Microsoft’s Copilot funnily enough actually provides sources that it pulls from the internet if you ask it to.

I enjoy Sudoku, but that is something I learned. There is no “enjoy sudoko” element within me that I did not put there myself.

You didn’t enjoy learning Sudoku in the first place? Did you have to force yourself? Did someone teach you how to enjoy sodoku after you learned how to actually play?

Maybe there isn’t a specific Sudoku drive in human beings but that’s not what intrinsically means. There is an intrinsic drive to follow your natural intellectual and physical interests that do not have to be taught. They are variable depending on the person’s personal inclinations, but you are not “trained” to enjoy something. Even as seemingly fundamental like reading. You might have to learn how to read first, but that’s not being “trained to enjoy” reading. Whether you enjoy it depends on the type of person you are.

Like, if I saw someone doing something that looks fun or interesting, I’d want to participate intrinsically.

If someone offered me money to participate I would be extrinsically motivated.

They did. Everyone I knew back in the Windows 3.1 days already had computers. Most of those people didn’t have Windows, and used standalone applications. The increase in ownership came when hardware prices finally fell enough for them to be affordable. Windows development was a result of that uptick, not the cause.

I mean, maybe, price is obviously a compelling aspect here. Its hard to separate correlation and causation, though I’ll hand you that price was probably more compelling.

That said, the people you knew who already owned computers were part of a minority, only about 15% of American households had a computer when Windows 3.1 released.

Dude, in a previous job I had a superior aggressively refuse to let me teach him how to do some extremely basic things on his computer (he’d just call me over to do it whenever he needed it done) and told me he did not know what an internet browser was (he used one everyday).

Now, I did not understand his thought process, but he exists. There are 100% people who understand the basics but experience intense cognitive stress at the mere sight of a command line.

I only ever played GTA2 during the 2D era. I remember loving it then though. Maybe I ought to emulate the classics on my Steam Deck.

Of course I was obsessed with 3 when it came out. And Vice City and San Andreas were master pieces. I never played the PSP/DS games (those might also be good Steam Deck games for the future.)

I did beat 4 and its stand alone expansions. They were all pretty great, I even kind of liked the driving when everyone else was hating on it.

I have had GTA5 sitting in my Steam Library for a very long time with effectively 0 hours played. I’ll get around to eventually. It looks like I’ll enjoy it, though I hear its single player isn’t as good as 4’s.

If I really want to play it in the first place, no. But if its a game that has elements I’m interested in but has some poorly aged mechanics or QoL issues I’ll simply prioritize different games with the thought that maybe one day it’ll get the remake treatment.

That said I semi-recently played through the entirety of official Wolfenstein 3D releases (base game + prequel expansions) for the first time using a sourceport with WASD+Mouse controls and no other enhancements, I’m not a particularly picky player about elderly games.

I loved MGS 1 and 2 but I’m some kind of freak because I just could not get into MGS3 and people fucking obsessively love that game.

I just beat Rayman legends (though not to completion) on my Steam Deck. Rayman Origins was better IMO. Next Steam Deck game is Disco Elysium, a friend wants me to play it so we can discuss it. Thus far it seems really well made but I’m extremely early (I just finished the first conversation).

Also been playing Killing Floor 2 with some friends on my desktop here and there. Doing the whole spreadsheet analysis of the game’s weapons and classes. I often can’t enjoy casual coop and pvp games unless I can do in-depth analysis and theory crafting.

Also about to start playing Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (PC) on my desktop in my quest to check off every Ubisoft game I own. I recently beat Advanced Warfighter 1 and 2 on 360 (XB1 emulation) and can say they’re solidly enjoyable semi-linear cover shooters of their era. I even played Ghost Recon 2 & Summit Strike on OG Xbox before that (I like to play through the entire series of games from original release). Look forward to seeing how they evolved the series before they turned it into open world Ubi-slop with Wildlands & Breakpoint.

Also about to start my first playthrough of Last of Us Part II (PS4) in anticipation of the second season of the show. Technically restart, I’ve played the first 5 hours or so already, but lost my save file.

And finally, I hope to try and get back into Skyrim VR. but I’m already pretty overloaded so I’m doubtful I’ll have time to continue my current save this week.

The only things that people “intrinsically” want are food and fornication. Everything else, they have been taught and trained.

EVERYTHING? I enjoy doing things that aren’t eating and sex on a intrinsic level that I was never trained to enjoy. I just… wanted to do those things. A lot of things are intrinsically fun that are not eating and sex.

The training they have received from Microsoft domination has been “don’t learn how to use a computer”.

Why didn’t people adopt personal computers en masse before Windows came to be then? After Windows 3.0, personal ownership of computers more than doubled over the course of 5-6 years and then continued to balloon, speeding up adoption well beyond the previous decade.

Look, I’m not a fan of Microsoft either but this is conspiracism.

Microsoft is not the reason I believe its a pipedream to turn people into computer techs. Its a cold hard reality.

Even particularly smart people have to want to be computer techs. I work with teachers, genuinely smart people, who have zero desire or motivation to learn computer use outside how it can help them teach in a fairly “if its not broke don’t fix it” mentality. They aren’t incurious but they have limited time and resources and they use such elsewhere. My attempts to get them to even try Linux Mint has thus far failed, the idea that I could get them to learn CLI is absurd.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe even dim wits could learn to be computer techs and use a command line, but that requires them to want that. Most people do not intrinsically desire that.

