unfortunate_ferret

That sounds like a very different point than “media sharing is a problem”. And for what it’s worth I don’t think you’re wrong - there are plenty of talented independent artists who share their work for nothing and accept donations. No need to buy entertainment from giant corporations.

But it’s important to remember that it’s a social thing to be able to talk about the latest whatever. Not keeping up does cost a certain something; whether that something is valuable to you personally is another question again.

What problem does sharing media contribute to, exactly? How many artists are starving because a fan downloaded their discography, vs the sheer amount of money owed to artists in unpaid royalties and “creative accounting”?

• https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/james-taylor-sues-warner-brothers-over-royalties-185798/
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/05/09/how-little-richard-was-exploited-by-a-bad-record-deal-and-never-fully-cashed-in/
• https://www.vice.com/en/article/little-richard-made-millions-it-all-went-to-his-label/
• https://www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news/jermaine-dupri-sues-sony-music-over-alleged-18-million-royalty-dispute-involving-so-so-def-artists/

And this is happening to stars; it’s got to be worse for smaller artists.

Artists make money from their fans. Fans discover artists through media sharing. If nobody shared media, I wouldn’t have discovered my favourite bands and spent hundreds of dollars on tickets over the course of my life, or my favourite authors whose books I have bought as gifts many times over, or when I was younger my favourite kinds of games, that I would go on to spend tens of thousands of dollars on over the course of my life (and not just on Steam!).

From where I’m sitting, it sure does seem like it contributes - but not to problems.

Like the base commander made us repeat every Friday muster: WRAP IT UP!

Why should I spend time writing something myself when I can just describe the idea to an AI and it will write something almost as good in seconds that I would have spent the whole evening on?

Because it won’t write something almost as good; it won’t write anything even approaching good. It can’t. What it can write is 18 seasons of filler, and it will be like seeing a repeating texture - glaringly obvious. I said nobody could tell it apart and that’s patently untrue, AI writing is easy to see for what it is after not very long at all. Your writing is an entirely different beast, it’s a message from you into the brains of your readers.

You can use AI to get over writer’s block, you can use it to translate and for advice on grammar and spelling. It can’t write your stories. Try it - the advice is that writers should write for themselves first. So try to make it tell a story you want to read; I think you’ll find yourself mentally correcting it and thinking things like “it would be better for this to happen”, “that person should say this instead”, “that character wouldn’t react like that”, and so on. The writer in you has opinions and you’ll hear them as you read.

Don’t let the tool discourage you. It’s just a tool; without you it can’t do anything at all.

Yep. My wife did this for years (before we met; we’re doing alright now), while working multiple jobs, to afford rent and food.

I’m aware of the physics involved. You said it was impossible, and you’ve just stumbled on my First Rule of Engineering: vanishingly few goals are actually impossible to achieve, but a great many are too expensive 😉

As to your argument here: the diamond would be very small, and low mass relative to the amount of energy you can muster to expel it. The maths is the hardest part, I think, but the goal itself is just to head off in that direction. Space is big and empty but not as empty as people think; I don’t have any illusions about the chances of actually reaching Alpha Centauri. The symbolism is the point, for us.

I don’t think there’s anything impossible about it. It’s not going to be easy, sure, or cheap, but every step along the way is feasible and the tech for all of it already exists; it’s even within the realm of affordability for a non-millionaire, when you have half a lifetime to prepare and save towards it.

In a similar vein: My wife and I plan on having our carbon intermingled and compressed into diamond, then piggyback on a rocket and get ourselves fired off towards Alpha Centauri.

This belongs in /c/dadjokes :P

I think you’ve just summed the problem very elegantly. Well done.