Eldritch Horror but Cute With It

It doesn't have to be bad: some skills are obsolete, not worth the effort, or fully replaceable.

When reading and writing isn't available to much of a population, training how to memorise more things by heart quicker is just a fact of life. If you can read info that's written down and write it down for later, you get to skip the effort. Pros: lots of energy saved, it's more reliable, makes sharing efficient, synergises well with other stuff, printing and computers really take that up to 11 Cons: technically, info that's written down is less available. Learning how to read and write is also amongst the harder steps of language acquisition in most written languages. It is very time-consuming. Skill weakened: Mostly memorising. Overall, we decided that one's worth it (it comes with many boons down the road, mostly).

GPS replaces orientation skills. Finding your way, depending on your tools and what info you have, takes a few seconds to a million little details and complex inference. Pros: With access to GPS, people get lost almost Never. As long as you're connected to the system you get to find your way. Fast. Cons: Access may be unreliable, getting lost without it is a much more dire situation than it may have been before because: Skill weakened: orientation. Finding your way. Overall, YMMV. It's too convenient for most to never use it, but some will try to avoid it. I don't, it serves its purpose whenever I'm in a hurry.

Calculators replace some maths skills. Sums, multiplications, divisions, subtractions, we used to drill them in school much more because that'll always be something you need in your daily life, from "how many eggs for that recipe" to "am I getting scammed" Pros: Lots of basic maths drills you don't need to do. Even if you're good, only the top percentile are less fallible than a calculator. Nowadays you always have one. Smartphone, computer, watch, whatever - they have calculators inside them. Cons: They do take some learning, especially for complex cases, I know some who don't understand how to use one. Skill weakened: speed maths, especially for small stuff. Overall, YMMV. It lets some people try to pull a fast one on you, but the ubiquity of them has not sparked any crisis.

Generative AI replaces... looking for information, summing up different sources, looking for flaws or strong points in arguments, checking the credibility of data, weighing pros and cons in situations, talking to strangers, managing pre-existing relationships through conflict, bringing to mind what you may know, creative expression through art, fact-checking, research, school work, conveying your feelings, (cont.) Pros: you have an answer to pretty much anything in seconds. Cons: there are dozens of other arguments (working conditions, ability to fake data, pollution, social issues, losing reliability, making your RAM expensive, and so on), but I'll let you be the judge of that one con: Skill weakened: all that it replaces (which is the same as the others, but look at what the use cases are).

You are offering your brain, a machine designed to take shortcuts to be energy-efficient as a matter of survival, a shortcut for all manner of general skills. Not anything specific. You're given a "privileged interlocutor" that almost never disagrees with you and it's supposed to replace your previous ways of thinking about how you communicate, how you learn, how you create, how you relate to others.

Skills: use them or lose them. Oh, you can re-train anything you lost, but it's a pain, and if you've seen folks get brainwashed by Fox News you know people who get stuck in simplistic models don't want to make an effort that brings discomfort.

It's not going to turn you into a zombie, just like writing didn't make speaking or memorising disappear. But getting used to using it significantly weakens your readiness and ability to do what you use it for. Why should the neurons dedicated to this training not be repurposed, when the pathway is unused?

It doesn't "create idiots," it won't destroy society. But it has already strained many relationships, destroyed the mental health of people who thought they could "jailbreak" their AI companions and made them roleplay that the user was god, isolated many, and made millions much less autonomous for general abilities as well as much more receptive to manipulation.

Like it's my understanding that the timeline diverges from our own after WW2, with the United States entering a golden atomic age driven by relentless xenophobic and expansionist conquest, plunging the world into a fascistic death spiral that lead to the resource wars and nuclear armageddon. And to deliver that bleak premise with a satirical edge, it's canonical that American culture is, at least by the 2070s when the world ends, stuck in a sort of neo 50s obsession where the only music and art that's popular enough to survive the nukes is all stuff that originated more than a century beforehand.

Like I get that the criticism being made is that a culture obsessed with its own past is indicative of a bleak present crushed by imperialism and nationalism, but can you really expect me to believe that Fallout's American empire was so bad that culture and art and aesthetics were just. Frozen in time for more than 100 years? Addicted to their own past? That the American people were so embroiled in reactionary ideologies that they were incapable of moving forward and creating anything new?

Anyway did you hear they're rebooting Malcolm in the Middle this year? And the Mummy. And the Devil Wears Prada. And Masters of the Universe. And Meet the Parents. And a 5th toy story movie. And a moana remake.

he was excited because he was going to get to discuss his theory of why endometriosis happens with another world-renowned expert, who has a competing theory.

despite affecting somewhere between 5 and 10% of people with uteruses, we do not actually know why it happens. it was up for debate as of two thousand and twenty three.

master chief: hm. glad you told me, soldier. knowing yourself is important when you’re fighting a complex enemy like the covenant.

cortana: interesting… yes, i see your brain chemistry is a bit… different. i’ll keep this in mind for the future. i can’t wait to explore this further with you!

sergeant johnson: heh, so you’re a girl? well, you won’t get any argument from me. long as you keep watching my back, i’ll watch yours.

dr halsey: you’re transsexual? how could you think of yourself at a time like this? we need to keep our attention on the only thing that matters: saving the human race. additionally, you should be aware that J.K. Rowling is a close personal friend of mine