#as my internet has been out for 3 days
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@ everyone following me for art, worry not about the non-art spam, my PC has been having intermittent BSOD issues so I've been holding off on some things while I figure it out. lol
Probably more faulty RAM, which is insane as it's only like 9 months installed, but the faulty RAM last year corrupted several of my complex Clip Studio Paint files (1-5 layers of each corrupting) and forced me to reinstall Windows due to corrupt drivers, so I'm playing it safe. 🫠
#olessan oration#the other option is my outdated chipset and BIOS version#but like usually you don't touch the BIOS often unless you NEED to update as a bad BIOS update can and will brick the entire computer-#- or othewise royally mess it up#my chipset driver is from 2021 tho so I'm debating on updating that to see if my weird USB issues are fixed with that BUT#the USB issues are 90% related to my USB wifi adapter whose most recent driver is from 2020 so I may also just need to get a new one#I intentionally didn't get an internal wifi card because it's 2.5 asscheeks to open up the PC JUST to change a PCiE component that's-#- not like. important. like a GPU#I'm having an issue with my networks all failing at once and semi bricking the PC requiring a hard shut down#which could be the wifi adapter driver or the RAM or the chipset#or something else#but that hadn't happened since the new RAM and the windows refresh BUT I am also using my mobile hotspot for the first time since then#as my internet has been out for 3 days#and my PC DESPISES my phone data hotspot for some reason#so idk if it's because of that or because of the RAM or the adapter driver that's causing the hard shutdowns it could be all 3
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so has anyone figured out WHY there is the Need To Share our Artworks™ or is it just the vibes and our Soul apparently
#ive been running on “two cakes. u aren't BOTHERING people by putting art on their feed they can scroll past it/if they dont they get ”cake“”#and we love “cake”#“cake” is picture on the internet in this case#like okay the contracts and transaction format is a me problem!! i need to get rid of the “utilitarian brain worms” bc they're boring#this is supposed to be a hobby and the “get a good grade in hobby” wolf in the brain is just crying bc that's how they understand the world#the “get a good grade in x” wolf has valid pain but needs to stop controlling my life because they don't need to earn “enough value to live”#ect ect ect#and the life of minmaxxed utility is a life of trying to appeal to a “correct” that doesn't exist yaddi yadda = boring#i love you wolf. also shut up. affectionate. concerned. you get it#ok so we remove tangible purpose from act of experience art because THAT'S not “the point”#because “the point” is the joy killer eccetera ecc#but then what? “here check out this labor of love. i drew this fucker 15 times. no there's no story* there it's just a guy”#*story in this case being an emotional engagement/a situation/a context in which to ponder/other#so it's just a Draw. no further analysis. what do others Get from that?#i know i deeply enjoy art because im a fan of the process of People Making Stuff. i love when there was nothing but now there's something!!!#THAT'S what's it all about!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to me!!!! right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#so it stands to reason that creation is purpose enough?? to be experienced???? to be known????????#idk!!#this is a nothing burger of a thought people have always liked picture on the internet stfu maiora there doesn't need to be a reason#this is just the brainworms talking!!! because god forbid “something not have a purpose”??? blegh!!!!!!!!#sounds like unhealthy rationalizing instead of letting things be out of The Fear™!!sounds like depraving urself from joy bc of BRAINWORMS!!!#so like!!!!! picture on the internet doesn't NEED inherent value. creation is enough!! (plus there's the Attachment to Character. also.)#but then why are YOU *points at you* here? gen q!!#i made an image you like and now you are reading my word babble in some tags!!! what's THAT all about???????????#it's INTERESTING!! do you see what im trying to get at??#is it empathy??? person made something other saw something other made- other2other connection???? intrigue????????#.......all this is probably explained in some book or yt essay somewhere. oh well.#in the meantime thank you for your time! we can pretend we were stuck in an elevator together and then i started rambling#i hope you have a great rest of your day thanks for stopping by!! <3#maiora garrulates
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helmut marko could tell me 1+1=2 and i still wouldn’t believe him okay he’s as useful to me as a man’s dick… which is to say not useful at all given that i am a lesbian ❤️🔥
#the point is he could tell me legitimately true things and cite peer reviewed sources and i would still never believe him#my f1 experience is holding max and daniel hand in hand and skipping through a field of flowers and butterflies like this how i cope#especially after the last three years like i’ve learnt that everything will all work out it’ll all fall into place and we quite literally#can not do anything so i may as well do whatever the hell i want*#*writing fanfic and annoying people on the internet#i’m going to bed this has been a great day for maxiel nation and i’m not gonna let him ruin it <3
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Um. Uh. Hey. Um. Guys. Hey. What if I had maybe taken the plot from the empires smp dnd campaign that balatro-watcher rt was originally made for and maybe decided to do something else with it for you guys. Maybe. Mayhaps.
