gnostotron

[gnostotron]

If you give a man a fish then every problem will look like a worm to him

[gnostotron]

Due to a simple misunderstanding of what "fandoms" and "fan subs" are everyone at this anime convention is mad at me.

[gnostotron]

A "Sycophancer" is a wizard who's magic comes from ingratiating themselves to higher powers.

[gnostotron]

You were recently laid off, still feeling mixed emotions about the whole thing.  Betrayal?  A generalized fear for the future?  Some weird sense of guilt (what’s up with that)? It’s making shopping your resume around even more depressing.

In a gesture to, I don’t know, trick your brain into thinking it’s doing something constructive you decide to sign up with one of those “mechanical turk” services.  Certainly isn’t going to provide a livable income, but you feel like it’s “keeping your hand in”.

You log in, fill in all their forms, click all the check boxes next to scrolling walls of legalese, and you’re in their interface.  Very bare-bones, very mid twenty-teens Material UI.

Your first task is solving a captcha:  “click on boxes containing animals”.  You sigh. ok, it’s that sort of job.  You were hoping maybe you would be doing some scientific research thing, but you should have known it was just going to be quasi-legal crap busting somebody’s Ts and Cs.  Hopefully quasi-legal.

You spend the first day clicking on boxes with animals in them - animals in trees, animals in people’s yards, animals crossing roads - and not clicking on boxes showing empty landscapes.  It’s pretty relaxing, actually - you’ve got music on, there’s no time pressure (at this income level there can’t be).  You log off after a few hours, feeling like you accomplished something with your day at least.  Not much, but something.

The following day is more of the same - click on a racoon in a garbage can, or a giraffe in a zoo enclosure, or a tiger peering through dense foliage.

The third day it switches up the captchas - “click on boxes containing people”.  The absence of any criteria narrowing the scope makes for a fascinating day - the sweeping *variety* of people you are clicking on is breathtaking.

After a few days clicking on people starts losing its charm. But then you are given more random things to click on.  Click on houses, click on buildings, click on cars. All the novelty has worn off at this point but you’ve just gotten into a groove.

A couple weeks in and you are barely registering what you’re supposed to be clicking on anymore, until you realize that you’ve spent almost the entire day clicking on boxes containing, as the prompt says, “human military equipment”.  Tanks, jeeps, jets, ships.  Tents with camo netting, men in ghillie suits, weapons held by soldiers from armies around the world.  You continue clicking with a growing unease.

The following day your prompt is “click on boxes containing humans with political influence” and you’re presented with pictures of individuals, some of whom you recognize, some whom you don’t.  You push yourself back from the computer, thinking, trying to remember the things you’d been identifying recently.  You remember clicking on bridges, on cargo ports, on power stations, on communication towers and satellite stations.  On hospitals.  On schools.

Suddenly you very much want to know what is being protected behind these captchas and who’s paying you to break them. And you wonder if those things are even important, because you remember that the entire purpose of captchas is to collect training data for recognition algorithms.  What have you been training?

Unnerved, you shut down your computer and decide to go for a walk to think.  At the door you reach for your phone then change your mind - you don’t really want to be connected to the internet at the moment.

That night you sleep fitfully, plagued by dreams you can’t remember on waking.  You turn your computer back on the following day and do a bit of job hunting but avoid the mechanical turk site.  You try to figure out what to search for to answer the questions in your head, but since the questions are all variations of “what the *fuck* is going on?” you can’t think of a way to state that that will give you satisfying search results.

The following day you decide to log back into the mechanical turk, maybe learn something more about the work you’re doing.  With a sense of dread you await the first task.  It says “click on boxes containing vegetables”, with pictures of carrots, celery, bell peppers, cabbage. You are confused - you stare at the pictures, willing them to give some clue to … anything.  But that picture of an acorn squash sitting on a kitchen counter under bright fluorescent lighting remains an enigma, refusing to give up its secrets.  You work through more tasks but it looks like today is all vegetables.

Nothing strange needs to be identified in the next three days of mechanical turking, just seemingly random things like office supplies, leaves and cutlery. And on the fourth day an employer finally contacts you, offering a job that pays slightly less than the one you just lost but is situated substantially closer to your home.  

