[-] VerbFlow@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I'm not mad, and I did vote, but I am disappointed.

[-] VerbFlow@lemmy.world -1 points 1 day ago

Yes. I'm not talking about the people in the Rust Belt, I'm talking about the people in majority Blue states, like Oregon and Washington. There have been lots of riots over police brutality, and the whole Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone that was kept for almost a month. Thing was, with Trump, there will be way tougher riots. People will not worry about looking good for the press since they're just lying all the time. There are also tons of Trump voters who felt betrayed who were staunch Libertarians, and they studied things like Ruby Ridge and Waco. There's also a lack of IEDs and sniper rifles at those earlier protests, which will also change. It's going to be like the Iraq occupation, not to mention Trump voters being really scared and having poor critical thinking skills, and being uneducated as shit (read: easy to outsmart).

[-] VerbFlow@lemmy.world -1 points 1 day ago

You could also fight it out, you know. When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.

[-] VerbFlow@lemmy.world -3 points 1 day ago

I know there's a very "if you know you know" thing happening, but what will replace America? Is it Russian and Chinese troops coming all the way to Florida so they can set up a military base?

[-] VerbFlow@lemmy.world -4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You cannot have America "cease to exist" on its own. Trump will fuck over America, and make it more barbaric in both foreign and domestic affairs, but it will not "stop being America". I'm sick and tired of people saying "this isn't America!" when the United States deposes a democratically-elected candidate again, or when its "democracy" gives people the choice between two war-hawks again, or when the FBI spies on people against their will again, or enacts huge tax cuts again, and so on. Sure, since Kamala is slightly less American, I chose Kamala because of harm reduction. But what I want you all to understand is this:

I don't want the America of the 1990's. I don't want the America of the 1950's. I don't want the America of the 1920's, or the 1890's, or the 1850's, or some fever-dreamt America "that will someday happen". I want NO America. I want NO United States Federal Government.

Sure, Russia and China are bad. But I will not acquiesce to the US military for the sake of fending them off. US democracy has never put people in control of their government; instead, it's been about two warmongers promising to keep things as they are. Ever since 2016, voting has been an act of begging.

Instead of voting to give the government their say, people vote to beg the government not to make draconian laws. Any state will have a happier, freer people if they secede from the Union, defend themselves successfully, and make a fresh start.

Edit: Meant to press "Preview" and pressed something else.

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I wanted to show all these indie sites so that you guys could explore. These have really good ideas and aren't hindered by concision.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O

-1

This is a really good read. If you have any crits let me know.

[-] VerbFlow@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

I'd say most working-class since Reagan. The Dems were obviously scared of Suburban Republicans, and obviously trying to court their vote, for some reason. They were probably convinced that the United States was a "post-industrial" society, so as the logic goes, cultural issues would take precedence over class ones, and 24/7 social media users would be more valuable than blue-collar workers. There was also the idea that China is the world's manufacturing base, most metals are mined in African countries (like how cobalt comes from the Congo), and most fruits come from Latin American countries (like bananas from Guatemala). Class, nevertheless, remains a concern, and the proletariat in the United States is not a fiction.

[-] VerbFlow@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I just wanted to put a quote from Blackshirts and Reds here. Chapter 9 as a whole has some very prescient parts:

To the extent that class is accorded any attention in academic social science, pop sociology, and media commentary, it is as a kind of demographic trait or occupational status. So sociologists refer to “upper-middle,” “lower-middle,” and the like. Reduced to a demographic trait, one’s class affiliation certainly can seem to have relatively low political salience. Society itself becomes little more than a pluralistic configuration of status groups. Class is not a taboo subject if divorced from capitalism’s exploitative accumulation process.

Both mainstream social scientists and “left” ABC [Anything-But-Class] theorists fail to consider the dynamic interrelationship that gives classes their significance. In contrast, Marxists treat class as the key concept in an entire social order known as capitalism (or feudalism or slavery), centering around the ownership of the means of production (factories, mines, oil wells, agribusinesses, media conglomerates, and the like) and the need—if one lacks ownership—to sell one’s labor on terms that are highly favorable to the employer.

...