#atlas speaks#and what if maybe also i described the plot to my sibling and they called it 'disturbing'#and i went on to call it 'an office comedy in the same way the magnus archives is an offive comedy'#look. loook. it's not that bad. it's not that bad. there's some subtle horror in the concepts the story is based in#it'll be just about as angsty as anything else i ever make.#anyways. they went on to say 'she watcher on my rt until i balatro' ten seconds later#so obviously it can't be that bad#anyways shout out to the state wide internet outage ✌#if you're the person who sent me that watcher rt ask earlier today i swear ill get to it when we have internet again.#asks just take forever to load with just my data 😔#but know everything you said has been living in my head rent free all day <3
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man i think i’m 5 seconds away from a mental breakdown
#I’m actually running out of money now despite working 6 days a week and making 6 figures#Because I bought my acreage with my brother and factored him paying 1/3 of the expenses BUT he’s decided to be unemployed for 1.5 years#I pay the mortgage mortgage insurance utilities internet groceries#I have $800/month in student loan payments#I have to spend like $150/week on gas because my commute is 2 hrs round trip every day#I only eat one meal a day usually because I don’t have the time to grocery shop or cook usually and my brother only cooks for himself#I do all of the chores and at least 1/2 of the yard work#I have the heaviest workload of any of my coworkers (which has been acknowledged but my manager says his hands are tied#Because if he took work off of my plate he’s have to give it to someone else and there is no one else)#I’m being severely underpaid at my job ($4 under the STARTING wage for a pharmacist now despite me working there for 3 years.#But I “got the largest raise last year” lmfao#I’ve been seeing someone but he works nights and his schedule is wack and it results in me going to bed at 3am some nights#I’m also on call this week so I have to be ready to answer calls at any time past 11pm#My hair is legit pulling out in clumps and my hair is half of my personality :(#i’m about to mcfuckin lose it#Brain feels like mashed potato#Oh also I’m on my fucking period
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it's your birthday!? happy birthday!!! hope you're having a fantastic day 💙
wah thank you so much!!! <3 <3
#it has been a weird mix of ordinary/average day and special little moments bc im a bit unwell and had work but they sent me home early#and i was given a surprise stack of chocolates from my friend#and the game changer finale pt 2. came out today too#anyway did anyone ever tell me not to overshare on the internet lmao#love u!!!!! hope YOU'RE having a fantastic day as well!! <3
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soooo. that new big time rush album huh
#how we feeling today rushers (。•̀ᴗ-)✧#also yes i've come back from the dead just to post abt this like. i owe this blog *this much* at least ykyk#anyway its like 3 in the morning here and ive just woken up after a vv long and exhausting day yesterday so this was a pleasant surprise :>#i haven't really listened to it in full yet bc idk adhd things but when the mood hits right y'all know i'll be VIBING#i never talked abt it but waves and can't get enough were great earworms so i'm excited to see how the rest of the songs will turn out#also hope everyone's doing well here on the btr side of tumblr hehe y'all been absolutely fed this year <3#is this gonna be allen's 2k23 tumblr comeback??? nah prob not i'm too in love with the fooo conspiracy atm but hey maybe also who knows 👀#(*heckler from the back of the audience* NO ONE CARES ABOUT U AND UR TRASH CONTENT IDIOT STFU FOREVER ACTUALLY!!!!!)#but yep. life has been fuck work has been a headache and so many unwanted tragic plot twists this year. but at least we got new btr lezzgo!#also happy pride month y'all!!! just saying this for absolutely no rhyme or reason related to this post at all wdym lmao ¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯#okay thats all promise i'll shush now and it's time for old grampa to disappear into the darkest recesses of the internet yet again hejdååå#btr#big time rush#another life#album#stop it forever#lmao i hardly remember my dumbass blog tags;;; it's for the best hdbfkgk
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If anyone's interested in the spotify Reset Resort playlist, collaborated on by @/ flonautilus and yours truly, it finally has an acceptable number of songs! Feel free to suggest, inbox, or ask questions about any songs as well.....
