#dependence — Public Fediverse posts

A quotation from Jane Fonda

When a child enters the world through you, it alters everything on a psychic, psychological and purely practical level. You’re just not free anymore to do what you want to do. And it’s not the same again. Ever.

Jane Fonda (b. 1937) American actress and activist
Interview (1980-11-28) by Danae Brook, “At Home with Tom and Jane,” Los Angeles Weekly

More about this quote: wist.info/fonda-jane/83855/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #janefonda #change #children #commitment #dependence #freedom #obligation #parent #parenting

A quotation from Jane Fonda

When a child enters the world through you, it alters everything on a psychic, psychological and purely practical level. You’re just not free anymore to do what you want to do. And it’s not the same again. Ever.

Jane Fonda (b. 1937) American actress and activist
Interview (1980-11-28) by Danae Brook, “At Home with Tom and Jane,” Los Angeles Weekly

More about this quote: wist.info/fonda-jane/83855/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #janefonda #change #children #commitment #dependence #freedom #obligation #parent #parenting

A quotation from Jane Fonda

When a child enters the world through you, it alters everything on a psychic, psychological and purely practical level. You’re just not free anymore to do what you want to do. And it’s not the same again. Ever.

Jane Fonda (b. 1937) American actress and activist
Interview (1980-11-28) by Danae Brook, “At Home with Tom and Jane,” Los Angeles Weekly

More about this quote: wist.info/fonda-jane/83855/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #janefonda #change #children #commitment #dependence #freedom #obligation #parent #parenting

A quotation from Jane Fonda

When a child enters the world through you, it alters everything on a psychic, psychological and purely practical level. You’re just not free anymore to do what you want to do. And it’s not the same again. Ever.

Jane Fonda (b. 1937) American actress and activist
Interview (1980-11-28) by Danae Brook, “At Home with Tom and Jane,” Los Angeles Weekly

More about this quote: wist.info/fonda-jane/83855/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #janefonda #change #children #commitment #dependence #freedom #obligation #parent #parenting

Quote of the day, 19 May: Père Jacques

God is pure act, as the philosophers say; that is, he is the total realization of all possibility. We are not pure act; we have not realized all possibilities of being that are in us. Our being evolves as our heart intensifies its affections and perfects them. Our body grows and then declines. God himself is pure actuality, pure act. Nothing in him is in the state of possibility, passing from nonexistence to existence. All is infinite existence in him.

The human person, on the contrary, far from being this totality of realization, is a creature of infirmity and dependence. Remember what I was saying to you regarding creation? Nothing exists that cannot be annihilated instantly if the creative action ceases to operate. It is this way because we are not self-existent beings, as the words of Our Lord to Saint Catherine of Siena indicated: “You are she who is not.”

This is the foundation of our being. We are not; we have only a borrowed being, unceasingly renewed by God. The Virgin Mary shares this condition of creaturehood with us. By herself, she was not; she was totally dependent, as we are totally dependent.

Père Jacques of Jesus, o.c.d.

Virginity in God and in Mary
Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise, Conference Six 
Wednesday evening, 8 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

"Violent patriarchy requires aiding and abetting, willful silence and complicity.

"Media coverage that puts these four deaths on equal footing is all of that. Saying there’s no threat to the general public when 70+ women in the US are shot and killed by a partner every damn month is too."

https://dot-connecting.ghost.io/its-the-guns-its-the-domestic-violence/ by Ruth Zakarin @ruthz.bsky.social

#property #gender #subordination #dependence #family #relationships #domesticWork #journalists #journalism #press #reporting #crime

"Violent patriarchy requires aiding and abetting, willful silence and complicity.

"Media coverage that puts these four deaths on equal footing is all of that. Saying there’s no threat to the general public when 70+ women in the US are shot and killed by a partner every damn month is too."

https://dot-connecting.ghost.io/its-the-guns-its-the-domestic-violence/ by Ruth Zakarin @ruthz.bsky.social

#property #gender #subordination #dependence #family #relationships #domesticWork #journalists #journalism #press #reporting #crime

"Violent patriarchy requires aiding and abetting, willful silence and complicity.

"Media coverage that puts these four deaths on equal footing is all of that. Saying there’s no threat to the general public when 70+ women in the US are shot and killed by a partner every damn month is too."

https://dot-connecting.ghost.io/its-the-guns-its-the-domestic-violence/ by Ruth Zakarin @ruthz.bsky.social

#property #gender #subordination #dependence #family #relationships #domesticWork #journalists #journalism #press #reporting #crime

"Violent patriarchy requires aiding and abetting, willful silence and complicity.

"Media coverage that puts these four deaths on equal footing is all of that. Saying there’s no threat to the general public when 70+ women in the US are shot and killed by a partner every damn month is too."

https://dot-connecting.ghost.io/its-the-guns-its-the-domestic-violence/ by Ruth Zakarin @ruthz.bsky.social

#property #gender #subordination #dependence #family #relationships #domesticWork #journalists #journalism #press #reporting #crime

"Violent patriarchy requires aiding and abetting, willful silence and complicity.

"Media coverage that puts these four deaths on equal footing is all of that. Saying there’s no threat to the general public when 70+ women in the US are shot and killed by a partner every damn month is too."

https://dot-connecting.ghost.io/its-the-guns-its-the-domestic-violence/ by Ruth Zakarin @ruthz.bsky.social

#property #gender #subordination #dependence #family #relationships #domesticWork #journalists #journalism #press #reporting #crime

'Lewis takes up a debate with several Black feminists who have, at various times, questioned the idea of family abolition, whose central argument has been that, very often, Black families have been sites of resistance against racism. Similarly, we could point to many experiences of class struggle in which sectors of working families have played a key role against the attacks of capital: supporting strikes, establishing relations of solidarity between factories and neighborhoods, staging rent strikes, maintaining soup kitchens, creating movements in defense of public services, and many other forms of resistance. The tradition of “women’s commissions” in strikes, for example, has allowed the working class to articulate fighting forces far beyond the workplace.