To support their view that class (in the Marxist sense) is passé, the ABC theorists repeatedly assert that there is not going to be a workers’ revolution in the United States in the foreseeable future. (I heard this sentiment expressed at three different panels during a “Gramsci conference” at Amherst, Massachusetts, in April 1987.) Even if we agree with this prophecy, we might still wonder how it becomes grounds for rejecting class analysis and for concluding that there is no such thing as exploitation of labor by capital and no opposition from people who work for a living.

Class has a dynamic that goes beyond its immediate visibility. Whether we are aware of it or not, class realities permeate our society, determining much about our capacity to pursue our own interests. Class power is a factor in setting the political agenda,

selecting leaders,

reporting the news, funding science and education, distributing health care, mistreating the environment, depressing wages, resisting racial and gender equality, marketing entertainment and the arts, propagating religious messages, suppressing dissidence, and defining social reality itself.

ABC theorists see the working class as not only incapable of revolution but as on the way out, declining in significance as a social formation. Anyone who still thinks that class is of primary importance is labeled a diehard Marxist, guilty of “economism” and “reductionism” and unable to keep up with the “post-Marxist,” “post-structuralist,” “post-industrialist,” “post-capitalist,” “post-modernist,” and “post-deconstructionist” times.

It is ironic that some left intellectuals should deem class struggle to be largely irrelevant at the very time class power is becoming increasingly transparent, at the very time corporate concentration and profit accumulation is more rapacious than ever, and the tax system has become more regressive and oppressive, the upward transfer of income and wealth has accelerated, public sector assets are being privatized, corporate money exercises an increasing control over the political process, people at home and abroad are working harder for less, and throughout the world poverty is growing at a faster rate than overall population.

This, I think, has a lot to do with Dems today, esp. with Chuck Schumer appealing to "moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia", which blatantly shows how little they understand class, even in an election--and as we've seen, even when a fascist could win instead. The dismantling of class conscious has been a disaster for the world. This is especially the case as people conflate hardworking intellectuals with the bourgeoise, and misconstrue legitimate protests against state greviances as a "color revolution".

[-] VerbFlow@lemmy.world -4 points 4 days ago

I don't think this will work. Say what you want about non-Conservative men, the Conservative ones never cared about consent. It's like a slave refusing to work. The best adage is "the beatings will continue until morale improves". Rapists always act the same toward their victim, no matter the age, and they are best dealt with in the electric chair.

[-] VerbFlow@lemmy.world 43 points 1 month ago

I'll vote Dem, but I am ashamed beyond measure of the Dem party. Despite the public doing all they can to stop Trump, the actual candidates running against Trump are sitting on their asses and refusing to take serious action. This "Blue Wave" is not approval FOR Harris-Walz, but rather DISAPPROVAL for Trump. Dems are ultimately more responsible for fascism in the U.S. than their voters.

All in all, the entire United States Government is at fault. This is just one reason why I want an independent Cascadia.

1

What should we do after Harris/Walz is elected? I was wondering if you had some ideas. Here are mine:

  • Mass strikes in the workplace, demands being taxes for the rich and higher wages
  • Mass strikes in the military, demands being to end support for Israel, take away excessive military bases, shut down Gitmo, drastically reduce the budget, &c
  • Get as many people off the internet as possible
  • Get people arms and arms training so they can defend themselves without police, and heavily reduce police funding
  • Refuse to pay any landlords, lead attacks on real estate offices

Maybe some stuff would be extreme, but I ask you please to separate the wheat from the chaff, along with adding your own material. I may not be that smart, but at least I'm preparing.

(If you want to remember to vote, set yourself a timer like everyone else with memory issues. It should go ding on the day you get your ballot!)

I also feel kinda hazy

1

I'm not saying that freedom of speech IS a bad idea, or that the government should simply censor ideas that are harmful, but the idea to just silence people for misinformation seems to be gaining traction.

To be clear: I am NOT pointing fingers and accusing any political party (including the D-Party) of being censorious, or accusing censorship and its proponents as malicious, nor saying there is a conspiracy out to promote censorship. It simply seems that, due to a surge in right-wing terror attacks and the Capitol riots, people have become more accepting of censorship, from Popper's "intolerance of tolerance" to laws against homophobia and conspiracy theories, in search of a comfortable, safe state of society.

I also want to ask how censorship would be enforced. How would riots be dealt with? How would the police be handled? How would jails be prevented from overloading?