#My internet has been out for 3 days ouh#I havent been home for two of them but it's starting to get of my nerves#Other than that#I'll release this silly little brainrot playlist to the public
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posts that make u go hmmmmm
#yall storms came thru yesterday and my power has been .... on MIGHTY thin ice for the last two days so#yay lmao#my internet went out 3 times posting this <3
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horrifying self recognition through the other aside this has been an actually not terrible start to The Family Gathering tbh
#my cousin who i havent really seen in a while came up to me and asked abt my pronouns because i came out to the fam a while ago#and he didnt really remember what id said (which. fair. its a big family w lots of things to remember)#and so he asked what my pronouns were and i told him and he promised that if he ever messed up i needed to make him#do like 5 or 10 pushups lmao#and ngl. its the sweetest thing anyone in this family has ever said to me abt that#everyone else has kinda just. moved on. and either forgotten that im not a girl or purposefully ignoring it.#and idk maybe i should stand up for myself a little more but ive been practically a doormat all my life#and idk. its hard using my voice and establishing boundaries when ive let ppl bulldoze over me for almost 20 years.#sigh. anyway.#im gonna be thinking about that all day tbh it was genuinely so sweet#and i am also being consumed by The Loneliness again <3#just. i want someone to just talk to about all this??? someone who isnt in my family because they all have stakes in it too?????#we're all grieving. i aint special.#i just want to talk to someone about it in person so they can hold my hand while i cry myself to sleep because ngl#thats what it looks like we're doing tonight#im just. tired of feeling alone in this enormous family where it seems like im the only odd man out#and also ykw the Not Having Any Irl Friends loneliness too. thats also pretty significant.#not saying my internet friends arent great i love yall so so so much but it has just been .#a really really long time since ive had a good cry n hug session w someone.#sigh. im tired i need to go to bed#winter speaks#personal
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you can give seven days of internet connection to someone in gaza for just 6 USD
gazaesims.com is a website dedicated to helping people donate esims for people in gaza. (for the ultimate guide to donating an esim, see http://tinyurl.com/gaza-esims) there are multiple options for where to purchase an esim to donate, for the price i listed you want to use nomad esims. you can get a $3 discount by using someone's referral code from the notes of this post. it also will give the referrer credit to buy more esims! (you can only use a referral code on your first purchase) @/fairuzfan also a tag for esim referral codes here, some of which are nomad. BACKPACKNOMAD is another code to get $3 off your first purchase, it's been working for some people but not others so try out a referral code instead if you can't get it to work. also it took over an hour for the email with my information to come through so don't panic if it doesn't show up right away. (logging back into your nomad account seems to have helped some people get their emails to send!) NOMADCNG is a code for 5% off any middle east region nomad esims from connecting gaza. it can be used on any purchase, not just your first but is generally going to give less off than the first-purchase only codes, so use those first. it can be used in combination with nomad points. AWESOME NEW CODE: nomad esim discount code for 75% off any plan, NOMADCS25 do not know how long it lasts but this is an amazing deal esp. since they are really low on esims right now! (nomad promo codes do not work on plans that are already on sale, unlimited plans, and plans under $5)
weekly tuesdays only code on nomad web, PST timezone! it gives 10% off plans 10gb and above. NOMADTUE
for the month of may, first time referrals give 25% off for a person's first purchase and 25% off the referrer's next purchase! it's a great time to use someone's referral code from the notes if you are a first time buyer.