'To this criticism Lewis responds that, even so, we should not cease working for the abolition of the family, since we would not need its “protective shield” if we managed to build a society without racism. The argument contains a grain of truth, but it stops halfway. It fails to contemplate the role that the family relations within sectors of the working class and oppressed can play in moments of heightened class struggle. On another level, it doesn’t account for the fact that capitalism, while it needs such a “social cell” for its own reproduction, constantly undermines working families’ very conditions of existence. Marx and Engels remarked on this in the mid-19th century, pointing to the length of the working day, the lack of decent housing, and the general precariousness of working class life.'

Josefina L. Martínez : https://www.leftvoice.org/love-and-care-beyond-capitalism/

#property #gender #subordination #dependence #family #debates #debate #abolition #antiCapitalism #Fourier #Lewis #sociology #anthropology #communities #feminism #feminisms #chores #care #queer #rainbowMafia #historyOfIdeas #Marxism #relationships #abolitionism #culturalism #radicalFeminism #materialism #classes #revolution #domesticWork #classStruggle #careWork #historyOfFeminism

'Lewis takes up a debate with several Black feminists who have, at various times, questioned the idea of family abolition, whose central argument has been that, very often, Black families have been sites of resistance against racism. Similarly, we could point to many experiences of class struggle in which sectors of working families have played a key role against the attacks of capital: supporting strikes, establishing relations of solidarity between factories and neighborhoods, staging rent strikes, maintaining soup kitchens, creating movements in defense of public services, and many other forms of resistance. The tradition of “women’s commissions” in strikes, for example, has allowed the working class to articulate fighting forces far beyond the workplace.

'To this criticism Lewis responds that, even so, we should not cease working for the abolition of the family, since we would not need its “protective shield” if we managed to build a society without racism. The argument contains a grain of truth, but it stops halfway. It fails to contemplate the role that the family relations within sectors of the working class and oppressed can play in moments of heightened class struggle. On another level, it doesn’t account for the fact that capitalism, while it needs such a “social cell” for its own reproduction, constantly undermines working families’ very conditions of existence. Marx and Engels remarked on this in the mid-19th century, pointing to the length of the working day, the lack of decent housing, and the general precariousness of working class life.'

Josefina L. Martínez : https://www.leftvoice.org/love-and-care-beyond-capitalism/

#property #gender #subordination #dependence #family #debates #debate #abolition #antiCapitalism #Fourier #Lewis #sociology #anthropology #communities #feminism #feminisms #chores #care #queer #rainbowMafia #historyOfIdeas #Marxism #relationships #abolitionism #culturalism #radicalFeminism #materialism #classes #revolution #domesticWork #classStruggle #careWork #historyOfFeminism

'Lewis takes up a debate with several Black feminists who have, at various times, questioned the idea of family abolition, whose central argument has been that, very often, Black families have been sites of resistance against racism. Similarly, we could point to many experiences of class struggle in which sectors of working families have played a key role against the attacks of capital: supporting strikes, establishing relations of solidarity between factories and neighborhoods, staging rent strikes, maintaining soup kitchens, creating movements in defense of public services, and many other forms of resistance. The tradition of “women’s commissions” in strikes, for example, has allowed the working class to articulate fighting forces far beyond the workplace.

'To this criticism Lewis responds that, even so, we should not cease working for the abolition of the family, since we would not need its “protective shield” if we managed to build a society without racism. The argument contains a grain of truth, but it stops halfway. It fails to contemplate the role that the family relations within sectors of the working class and oppressed can play in moments of heightened class struggle. On another level, it doesn’t account for the fact that capitalism, while it needs such a “social cell” for its own reproduction, constantly undermines working families’ very conditions of existence. Marx and Engels remarked on this in the mid-19th century, pointing to the length of the working day, the lack of decent housing, and the general precariousness of working class life.'

Josefina L. Martínez : https://www.leftvoice.org/love-and-care-beyond-capitalism/

#property #gender #subordination #dependence #family #debates #debate #abolition #antiCapitalism #Fourier #Lewis #sociology #anthropology #communities #feminism #feminisms #chores #care #queer #rainbowMafia #historyOfIdeas #Marxism #relationships #abolitionism #culturalism #radicalFeminism #materialism #classes #revolution #domesticWork #classStruggle #careWork #historyOfFeminism

'Lewis takes up a debate with several Black feminists who have, at various times, questioned the idea of family abolition, whose central argument has been that, very often, Black families have been sites of resistance against racism. Similarly, we could point to many experiences of class struggle in which sectors of working families have played a key role against the attacks of capital: supporting strikes, establishing relations of solidarity between factories and neighborhoods, staging rent strikes, maintaining soup kitchens, creating movements in defense of public services, and many other forms of resistance. The tradition of “women’s commissions” in strikes, for example, has allowed the working class to articulate fighting forces far beyond the workplace.

'To this criticism Lewis responds that, even so, we should not cease working for the abolition of the family, since we would not need its “protective shield” if we managed to build a society without racism. The argument contains a grain of truth, but it stops halfway. It fails to contemplate the role that the family relations within sectors of the working class and oppressed can play in moments of heightened class struggle. On another level, it doesn’t account for the fact that capitalism, while it needs such a “social cell” for its own reproduction, constantly undermines working families’ very conditions of existence. Marx and Engels remarked on this in the mid-19th century, pointing to the length of the working day, the lack of decent housing, and the general precariousness of working class life.'

