i'm spanky

hello. i'm spanky and i'm very sad. i'm a computer toucher who used to want to make the world better in some way through my computer touching. unfortunately, i no longer believe making the world better is possible at all.

i look at things like large language models a.k.a. "ai" and see the damage that it does to the environment and i say to myself "this is bad. there is nothing it can do that is worth the damage that it's doing" and so i refuse to use it or engage with those who do. unfortunately, other people seem to look at it and think something along the lines of: "well, it's useful for this specific thing..." or "well, it's okay to use it for just joking around" or "it's good because it saves me time doing this thing". i do not understand why people cannot see what i see. i do not understand people very well at all.

i look at things like cryptocurrency and blockchain and nfts and the damage it does to the environment and i say to myself: "this is bad. there is no practical use for any of the things surrounding this technology that isn't better served by an existing, less environmentally destructive technology" and so i refuse to use it or engage with those who do. unfortunately, other people seem to look at it and think: "well, it's a way to make some money if you're good at it" or "what's the harm in mining a cryptocurrency? my computer isn't doing anything else during that time of day" or "yes, this company may be owned and operated by crypto people but i like using this website so it's okay that i'm propping up their venture". i do not understand why people cannot see what i see. i do not understand people very well at all.

something that i did which made me sad was try to foster a space for people online. when a community i was adjacent to wanted to leave twitter (now x) i created a mastodon server and offered to help the community members get situated and understand the network there. i know that mastodon is not fully featured with all the latest and greatest things and i know that the network, like all networks, have bad actors in them that make the network abrasive. unfortunately, my efforts were in vain and nobody liked the mastodon server that i created and the all went back to x.

after a while, donald trump won a second term as president thanks in part to the massive amount of money and reach afforded to him by elon musk, the owner of x. the members of that community then decided to leave x but did not want anything to do with the mastodon server that i build. instead, they went to bluesky which is a website spun out of jack dorsey's twitter cryptocurrency team. the ceo of bluesky is jay graber, who worked largely in the crypto industry and was a member of jack dorsey's twitter cryptocurrency team. the venture capital supporting bluesky is provided largely by "blockchain capital", a crypto investment firm started in-part by brock pierce. brock pierce is a cryptobro involved in many crypto projects. he is also an associate of steve bannon, having recruited him to be part of his mmorpg currency selling platform in the 2000s. steve bannon is a right wing ghoul who has been the editor at breitbart, a chief strategist for donald trump in his first term as president, an investment banker, and a boardmember of cambridge analytica.

none of this information seems to bother the members of the community that i made the mastodon server for. really, it does not seem to bother anybody at all as far as i can tell. the only thing that matters is that they enjoy the bluesky website and all of the other stuff does not mean anything to them. i do not understand why people cannot see what i see. i do not understand people very well at all.