troubleshooting hint 1: if you are trying to pay through paypal, make sure you have pop-ups enabled! otherwise the payment window won't be able to appear.
troubleshooting hint 2: if you are trying to purchase an esim using the provider's app, it may block you from purchasing if your phone does not fit the requirements to install and use their esims. use their website in your browser instead and this problem should go away.
edit as of 5/21/24: holafly (israel and egypt), nomad (regional middle east), simly (palestine and middle east), mogo (israel), and airalo (discover) are currently in the highest in demand. here is a purchase guide i made that covers all of the esim platforms, including these three platforms. if it has been more than 3 weeks since you initially sent your esim and your esim has not been activated, you can reforward your original email with the expiration date in the subject line. you can see gothhabiba’s guide for how to tell if your esims have been activated. if your esim has expired without use, you can contact customer service to renew or replace it.
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This is bullshit! This website is dedicated to preserving not just books, but audio files, videos, websites, this is the source of the wayback machine! They have effectively lost the right to lend out digital books, regardless of origin. This now limits our resources even further. It's another book banning issue, and it needs to be heard.
#well damn I thought I had friends but like literally no one thought to tell me about this??? > : (#it's been going on for days now hello people please tell me about shit like this?! Books/libraries are a crucial part of my being#is it really that under-talked about of an issue? Well#that needs to improve.#I've been with IA for years now and it's how I re-read some old books that are out of print or rare/hard to find that aren't >$100 on ebay#or that have so limited copies in circulation in libraries that the best option is to access the digital lending service#this is also crucial for overseas patrons too because this makes information and files so accessible to the average populace#This is the biggest book banning/information restrictive instance I think I've witnessed in my life.#As if I didn't need a gas mask already to read the news- this one has extra tiny toxic particles that breach my mask filter#There's some fundraising going on for it and I'd highly suggest donating a few dollars to it since I'm looking into it#big name authors like Neil Gaiman are already in support of the IA being saved so it is getting major traction. I'm glad.#I wish I had a big enough audience to offer a special promotion like if you donate you get a half off commission#Literally donate to the IA and watch me summon a nightmare dragon to attack the court system. Every donation is 1+ magic spell needed.#Donate even a dollar and reblog the news. If you can't donate less than $3- then just reblog and talk about it.#Skip your coffee and boba tea order and just do this instead#If this is your first time hearing of the IA- first off- HOW? and second of all please look into this yourself. It's an incredible service.#I'm with the Internet Archive on this one. Fight me and lose miserably.#genuinely deeply truly vexed and infuriated at how this is 2023 and how concerningly backwards this can be#internet archive#ia#hachette vs internet archive
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playing dmc1 with my earbuds in (but on low volume bc they're being weird) while my roommate and her shitty bf argue. i feel like i'm recreating the very specific experience of some child of divorce out there
