Smoking makes you get older faster all over, definitely also your hair.

sure thing, glad it helped

sell my baseball cards, i don’t care.

Ha in high school yea. now I’ve talked to enough of them to know they’re thinking about something completely random and unrelated to me and often nothing at all, which I find the most interesting.

Like they might have literally just been staring at a tree for five minutes. And then I talk to them and they’re like 'I was just looking at this tree."

Especially these days, people seem increasingly surprised that a human is actually talking to them in real life.

Cool, thanks for listening, haha.

Hope it helps.

it’s not that obvious. people interrupt other people all the time, often exactly in the way you’re suggesting. “oh MAN that reminds me of -!” and now the person confiding in you doesn’t have anybody listening to them anymore and maybe hasn’t been able to fully express themselves.

As for your response to someone confiding in you:

Usually listening and accurate acknowledgment of their story and expressed feelings are enough, but if you strongly feel they want you to respond more fully or if they explicitly ask you for feedback, ask them questions about their situation and feelings rather than beginning to tell your own story.

Keep the focus on them rather than shifting the focus to yourself. When they are finished talking about themselves, they’ll begin asking you questions or shifting the focus away from themselves.

no to childcare, i would not let an AI raise my children for the same reason I would not let a bird raise my children. different species.

platonic relationship - with an advanced enough AI, I’d feel comfortable having an AI acquaintance.

i would feel ridiculous having a romantic relationship with an AI the same way I would feel ridiculous if I had a romantic relationship with an automobile or bird.

consciousness?

absolutely, it’s a matter of the right number of neurons and the acknowledgement that “consciousness” is the expression of interactive instincts, knowledge and largely patterned reactions rather then a magical “soul” from an unknowable plane.

AI consciousness is a matter of advancement and increasing complex awareness until AI is indistinguishable from I.

AI consciousness will one day become as complex as human consciousness, which is limited and calculable.

they don’t need you to prove you can empathize with them as much as they need your support, which is often more effective through listening. than talking.

if they need you to validate your empathy, they’ll tell you, but usually people want their confidant to pay attention to them for a certain amount of time so they can safely and completely decompress/vent. telling your own story is taking away the time they’ve set aside to for themselves to fully share something important to them with you.

The fact they’re talking to you also strongly implies that they already think you empathize with them; they simply need someone they trust to listen to their story, so you making your case for how you can empathize is redundant and can makenit difficult for them to fully express themselves.

we all like to talk, and we all want to talk to someone who listens.

Reminds me of American McGee’s Alice.

the second one

Doesn’t sound like it’s about you. He has to come to terms with his sexuality before anything else in this story becomes relevant.

wow yeah? seems like a good idea.

Successful countries use “taxes”.

oh whaaaat, worth a torrent.

i don’t get it, we all shower like that.

masturbate.

nope it’s fine, they’re just dumb.

nobody hates immigrants like immigrants and nobody hates victims like victims.

try tapping your screwdriver into the screws with a hammer, or drilling out a shallow hole in the middle of the stripped screw before tapping in the screwdriver, then push down on the screw driver while slowly unscrewing it.

I’ve done the hammer tapping thing before and it worked so I would try that first. If it doesn’t work, yeah, it might be time for a mechanic, they deal with stripped screws a lot and they can always bore out the entire thing and then secure it with a new bolt and nut from the other side.

“idiot who withdrew from iran nuclear deal surprised he cannot negotiate a second iran nuclear deal.”

you’re totally right, with very different types of dmt alkaloids across species with all sorts of different effects.

crappy AI buzzwriting I would guess, non- factual or contextual word association.