I won’t rehash the arguments around “AI” that others are best placed to make.

My main issue is AI as a term is basically a marketing one to convince people that these tools do something they don’t and its causing real harm. Its redirecting resources and attention onto a very narrow subset of tools replacing other less intensive tools. There are significant impacts to these tools (during an existential crisis around our use and consumption of energy). There are some really good targeted uses of machine learning techniques but they are being drowned out by a hype train that is determined to make the general public think that we have or are near Data from Star Trek.

Addtionally, as others have said the current state of “AI” has a very anti FOSS ethos. With big firms using and misusing their monopolies to steal, borrow and coopt data that isn’t theirs to build something that contains that’s data but is their copyright. Some of this data is intensely personal and sensitive and the original intent behind the sharing is not for training a model which may in certain circumstances spit out that data verbatim.

Lastly, since you use the term Luddite. Its worth actually engaging with what that movement was about. Whilst its pitched now as generic anti-technology backlash in fact it was a movement of people who saw what the priorities and choices in the new technology meant for them: the people that didn’t own the technology and would get worse living and work conditions as a result. As it turned out they were almost exactly correct in thier predictions. They are indeed worth thinking about as allegory for the moment we find ourselves in. How do ordinary people want this technology to change our lives? Who do we want to control it? Given its implications for our climate needs can we afford to use it now, if so for what purposes?

Personally, I can’t wait for the hype train to pop (or maybe depart?) so we can get back to rational discussions about the best uses of machine learning (and computing in general) for the betterment of all rather than the enrichment of a few.

Can we not use austistic as a pejorative. Thanks

Who knew recommending Distros could be so controversial 😛?

Seriously though I think this is a great flowchart and you took on board the more reasonable suggestions from the intial post. This flowchart now quickly eliminates some of the distro choice anxiety. Worst case a newbie might end up on a distro like mint and then end up migrating to a different one.

One comment I had is that I actually didn’t know what opinionated DE meant without googling despite being a long time Linux user (maybe thats just my ignorance) and I wonder if a newbie might be confused maybe there’s another way of saying it (flexible versus simple?).

Anyway, I really think early me would have appreciated this when I first started even if that would been ultimately “use Ubuntu” back then.

I agree and we can’t stall because of uncertainty we have to move forward on the basis of the best knowns now.

What I would say though we do have a lot of the analytic and scientific tools in place to assess these kinds of impacts and sadly we are quite far away from t being applied consistently. Even adaptation gets barely any funding and political focus and it gets less and less as you move to other related issues like biodiversity loss or the other planetary boundaries we are crossing. Part of the reason for that is that Climate Change is still being largely treated as a technical/technological challenge (switch this technology and the problem goes away) rather than the challenge to the whole economic and culture systems of the world that it is.

Need a systems view to be embedded or we run the real risk of pushing the problems around rather than solving.

Only that they (and a few of the big demand industries like car manufacturers) have captured a number of the political and economic engines of society in order to promote FF usage and ensure that it continues. That includes some really dirty tactics.

Given the unequal nature of global decisional making means (in my view) only a broad large sizable majority (or maybe a large enough minority) of ordinary people being mobilised across different sectors, countries and strategies can really take on that level of entrenched power.

One of the reasons it is so important to get on top of cultural, behavioural and lifestyle change is that the FF companies are so good at marketing and manfuacting demand for the product. Avoid FF use in Electricity or in one country they’ll move to a different use case or different market. The only way to tackle that in my view is relentless focus on supply as well as alternatives (I.e. you had yo start turning the taps off whilst turning on green supply) as well as working on a wholesale shift in the mindset of human culture away from extractive colonial one to someting more contemplative about our role within earth’s systems. So the average person (and organsiation) will need to, on some level , consider the impacts of thoer actions far beyond the first order impacts.

Rest in Power Natenom

How do you use KDEConnect for productivity? I am currently planning a move to KDE Plasma from Gnome (when 6 comes out).

Not suggesting we go against renewables at all and don’t think anyone on here would be. We do need to be able to have the conversation about the negative externalities of them though so we can attempt to mitigate the effects and operationally decide on the details (how, where etc).

On lifestyles: there’s huge variation in what people consider an improved lifestyle (espcially internationally). The implications for energy and emissions of those differences are also huge. There are certainly behaviours that we almost certainly can’t sustain (never mind flying cars any level of flying where the majority of people fly like the top 10%).

There are inevitably and unfortunately going to be trade offs and we need to be open and honest about that if we are to get people on board. And because of the power base of the FF industry we will need sizable minorities of majorities of activite support for the transition from across all society.

I absolutely understand the frustration as we look and feel the impacts of the the failures of historic climate change policy but we still have to get it right.

Just worth saying that the tone is uncessarily. We rely directly and indirect on ecosystems (even ones far away from where we live) and we must get on top of our impact on them to survive.

We aren’t in a position globally of just killing a few snakes but out threatening the viability of the whole web of life and risking ecosystem collapse certain areas.

We absolutely have to be questioning which projects help alleviate those issues as a whole as they are interlinked!

Also I think its worth challenging your strawman of go back to live in a tent. It is based on a misunderstanding of human prehistory and its relationship to the environment. Additionally, there is a huge spectrum in energy demands for different technologies and lifestyles and how much we can sustain is a key question for environmentalism.

It is possible and necessary to care about both.

The original comment is entirely valid. Deserts are not empty and those ecosystems have a complex relationship with other parts of the web of life.

The most important thing we can realize is the earth is a series of complex interconnected systems. We evolved under conditions where we were small compared the systems regeneration abilities. This is no longer true and we do have to consider how any project will affect and shift the earth’s systems.

Its worth noting that CO2 emissions are not the only vector by which we are pushing the earth systems to collapse and they are interlinked. We can’t push ahead on solutions that only tackle one aspect of the problem or we likely will be as unstuck as we are now.

The answer to some people using real issues to push for climate delay is not to pretend those issues don’t exist (that will make the backlash worse!) but to get on top of them and study the whole positive and negative aspects and make an informed decision about the best options to tackle all the systemic challenges we face.

Avoiding going on yt is definitely a plus. I am trying to move more to active choice of music rather than just what the algorithm is pushing. Obviously that requires upfront work but I think it’s worth it.

Useful, I’m open to non-FOSS if I really have to and no networking helps.

It’s on the list to try. I briefly tried i3 but couldn’t get on with it. Though that was a bad time to try change as there was a lot of deadlines and I didn’t really have the time to learn. I have a bit more time so I’m going to try again.

I worry I’m not “hardcore” enough for emacs (I have tried in the past and now mostly use Vim). I will give it a try though as quite a few people recommend here!

Useful suggestions, thank you!

I’m going to try some of the more FOSS options (I’m on Joplin at the moment) first but if they don’t work out I’m going to give Obsidian a try.

This sounds interesting I did have some success with Pomodoro but stopped for some reason. I’ll try flowtime out, thanks!

These are all excellent suggestions and your username is very apt :)

My read it now is just save as epub and at some point send over to ereader so Omnivore could help me a lot.

Looks interesting, thanks I’ll check it out!

These are really useful suggestions, thanks!

Particularly excited about Trillium. I’m current trying Joplin but labour and time reflect and organize the noted means I’m rarely using it effectively.

Habitica sounds interesting. I definitely feel I need something like that. My struggle sometimes is in splitting projects into bitesize chunks (some are easier than others) some of my work can be quite open ended thought projects. I get caught in a trap of doing the easier work to plan work (like coding) rather than necessarily the most urgent.

Ah KDE activities might be what I’m looking for then. I am planning to transition from Gnome to KDE very soon.