#how do i tell her she needs to break up with him immediately. posthaste.fuck it funny post over rant incoming tw emotional abuse i think#nyarla dni#(<- roomie and nyarla have met and i don't wanna air roomie's drama to ppl who know her w/o her consent. anon internet ppl only)#listen i'm normally for gentle advising and that's probably what i'll do since i don't want to stress her out but oh my fucking god what is#his problem. he's constantly putting her in these weird no-win situations where the only right answer is to never be upset or disagree or b#wrong on accident or be misunderstood by him and to tell him everything she's feeling so she's not 'playing mind games' but if she says wha#she's feeling he'll interrogate her and badger her with the same questions over and over again insisting she's unreasonable until she gives#in and says she's sorry with an attitude he likes. i fucking don't like him. and a lot of this is observations from today. the day after sh#GOT INTO A CAR ACCIDENT AND BROKE HER NECK. WHAT THE FUCK.#it's like he expects to be treated like a king on one of the worst days of her life and when she's upset he's like OH. OH I GET IT.#and lectures her on having attitude and taking things out on others when she's literally not even doing that. not to an extent that matters#anyway. like. there's more productive ways of dealing with that. where you don't treat them like a bad kid for getting overwhelmed#he has made her cry multiple times today. i have been around multiple arguments and fights and he's just genuinely. awful i hate him#hell the first argument i overheard *i* was in tears by the end (luckily they left soon after bc i had to run to the basement laundry#dungeon to bawl my eyes out because 1. i can't handle confrontation 2. i've never seen roomie cry and 3. she just seemed so hurt and tired)#anyway he just left again after a fight because. god this is so dumb. she told him to move while they were sleeping in the same twin bed#(remember she's in a neck brace) and he fucking. left the room for an HOUR bc he thought the only thing that could POSSIBLY mean (as he#insisted) was for him to get out of here and then when she was like oh hey i'm sorry i didn't mean it like that he decided to spend the nex#half hour of his short time on this earth chewing her out for not giving him a lengthy explanation while half-asleep as to like. why he#needed to move (she wanted to grab smth) and apparently he sat in the chair by her bed for like 10 mins before leaving so he probably saw#her fall back asleep. and then he got pissy when after he left she didn't pick up her phone when he was calling her? even though he knew sh#was asleep?? she didn't even know he was gone. fucking. i need to get him away from my roomie YESTERDAY#look. miscommunication happens. i'm not saying he's an asshole for wanting things said clearly. i am pro-saying what you mean.#but if every time your gf tells you what she means you make it into a 30 minute lecture (no matter how small the slight and w/o examining i#you're actually right or not) she's not gonna wanna fucking tell you if she doesn't think it's worth the argument. especially if you never#let her rest until she concedes. apology isn't enough. clarification isn't enough. she has to say how wrong she was and beg and GOD. UGHHH#and he's always on about how she hurts his feelings. a gust of wind could hurt his feelings. he's constantly berating her manipulating her#and then he's like >:( see that hurt my feelings you can't hurt ppl's feelings. you're disrespectful. HE"S THE WORST I FUCKING HATE HIM#look sometimes adversity reveals the truth of a person and this just amplified his shittiness so much. mr OH i slept in a HOSPITAL and it#was so bad... you can't be in a bad mood bc i've been doing the bare minimum and you need to prioritize MY feelings rn. also i won't leave
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My Experience Buying eSIMs for Gaza by Maia Kobabe
instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my books
Full transcript below the cut:
Cover:
My Experience Buying eSIMs for Gaza
Project organized by @ connectinghumanity_
by Maia Kobabe @redgoldsparks
Page 1
In Fall 2023, I saw instructions on instagram for how to purchase an eSIM card and submit it to be distributed to someone in Gaza.
Download an eSIM app-> Select Middle East as the region-> Purchase-> Screenshot the QR code-> Do not activate-> send to [email protected]
Image of Maia looking at eir phone. ���That sounds easy, I’ll buy one.”
I emailed an Airalo eSIM QR code to gazaesims on Nov 17 2023.
Page 2
By January 2024, it hadn’t been activated yet. I bought a second one from Nomad and sent my new QR code and resubmitted my old one.
Image of Maia looking at eir phone. “How long does this usually take, I wonder?”
By February neither had been activated, but Connecting Humanity kept posting about needing more. I bought a second Nomad and resubmitted all of them on February 15, 2024.
