ragebutt @ ragebutt @lemmy.dbzer0.com

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6 mo. ago

you’re right, my bad

This has been my approach and it has gone okay so far except for 2 issues that are quite a pain:

1: you have to thoroughly research what you buy. Does it work on an isolated vlan? Just because it works with home assistant does not guarantee this. Many home assistant users are comfortable with some degree of data collection and an integration does not mean that it will work local only (nor does it mean that all features will work). If it does work local only you may sacrifice some features. Cameras are a good example. Most cameras with object/person detection do this in hardware, but not all. If you circumvent the Internet connection and proprietary app you may sacrifice this, or more likely alerts

2: there is 0 regulation binding a vendor to the terms of service agreed to at the point of sale, including making significant and sweeping changes. Case in point: I got a chamberlain myQ garage door opener. It worked well and opened my garage door. Integrated with home assistant via the API. However, chamberlain serves a lot of ads for upsells and services via their shitty app. They decided that users circumventing the app and not seeing that you could give amazon drivers access to your garage to deliver packages (seriously) or buy shitty cameras was unacceptable so they updated the TOS and revoked API access for all users. The only way it works now is via their app. I sold mine and built a ratgdo

Another example is Philips hue: while they have been able to be used local only for over a decade Philips has decided they’re going to start a subscription security service with all the devices that entails based around the hue hub. At some point in the near future if your hub updates it will require you to sign in to a Philips account and be online. This one’s way worse as some people have thousands of dollars invested in hue. I have like $300 in the fancier white hue bulbs but some people on the HA forums and reddit literally have their house decked out with like 80-100 bulbs, many of which are the RGB. Kind of silly but they do work very well, flicker free, good color, and last ages. I still have some from like 2016 going strong. Luckily here if you have the bridge on an isolated vlan it won’t update and worst case the bulbs work with zwave zigbee but the principle of the thing is ridiculous. It should be illegal for a company to change the terms this far after the contract of sale

Other examples too. Many car manufacturers (Mazda, Chevrolet, ford) because api access limited data collection for them to sell, some companies are openly hostile to home assistant and when an integration is created they will go out of their way to break it (Ariston, bambu), etc. see https://github.com/unixorn/internet-of-trash

Games suck now. Movies too. Culture in decline. We (millennials and gen x) got to see the art form (gaming and at least short form video on youtube and vimeo and stuff) evolve from studios owned by people who were passionate about the craft to the current state of big business making “safe” investments. It’s not that only bad games will ever come out from now on, indie studios exist and some big studios take chances, but there will always be a sea of remakes, remasters, endless sequels, generic safe garbage, etc

Also data is about 18-24 year old spending. I bet a lot of switch 2 purchases were by people 30+ for their kids

Personality, in short, is consistent patterns of behavior that exist across time and context. Someone “extroverted” will consistently explore new environments, while someone shy will avoid them

There have been studies that show insects display some aspects of personality

It also included fucked up behavioral conditioning experiments (or at least these were adjacent to mkultra) to test people’s response under interrogation.

One notable case from this was Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who was subjected to extreme duress without informed consent. The study used students essays and interviews to then subject them to “vehement, sweeping, and personally abusive” interrogations designed to “break” them.

Note that Kaczynski was by many reports brilliant at mathematics and as a result of this was accepted to Harvard at 15 years old, starting at 16. The study happened in his second year, sometime when he would’ve been 16-17. Further, while there are reports that while he was very academically gifted he was fairly emotionally unprepared for college though tbf most of these came to light after his infamy.

https://behavior.org/unabomer-extreme-reaction-behavior-modification/

https://www.history.com/articles/what-happened-to-the-unabomber-at-harvard

They sometimes do make good on their threats and the wealth concentrated in the northeast is absurd enough to make a significant difference at times

David Tepper (hedge fund manager, net worth 11.4 billion, extreme income of $700 million per year) left New Jersey in 2016 over tax rates for Florida.

