruling against a group of guys; I also saw rape kits that might have implicated family-name-Canadians-would-recognize go missing.

I helped lead the first Take Back the Night march at my university and we were spit on. I had it less badly than the openly lesbian young women...and we all had it better than a trans student who was beaten up and left in underwear at the side of the road.

I was also a woman on the early Internet.

So...I guess I just have a hard time with the idea that this all just suddenly got traction. Yes, there are unique issues to today and the White House is appalling us all but...I don't know. Bill Clinton is not the same and yet, and yet, and yet.

By rrrrrrrrrt in "Why does my partner do retail therapy after we fight? " on Ask MeFi

rrrrrrrrrt — Tue, 19 May 2026 02:49:02 GMT

Whatever this is, I don't think it's good.

By Kadin2048 in "Two reports of speakers being booed at graduation" on MeFi

Kadin2048 — Thu, 21 May 2026 03:32:57 GMT

"AI rage" as a symptom of widespread and ever-increasing alienation between even high-skilled workers and Capital is very significant.

It often doesn't tend to contain a lot of well-formed critiques of "AI" (by which I mean LLMs, really), as technology. But that's not really the point. Outside of certain parts of the tech industry, most people aren't engaging with it as technology, they're engaging with it as part of the greater breakdown of American civilization.

What people want is healthcare. What they're getting is Claude Code. Of course they're going to hate it. Nobody asked for this.

Except for the human-shaped turds who did, in fact, ask for this.

By cocoagirl in "Why does my partner do retail therapy after we fight? " on Ask MeFi

cocoagirl — Tue, 19 May 2026 03:04:19 GMT

Your initial thoughts are all my initial thoughts: control, provocation, baiting, preemptive planning, equalizing a perceived inequity created by the argument, tit for tat....

But the question at the heart of this, for you to ask yourself, is: Why am I not asking them about this? Forget trying to parse the why for them -- I mean, presumably you could ask them right this minute. Why are you not asking? That, I think, is a useful train of thought.

By Phlegmco(tm) in "Two reports of speakers being booed at graduation" on MeFi

Phlegmco(tm) — Wed, 20 May 2026 22:27:59 GMT

As the second piece points out some of the worst people on the planet are pushing AI the hardest. Mass murderer Elon Musk? Sign me up! Sweaty meat based android Peter Thiel? Where's the dotted line? Anti drug commercial in human form Alex Karp? Sure! Why not!!?

God these human stains are execrable.

By axiom in "Two reports of speakers being booed at graduation" on MeFi

axiom — Thu, 21 May 2026 03:24:03 GMT

All of the big AI companies could fail today

Inshallah

By axiom in "Two reports of speakers being booed at graduation" on MeFi

axiom — Wed, 20 May 2026 22:17:17 GMT

NPR was talking about this on my way home, with somebody pointing out that a commencement speech is a good place to celebrate the graduates, and not AI, to which I responded "yeah no shit" aloud in my car. Like, nothing against the person saying the soundbite, they're absolutely right, but all these other dipshits who are bringing AI up and being taken aback by the boos should've seen that coming. You failed the assignment.

By oneirodynia in "Why does my partner do retail therapy after we fight? " on Ask MeFi

oneirodynia — Tue, 19 May 2026 05:01:21 GMT

Cancel that credit card. People that are permissive with other people's money should not have free access to it, no matter the reason they're doing it. Calling it "retail therapy" when they are really just taking money from you because they don't like you disagreeing with them is really far off the mark.

By phunniemee in "Hey, can we not screw around on askmefi?" on MetaTalk

phunniemee — Thu, 21 May 2026 12:50:39 GMT

HearHere: "> "tree trunk" cookies for Earth Day! [sherisilver]"

HearHere, have you personally made those cookies or eaten those exact cookies? Do you have any personal information to share about them at all?

One huge piece of feedback I would like for you to eat is PLEASE stop recommending books you've never read, things you've never done, etc. Every one of us has the power to Google, we don't need you to shit up MeFi with a page of search result snippets.

The part of your particular brand of MeFi activity that drives me the most crazy is that reading your comments rarely provides more value than reading the first sentences of text that appear after a search result. Metafilter is one of the last fully human places on the internet. Act like you are one or please go away.