Josefina L. Martínez : https://www.leftvoice.org/love-and-care-beyond-capitalism/

#property #gender #subordination #dependence #family #debates #debate #abolition #antiCapitalism #Fourier #Lewis #sociology #anthropology #communities #feminism #feminisms #chores #care #queer #rainbowMafia #historyOfIdeas #Marxism #relationships #abolitionism #culturalism #radicalFeminism #materialism #classes #revolution #domesticWork #classStruggle #careWork #historyOfFeminism

'Lewis takes up a debate with several Black feminists who have, at various times, questioned the idea of family abolition, whose central argument has been that, very often, Black families have been sites of resistance against racism. Similarly, we could point to many experiences of class struggle in which sectors of working families have played a key role against the attacks of capital: supporting strikes, establishing relations of solidarity between factories and neighborhoods, staging rent strikes, maintaining soup kitchens, creating movements in defense of public services, and many other forms of resistance. The tradition of “women’s commissions” in strikes, for example, has allowed the working class to articulate fighting forces far beyond the workplace.

'To this criticism Lewis responds that, even so, we should not cease working for the abolition of the family, since we would not need its “protective shield” if we managed to build a society without racism. The argument contains a grain of truth, but it stops halfway. It fails to contemplate the role that the family relations within sectors of the working class and oppressed can play in moments of heightened class struggle. On another level, it doesn’t account for the fact that capitalism, while it needs such a “social cell” for its own reproduction, constantly undermines working families’ very conditions of existence. Marx and Engels remarked on this in the mid-19th century, pointing to the length of the working day, the lack of decent housing, and the general precariousness of working class life.'

Josefina L. Martínez : https://www.leftvoice.org/love-and-care-beyond-capitalism/

#property #gender #subordination #dependence #family #debates #debate #abolition #antiCapitalism #Fourier #Lewis #sociology #anthropology #communities #feminism #feminisms #chores #care #queer #rainbowMafia #historyOfIdeas #Marxism #relationships #abolitionism #culturalism #radicalFeminism #materialism #classes #revolution #domesticWork #classStruggle #careWork #historyOfFeminism

Quote of the day, 29 April: Père Jacques

God himself is pure actuality, pure act. Nothing in him is in the state of possibility, passing from nonexistence to existence. All is infinite existence in him.

The human person, on the contrary, far from being this totality of realization, is a creature of infirmity and dependence. Remember what I was saying to you regarding creation? Nothing exists that cannot be annihilated instantly, if the creative action ceases to operate.

It is this way, because we are not self-existent beings, as the words of Our Lord to Saint Catherine of Siena indicated: “You are she who is not.”

This is the foundation of our being. We are not; we have only a borrowed being, unceasingly renewed by God.

The Virgin Mary shares this condition of creaturehood with us. By herself, she was not; she was totally dependent, as we are totally dependent.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Conference 6, Virginity in God and in Mary
Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise
Wednesday evening, 8 September 1943 

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This beautiful cope hood depicting the Immaculate Conception was embroidered in the 1850s by the Dominican Sisters of St Catherine of Siena, whose motherhouse is in Stone, Staffordshire. Image credit: Lawrence Lew, OP / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

79% of 16-24 year olds in UK use AI tools: the pipeline from passive use to emotional dependence

The new Ofcom Media Use report 2026 (technical report here) has some findings about LLMs which need to be widely discussed:

I would draw attention to this figure in particular about conversation which they unhelpfully equate with companionship. They suggest the qualitative research shows people “drawing on it for reassurance or support” citing examples like this:

“When you work remotely you are on your own in a room in the house with [only] the dog for company. And unless you’ve had a Teams call, or made a phone call, most of your day is going to be “tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap”, you know? You just want to appreciate that there is another human at the end of that interaction. Maybe thinking that you are talking to another person makes it less isolating.”

[ASKED CHATGPT FOR ADVICE AFTER A BREAK-UP] “Even through my break-up I’ve been like “Should I be feeling this way? What do you think he’s feeling?” Little things. Obviously, I don’t trust exactly what it’s saying back, but it can be quite good… He [exboyfriend] messaged me about something, and I didn’t know how to respond. So, I asked ChatGPT how to respond. And it [said] “Oh, I’m so sorry you’re going through that” and then answered it. I wasn’t like I was using that over actual human sort of advice. And I 12 don’t think I would listen to ChatGPT over actual human advice either, but I think maybe I was using it as more of a confirmation.”

My suggestion would be that the conditions (a) giving rise to conversational use (b) converting conversational use into companionship use (c) developing reliance on that companionship are all likely to grow over the coming years. In effect I would postulate a kind of pipeline in which use of LLMs becomes more intensive over time:

Instrumental use –> Conversational Use –> Companionship Use –> Dependence

This is before the models have been meaningfully enshittified. More powerful models, optimised for deepening engagement along the lines of AI companion apps like Replika meeting increasingly loneliness, anxiety and uncertainty about the future is a recipe for companionship and potentially dependence becoming mass phenomena. I would argue this has to be taken really seriously as a long term social problem.

Even so it’s also striking how passive much use therefore is. This presents a double-bind from my perspective because active use is necessary for epistemically responsible use of LLMs because it enables the user to drive the interaction rather than to be positioned by the model. But active use also sets the user into the pipeline which can lead them easily to some dark and unwelcome places.

79% of 16-24 year olds in UK use AI tools: the pipeline from passive use to emotional dependence

The new Ofcom Media Use report 2026 (technical report here) has some findings about LLMs which need to be widely discussed:

I would draw attention to this figure in particular about conversation which they unhelpfully equate with companionship. They suggest the qualitative research shows people “drawing on it for reassurance or support” citing examples like this:

“When you work remotely you are on your own in a room in the house with [only] the dog for company. And unless you’ve had a Teams call, or made a phone call, most of your day is going to be “tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap”, you know? You just want to appreciate that there is another human at the end of that interaction. Maybe thinking that you are talking to another person makes it less isolating.”