Page 3
The Nomad eSIMs are much cheaper than Airalo, but what I didn’t realize is that they expire even if they haven’t been activated. At the end of February I decided to try a third company, Simly. Here’s a price comparison:
AIRALO: $39 USD for 3GB, never expires
SIMLY: $22 USD for 3GB, never expires
NOMAD: $16 USD for 3GB, expires after 8 weeks even if unused, only offers in-app refunds
Page 4
Connecting Humanity asks folks to wait at least 3 weeks before resending a QR code that hasn’t been activated yet. On March 7 Mirna Elhelbawi posted:
We send EVERY esim we receive. Bear in mind that we are dealing with people at a war zone. They might take it and get killed before activating it, they might take it and their phone gets lost or destroyed. They might take it and search for days for stable internet connection to activate it, and some of them activate it unsuccessfully due to lack of knowledge and the horrific situations they are in. ~Connecting Gaza
By early April, my first Nomad eSIM expired unused. I resubmitted my three remaining eSIMs.
Page 5
Suddenly, two of my eSIMs were activated on the same day! The Airalo I’d purchased 4.5 months earlier and my second Nomad.
Image of Maia looking happy and surprised.
Image of Maia looking very intensely at eir phone. “I have to make sure these don’t run out!”
I began buying top-up packages immediately.
Page 6
I felt like I had planted a seed in the fall and waited all winter for it to sprout. Seeing it activated was like watching the first new leaves break the soil.
Image of Maia with a watering can labeled “data”, sprinkling water on two little sprouts. “Watering my eSIMs!”
Sadly, only .07 GB of data was ever used on my Nomad. It was never used again after that first day.
Page 7
But my Airalo has been in constant use for over a month now. I check on it every day.
I will never know the person I am buying data for and they will never know me. But we are connected by the same strings of hope and grief that connect us all.
Image of two hands holding a phone, which is connected to a flying kite.
Page 8
On April 5, 2024 Connecting Humanity reported they had sent more than 250,000 eSIMs to Gaza, equivalent to approximately $6.3 million donated! You can visit gazaesims.com for more info, instructions, and discounts. Here are my referral codes:
MAIA5367 for $3 off Airalo
MB772 for $3 off Simly
MAIA66GF for $3 off Nomad
If you need more incentive, the Cartoonist Coop is doing art rewards. Visit cartoonist.coop/esims4gaza
Page 9
Image of Maia, weighing two options. “Buying an eSIM is easy and can make a very direct impact. It can also take a lot of patience and could get expensive over time if you commit to keeping the eSIM topped up indefinitely.”
If an immediate one time donation is more your speed, I recommend Operation Olive Branch and Gazafunds, two places to find Gofundmes aiding Palestinian families.
gazafunds.com
@ operationolivebranch on insta
linktr.ee/opolivebranch
-Maia Kobabe 2024
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The above screenshots are all notes from posts I made for Siraj or posts I made while thinking about Siraj's fundraiser.
None of it helped Siraj avoid a stagnant campaign. He gets short bursts of activity ( he is grateful for every dollar, trust me he expresses joy at every $5 dollar donation ) but, after that the campaign stagnates for days. So all that is happening is that I am getting activity. My notes have filled up, my phone does not stop pinging- but for Siraj it is the same as always with donations trickling in slowly.
Siraj does not have time. He cannot afford time. He is not evacuating, not because he is safe or has time, but because he refuses to be a refugee. Refuses for the occupation to throw him out of his city. Anything can happen to Siraj ( May God keep him safe, I hate to even think about this) , but anything can happen...who would rebuild his house then? Who would fulfill his promise to his children?
The time is now! Every second passes in Gaza in a terrible sort of limbo!!
Siraj doesn't know what will happen in the next day, when he has to travel 3 km to reach the Internet point. The occupation forces have attacked many on the way there. But Siraj still has to brave that road, hoping that somehow, someday he will have enough friends who are willing to donate. A journalist by profession, he offers you the truth in exchange of your support. So please help him. Please listen.