Speaking personally and not as a member of the Board.

By SPrintF in "Why does my partner do retail therapy after we fight? " on Ask MeFi

SPrintF — Tue, 19 May 2026 03:40:37 GMT

Cancel the card. Get a new card. Don't share the new card with this person. This person has demonstrated that they cannot be trusted with it. If this person wants something expensive, they can come to you and make a case for it.

Harsh, but at least you'll be talking about it.

By Nerd of the North in "Every intellectual enemy also happened to be deeply unethical" on MeFi

Nerd of the North — Sun, 17 May 2026 20:47:16 GMT

One of the things that I (and i suspect many other people) find difficult to reckon with is how much of the wave of malevolence tearing the world apart is driven, not by hyper-competent master villains putting into place the carefully orchestrated elements of their master plans, but by nearly self-organizing agglomerations of amoral mediocrities jumping on whatever bandwagon they feel can bring them one step closer to whatever wealth, fame, or influence they desire.

It doesn't make the harm any less, but it does argue that different defensive systems are probably needed.

By fuzzy.little.sock in ""Aren't the Organs a Silver Lining?"" on MeFi

fuzzy.little.sock — Wed, 20 May 2026 03:28:51 GMT

Oof.

I have all the feelings, because I'm a kidney donor. No, not "I signed the card" kidney donor, but "I went under the knife" kidney donor and so I am now walking around with just one left. Check my profile for details; we've talked about this before.

I gave my kidney to my wife back in 2018. She got to live another eight years without dialysis and is still going strong. I got a bathrobe and a water bottle. Seriously, that's what I got, because it is wildly illegal and unethical to offer any kind of compensation for organ donation. You can imagine the perverse incentives, or you can read our previously: https://www.metafilter.com/186017/Should-organ-donors-be-paid and: https://www.metafilter.com/173736/Giving-the-gift-of-life.

Anyways. When my wife's kidneys decided to stop working, we went through all the procedures. By the time it became clear that only a transplant would keep her alive, my wife asked, "What if my husband's kidney isn't compatible? What then?" and the nurses said, "Pray that another family member can donate". "And if they can't?" my wife said. "Pray for a motorcycle accident" said the nurse.

Kidney failure is horrible. Liver failure is even worse. Heart failure, lung failure, all the failures... well, our bodies weren't designed to live for long without working organs. And every day there are thousands (!!!) of perfectly good kidneys and livers going into the ground, stuck inside a corpse when they could be keeping someone else alive. Like my wife, or like anyone whose genetics or whose lifestyle has ravaged their organs and is now hanging on by a thread, hoping for a gift of life.

Oh yes, former addicts and alcoholics get transplants. You can't be actively abusing drugs, and you can't be actively fighting cancer, and there are a few other criteria as seen here. But yeah, recovering alcoholics get put on the recipient list just like everyone else. My wife's roommate in the hospital was a lifelong drinker who was six months sober and six days post-liver transplant. She was having a tough time, that lady. I hope she made it.

We have guardrails in place to prevent some of the possible abuses. For example, if you fly to India to buy a kidney, you'll never get medical treatment back in the states. And if you sign up to be a living donor (like me!) you're grilled six ways from Sunday to make sure that you are making a free and clear choice without pressure or financial incentive. I had to meet with a social worker and a psychologist, take a mental health test, and so on.

Of course it's not perfect. There's all kinds of money sloshing around, and all kinds of good actors and bad actors and indifferent actors and also a lot of people just doing their best to help out their fellow humans.

Oh, and here's something else: when you're waiting for a donation, you'll get "the call". We did this, while we were also waiting for my tests to finish up, because it's good to have a backup plan. You get the call, and it can be at lunchtime or it can be at 3am, and you pick up that damn phone, because if you don't then they go to the next one on the list. And they say, "We have a kidney, but the donor was a meth addict, and so we think it'll be good for maybe three years" or they say, "We have a liver, but it's got some scarring from cirrhosis but it'll keep you alive for another few years" and you have to make the decision right there. It's horrible, it's the worst day in someone else's life, and their family is grieving, and you have to make a decision.