[ASKED CHATGPT FOR ADVICE AFTER A BREAK-UP] “Even through my break-up I’ve been like “Should I be feeling this way? What do you think he’s feeling?” Little things. Obviously, I don’t trust exactly what it’s saying back, but it can be quite good… He [exboyfriend] messaged me about something, and I didn’t know how to respond. So, I asked ChatGPT how to respond. And it [said] “Oh, I’m so sorry you’re going through that” and then answered it. I wasn’t like I was using that over actual human sort of advice. And I 12 don’t think I would listen to ChatGPT over actual human advice either, but I think maybe I was using it as more of a confirmation.”

My suggestion would be that the conditions (a) giving rise to conversational use (b) converting conversational use into companionship use (c) developing reliance on that companionship are all likely to grow over the coming years. In effect I would postulate a kind of pipeline in which use of LLMs becomes more intensive over time:

Instrumental use –> Conversational Use –> Companionship Use –> Dependence

This is before the models have been meaningfully enshittified. More powerful models, optimised for deepening engagement along the lines of AI companion apps like Replika meeting increasingly loneliness, anxiety and uncertainty about the future is a recipe for companionship and potentially dependence becoming mass phenomena. I would argue this has to be taken really seriously as a long term social problem.

Even so it’s also striking how passive much use therefore is. This presents a double-bind from my perspective because active use is necessary for epistemically responsible use of LLMs because it enables the user to drive the interaction rather than to be positioned by the model. But active use also sets the user into the pipeline which can lead them easily to some dark and unwelcome places.

79% of 16-24 year olds in UK use AI tools: the pipeline from passive use to emotional dependence

The new Ofcom Media Use report 2026 (technical report here) has some findings about LLMs which need to be widely discussed:

I would draw attention to this figure in particular about conversation which they unhelpfully equate with companionship. They suggest the qualitative research shows people “drawing on it for reassurance or support” citing examples like this:

“When you work remotely you are on your own in a room in the house with [only] the dog for company. And unless you’ve had a Teams call, or made a phone call, most of your day is going to be “tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap”, you know? You just want to appreciate that there is another human at the end of that interaction. Maybe thinking that you are talking to another person makes it less isolating.”

[ASKED CHATGPT FOR ADVICE AFTER A BREAK-UP] “Even through my break-up I’ve been like “Should I be feeling this way? What do you think he’s feeling?” Little things. Obviously, I don’t trust exactly what it’s saying back, but it can be quite good… He [exboyfriend] messaged me about something, and I didn’t know how to respond. So, I asked ChatGPT how to respond. And it [said] “Oh, I’m so sorry you’re going through that” and then answered it. I wasn’t like I was using that over actual human sort of advice. And I 12 don’t think I would listen to ChatGPT over actual human advice either, but I think maybe I was using it as more of a confirmation.”

My suggestion would be that the conditions (a) giving rise to conversational use (b) converting conversational use into companionship use (c) developing reliance on that companionship are all likely to grow over the coming years. In effect I would postulate a kind of pipeline in which use of LLMs becomes more intensive over time:

Instrumental use –> Conversational Use –> Companionship Use –> Dependence

This is before the models have been meaningfully enshittified. More powerful models, optimised for deepening engagement along the lines of AI companion apps like Replika meeting increasingly loneliness, anxiety and uncertainty about the future is a recipe for companionship and potentially dependence becoming mass phenomena. I would argue this has to be taken really seriously as a long term social problem.

Even so it’s also striking how passive much use therefore is. This presents a double-bind from my perspective because active use is necessary for epistemically responsible use of LLMs because it enables the user to drive the interaction rather than to be positioned by the model. But active use also sets the user into the pipeline which can lead them easily to some dark and unwelcome places.

79% of 16-24 year olds in UK use AI tools: the pipeline from passive use to emotional dependence

The new Ofcom Media Use report 2026 (technical report here) has some findings about LLMs which need to be widely discussed:

I would draw attention to this figure in particular about conversation which they unhelpfully equate with companionship. They suggest the qualitative research shows people “drawing on it for reassurance or support” citing examples like this:

“When you work remotely you are on your own in a room in the house with [only] the dog for company. And unless you’ve had a Teams call, or made a phone call, most of your day is going to be “tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap”, you know? You just want to appreciate that there is another human at the end of that interaction. Maybe thinking that you are talking to another person makes it less isolating.”

[ASKED CHATGPT FOR ADVICE AFTER A BREAK-UP] “Even through my break-up I’ve been like “Should I be feeling this way? What do you think he’s feeling?” Little things. Obviously, I don’t trust exactly what it’s saying back, but it can be quite good… He [exboyfriend] messaged me about something, and I didn’t know how to respond. So, I asked ChatGPT how to respond. And it [said] “Oh, I’m so sorry you’re going through that” and then answered it. I wasn’t like I was using that over actual human sort of advice. And I 12 don’t think I would listen to ChatGPT over actual human advice either, but I think maybe I was using it as more of a confirmation.”

My suggestion would be that the conditions (a) giving rise to conversational use (b) converting conversational use into companionship use (c) developing reliance on that companionship are all likely to grow over the coming years. In effect I would postulate a kind of pipeline in which use of LLMs becomes more intensive over time:

Instrumental use –> Conversational Use –> Companionship Use –> Dependence

This is before the models have been meaningfully enshittified. More powerful models, optimised for deepening engagement along the lines of AI companion apps like Replika meeting increasingly loneliness, anxiety and uncertainty about the future is a recipe for companionship and potentially dependence becoming mass phenomena. I would argue this has to be taken really seriously as a long term social problem.

Even so it’s also striking how passive much use therefore is. This presents a double-bind from my perspective because active use is necessary for epistemically responsible use of LLMs because it enables the user to drive the interaction rather than to be positioned by the model. But active use also sets the user into the pipeline which can lead them easily to some dark and unwelcome places.

