I like it fine!

All the nerds were super into it when I was in uni.

Sadly our publisher has no control there: they don't have US rights, and we haven't sold them. I feel like there has to be a way to get it involving a VPN but yeh, wildly enough it's very easy to import the hardback in the US but much harder to get digital formats.

Uh no I think you'll find that's the creature. Frankenstein will however drink any milk you leave out for him and it's entirely possible you will occasionally find him up on your roof with a large mysterious package.

Mph, this is a ramble. I'm still working through why this stuff worries me so much, what it is I think is being stolen from us, but I haven't quite grasped it yet. But my gut says nobody who uses AI extensively for drafting, even just to correct grammar, is someone I would want to work with. (fin)

My creative process needs to be entirely free of external interference, even grammatical, from any source that isn't a human I chose to work with. I want to Know my writing to its bones. If there are influences - which of course there are - I want to have come by them honestly with my own eyes. Tbc

Not because all those uses are illegitimate or dishonest - I don't think there's any real harm in using chatGPT to eg plan a holiday (except environmentally). But... I dunno. I guess I'm at a place where if this tool has become part of your day-to-day in any respect, I find you... compromised. (tbc)

I encounter chatGPT a lot in my ADHDwimmin groups where they use it for everything from grocery lists to scheduling their week to teacher emails to uni research. I've reached a place where I'm concerned about folk just offloading half their brains to AI across the board... (tbc)

Yeah the reason neither of us earns above that threshold is because we're both voluntarily four days a week. Not to be crass and talk numbers but low 30s £k is plenty for dual-income-no-kids!

I mean so much so that it's actually in contravention of the ECHR. But then, they fully intend to yank us out of that, so.

I'm not, but not due to not feeling British. I voted for independence as a route to effective governance/ representation - entirely logistic/structural, not at all tied to patriotism, which I broadly reject. I believe an independent Scotland would be back in the EU by now, and have MORE immigration.

Yeh I mean, we (in Scotland) were pretty fucking close to independence. We were pretty fucking close to NOT leaving the EU. We got close to quite a lot of things but sadly there's no actual outcome from 'almost not Brexit' or 'almost Labour-LibDem coalition in 2010'. They're on/off.

(Notably, a 'protest' 1/10 that size from hard right white supremacists the other week got considerably more traction and respect paid to it. I think about that a lot.)

When you speak to Millennials and Gen X though you are speaking to a generation who cut their activist teeth on a march of over a million people that still failed to stop an illegal war. Hope died for many of us in 2003. I've been running on fumes and principles for 22 years.

I think that it takes a certain kind of bloodymindedness to see how fucked things appear to be and keep fighting anyway. Who can afford optimism or dogged determination in this economy? I feel lucky to still have fight left. I can't find it in myself to really fault the folk who can only howl.

Certainly one of the factors making the much needed narrative change an uphill struggle.

Protest groups are a different thing of course, more than one way to fight these battles. But I think it would be a mistake to assume good behaviour isn't being rewarded and reinforced by these same folk in other capacities.

If I'm reading you right this feels like a biiiit of a straw man? I'm active in a Union with close contact with gov officials/MSPs. I see a LOT of energy spent complimenting and thanking and reinforcing good behaviour. I would guess most pressure groups working closely with govs are similar. tbc..