Also, this question is not directed at Anarchists. Some leftists don't like censorship, and others do, and I want to ask those that do.

If this question is stupid, tell me why. I may end up seeing myself that this question is stupid, and if so, I'll tell you.

7

I downscaled it this time.

[-] VerbFlow@lemmy.world 38 points 1 month ago

How the fuck will this reach people who believe the government is controlled by Jews who employ space lasers and drag queens?

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How Does OpenAI Survive? (www.wheresyoured.at)
submitted 2 months ago by VerbFlow@lemmy.world to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world
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I know this sounds pretentious (which is quite ironic), but this is something I've noticed about the internet. You never read about what someone does, only what they say. You hear politicians claim that they'll fix the economy, or celebrities make speeches about what they feel like, or what "message" a fictional movie has being discussed over and over, but none of that matters, because it's all saying and no doing!

[-] VerbFlow@lemmy.world 28 points 2 months ago

I blame the attempt to make devices user-friendly. Convenience kills skill.

82

I made this myself on GIMP with some wallpaper

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submitted 2 months ago by VerbFlow@lemmy.world to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world
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submitted 2 months ago by VerbFlow@lemmy.world to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world
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submitted 3 months ago by VerbFlow@lemmy.world to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world

I recieved a comment from someone telling me that one of my posts had bad definitions, and he was right. Despite the massive problems caused by AI, it's important to specify what an AI does, how it is used, for what reason, and what type of people use it. I suppose judges might already be doing this, but regardless, an AI used by one dude for personal entertainment is different than a program used by a megacorporation to replace human workers, and must be judged differently. Here, then, are some specifications. If these are still too vague, please help with them.

a. What does the AI do?

  1. It takes in a dataset of images, specified by a prompt, and compiles them into a single image thru programming (like StaDiff, Dall-E, &c);
  2. It takes in a dataset of text, specified by a prompt, and compiles that into a single string of text (like ChatGPT, Gemini, &c);
  3. It takes in a dataset of sound samples, specified by a prompt, and compiles that into a single sound (like AIVA, MuseNet, &c).

b. What is the AI used for?

  1. It is used for drollery (applicable to a1 and a2);
  2. It is used for pornography (a1);
  3. It is used to replace stock images (a1);
  4. It is used to write apologies (a2);
  5. It is used to write scientific papers (this actually happened. a2);
  6. It is used to replace illustration that the user would've done themselves (a1);
  7. It is used to replace illustration by a wage-laborer (a1);
  8. It is used to write physical books to print out (a2);
  9. It is used to mock and degrade persons (a1, a3);
  10. It is used to mock and degrade persons sexually (a1, a3);
  11. It is used for propaganda (a1, a2, a3).

c. Who is using the AI?

  1. A lower-class to middle-class person;
  2. An upper-class person;
  3. A small business;
  4. A large business;
  5. An anonymous person;
  6. An organization dedicated to shifting public perception.

This was really tough to do. I'll see if I can touch up on it myself. As of now, Lemmy cannot do lists in lists.

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submitted 3 months ago by VerbFlow@lemmy.world to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world

I was originally going to put this into the Log, but it might be unwelcome.

You want a way to rattle image-generation Boosters? Most of the arguments they use can be used to defend Googling an image and putting a filter over it.

  • "All forms of media take inspiration from one another, so that means it's fine to Google another image, download it, and apply a filter to call it mine!"
  • "Artists are really privilieged, so it's morally OK to take their art and filter it!"
  • "Using filtered images I downloaded from Google for game sprites will help me finish my game faster!"
  • "I suck at drawing, so I have to resort to taking images from people who can draw and filtering them!"
  • "People saying that my filtered images aren't art are tyrannical! I deserve to have my filtered images be seen as equal to hand-drawn ones!"

AI Boosters use a standard motte-and-bailey doctrine to assert the right to steal art and put it into a dataset, yet entice people to buy their generated images. When Boosters want people to invest in AI, they occupy the bailey and say that "AI is faster and better than drawing by hand". When Boosters are confronted with their ethical problems, as shown above, they retreat into the motte and complain that "it takes tons of time and work to make the AI do what I want". Remember this when you find Boosters. Or don't, since I doubt the sites where they lurk are worth your time.

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VerbFlow

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