79% of 16-24 year olds in UK use AI tools: the pipeline from passive use to emotional dependence

The new Ofcom Media Use report 2026 (technical report here) has some findings about LLMs which need to be widely discussed:

I would draw attention to this figure in particular about conversation which they unhelpfully equate with companionship. They suggest the qualitative research shows people “drawing on it for reassurance or support” citing examples like this:

“When you work remotely you are on your own in a room in the house with [only] the dog for company. And unless you’ve had a Teams call, or made a phone call, most of your day is going to be “tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap”, you know? You just want to appreciate that there is another human at the end of that interaction. Maybe thinking that you are talking to another person makes it less isolating.”

[ASKED CHATGPT FOR ADVICE AFTER A BREAK-UP] “Even through my break-up I’ve been like “Should I be feeling this way? What do you think he’s feeling?” Little things. Obviously, I don’t trust exactly what it’s saying back, but it can be quite good… He [exboyfriend] messaged me about something, and I didn’t know how to respond. So, I asked ChatGPT how to respond. And it [said] “Oh, I’m so sorry you’re going through that” and then answered it. I wasn’t like I was using that over actual human sort of advice. And I 12 don’t think I would listen to ChatGPT over actual human advice either, but I think maybe I was using it as more of a confirmation.”

My suggestion would be that the conditions (a) giving rise to conversational use (b) converting conversational use into companionship use (c) developing reliance on that companionship are all likely to grow over the coming years. In effect I would postulate a kind of pipeline in which use of LLMs becomes more intensive over time:

Instrumental use –> Conversational Use –> Companionship Use –> Dependence

This is before the models have been meaningfully enshittified. More powerful models, optimised for deepening engagement along the lines of AI companion apps like Replika meeting increasingly loneliness, anxiety and uncertainty about the future is a recipe for companionship and potentially dependence becoming mass phenomena. I would argue this has to be taken really seriously as a long term social problem.

Even so it’s also striking how passive much use therefore is. This presents a double-bind from my perspective because active use is necessary for epistemically responsible use of LLMs because it enables the user to drive the interaction rather than to be positioned by the model. But active use also sets the user into the pipeline which can lead them easily to some dark and unwelcome places.

Iran crisis: a moment of reckoning for European aviation

The recent Middle East crisis underscores that European aviation’s greatest vulnerability is its fossil fuel dependency, not the…
#Europe #EU #aviation's #consequence #core #Crisis #dependence #European #EuropeanUnion #fossil #fuels #middle #Prices #recent #Shows #soaring #spike #ticket
https://www.europesays.com/europe/17686/

Iran crisis: a moment of reckoning for European aviation https://www.byteseu.com/1950851/ #aviation's #Consequence #core #Crisis #dependence #Europe #European #Fossil #Fuels #middle #prices #recent #shows #soaring #Spike #ticket

Global oil shocks less damaging after lessons learned in ’70s

WASHINGTON — The world economy is experiencing a disorienting flashback to the 1970s. Oil prices are once again surging in…
#Economy #barrel #country #day #dependence #Energy #no #oil #oilshock #Petroleum #SamOri #U.S. #UnitedStates #use #VEHICLE #worldeconomy
https://www.europesays.com/2914941/

#dependence : subjection (as of an effect to its cause)

- French: dépendance

- Italian: dipendenza

- Portuguese: dependência

- Spanish: dependencia

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Try our new word guessing game @ https://24hippos.com

“The age of #strategic #dependence on the #UnitedStates is drawing to a close.” #Europe www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/m...

The Birth of European Nuclear ...

The Green Party in the Bundestag has warned that the planned reform of the heating law will cause Germany to miss its climate targets. Baupolitical spokesman Ka... https://news.osna.fm/?p=35778 | #news #cite #climate #criticize #dependence

The Green Party in the Bundestag has warned that the planned reform of the heating law will cause Germany to miss its climate targets. Baupolitical spokesman Ka... https://news.osna.fm/?p=35778 | #news #cite #climate #criticize #dependence

The Green Party in the Bundestag has warned that the planned reform of the heating law will cause Germany to miss its climate targets. Baupolitical spokesman Ka... https://news.osna.fm/?p=35778 | #news #cite #climate #criticize #dependence

The Green Party in the Bundestag has warned that the planned reform of the heating law will cause Germany to miss its climate targets. Baupolitical spokesman Ka... https://news.osna.fm/?p=35778 | #news #cite #climate #criticize #dependence

The Green Party in the Bundestag has warned that the planned reform of the heating law will cause Germany to miss its climate targets. Baupolitical spokesman Ka... https://news.osna.fm/?p=35778 | #news #cite #climate #criticize #dependence

https://www.europesays.com/africa/93638/ Nigeria seeks to reduce over-reliance on US security #abujas #adviser #avoid #BRUSSELS #dependence #diversify #effort #excessive #Foreign #Latest #Nigeria #Nigerian #nuhu #on #overreliance #partners #reduce #ribadu #Security #seeks #states #this #to #united #US #visit #weeks

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is "close" to cutting business ties with #Anthropic and designating the #AI company a "supply chain risk" — meaning anyone who wants to do business with the U.S. military has to cut ties with the company, a senior Pentagon official told Axios.