You shut down your mechanical turk account and try to never think about it again.

[gnostotron]

Man, thirty pieces of silver doesn't go as far as it used to.

[gnostotron]

Questioning their omniscience, Tantalus placed a feast before the gods to see if they could tell that the delicacies were his own son Pelops who he'd butchered and prepared. And for his impiety he was cursed to stand in a pool of clear water beneath a bough laden with fruit, and that when in hunger he reached for the fruit it would draw away, and when in thirst he stooped to drink the water would ebb and be gone.

Tantalus' brother Peckish, also wondering over the knowledge of the gods, asked Zeus which of three cards was the Queen and was cursed so that whenever he was mildly hungry there would be nothing in the cupboards, nor in the fridge, that he currently wished to eat.

[gnostotron]

I don't know much about gender but I know what I like.

[gnostotron]

Father's Day is the Waluigi of holidays

[gnostotron]

"Wichita Lineman" was the first true cyberpunk song.

[gnostotron]

ChatGPT and other LLMs are, at heart, Silicon Valley's automation of "mansplaining" - given any sort of prompt they confidently respond with something that they read once but don't remember exactly, conflated with some other things they read and only vaguely recall.

[gnostotron]

Love the new portrait of King Charles

[gnostotron]

I never do anything for shits and giggles. Everything I do for shits is deadly serious.

[gnostotron]

I AM big. It's the sitcoms that got small

-- Jerry Seinfeld

[gnostotron]

It's weird that society focuses on the exterior anatomical details of my body when I was born since so much has changed since then.  I mean, I’m much taller now and not nearly as cute.  I also had some really crazy ideas about how the world worked before I figured out the whole “object permanence” thing.  Do I really want to be defined now by the person I was then?

Thoughts on cis-ness

I think that we cis people don’t talk about gender enough.  I mean *our* gender, as we experience it in ourselves, not in the wider shitshow that is society.  And I get it. I mean, I'm cis - when I was born the doctor took a look, said "this is a dude" and the little voice in my head shrugged, said “sure”, and then I proceeded to not have to think about my gender ever again.

Ignoring the fact that this is one of those exceedingly rare occasions when a doctor is correct in their initial diagnosis, what kind of tests did they do to identify me as male?  Did they do any genetic tests to see what chromosomes I was carrying?  Nope.  Did they, I don’t know, test the levels of testosterone and estrogen in my blood?  Ha ha ha no.  No, all they did was look to see if I had a dick, or at least something approximately dick-like.  That’s it.

Now here’s the thing - if I were to lose my junk in a bizarre gardening accident that little voice in my head wouldn’t suddenly say “welp, you’re not a dude anymore”.  Heck, society wouldn’t say I wasn’t a dude anymore because nobody gets to see what I’m packing unless I explicitly give my permission (or unless I get up at night for a glass of water and can’t be arsed about closing the curtains).

If losing my junk now wouldn’t affect my perception of myself as “male”, then it wouldn’t have affected me had it happened last year.  Or thirty years ago. Or when I was a child.  Or even when I was in utero - fetal development is a crazy time.  But if it had happened before the doctor got a chance to tick the “m” or “f” box, I wouldn’t be cis - I would be trans.

And that’s all there is to it.  Oh, there’s more details you can dig into, like “where does this little voice in my head come from?” - well, it’s in my head so it obviously isn’t something dangling between my legs.  It probably comes from the same mix of genetic and developmental pressures that make me, say, right-handed instead of left handed or ambidextrous.  

What seems weird to me now is that I was a middle-aged man before I realized how fucked up it was that I had never even thought of questioning my gender.  It just never crossed my mind, even though I had agonized over practically *everything else* - how I fit in my family, how I fit in society, my sexual orientation, whether or not there was a god, heck, whether there was even an “objective reality” in any meaningful sense.  I spent a lot of time questioning my sanity (mind you there were lots of people questioning my sanity, so I was in good company).  But somehow whether or not I was a dude *never crossed my mind*.  AND I was a fey, small, non-athletic boy in the 1970s and if there was one defining quality of the social milieu of boys at the time (I’m hoping it’s less of a thing now) is that it was an unremitting assault of attacks on one's masculinity.