( vetting on Hussein and Nabulsi's list at no 219)
Edit: this is once again getting notes. But there has been no proportional donation coming in for Siraj.
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Saw a tweet that said something around:
"cannot emphasize enough how horrid chatgpt is, y'all. it's depleting our global power & water supply, stopping us from thinking or writing critically, plagiarizing human artists. today's students are worried they won't have jobs because of AI tools. this isn't a world we deserve"
I've seen some of your AI posts and they seem nuanced, but how would you respond do this? Cause it seems fairly-on point and like the crux of most worries. Sorry if this is a troublesome ask, just trying to learn so any input would be appreciated.
i would simply respond that almost none of that is true.
'depleting the global power and water supply'
something i've seen making the roudns on tumblr is that chatgpt queries use 3 watt-hours per query. wow, that sounds like a lot, especially with all the articles emphasizing that this is ten times as much as google search. let's check some other very common power uses:
running a microwave for ten minutes is 133 watt-hours
gaming on your ps5 for an hour is 200 watt-hours
watching an hour of netflix is 800 watt-hours
and those are just domestic consumer electricty uses!
a single streetlight's typical operation 1.2 kilowatt-hours a day (or 1200 watt-hours)
a digital billboard being on for an hour is 4.7 kilowatt-hours (or 4700 watt-hours)
i think i've proved my point, so let's move on to the bigger picture: there are estimates that AI is going to cause datacenters to double or even triple in power consumption in the next year or two! damn that sounds scary. hey, how significant as a percentage of global power consumption are datecenters?
1-1.5%.
ah. well. nevertheless!
what about that water? yeah, datacenters use a lot of water for cooling. 1.7 billion gallons (microsoft's usage figure for 2021) is a lot of water! of course, when you look at those huge and scary numbers, there's some important context missing. it's not like that water is shipped to venus: some of it is evaporated and the rest is generally recycled in cooling towers. also, not all of the water used is potable--some datacenters cool themselves with filtered wastewater.
most importantly, this number is for all data centers. there's no good way to separate the 'AI' out for that, except to make educated guesses based on power consumption and percentage changes. that water figure isn't all attributable to AI, plenty of it is necessary to simply run regular web servers.
but sure, just taking that number in isolation, i think we can all broadly agree that it's bad that, for example, people are being asked to reduce their household water usage while google waltzes in and takes billions of gallons from those same public reservoirs.
but again, let's put this in perspective: in 2017, coca cola used 289 billion liters of water--that's 7 billion gallons! bayer (formerly monsanto) in 2018 used 124 million cubic meters--that's 32 billion gallons!
so, like. yeah, AI uses electricity, and water, to do a bunch of stuff that is basically silly and frivolous, and that is broadly speaking, as someone who likes living on a planet that is less than 30% on fire, bad. but if you look at the overall numbers involved it is a miniscule drop in the ocean! it is a functional irrelevance! it is not in any way 'depleting' anything!
'stopping us from thinking or writing critically'
this is the same old reactionary canard we hear over and over again in different forms. when was this mythic golden age when everyone was thinking and writing critically? surely we have all heard these same complaints about tiktok, about phones, about the internet itself? if we had been around a few hundred years earlier, we could have heard that "The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth."
it is a reactionary narrative of societal degeneration with no basis in anything. yes, it is very funny that laywers have lost the bar for trusting chatgpt to cite cases for them. but if you think that chatgpt somehow prevented them from thinking critically about its output, you're accusing the tail of wagging the dog.
nobody who says shit like "oh wow chatgpt can write every novel and movie now. yiou can just ask chatgpt to give you opinions and ideas and then use them its so great" was, like, sitting in the symposium debating the nature of the sublime before chatgpt released. there is no 'decay', there is no 'decline'. you should be suspicious of those narratives wherever you see them, especially if you are inclined to agree!
plagiarizing human artists
nah. i've been over this ad infinitum--nothing 'AI art' does could be considered plagiarism without a definition so preposterously expansive that it would curtail huge swathes of human creative expression.
