alewyren

[alewyren]

If you actually do have anything to say beyond “lol I’m right, you’re wrong, sheeple gonna sheep,” I’d genuinely like to hear it. If you want to have a civil conversation and explain why I am wrong or mistaken about specific factual matters pertaining to this subject, I do, genuinely, want to hear it. You don’t have to be a condescending asshole to strangers on the internet.

Because, like… you’re the one who responded to a stranger’s post. The gun control analogy wasn’t even the point of my post. I am not an expert on the logistics of gun control, and I acknowledge that. I am not the one making gun policy. Literally all I said was it’s dumb to talk about the issue in terms of talking about guns like they’re actual sentient things capable of being evil or having a will of their own, rather than tools for human use. Please acknowledge that you’re the one who jumped on me for making an untagged comment, asking me to explain in depth an issue I never claimed to be an expert on which was tangential to my actual point, and that’s actually a little weird of you.

You’d do well to not project all your own baggage upon every new person you meet. I promise you, I am open to hearing you, and I don’t appreciate you being condescending.

“AI is intended to erase human authors. Once an AI has scraped all it can from an author, it doesn't need the human anymore, and it will regurgitate sub-par work in mimicry of that author, all with the intent of making profit that would otherwise have gone to an actual human creative.”

genuinely don’t know how to explain to you that our current generative models are not entities which possess will, intent, or ideology. they are tools created and used by humans, to fulfill human desires.

[alewyren]

Obligatory “I am not an arms policy expert and have not studied the ins and outs of gun regulation so I may be mistaken about the in-practice logistics of stuff,” but afaik it’s a genuinely complicated question to which the answer is more nuanced than “just make guns illegal,” and I don’t think the solution would translate 1:1 to AI policy, because guns are physical items.

Ease of access and stemming the flow of distribution are pretty big factors. Like, yeah, murder is very much illegal, but a lot of crimes are impulsive rather than meticulously premeditated, and can be prevented by simply making it harder for a potential murderer to get their hands on a weapon in the first place. Not that murders are only ever committed with guns, but most criminals are opportunists, not diabolical masterminds. A teenager with emotional problems is less likely to shoot up their school if there are significant barriers that will make it genuinely difficult to find a gun in the first place, as opposed to “their parents have an assault rifle lying around in their garage and this is totally legal for some reason.” If I wanted to buy illegal drugs, I’d be less deterred by the fact that they’re illegal as I would by the fact that they’re genuinely hard to find if you don’t already have a plug.

For US gun policy, this would probably entail stuff like enforced gun license laws, buybacks or even seizure of some models above a certain “danger” threshold, and tighter regulations on gun manufacturers (personally, I think in a perfect world, for-profit firearms sales would be illegal). It’s not an inherent breach of civil liberty for certain physical objects classified as dangerous or harmful to be regulated, whether in possession or sales, but like most justice-related issues, “more police, stricter laws, more jailtime” often works better in theory than it does in practice. The problem of American gun culture will not, unfortunately, be solved overnight simply by forcing second amendment evangelists to give all their guns to the government, but that doesn’t mean we should just accept things as they are.

“AI is intended to erase human authors. Once an AI has scraped all it can from an author, it doesn't need the human anymore, and it will regurgitate sub-par work in mimicry of that author, all with the intent of making profit that would otherwise have gone to an actual human creative.”

genuinely don’t know how to explain to you that our current generative models are not entities which possess will, intent, or ideology. they are tools created and used by humans, to fulfill human desires.

[alewyren]

“AI is intended to erase human authors. Once an AI has scraped all it can from an author, it doesn't need the human anymore, and it will regurgitate sub-par work in mimicry of that author, all with the intent of making profit that would otherwise have gone to an actual human creative.”

genuinely don’t know how to explain to you that our current generative models are not entities which possess will, intent, or ideology. they are tools created and used by humans, to fulfill human desires.

[alewyren]

btw this should be obvious but if you are upset about the internet archive losing the appeal, but are also anti-ai training, you are holding two extremely contradictory views - either the law protects your intellectual property to the point where nobody is allowed to download it, or it doesn't - and you should try to examine where exactly the conflict is.

i've had the worst day in a long time so im not elaborating for now - if one of my many esteemed followers felt like getting more clear on the Ramifications and Dialectic here in a reblog i would greatly appreciate it but i did just want to strike while the thing was hot. either you think more IP protection is better, or you don't. you can't have it both ways.

[alewyren]

[alewyren]

every time I see some bigshot scientist revealed as a fraud my knee-jerk reaction is "hell yeah elisabeth bik got 'em good" AND IM RIGHT

SHE NEVER QUITS!!!!

ICONIC!!!!

[alewyren]

when you see your little kitty walking toward you at a leisurely pace and say "hi baby!" bc you're excited to see her and she starts trotting a little bit faster 'cause she's excited to see you too. that's what life is all about i think

[alewyren]

Mom, Dad, I have decided to become an existential concept.

[alewyren]

“When the handle has snapped off the basket that held all your eggs…” gone girl tier monologue

[alewyren]

the rule of fandoms is that if someone has a character in their url or bio they either understand that character well enough to give a 3 hour unscripted lecture on the subject OR they're really obsessed with their version of that character thats an entirely different made up guy. and theres literally never an in between

[alewyren]

I know I'm always grumbling about tumblr people being incapable and unwilling of even for a lark trying to understand the worldview of people outside the imperial core, but I really want you to try to imagine that some of us out there really and genuinely don't recognize the US and Europe as "civilization".

I know that for many of you the development of Euro-USian societies up to the point of the Westphalian nation-state and eventually the postwar liberal democracy is definitionally and tautologically-civilization, but what if I told you that a large and growing contingent of people in the global south, especially since the beginning of al-Aqsa Flood, have began to view this bloc of nations as civilization's opposite?

What if I told you that to a great many people, the US and Europe are nothing more than brutal, bloodthirsty bandits and looters, who have not developed civilization but instead have used their mass stores of stolen wealth to avoid doing so? That they've used their masses of wealth gained through mass murder, banditry, and establishment of puppet leaders to flood the world with literally Orwellian propaganda, which defines civilization as its opposite, and merely hides the blood-stained, heartless cruelty of the white-lead "international community" under a petty façade of civility?

How might that fundamentally change the way you read global events?

[alewyren]

if you're trying to get into the head of your story's antagonist, try writing an "Am I the Asshole" reddit post from their perspective, explaining their problems and their plans for solving them. Let the voice and logic come through.

[alewyren]

they want you to make fried rice

[alewyren]

Ready for winter

[alewyren]

Was there any form of cryptocurrency in the Middle Ages?

No.

[alewyren]

Sooooo much trans history is entertwined with intersex history in that what impacted us went on to impact y'all, but we are always seen as incidental to transphobia. Why? Were intersex adults not routinely operated on without consent in the early 1900s? Have intersex infants not been quite literally thrown away in the garbage or sold to circuses before they figured out how to operate on infants? Have we not been the practice dummies for gender confirming surgeries against our consent for over a century? Why are we incidental to transphobia in folks' minds?

[alewyren]

becoming a history buff will save your life for real bc every time someone says "this is crazy, politics didn't use to be like this! america didn't use to be like this!" you will know enough to say well. on the contrary,