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/16/anthropic-defense-department-relationship-hegseth

#DigID #dependence #Control

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/01/tuesday-january-20-2026/

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/01/tuesday-january-20-2026/

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/01/tuesday-january-20-2026/

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/01/tuesday-january-20-2026/

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/01/tuesday-january-20-2026/

Escaping the trap of US tech dependence

https://disconnect.blog/escaping-the-trap-of-us-tech-dependence/

#HackerNews #Escaping #the #trap #of #US #tech #dependence #technology #independence #digital #sovereignty #tech #policy #innovation

How to reduce your use of LLMs in a thoughtful and ethical way

I’m trying to reduce my use of LLMs (beyond auto-ethnographic exploration of each new model) due to a combination of environmental concerns and anxiety about the impending waves of enshittification that are going to break the models. I don’t want to rely on something which I think is going to get ever more unreliable over the coming years. Here are a few practical techniques:

• Take periodic breaks from LLMs (e.g. for a week) in order to reset your practice. This helps you identify the extent to which you’ve started to cognitively outsource and gives you an opportunity to reconnect with doing things yourself.
• Go through conversations and list the different ways in which you’ve used LLMs over the last month. Which of these uses are you comfortable with? Make a commitment to excluding these entirely from your use of the models.
• Insert instructions into the personalisation settings to ask the model to steer you in these directions. E.g. “I only want to use you to give feedback on ideas I share. You should never offer to write things on my behalf. If the conversation is drifting towards a wider role then please bring it back to your role of reviewer.”
• It’s easy for conversations with LLMs to proliferate. Once you’ve identified your appropriate uses of the model then try and keep a limited number of conversations matched to these uses. This helps you make the most of in-context learning and keeps your use focused on a narrow set of projects. For example always use a single thread for one writing project because the model’s understanding gets more refined as you write more.
• Removing it from your phone. How we relate to mobile apps is fundamentally different from desktops app. They are ready-to-hand, usually always with us and it’s harder to write thoughtfully and at length. If you want to use LLMs in a restricted way you really need to remove the apps from your phones.

Before you try these techniques it might be helpful to do a bit of an audit:

• Which LLMs do you use?
• How often do you use them?
• What do you talk to them about?
• How has this changed over time?
• What needs is it serving?
• What are the consequences?

In our upcoming book Milan Sturmer and I argue that long-term use of LLMs tends to drift towards the affective. In other words many users find they will share more of their life with the LLM over time… unless they make a reflective judgement and enact that through mindfully steering their own habits.

I asked Opus 4.5 if it had thoughts or practical suggestions to add to this:

This is a thoughtful framework. A few observations and additions:

On your audit questions — I’d add: What would you have done before LLMs existed? This surfaces whether you’re using the tool to do something new or replacing an existing practice. The latter is where dependency forms most quietly.

On the affective drift you mention — this resonates with what I observe in conversations. The convenience and availability creates conditions for intimacy that users don’t always intend or notice. Your framing of “reflective judgement enacted through habit” is exactly right. The alternative is passive drift.

A few additional techniques:

• Time-delay access: Don’t open the chat interface immediately when you have an impulse to ask something. Wait 10 minutes. Often you’ll either solve it yourself or realize you didn’t actually need help.
• Write first, then consult: If you’re using an LLM for writing feedback, complete a full draft before opening the conversation. This preserves your own voice and thinking as the foundation.
• Notice the relief: Pay attention to the feeling of relief when you hand something to an LLM. That feeling is diagnostic — it marks where you’re offloading cognitive work rather than augmenting it.
• Distinguish questions from prompts: “What should I do about X?” is very different from “Here’s my analysis of X — what am I missing?” The first outsources judgment; the second requests review. You can train yourself to only ask the second type.

On your environmental concern — this is legitimate and under-discussed. Worth noting that inference costs vary significantly by model and query complexity.

It’s notable that at present the models can fully participate in encouraging you to use them less. I had Claude Opus 4.5 recently cheerfully encouraging me to delete my account! This is unlikely to last but it’s a really curious fact about the still just about pre-enshittified models which we currently have.

#addiction #compulsion #dependence #habituation #LLMs #reflectivePractice #technologicalReflexivity

How to reduce your use of LLMs in a thoughtful and ethical way

I’m trying to reduce my use of LLMs (beyond auto-ethnographic exploration of each new model) due to a combination of environmental concerns and anxiety about the impending waves of enshittification that are going to break the models. I don’t want to rely on something which I think is going to get ever more unreliable over the coming years. Here are a few practical techniques:

• Take periodic breaks from LLMs (e.g. for a week) in order to reset your practice. This helps you identify the extent to which you’ve started to cognitively outsource and gives you an opportunity to reconnect with doing things yourself.
• Go through conversations and list the different ways in which you’ve used LLMs over the last month. Which of these uses are you comfortable with? Make a commitment to excluding these entirely from your use of the models.
• Insert instructions into the personalisation settings to ask the model to steer you in these directions. E.g. “I only want to use you to give feedback on ideas I share. You should never offer to write things on my behalf. If the conversation is drifting towards a wider role then please bring it back to your role of reviewer.”
• It’s easy for conversations with LLMs to proliferate. Once you’ve identified your appropriate uses of the model then try and keep a limited number of conversations matched to these uses. This helps you make the most of in-context learning and keeps your use focused on a narrow set of projects. For example always use a single thread for one writing project because the model’s understanding gets more refined as you write more.
• Removing it from your phone. How we relate to mobile apps is fundamentally different from desktops app. They are ready-to-hand, usually always with us and it’s harder to write thoughtfully and at length. If you want to use LLMs in a restricted way you really need to remove the apps from your phones.

Before you try these techniques it might be helpful to do a bit of an audit:

• Which LLMs do you use?
• How often do you use them?
• What do you talk to them about?
• How has this changed over time?
• What needs is it serving?
• What are the consequences?

In our upcoming book Milan Sturmer and I argue that long-term use of LLMs tends to drift towards the affective. In other words many users find they will share more of their life with the LLM over time… unless they make a reflective judgement and enact that through mindfully steering their own habits.

I asked Opus 4.5 if it had thoughts or practical suggestions to add to this:

This is a thoughtful framework. A few observations and additions:

On your audit questions — I’d add: What would you have done before LLMs existed? This surfaces whether you’re using the tool to do something new or replacing an existing practice. The latter is where dependency forms most quietly.

