[-] ebu@awful.systems 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

i used (and use, until the shutdown) cohost as my primary social media site. i'm not surprised, but i can't say it hasn't been disappointing. for all the issues it has (and it did have a lot) it was pretty much the only site that felt somewhat cozy to use for me. stings quite a bit

[-] ebu@awful.systems 9 points 3 months ago

An opinion is still an opinion no matter how widely held it is.

why did you even bring up your one artist friend's opinion if you're just gonna be like "well actually that's just YOUR opinion" when i disagree

yet I still refuse to call it art.

Duchamp wants a word

And then we have people who are attacking any use of ai images that are willing to call it "AI Art"...

good thing i, me, the person you're responding to, isn't those people. makes me wonder why you even brought it up in the first place

I believe that you believe that.

i also believe you're deliberately trying to be as insufferable as possible, so be sure to add that to the bizarre collection of things you think i believe while you're at it. or better yet: don't

[-] ebu@awful.systems 9 points 4 months ago

...gods i miss n-gate

[-] ebu@awful.systems 8 points 4 months ago

huh, that actually worked

annoying to have to do, but thank you regardless

[-] ebu@awful.systems 9 points 4 months ago

when the pool of people around crypto is:

  • not particularly critical or skeptical of the space
  • demonstrably have lots of money to gamble
  • susceptible to promises of hyper-wealth

it's not much of a surprise that the entire ecosystem of scamming grew like a weed in crypto. i've seen the hordes of twitter bots responding to every "all my apes gone", i guess it makes sense that they were turning a pretty penny double dipping victims

[-] ebu@awful.systems 8 points 5 months ago

Asked to comment, a Meta spokesperson told The Register, "We value input from civil society organizations and academic institutions for the context they provide as we constantly work toward improving our services. Meta's defense filed with the Brazilian Consumer Regulator questioned the use of the NetLab report as legal evidence, since it was produced without giving us prior opportunity to contribute meaningfully, in violation of local legal requirements."

translation: they knew we would either squash the investigation attempt outright or change their research methodology and results until we looked like the good guys, and that kind of behavior cannot be tolerated

[-] ebu@awful.systems 9 points 5 months ago

I'm just talking about stuff more like Discord or Steam that are huge distributed systems that don't use databases.

huh???

[-] ebu@awful.systems 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

NullBulge

oh you know it was some furries

edit: their website (now down, but up on the wayback machine) uses ai-generated furry art, which few self-respecting furries (much less hacktivist ones) would touch with a ten-foot pole. or at least, the ones in the furry circles i keep. so it could very well just be opportunists

[-] ebu@awful.systems 9 points 5 months ago
[-] ebu@awful.systems 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

never read this one before. neat story, even if it is not much more than The Lorax, but psychedelic-flavored.

unprompted personal review (spoilers)

it makes sense that the point-of-view character is insulated / isolated from the harm they're doing. my main gripe is that in doing so, the actual problems of the hypothetical psychedelic healthcare industry (manufactured addiction, orientalism and psychedelic colonization, inequality of access, in addition to all of the vile stuff the real healthcare industry already does) wind up left barely stated or only implied. i was waiting for the other shoe to drop; for Learie to, say, receive a letter from a family member of a patient who died on the bed due to being unattended to, a result of stretching too few staff too thin over too many patients, et cetera. something that would pop the bubble that she built around herself and tie the themes of the story together.

instead it feels like she built the bubble and stays in the bubble. she's sad her cool business idea outgrew her, that the fifty million dollars she got as a severance package doesn't fill the hole in her heart she got by helping people directly. which is neat and all, but, like. what about all the uninsured and poor Black people who never got to even try to see if psychedelics could help? what about the Native Americans who watched their spiritual medicine, for which they were (and still are) punished heavily for using, get used to make Learie's millions, for which they will never see a penny? what about your overworked staff, Learie!?

from a persuasive and political perspective, to me it seems the non-sequitur ending leaves the entire story up for ideological grabs. think it sounds like capitalism is bad? sure, go for it. think the problem is that we need to do capitalism, But Better™? sure, go for it! hell, that's basically the author's own conclusion:

But what we really need are psychedelic models for business - business that defines new standards for integrity, equity and ethics; business reimagined with a technicolor glow.

sorry, but a can of glow-in-the-dark paint over the same old exploitative business practices is not a solution. it's just more marketing. where is this even going?

If you feel called to share a message with the world, consider taking the course to work with David, and gain structure, fellowship with changemakers, and accountability to breathe life into your story.

a $3,000 value course for only $999! what a steal!! order now, seats are first-come first-serve!

[-] ebu@awful.systems 8 points 5 months ago

truly one of the thought leaders in philosophy. surely no one has ever... oh wait, no, you're about 2400 years too late

[-] ebu@awful.systems 9 points 6 months ago

need to be able to think LLM's are impressive, probably

surely tech will save us all, right?

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ebu

joined 8 months ago