We all question the world we were born into, we just don’t all question the same things.  I think it’s helpful to remember this when presented with ideas that we find so ingrained that we don’t even know how they could ever be questioned.

[gnostotron]

Thoughts on cis-ness

I think that we cis people don’t talk about gender enough.  I mean *our* gender, as we experience it in ourselves, not in the wider shitshow that is society.  And I get it. I mean, I'm cis - when I was born the doctor took a look, said "this is a dude" and the little voice in my head shrugged, said “sure”, and then I proceeded to not have to think about my gender ever again.

Ignoring the fact that this is one of those exceedingly rare occasions when a doctor is correct in their initial diagnosis, what kind of tests did they do to identify me as male?  Did they do any genetic tests to see what chromosomes I was carrying?  Nope.  Did they, I don’t know, test the levels of testosterone and estrogen in my blood?  Ha ha ha no.  No, all they did was look to see if I had a dick, or at least something approximately dick-like.  That’s it.

Now here’s the thing - if I were to lose my junk in a bizarre gardening accident that little voice in my head wouldn’t suddenly say “welp, you’re not a dude anymore”.  Heck, society wouldn’t say I wasn’t a dude anymore because nobody gets to see what I’m packing unless I explicitly give my permission (or unless I get up at night for a glass of water and can’t be arsed about closing the curtains).

If losing my junk now wouldn’t affect my perception of myself as “male”, then it wouldn’t have affected me had it happened last year.  Or thirty years ago. Or when I was a child.  Or even when I was in utero - fetal development is a crazy time.  But if it had happened before the doctor got a chance to tick the “m” or “f” box, I wouldn’t be cis - I would be trans.

And that’s all there is to it.  Oh, there’s more details you can dig into, like “where does this little voice in my head come from?” - well, it’s in my head so it obviously isn’t something dangling between my legs.  It probably comes from the same mix of genetic and developmental pressures that make me, say, right-handed instead of left handed or ambidextrous.  

What seems weird to me now is that I was a middle-aged man before I realized how fucked up it was that I had never even thought of questioning my gender.  It just never crossed my mind, even though I had agonized over practically *everything else* - how I fit in my family, how I fit in society, my sexual orientation, whether or not there was a god, heck, whether there was even an “objective reality” in any meaningful sense.  I spent a lot of time questioning my sanity (mind you there were lots of people questioning my sanity, so I was in good company).  But somehow whether or not I was a dude *never crossed my mind*.  AND I was a fey, small, non-athletic boy in the 1970s and if there was one defining quality of the social milieu of boys at the time (I’m hoping it’s less of a thing now) is that it was an unremitting assault of attacks on one's masculinity.

We all question the world we were born into, we just don’t all question the same things.  I think it’s helpful to remember this when presented with ideas that we find so ingrained that we don’t even know how they could ever be questioned.

[gnostotron]

Kleptomania

Warm air flowed between his pinions like threads, weaving a map of the air currents. He floated on an updraft, sensing the world - raptors see the world as only the Gods do; all the breadth of creation and, at the same time, the scurrying of all the benighted beings imprisoned by gravity.

From this height the world was an inverted bowl, sere and mountainous. It was, it always was, clear and unforgivingly bright.  The sun was an inescapable burning - nothing grew below; a land without rain.  He saw however a figure, distorted by the heat haze.

Slowly he circled lower, sidling from current to current with almost imperceptible shifts in balance, the merest adjustment of a flight feather, descending lazily in serene curves until he could see the figure more clearly.  Chained to a block of hewn basalt it waved up at him, as much as its fettered arm could manage.

Eventually he alighted at the side of the figure, shook out his wings and folded them neatly.

“Morning Prometheus.”

“Morning Larry” said the Titan.  He grinned sheepishly at the eagle through a ragged beard.

The stone was dark, uneven, hot from the sun. Larry sighed, knowing how uncomfortable this was going to be on his talons in a couple of hours. But the job is the job; at least it wasn’t his liver getting eaten. He sighed again. 

“So what is it this time?”

“I gave them something called ‘large language models’.”

Larry scoffed - “Christ, not another ‘blockchain’ thing.”