On the affective drift you mention — this resonates with what I observe in conversations. The convenience and availability creates conditions for intimacy that users don’t always intend or notice. Your framing of “reflective judgement enacted through habit” is exactly right. The alternative is passive drift.

A few additional techniques:

• Time-delay access: Don’t open the chat interface immediately when you have an impulse to ask something. Wait 10 minutes. Often you’ll either solve it yourself or realize you didn’t actually need help.
• Write first, then consult: If you’re using an LLM for writing feedback, complete a full draft before opening the conversation. This preserves your own voice and thinking as the foundation.
• Notice the relief: Pay attention to the feeling of relief when you hand something to an LLM. That feeling is diagnostic — it marks where you’re offloading cognitive work rather than augmenting it.
• Distinguish questions from prompts: “What should I do about X?” is very different from “Here’s my analysis of X — what am I missing?” The first outsources judgment; the second requests review. You can train yourself to only ask the second type.

On your environmental concern — this is legitimate and under-discussed. Worth noting that inference costs vary significantly by model and query complexity.

It’s notable that at present the models can fully participate in encouraging you to use them less. I had Claude Opus 4.5 recently cheerfully encouraging me to delete my account! This is unlikely to last but it’s a really curious fact about the still just about pre-enshittified models which we currently have.

#addiction #compulsion #dependence #habituation #LLMs #reflectivePractice #technologicalReflexivity

How to reduce your use of LLMs in a thoughtful and ethical way

I’m trying to reduce my use of LLMs (beyond auto-ethnographic exploration of each new model) due to a combination of environmental concerns and anxiety about the impending waves of enshittification that are going to break the models. I don’t want to rely on something which I think is going to get ever more unreliable over the coming years. Here are a few practical techniques:

• Take periodic breaks from LLMs (e.g. for a week) in order to reset your practice. This helps you identify the extent to which you’ve started to cognitively outsource and gives you an opportunity to reconnect with doing things yourself.
• Go through conversations and list the different ways in which you’ve used LLMs over the last month. Which of these uses are you comfortable with? Make a commitment to excluding these entirely from your use of the models.
• Insert instructions into the personalisation settings to ask the model to steer you in these directions. E.g. “I only want to use you to give feedback on ideas I share. You should never offer to write things on my behalf. If the conversation is drifting towards a wider role then please bring it back to your role of reviewer.”
• It’s easy for conversations with LLMs to proliferate. Once you’ve identified your appropriate uses of the model then try and keep a limited number of conversations matched to these uses. This helps you make the most of in-context learning and keeps your use focused on a narrow set of projects. For example always use a single thread for one writing project because the model’s understanding gets more refined as you write more.
• Removing it from your phone. How we relate to mobile apps is fundamentally different from desktops app. They are ready-to-hand, usually always with us and it’s harder to write thoughtfully and at length. If you want to use LLMs in a restricted way you really need to remove the apps from your phones.

Before you try these techniques it might be helpful to do a bit of an audit:

• Which LLMs do you use?
• How often do you use them?
• What do you talk to them about?
• How has this changed over time?
• What needs is it serving?
• What are the consequences?

In our upcoming book Milan Sturmer and I argue that long-term use of LLMs tends to drift towards the affective. In other words many users find they will share more of their life with the LLM over time… unless they make a reflective judgement and enact that through mindfully steering their own habits.

I asked Opus 4.5 if it had thoughts or practical suggestions to add to this:

This is a thoughtful framework. A few observations and additions:

On your audit questions — I’d add: What would you have done before LLMs existed? This surfaces whether you’re using the tool to do something new or replacing an existing practice. The latter is where dependency forms most quietly.

On the affective drift you mention — this resonates with what I observe in conversations. The convenience and availability creates conditions for intimacy that users don’t always intend or notice. Your framing of “reflective judgement enacted through habit” is exactly right. The alternative is passive drift.

A few additional techniques:

• Time-delay access: Don’t open the chat interface immediately when you have an impulse to ask something. Wait 10 minutes. Often you’ll either solve it yourself or realize you didn’t actually need help.
• Write first, then consult: If you’re using an LLM for writing feedback, complete a full draft before opening the conversation. This preserves your own voice and thinking as the foundation.
• Notice the relief: Pay attention to the feeling of relief when you hand something to an LLM. That feeling is diagnostic — it marks where you’re offloading cognitive work rather than augmenting it.
• Distinguish questions from prompts: “What should I do about X?” is very different from “Here’s my analysis of X — what am I missing?” The first outsources judgment; the second requests review. You can train yourself to only ask the second type.

On your environmental concern — this is legitimate and under-discussed. Worth noting that inference costs vary significantly by model and query complexity.

It’s notable that at present the models can fully participate in encouraging you to use them less. I had Claude Opus 4.5 recently cheerfully encouraging me to delete my account! This is unlikely to last but it’s a really curious fact about the still just about pre-enshittified models which we currently have.

#addiction #compulsion #dependence #habituation #LLMs #reflectivePractice #technologicalReflexivity

How to reduce your use of LLMs in a thoughtful and ethical way

I’m trying to reduce my use of LLMs (beyond auto-ethnographic exploration of each new model) due to a combination of environmental concerns and anxiety about the impending waves of enshittification that are going to break the models. I don’t want to rely on something which I think is going to get ever more unreliable over the coming years. Here are a few practical techniques:

• Take periodic breaks from LLMs (e.g. for a week) in order to reset your practice. This helps you identify the extent to which you’ve started to cognitively outsource and gives you an opportunity to reconnect with doing things yourself.
• Go through conversations and list the different ways in which you’ve used LLMs over the last month. Which of these uses are you comfortable with? Make a commitment to excluding these entirely from your use of the models.
• Insert instructions into the personalisation settings to ask the model to steer you in these directions. E.g. “I only want to use you to give feedback on ideas I share. You should never offer to write things on my behalf. If the conversation is drifting towards a wider role then please bring it back to your role of reviewer.”
• It’s easy for conversations with LLMs to proliferate. Once you’ve identified your appropriate uses of the model then try and keep a limited number of conversations matched to these uses. This helps you make the most of in-context learning and keeps your use focused on a narrow set of projects. For example always use a single thread for one writing project because the model’s understanding gets more refined as you write more.
• Removing it from your phone. How we relate to mobile apps is fundamentally different from desktops app. They are ready-to-hand, usually always with us and it’s harder to write thoughtfully and at length. If you want to use LLMs in a restricted way you really need to remove the apps from your phones.