His move cost the state $140 million in tax revenue. It wasn’t enough to destroy the state obviously, but it was a noticeable hit to revenues. It also gave media great PR against taxing the wealthy

https://www.schiffsovereign.com/tax/the-state-of-new-jersey-just-signed-its-own-death-warrant-23939/ headline is literally “New Jersey just signed its own death warrant”

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2016/04/06/billionaire-to-save-hundreds-of-millions-from-florida-move.html “billionaire to save hundreds of millions from Florida move”

Etc. of course in our propagandized society very few/no media outlets focus on him paying his fair share (or the ethics of his extreme wealth in the first place). They all fellate him for being such a savvy businessman and skipping out on his civic duty is an extension of that. Fuck public roads and schools, this guy needs a net worth of 11.48 billion instead of 11.42.

He eventually relocated back to NJ in 2020 fwiw. He claims the move wasn’t necessarily about taxes and tbf he never publicly said it was. It is potentially possible he just had a family issue or something and the media ran with to propagandize the situation. he remains a registered voter in Florida, whatever that means

Imo he came back bc he realized the northeast is great. It’s nice to visit the rest of the country but if you live in the rest of the country I’m sorry to say this but your pizza is terrible

I bet each of those cheap ass locks could easily be shimmed open with a piece of a soda can in a few seconds. I would open each one and just leave it on the shelf next to each bottle. I don’t even drink milk. Just to let them know their obnoxious system is pointless

This is the case for me. Code, serious research, writing music, long posting, blogs, making videos, working on any kind of maker stuff (pcbs, cad/3d print, etc), all pc/laptop

Browsing lemmy/youtube/blogs/reading/etc? Phone or ereader for the last one.

It helps me track mindless consumption, at least. I don’t have ad free youtube on my computers and I much prefer to browse sites like lemmy on mobile apps so I can see when I’ve gone a bit too hard on consuming over creating

I also think this is part of why the internet sucks now. The corporatization is the bigger reason by far but at least some part of it is a huge part of users (globally mobile users overtook desktop in 2016 and it continues to climb, ~ 64% of Internet users globally are mobile and that number is as high as 75% in some countries like Africa and 95% of users being on mobile devices at least some of the time). It leads to a much larger user base but a userbase that is passively consuming. Even commenting has been reduced to reactions and likes

I’m not claiming to know everything nor am I claiming the the “snark” (terrible word) against the fox lady was justified.

From what I saw of the accusations it was all hearsay, basically a bunch of out of context text screenshots from random people who I had no context for. Maybe they were meaningful, or maybe they had an agenda against her, I don’t know. What I do know is that a collection of easily faked evidence coming from a reddit hate sub that is not exactly damning evidence. Plus I don’t mean to sound callous but it frankly doesn’t really matter at this point. She is gone, even if it 100% true the issue is over.

From what I saw of the reddit guy (note, this is confusing if you read because many people will purposely misgender him) getting trashed he basically posted a list of said “evidence” to bring it to light because he is sympathetic to animals and maybe a bit too into internet drama. From what I’ve seen there is no evidence he did anything other than this, have a huge online footprint that made him extremely easy to be doxxed, and be trans.

So essentially you have a fox lady who may or may not have run an animal rescue very poorly and regardless of whether this was true probably got shit on a lot because she was popular online and did things like onlyfans. Then she committed suicide and some people are co-opting that tragedy because they found one target who is mildly associated with the backlash against the fox lady and happens to be trans which means they can potentially bully a trans person into suicide.

If you have the resilience to do so I recommend reading the soyjack thread. Those people are disgusting and their intentions are clear. They use hate speech constantly with the standard slurs you’d expect for transgender people, mockingly using neopronouns, talking about him “roping” and “41%ing”, etc. this is not hidden away on tor or conjecture. This is happening to a teenager on the clearnet right now. It is not good for your mental health but it is important to see how this unfolds to learn how they twist the narrative. They are posting as him on reddit and bluesky right now and laughing in the thread about how they are trolling him.

