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If you're incapable of knowing how to "stay informed" on news and what's happening around you without tiktok, then you need to do some self reflection on being so dependent on an app that caters everything to your specific feelings that it renders you incapable of actually looking at real news sources and making your own informed decisions on what is and is not valid or whatever

If you don't have friends or community outside tiktok, then, again, you need to do some self reflection and probably get therapy

The level of dependency on tiktok I'm seeing from people is baffling and it makes me wonder how they cope with having to navigate real life situations

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how can you champion free speech and then celebrate when millions of voices on tiktok are censored. hypocrite.

I didn’t want to talk about politics on this blog but, oh well, here we go. Response under the cut.

Let me preface this: I’ve never been a fan of TikTok and when talk of a ban first started to come onto the scene 6 years ago, I thought it was a good thing, for a multitude of reasons but I won't go into all of it. I'll focus on what the proposed ban and SCOTUS corresponded to. This is a topic of US national security and the type of precedents it sets for foreign companies operating in the US. I thought it would be good to act now [2019] rather than later [2025] because looking at the growth curve, it was a service that would easily become so popular that lawmakers would find themselves in an impossible position and a ban would never happen. 

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happened. Again, in my opinion, now a horrible precedent exists. To any foreign government out there, the message is that you are allowed to enter US markets under any pretense, with zero reciprocity for US companies, and as long as you are popular and influential enough the US government and population will go out of its way to facilitate your access

If we are going to go to such extraordinary lengths for a foreign company and government the US must make a demand of absolute reciprocity, in my opinion. Meta, X, Google, Snapchat, and other US-based technology companies must be allowed total market access in China immediately with zero control by the Chinese Government (because that is what they have done through ByteDance owning Tiktok). When the Chinese government inevitably laughs at this demand, ask yourself why. They correctly see Meta, X, Facebook, and Google as instruments of US soft power and as cultural contamination of their civic ideal which undermines their hold on power.

However, we seem to naively believe we're immune from the same influence and have waited so long to act now that we face terrible choices. The one we've made inevitably means we will have a natural experiment now of what it means to allow a government that actively seeks to undermine our civic institutions with the most powerful known technological tool to do so. And the fact that the CCP and ByteDance decided to “shut it down” rather than divest it tells us everything we need to know. No free enterprise would willingly shut off access to 170 million users. 

Also, we should be concerned that millions of Americans acted like drug addicts going through withdrawal when they couldn't access a social media app for roughly 12 hours. That is also cause for great concern. But that's a conversation for another day.

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FYI iPhone users!

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I don’t want an AI assistant in my browser I don’t want an AI chat bot built into every website I don’t want AI images appearing in searches I don’t want AI to help me write I don’t want AI integrated into every facet of my life in a completely useless and unnecessary way just because it’s trendy and it sounded futuristic to investors. AI has genuinely helpful applications and has the potential to make people’s lives easier and instead it’s being forced upon us in totally absurd ways that no one wants or needs just because tech companies want to increase their stock value and I’m going to fucking scream

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It’s funny because it’s true

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You know what confuses me? In Thor: Ragnarok, the plot is about Hela, Goddess of Death, taking over Asgard while Thor and Loki are stuck elsewhere, trying to get back so they can fight her. They've already done this plot with Earth in Thor 1, so that's out...

Why not use Niflheim, Hela's realm? It's unified thematically. You could have Thor and Loki come across deceased characters like their mom, even have Asgardians killed by Hela pop up in Niflheim and continue to be part of the narrative. And it's easy to justify Hulk being there; it's not as if in the finished movie, there's any explanation of how he got to Sakaar from an unpiloted airplane.

It's bone-thuddingly obvious when you think about it. Why would they ever do a half, no, quarter-assed take on Planet Hulk instead of actually featuring some of the Norse mythology the series is supposed to be about?

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Idgaf if you don't want to write essays for school. I don't care if you don't want to write corporate emails yourself. I don't care if you can't draw well, I don't care if you can't write well, I don't care if you just really really want to talk to your favorite fictional character but don't want to RP with a real person because you have social anxiety or whatever

If you're still regularly using generative ai, chatgpt or midjourney or character.ai or literally whatever the fuck, im personally blaming you when my utility prices start going up.

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like i'm sorry but we as a fandom have to stay firm on our anti-AI values. we cannot suddenly start giving AI a pass when it's something we "want to see" like destiel kisses. it's not suddenly fine. we're not going to start using AI to make fanfic scenes come to life or audio AI to make characters "say" stuff we want to hear. you have GOT to be firm on your anti-AI stance. if you start making exceptions then suddenly anything will fly. fandom is for real art and creations made by real people. no AI fanfics. no AI art. no AI rendered "bonus" scenes. no AI audio. none of it has a place here.

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LOLOLOL

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The State of Florida should ban all generative AI and large language models outright—no exceptions. In the last week I have had a prosecutor, a pharmacist, and a financier, among others all casually admit that they freely use ChatGPT to perform their work as if it were the most normal thing in the world. It should shock and horrify that there is a non-zero chance that a citizen might be successfully convicted by a state attorney whose filings have nonexistent, computer-fabricated citations or that a pharmacist might be relying on an automated lying machine to recognize drug interactions. The same goes for AI-generated books and other materials—ban it all. Let the techbros wail and mash their teeth; I could not care less. Computers have no right to freedom of speech or access to a free press.

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you ever have situations that make you want to take people by the shoulders and go "you are not 15 any longer. this behavior is no longer quirky and cute. it is exhausting for you and everyone else to act like a teenager you haven't been in a decade or longer. knock it the fuck off"

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Why is Hollywood like this?

"Hey, are you portraying [Culture A]? That's cool, do whatever you want. Distort events, misrepresent their historical personalities, cast completely different ethnicities to play them. Literally, just do whatever, so long as you think it looks cool."

"Whoa, careful now, friend, you're portraying [Culture B]. Better hire some historians and cultural consultants to make sure you're portraying them right. And don't you dare cast anyone but [Culture B] to play them!"

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reading a romance novel where the protagonist feels the need to stop and inform that audience that it's okay for her, a 27 year old, to hook up with a 31 year old because despite the age difference both of their brains are fully developed. the Discourse really has done incalculable damage.