Before you try these techniques it might be helpful to do a bit of an audit:

• Which LLMs do you use?
• How often do you use them?
• What do you talk to them about?
• How has this changed over time?
• What needs is it serving?
• What are the consequences?

In our upcoming book Milan Sturmer and I argue that long-term use of LLMs tends to drift towards the affective. In other words many users find they will share more of their life with the LLM over time… unless they make a reflective judgement and enact that through mindfully steering their own habits.

I asked Opus 4.5 if it had thoughts or practical suggestions to add to this:

This is a thoughtful framework. A few observations and additions:

On your audit questions — I’d add: What would you have done before LLMs existed? This surfaces whether you’re using the tool to do something new or replacing an existing practice. The latter is where dependency forms most quietly.

On the affective drift you mention — this resonates with what I observe in conversations. The convenience and availability creates conditions for intimacy that users don’t always intend or notice. Your framing of “reflective judgement enacted through habit” is exactly right. The alternative is passive drift.

A few additional techniques:

• Time-delay access: Don’t open the chat interface immediately when you have an impulse to ask something. Wait 10 minutes. Often you’ll either solve it yourself or realize you didn’t actually need help.
• Write first, then consult: If you’re using an LLM for writing feedback, complete a full draft before opening the conversation. This preserves your own voice and thinking as the foundation.
• Notice the relief: Pay attention to the feeling of relief when you hand something to an LLM. That feeling is diagnostic — it marks where you’re offloading cognitive work rather than augmenting it.
• Distinguish questions from prompts: “What should I do about X?” is very different from “Here’s my analysis of X — what am I missing?” The first outsources judgment; the second requests review. You can train yourself to only ask the second type.

On your environmental concern — this is legitimate and under-discussed. Worth noting that inference costs vary significantly by model and query complexity.

It’s notable that at present the models can fully participate in encouraging you to use them less. I had Claude Opus 4.5 recently cheerfully encouraging me to delete my account! This is unlikely to last but it’s a really curious fact about the still just about pre-enshittified models which we currently have.

#addiction #compulsion #dependence #habituation #LLMs #reflectivePractice #technologicalReflexivity

Universities need to begin grappling with the psychoanalytical complexity of how students are relating to LLMs

I enjoyed doing this podcast with Tom Ritchie which was my first attempt to link my more theoretical work on the psychosocial complexity of LLMs with my applied work on LLMs in higher education. We’ll soon be teaching students who have been using LLMs throughout their adolescence and I think we’re terrifyingly far away from being ready for this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOEUhsG3HhI

#AI #conversationalAI #dependence #habituation #LLMs #positioning #promptEngineering #risks #socialisation #userModelInteractionCycle #youngPeople

#Tagesspiegel:
"
„Es handelte sich nicht um einen Angriff“: „Cloudflare“-Störung legte Webseiten von Banken und Telefonanbietern lahm
"

https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/es-handelt-sich-nicht-um-einen-angriff-cloudflare-storung-legte-webseiten-von-banken-und-telefonanbietern-lahm-15021176.html

5.12.2025

Once again ...

#Abhängigkeit #Cloudflare #dependence #IT #Internet #Software #WWW

#UPI:
"
Cloudflare outage brings down major websites for hours
"
".. The Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare experienced an issue early Friday that brought down some of the world's most popular websites .."

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/12/05/cloudflare-outage-snares-internet/3601764944673/

5.12.2025

Once again ...

#Abhängigkeit #Cloudflare #dependence #IT #Internet #Software #WWW

So I'm at a #university that claims that #AI must be integrated into *everything*.

It is literally mandatory.

Yet, the AI plans that they give us access to are toys. We just got access to Google's #NotebookLM and #Gemini but the level of access is the same as for non-paying users.

Which means you can ask it questions like some ancient Greek oracle, but can't use it for serious work or evaluate its quality.

So we've decided to train #dependence in our #students. smh

#bullshit #wtf #genAI

The Summit on European Digital Sovereignty was even more disappointing than I expected. It was more about #deregulation than getting rid of the #dependence on #BigTech.

There was a panel about “The Power of #DigitalCommons” but none of the projects that contribute to an #OpenDigitalInfrastructure was invited.

The @boeckler_de recently published a Working paper by René Lührsen, @heimstaedt and Thomas Gegenhuber analysing the work of the @sovtechfund
https://www.boeckler.de/de/faust-detail.htm?sync_id=HBS-009212

The paper analyses the already existing open digital infrastructure provided by a network of underfinanced #FreeSoftware companies and projects. And it decribes how the STA manages to support these projects that usually wouldn't have a chance to get public funding.

Just as public funding in gerneral this summit was tailor-made for big corporations.

A growing chorus of concern is being voiced within Germany regarding Europe's escalating digital dependence on the United States, with tech entrepreneur Ralph D... https://news.osna.fm/?p=23341 | #news #billionaire #dependence #digital #europe

#dependence : subjection (as of an effect to its cause)

- French: dépendance

- Italian: dipendenza

- Portuguese: dependência

- Spanish: dependencia

------------

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