Andy @ andrewrgross @slrpnk.net

Posts

41

Comments

1,072

Joined

2 yr. ago

Oh, that's cool! I'm excited to check this out. I like their content. I don't love it enough to keep up with it (especially because they're a little long) but I'm interested to hear their take.

They're not "just" freedom fighters: they ARE freedom fighters, but they are also conservative religious freedom fighters who utilize indiscriminate violence to advance their cause of by any means necessary.

They are not morally upright heroes. I can't support what they did. They are, however, also still freedom fighters. And it makes me very, very angry that their tactics have been successful after non-violence failed in 2018. It shouldn't have come to this.

As Kennedy astutely observed, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”.

I cannot endorse the violence Hamas employs, but I also understand in such a context why others do. This was an inevitable outcome of extreme political disenfranchisement, and that makes me equally furious at the joint responsibility I see for the atrocities that have resulted.

I think that any coverage should simply ask organizers to comment.

This is such a propaganda tactic: no one can stop someone from showing up with any flag they want. If the organizers embrace it? Then the criticism is fair game.

But if they say something like 'out of thousands of protesters who share our demand for peace, several brought inflammatory messages that don't represent us', then media has a duty to report that.

A lot of people have pointed out inherent ideological components of this platform, but I would also suggest that the lean is likely in part from network effects.

How did each of us find our way here? Someone likely mentioned the platform on another social site, or linked a meme, or shared other content.

If the site has lots of left leaning content that gets shared by left leaning people in places where such people gather, it's going to bais the new arrivals in a similar direction. This is true of most social spaces, I think. And it's good! I want right wingers to hang out in right wing spaces like Twitter, just like I want them to hang out at their own bars and clubs, away from me.

This sucks. I was really holding out hope that they might chart a better path forward than most of the alternatives.

Which part? I think this is all subjective opinion.

Yeah, but the training set is nowhere near clean. That's my point. "Close" is no where near good enough within this context,

I posted a comment impulsively, then saw that you already gave the same answer better.

I'd like to go a bit deeper.

I don't think people invented socially controlling practices because they found religion, I think they found religion to frame the invention of socially controlling practices.

Masturbation is a gratifying act that relives pressure to settle into a rigid domestic arrangement that serves to make more workers and soldiers, and create dependents that need fed, and whose well-being would be threatened if a parent became defiant and provoked the ire of elites.

Masturbation is good for the individual at the expense of the nation and its rulers. So it's inevitable that priests would decry it as an affront against god, as that's historically been their purpose.

Why do you guarantee that? It seems obviously wrong, on a technical level.

The point I'm making is that even if we take it as a given that a shrewd enough AI could correctly distinguish sex at birth -- which I think is obviously impossible based on the appearances of many ciswomen and the nature of statistical prediction -- you'd still need a training data set.

If the dataset has any erroneous input, that corrupts its ability, and the whole point of this exercise is trying to find passing transwomen. Why would anyone expect that training set of hundreds of thousands of supposed cis women wouldn't have a few transwomen in it?

This is a great point.

The technology that excludes transwomen from the app is the clear warning that the app is populated exclusively for transphobes. It's obviously wildly dangerous for a transwoman to be on the app.

The notion that AI is going to clock them is absurd AI hype. There's no reason to expect AI to be capable of this kind of discernment, and that assumes you even had a training set. Where in the absolute fuck would someone find a training set like that?

Edit: I didn't read the article. It seems it's a lesbian dating app. Well, probably less dangerous for transwomen, but still not technically sound.

To add to this: Netanyahu has been on trial for corruption for years, and he's been using the war as an excuse to avoid holding elections, which he would lose.

When the war ends, Bibi is going to jail. And would you look at that? He's in a permanent war! What are the odds.

Yeah. And it's so bad that I feel like the functionality barely goes down.