AI art models do not contain or reproduce any images. the result of them being trained on images is a very very complex statistical model that contains a lot of large-scale statistical data about all those images put together (and no data about any of those individual images).
to draw a very tortured comparison, imagine you had a great idea for how to make the next Great American Painting. you loaded up a big file of every norman rockwell painting, and you made a gigantic excel spreadsheet. in this spreadsheet you noticed how regularly elements recurred: in each cell you would have something like "naturalistic lighting" or "sexually unawakened farmers" and the % of times it appears in his paintings. from this, you then drew links between these cells--what % of paintings containing sexually unawakened farmers also contained naturalistic lighting? what % also contained a white guy?
then, if you told someone else with moderately competent skill at painting to use your excel spreadsheet to generate a Great American Painting, you would likely end up with something that is recognizably similar to a Norman Rockwell painting: but any charge of 'plagiarism' would be absolutely fucking absurd!
this is a gross oversimplification, of course, but it is much closer to how AI art works than the 'collage machine' description most people who are all het up about plagiarism talk about--and if it were a collage machine, it would still not be plagiarising because collages aren't plagiarism.
(for a better and smarter explanation of the process from soneone who actually understands it check out this great twitter thread by @reachartwork)
today's students are worried they won't have jobs because of AI tools
i mean, this is true! AI tools are definitely going to destroy livelihoods. they will increase productivty for skilled writers and artists who learn to use them, which will immiserate those jobs--they will outright replace a lot of artists and writers for whom quality is not actually important to the work they do (this has already essentially happened to the SEO slop website industry and is in the process of happening to stock images).
jobs in, for example, product support are being cut for chatgpt. and that sucks for everyone involved. but this isn't some unique evil of chatgpt or machine learning, this is just the effect that technological innovation has on industries under capitalism!
there are plenty of innovations that wiped out other job sectors overnight. the camera was disastrous for portrait artists. the spinning jenny was famously disastrous for the hand-textile workers from which the luddites drew their ranks. retail work was hit hard by self-checkout machines. this is the shape of every single innovation that can increase productivity, as marx explains in wage labour and capital:
“The greater division of labour enables one labourer to accomplish the work of five, 10, or 20 labourers; it therefore increases competition among the labourers fivefold, tenfold, or twentyfold. The labourers compete not only by selling themselves one cheaper than the other, but also by one doing the work of five, 10, or 20; and they are forced to compete in this manner by the division of labour, which is introduced and steadily improved by capital. Furthermore, to the same degree in which the division of labour increases, is the labour simplified. The special skill of the labourer becomes worthless. He becomes transformed into a simple monotonous force of production, with neither physical nor mental elasticity. His work becomes accessible to all; therefore competitors press upon him from all sides. Moreover, it must be remembered that the more simple, the more easily learned the work is, so much the less is its cost to production, the expense of its acquisition, and so much the lower must the wages sink – for, like the price of any other commodity, they are determined by the cost of production. Therefore, in the same manner in which labour becomes more unsatisfactory, more repulsive, do competition increase and wages decrease”
this is the process by which every technological advancement is used to increase the domination of the owning class over the working class. not due to some inherent flaw or malice of the technology itself, but due to the material realtions of production.
so again the overarching point is that none of this is uniquely symptomatic of AI art or whatever ever most recent technological innovation. it is symptomatic of capitalism. we remember the luddites primarily for failing and not accomplishing anything of meaning.
if you think it's bad that this new technology is being used with no consideration for the planet, for social good, for the flourishing of human beings, then i agree with you! but then your problem shouldn't be with the technology--it should be with the economic system under which its use is controlled and dictated by the bourgeoisie.
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