But still. Acute kidney failure puts you on dialysis and that's a long-term death sentence. Acute liver failure puts you in the grave in two weeks or less. So yeah, you'll take what you can get and you'll treat every new day as the god damn blessing that it is. Because people die on the waiting list, waiting for that call. Most people who leave the list do so by death, not by transplant.

Ah geez, I really do have all the feelings. All this was eight years ago and still it all comes flooding back like it happened yesterday. It was the worst time in my life. I'm glad we never had to pick up the phone, because my tests came back good and my compatibility was good and now my wife is still alive, waiting for me at home.

But no, we're not creating a system that deliberately keeps people in poverty just so we can send them to an early death and then harvest their organs for the rich. It's not perfect, no, but it's not the unmitigated evil that O'Neill seems to think it is.

By tiny frying pan in "Two reports of speakers being booed at graduation" on MeFi

tiny frying pan — Thu, 21 May 2026 01:45:06 GMT

paulcole: " It's selling the end times as utopia.

End times as in Terminator 2 or end times as in I like to be hyperbolic on the internet?"

Oh please. I'm speaking from my own beating heart, I promise you. I am a real, passionate, artistic person saying this, and I'm sorry if it's too raw for ya but I didn't ask ChatGPT how to phrase it

By SaltySalticid in "Two reports of speakers being booed at graduation" on MeFi

SaltySalticid — Thu, 21 May 2026 14:14:31 GMT

I don't understand why some people say "AI is not going away", like it's some sort of clever rhetorical triumph.

Nobody thinks the vast array of AI tools and research will disappear any time soon, that's the strawiest man possible in this discussion.

And if we accept for the sake of discussion that these current shitty chatbots will exist for the rest of our lives: so what? So will racism and sexism. I won't start liking those just because they will always be around, and telling people to "get used to it" when they tell you something is a problem like that is... maybe saying more about yourself than about the people or the problem.

Sometimes I wonder if these people bother to brush their teeth. After all, problem of dental plaque isn't going away.

By Mr. Yuck in "Free Thread - Love" on MeFi

Mr. Yuck — Mon, 18 May 2026 07:14:34 GMT

In October 2024 a guy moved into this shelter/halfway house and was very withdrawn. I made an effort and he started telling me things that made me think he needed therapy and medication and hooked him up with a non-profit. Now he's the house manager and last night, when he was going to bed, he hugged me and said "I love you" and that's what prompted me to start this thread.

By straw in "Two reports of speakers being booed at graduation" on MeFi

straw — Wed, 20 May 2026 23:05:12 GMT

This looks like the NPR version of the story.

I think it speaks to how out of touch, and just how fucking stupid, the commencement speaker class (and the school administrators who invite these people to speak class) is right now. It's like telling a bunch of new potters "hey, I realize you just spent years learning about the characteristics of clay and how to wield it, check out these awesome plastic cups I got at McDonald's!"

The thing about the slop advocates in my circles is that none of them seem to realize that outsourcing thinking to these things will remove all of their competitive advantage. And, of course, that if these things had the value that the LLM vendors claim, there'll be no reason for third parties to be involved in the businesses that these things might handle anyway.

By eustatic in "Two reports of speakers being booed at graduation" on MeFi

eustatic — Thu, 21 May 2026 01:55:03 GMT

A person can see AI as a possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where nearly everyone is starting from the exact same place

Wha? We are talking about the technology developed to deny health care claims and bomb schools, im not sure i understand this perspective, it seems like i've got to ignore a lot of things in order to believe AI "puts people in the same place"

Perhaps, AI also manufactures false consciousness? The USA, at least, was already #1 ar that. It was our best export, after prisoner blood.

By tiny frying pan in "Two reports of speakers being booed at graduation" on MeFi

tiny frying pan — Thu, 21 May 2026 00:51:01 GMT

paulcole: "The truth is somewhere in the middle but it's closer to the former than the latter in my opinion."

Exact opposite for me! It's a fucking bad deal, dude. It's selling the end times as utopia.

By rikschell in "Two reports of speakers being booed at graduation" on MeFi

rikschell — Thu, 21 May 2026 03:24:29 GMT

The same kids who had their prime high school years stolen by COVID are having their futures stolen by tech speculators. Way to kick them while they're down. I suppose that's what we do now. "Deal with it." smh