What is your goal? Are you content with Linux being niche?

If not, what group do you think this appeals to?

The casual device user continues to ignore Windows desktops and use their phone let alone Linux at this point.

The normie desktop user who just wants a internet browser and basic office software can easily be won over to Linux Mint. You advocating everything be CLI based will kill that.

The casual desktop enthusiast & PC gamer will get irritated and impatient and go back to comfy Windows. They mostly just want their games to run smoothly and maybe look pretty. Maybe install an application that does something moderately technical for them with tweaks here and there.

You already have the hardcore techy users. They don’t need to be converted.

In my opinion, Linux and its various distro’s main goal ought to be to undermine for-profit OS. Not to turn everyone into computer techs. The latter is a pipe dream anyway.

The average “not a computer person” does not own a computer at all, they use their smartphone for literally everything

Absolutely. If anything, this reinforces my thought towards many Linux evangelists. Hell, I am arguably a Linux Evangelist myself, but I know realistically the biggest group of people Linux has a shot at getting on board (that aren’t already) are the “middle group”. People who are semi-techy who insist on having and using a desktop but still want to be able to do things as easily right up front as they could with a new Windows OS. And this is the group many Linux users seem to aggressively despise for a lack of purity.

This group in particular is made up of a lot of “casual enthusiasts” and PC gamers, which is probably why the Steam Deck represented such a huge bump in linux usage.

I use both Windows and Linux. I also mess around with github programs here and there and they almost all require use of a command line to install or manipulate. And because a command line intrinsically is going to inform you way too little or way too much about what you are doing I end up having way more technical issues because I don’t realize I’m missing a dependency or I glazed over an error that popped up in a sea of text during installation.

Linux’s leaning on CLI is good for extremes: ultra-techy programmers and perfectionists and the exact opposite: people who just want internet and a word processor (who will install like basically nothing anyway so CLI wont bother them and probably keep them from breaking something in a GUI settings page).

People in the middle who are semi-techy end up annoyed because if they want to do some middle of the road changes to their system they have to use a command line or even code something themselves. Instead of just using a search engine to find the 1 out of a billion different little windows based applications that already exist to do the small yet very specific thing to a “good enough” level. Which just requires a minute or two of internet research, clicking download, waiting a bit, then installing a thing. Some of those tasks you can do while doing something else.

Or yes, maybe they end up needing to edit an ini file or a registry file (very rarely in the latter case).

Basically I’m talking about tech users that always use the path of least resistance rather than the most advanced or custom. People who want to do 20% of the work to get 80% of the results.

As a Windows & Linux user, I can, in the same way that I get that car people love working on cars.

I still really don’t ever want to work on cars but I understand.

I largely use technology of any kind for the applications of its use, not because of an intrinsic desire to knee deep in technical work.

Lightly edited copy paste of my response elsewhere:

Creation’s are not that of only the individual creator, they come from a common progress, culture, and history. When individual creator’s copyright their works and their works become a major part of common culture they slice up culture for themselves, dictating how it may be used against the wishes of the masses. Desiring this makes them unworthy of having any cultural control IMO. They become just as much of an authoritarian as a lord, landlord, or capitalist.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that copyright also harms individual creators once culture has been carved up: Producing brand new stories inevitably are in some way derivative of previous existing works so because they are locked out of the existing IP unless they sign a deal with the devil they’re usually doomed to failure due to no ability to have a grip on cultural relevance.

Now, desiring the ability to make a living being an individual creator? That’s completely reasonable. Copyright is not the solution however.

"Thing is, land ownership also served a purpose before lord’s/landlord’s/capitalists decided to expand it to the point of controlling and dictating the lives of serfs/renters/workers. "

Creation’s are not that of only the individual creator, they come from a common progress, culture, and history. When individual creator’s copyright their works and their works become a major part of common culture they slice up culture for themselves, dictating how it may be used against the wishes of the masses. Desiring this makes them unworthy of having any cultural control IMO. They become just as much of an authoritarian as a lord, landlord, or capitalist.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that copyright also harms individual creators once culture has been carved up: Producing brand new stories inevitably are in some way derivative of previous existing works so because they are locked out of the existing IP unless they sign a deal with the devil they’re usually doomed to failure due to no ability to have a grip on cultural relevance.

Now, desiring the ability to make a living being an individual creator? That’s completely reasonable. Copyright is not the solution however.

I suspect your assessment is at best subconsciously biased and at worst in bad faith. You’ll need to elaborate on the mechanism of how they’d “keep copyright as restrictive as possible” in a world where it is not possible to copyright AI generated works.

I hope generative AI obliterates copyright. I hope that its destruction is so thorough that we either forget it ever existed or we talk about it in disgust as something that only existed in stupider times.

This is too weak and virtue oriented.

That said, I guess its better than nothing. Focusing on promoting alternatives however would probably be a little more effective. Amazon has a lot of weird niche products that I’ve struggled to find else where from trust-able sellers.

Wanting a good GUI doesn’t mean you don’t know what you are doing.