They should release the following:

'Out of an abundance of caution, we advise against any user charging this device and attempting to rely on it for communications or regular assistance. Fortunately, we've found a workaround and suggest customers looking to continue enjoying the benefits of the Humane pin consider wearing it down in an unpowered state. This will provide infinite battery life and a 100% reduction in unwanted heating while enabling users to continue to receive nearly all the same functionality to which they are accustomed.'

I think a polite congratulation and a continued offer to cooperate is fine. I was just disappointed that Biden through Modi a state dinner. That's kind of crazy.

I believe he did it because everyone in Washington worries about the big recently industrialized countries embracing China more than the US, but I don't think that's ultimately a good use of our influence in the long-term.

Are you saying that if the turkey that I mailman is frosty it could jujubee the training data microwave?

Thank fucking God.

I'm not totally surprised. There was so much artificial strength projection, and a more desperate air to the late stage of the campaign that looked to me like a campaign that was seeing different info than what they were saying.

Hopefully, a lack of a super majority might limit the damage he'll cause.

Also, I don't want the US to meddle in foreign countries' affairs, but I'd like our leaders to refrain from flattering and supporting nationalists and authoritarians.

The impression is surprisingly bad.

Still weird, though. But I guess this is what we've got to get used to. Eventually, they'll probably sound much more convincing.

To add to this, I've been using GIMP on and off for a decade and I've never given any thought to the name. It's all capitalized. I didn't think it was a backronym, I thought it was just an acronym.

I've used this in professional settings (I used to work in academic molecular bio), and I was very evangelical about it. Especially because we're not doing high-level artistic work, we just sometimes need something for processing microscope images or making graphics for scientific publications.

I'd say to any and everyone, "You know, you don't have to pay an annual subscription fee for Photoshop: there's this free, open-source program called GIMP that does most of what you need and you don't have to pay a thing! Want me to install it for you?"

I didn't even think to be embarrassed about the name, and no one ever seemed to care in conversation. As others have said, the bigger impediments are people's attachment to commercial software and interface challenges. This is just an absolutely silly complaint to make.

This is a good question.

My analysis:

First and foremost: It is not a demand that Israel accept a ceasefire, it is a demand that Hamas accept the terms of a ceasefire. Sometimes this is a very subtle difference, but one the key elements of a ceasefire negotiation is that each side is trying to continue fighting while making their adversary look like the aggressor. So far, it looks like Biden has moved slightly, but he still is not applying pressure on Netanyahu to end the war.

Second: Continuing on that last point, there is no leverage. Biden has persistently chosen not to do anything that would actually apply pressure. He has deferred to Netanyahu's judgement and supported him while gradually shifting in tone, but it's become 1000% clear that Netanyahu will stop when he is forced to, and not a moment sooner.

Third: The focus is constantly on micromanaging the situation. Debating how many civilians can get killed, what fraction of the homes can be demolished, how much territory Israel can appropriate in Gaza. None of this actually addresses the foundational issues: one side is imposing apartheid with genocidal intent on a neighbor that is largely powerless, and the other side's only real avenue for expressing itself is through terrorism. Which is bad for both sides. If these realities persist, then the cycle that has governed nearly three generations is allowed to continue. There must be a breaking point in that cycle, and referring back to point 2: it's going to have to be imposed on the leadership in Israel. They WILL NOT accept it willingly.

In summary, this is a very welcome change in narrative for Biden, but we are far past the point of fiddling with narratives. We need policy action, and it's incredible that he's still dug in like this after another state department official just resigned because she said that she was being pressured to be an accomplice in breaking US law against knowingly aiding war crimes.

My frustration is that I think terms like "settler violence" misinform people:

1. the violence isn't coming from a handful of lone-wolf settlers. It's state sanctioned.
2. this isn't just violence like a bar flight or soccer riot. It's deliberate, methodical, ethnic cleansing. It is a purposeful atrocity.

We need to hold the whole Israeli government and a bunch of specific NGOs accountable for all of this.