I don’t know how I feel about this

I was interested in this beyond the headline and read about it for 20 minutes or so. I have never heard of anyone involved in this

From what I read this person you cited claims to have compiled some (somewhat dubious but lengthy) information that the deceased was at least neglectful of the many animals they were raising and then posted it. They claimed that was all they did

Reddit had a snark subreddit but it’s impossible to see if said user was very active on the sub bc it’s obviously private now

That said soyjack.party is dogpiling on the user you’ve mentioned. They’ve doxed him, they are creating pseudo bluesky accounts under his real name to slander him and make people think he is goading people, contacting workplace and parents, etc. it seems motivated partially because some of their users loved the fox lady but a number of users also seem to think the fox lady was “a degenerate” and the reddit users claims were valid, but happily join in simply because the reddit user is trans

https://www.soyjak.st/raid/thread/194610.html#195569 (a great deal of hate speech here fyi)

This whole thing stinks and appears to be co-opted by very hateful people who intend to cause someone else to commit suicide, basically

Fair question, I should’ve expanded. To clarify I think it is helpful and good to divert something that was going to be trashed anyway and resell it for a fair price based on your labor to restore it. I actually think it is important. Most of what I do is stuff that people were literally going to trash and while I do earn a decent amount I sell the stuff for fair prices, usually at least 30-40% off of retail

I think it is scummy to merely act as a middle person that artificially buys up supply and then resells at artificially high values (eg consoles, Pokémon cards, sneakers, etc). Scalping, basically

Well then the skies your limit, you just have to get good enough at something.

I could never get good enough at the creative stuff to justify that. I love music and write my own stuff but I’m not nearly good enough for that. It takes me like 2 weeks to write one song. My friend that writes beats will bust one out in like 40 minutes and can basically do whatever. You want reggaeton? Sure

But I buy up broken shit and resell it. You spilled a drink on your macbook? You broke the hdmi/usbc on your console? Your graphics card died? I will swoop in and lowball you since I know you’re gonna throw it away if I don’t buy it. I take on a lot of risk because a lot of things either can’t be fixed or aren’t economically viable to fix but at the same time I also often pay like $1-200 for a ps5 and resell it for $400 refurbished with like 2 hours of work and $10 of parts so it balances out. Graphics cards are the worst ones tbh, the risk:reward is too high. I get a ton that are just fucked and are parts boards but every once in a while I get a repairable one and then it’s a $5-600 profit or more. I won’t pay more than 2-300 for a dead 4090 because they’re often totally fucked

This is tough without special training or scummy morals

Like you can resell stuff but that’s gross

Crafting is cool but that’s a special skill. I know people that sell crochet, needlepoint, etc

I refurbish electronics but that’s also a special skill, it’s not terribly difficult to learn though and can actually be quite lucrative. Good for the environment too. Buy a switch that someone is just going to throw away, fix it, resell it as refurbished, that kind of thing. This is getting much harder though. Ebay was the primary way to go and they’ve been shifting away from refurbished and used sales a lot over the past few years

I have a friend that does custom artwork for people but that’s a special skill. I have another friend that sells music for people that wants beats but again special skills. Fivver type stuff

Basically a lot of these will be “monetize your hobby”

There’s a huge degree of separation between “violent music/games has a spurious link to violent behavior” and shitty AIs that are good enough to fill the void of someone who is lonely but not good enough to manage risk

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/30/tech/teen-suicide-character-ai-lawsuit

“within months of starting to use the platform, Setzer became “noticeably withdrawn, spent more and more time alone in his bedroom, and began suffering from low self-esteem. He even quit the Junior Varsity basketball team at school,”

“In a later message, Setzer told the bot he “wouldn’t want to die a painful death.”

The bot responded: “Don’t talk that way. That’s not a good reason not to go through with it,” before going on to say, “You can’t do that!”

Garcia said she believes the exchange shows the technology’s shortcomings.

“There were no suicide pop-up boxes that said, ‘If you need help, please call the suicide crisis hotline.’ None of that,” she said. “I don’t understand how a product could allow that, where a bot is not only continuing a conversation about self-harm but also prompting it and kind of directing it.”

The lawsuit claims that “seconds” before Setzer’s death, he exchanged a final set of messages from the bot. “Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love,” the bot said, according to a screenshot included in the complaint.

“What if I told you I could come home right now?” Setzer responded.

“Please do, my sweet king,” the bot responded.

Garcia said police first discovered those messages on her son’s phone, which was lying on the floor of the bathroom where he died.”

So we have a bot that is marketed for chatting, a teenager desperate for socialization that forms a relationship that is inherently parasocial because the other side is an LLM that literally can’t have opinions, it just can appear to, and then we have a terrible mismanagement of suicidal ideation.