“No no no!” Prometheus made to hold his hands up in denial but the chains at his wrists prevented him,  “this one is actually useful!”

Larry tried not to roll his eyes. He had an odd, begrudging respect for Prometheus - no other being had ever gone up against Zeus so unceasingly and, frankly, so stupidly.  “Fire”, sure, that made sense, but after that it got to be almost a joke - he’d gift humanity whatever random crap he could steal from the gods, from the Bessemer process to something called “dubstep”.

“Anyway, I found it while digging through a box labeled ‘Things That Are Proper to the Gods’ and thought humanity might like it.  They’ll figure out something to do with it, those rascals.”  Prometheus chuckled to himself. “And as always, boom - I’m back here for eternity.”

“Oh come on, it’s only until Thursday.”

“Yeah, well, you try getting your liver eaten - it certainly feels like eternity, believe you me.”

Prometheus frowned for a moment and sighed. “I was really hoping that Zeus would mix things up a bit and give me the rolling-the-boulder-up-a-hill thing, I could really use the workout.  Have you seen Sissiphys lately?  Totally caked up.”  Prometheus shook his head, admiringly.

They both took a moment to consider Sissyphis’s fine, fine booty.

Larry’s mind returned reluctantly to the job at hand.  He felt a rising exasperation - what was the point of all this? “Why do you keep doing this?” he demanded finally, “You give these gifts to humanity and they squander them, or they find some way to demean them. I mean, every gift you give them they figure out how to turn into a weapon!”

“Oh, they also turn everything into porn, or try to at least”, Prometheus added, nodding. “They’re very good at that.”

“They don’t even worship you!” Larry was not going to be sidetracked. “What I’m saying is that, chances are, one of your ‘gifts’ is eventually going to let humanity scour all life from the world.”  He shook his head, sadly. “The things the Gods keep to themselves seem to always be shitty - sometimes I think the reason Zeus locks up all this crap is because he’s embarrassed by it.”

Prometheus was thoughtfully silent.  “Do you have any children Larry?”

Larry shrugged, muttering “I’m more of a metaphor than an actual eagle, you know.”

Prometheus marshalled his thoughts.  “When you first have a child you want to give them gifts, and you want them to use those things you give to create something beautiful.  Eventually you realize that that’s not what parenting is about - you don’t give to your child because they will do something you approve of, you give to your child because you have something to give and they are your child.  I don’t give these things to humanity because I expect them to do wonderful things with them, I give these things to humanity because I want them to have everything the Gods possess.”

He paused, considering. “I admit it’s highly unlikely that humanity can do any worse than the Gods have.”

Larry nodded, conceding the point.

Prometheus raised himself as much as the chains would allow, to better face the eagle.  “But it has to be up to them - they must create their own world, and they can’t do that with the Gods holding out on them. Or even with needing my approval. And who knows - maybe when humanity has gained everything they will become as Gods themselves, and maybe the world that they create will be better than the one that was created for them.”  

Prometheus sighed, sinking back to stare into the empty sky, “or maybe it won’t - maybe it’s just an eternal cycle of flawed beings creating broken worlds, full of suffering and turmoil.  I don’t know.  I can’t know.  All I know is that it’s not up to me to decide - I must give to humanity because I can give to humanity.”

They both sat silent.  A light breeze stirred and died.  Eventually Prometheus stretched, adjusting his back, trying to get comfortable against the rock. “Well, speaking of eternities of suffering, I guess we’d better get this over with, eh?”

Larry nodded, his mind filled with thoughts of necessities and desires and of his own role as divine, if arbitrary, punishment.  He moved up the rock to look Prometheus in the eye, and said “I’m sorry friend - this is not what I desire.  But it is what I must do.”  

Prometheus smiled and shook his head.  “The world is as it is”, he said, “but maybe there will be other worlds.”

The eagle turned. Prometheus’ stomach was hollowed from hunger, tanned from the countless centuries chained under the burning sky, and scarred from the punishment that he seemed fated to always return to.  Maybe Zeus was right that this punishment was eternal - it wouldn’t be the first time he was right about something for the wrong reason.

Prometheus screamed.

[gnostotron]

Happy TDOV to all the wonderful little Tumblr gremlins.