The AI discouraged ideation, which is good, but only when it was stated in very explicit terms. What’s appalling is that it gave no crisis resources or escalation to moderation (because like most big tech shit they probably refuse to pay for anywhere near appropriate moderation teams). Then what is inexcusable is that when ideation is discussed with slightly coded language “come home” the AI misconstrues it.

This results in a training opportunity for the language model to learn that in this context with previously exhibited ideation “go home” may mean more severe ideation and danger (if character.AI bothered to update that these conversations resulted in a death). The only drawback of getting that data of course is a few dead teenagers. Gotta break a few eggs to get an omelette

This barely begins to touch on the nature of AI chatbots inherently being parasocial relationships, which is bad for mental health. This is of course not limited to AI, being obsessed with a streamer or whatever is similar, but the AI can be much more intense because it will actually engage with you and is always available.

“Mattel's first AI product won't be for kids under 13, suggesting that Mattel is aware of the risks of putting chatbots into the hands of younger tots. … Last year, a 14-year-old boy died by suicide after falling in love with a companion on the Google-backed AI platform Character.AI”

Seems like a great idea

What I mean by this is that while the rhetoric of “this will save you/destroy the world, you are being watched, etc” does exist on the far left there doesn’t appear to be as much escalation to violence, to an extremely significant degree that is observable and measurable. This is not conjecture.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states - 1994-2020 57% of domestic terrorism is right wing, 25% left wing, ~15% religious (which sometimes coincides with right wing but in this dataset is mostly Islamic extremism)

https://extremismterms.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-united-states-2020 - right wing accounted for 94% of extremist murders in 2020, and 75% of the extremist murders over the previous decade

https://www.congress.gov/committee-report/116th-congress/house-report/213/1 - 2009-2018 right wing extremists account for 73% of extremist killings, Islamic extremist at 23%, leftist at 2%

Statistics vary depending on source by quite a bit (and time period, violent leftist movements have declined significantly since the 1990s and those were mostly about ecoterrorism rather than communism) but the general consensus is that overwhelmingly right wing extremism escalates these people to extreme violence and murder. This is not conjecture.

Whether leftist movements have a similar number of people with this demeanor, whether those movements target people, etc? Less clear and much harder to quantify

there’s a deeper discussion to be had about schizophrenia and right wing rhetoric in America

This guy was maybe schizophrenic. Maybe a lot of the other right wing people that go to extreme violence to. Not all of course.

It is important to preface this by saying schizophrenia does not make you violent. It actually makes you more likely to be the victim of violence, statistically.

But delusional thinking processes, grandiosity, and religious or political hallucinations are schizophrenia symptoms. Again, these on their own don’t create violence. But delusional thinking processes can and often are shaped but cultural contexts and social narratives.

So dominant political themes - good vs evil, governmental control and surveillance, authoritarian power structures with strong hierarchy, become amplified. Qanon, racial purity, savior complex, etc.

Where this becomes extremely irresponsible is that it’s then very easy for someone who has this line of thought to then enter a place, many places even, where their delusional thought is not only challenged but encouraged. “You are correct, trump will save us, the democrats are going to kill everyone, you are being watched”.

It doesn’t help that government corruption lends credence to validate these delusions in some ways. While you’re not being watched 24/7 there likely is some kind of info on you in a database if you live in America. Whether it’s a social credit score or simply identification (facial recognition, demographics, etc), is unclear, but its increasingly clear this is the case (and more worrying the data is likely held by 3rd party contractors like palantir and amazon)

So then a mass shooting happens and people go thoughts and prayers (except not really anymore) or they say we need better mental health supports (except again not really anymore, we’ve kind of abandoned the song and dance). The improved mental health supports thing is true but that can’t counteract groups that actively seek out people like this. Lonely, isolated, angry, and unstable. They then amplify that persons bullshit by feeding them conspiracy bullshit and every once and a while they pop off

This could happen in a leftist space, the process is the same, but they appear to do a better job of policing themselves or supporting each other when someone is getting too far gone (at least based on the statistics of political violence in the USA).

It’s not fair for jeff bezos and his band of cronies to exist either. Sometimes the world is unfair. At least in my example the unfairness would be swift and would overwhelmingly result in a net positive for humanity

I’ve never hoped so hard for a natural disaster