#techbros

[briteredoctober]

The real issue with DeepSeek is that capitalists can't profit from it.

I always appreciate when the capitalist class just says it out loud so I don't have to be called a conspiracy theorist for pointing out the obvious.

[mckitterick]

source post: X

[sepdet]

Ignore the ugly thumbnail & title — this is SUCH a good discussion with US historian Heather Cox Richardson.

Parts are sobering, as she connects the dots and points out the endgame that I don't think the Republicans have realized is the likely outcome (not at all what they intend) if Trump is elected.

But about 15 minutes in she moves past the "democracy is on the line" angle (with surprising insights and receipts) to a more positive, joyful, actionable angle which has been missing from the last two election cycles, and usually from activism and progressivism on Tumblr too.

if you don't wanna watch the whole 20 minute video, jump ahead to 15:00 for that bit. 



Harris keeps emphasizing that we all have the power to make a difference right now. Sometimes it feels like that's just empty words. I find it very reassuring that a historian with research to back it up concurs.

[lazyscience]

Have finished Careless People, and my biggest takeaways:

Mark Zuckerberg's favorite president is Andrew Jackson "because he got a lot of shit done," his favorite Roman emperor is Augustus, who was the one who made the Republic into an Empire, and he asked Xi Yinping - yes, THAT Xi Yinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, chairman of the Central Military Commission - on the second time meeting him for less than 5 minutes, to name his child. This guy loves authoritarianism like Swifties love Taylor. I wouldn't tell this fucker I was on fire and needed to be put out for fear of who he'd sell that information to, he certainly wouldn't do anything USEFUL about it.

Facebook, despite any public protestations otherwise, is certainly not sorry about serving beauty and diet ads to depressed teens and pro-ED communities, racist and inflammatory content that resulted in rioting in Myanmar, invasive monitoring to block human rights activists in China or ragebait to drive "engagement" with Trump ads. They are not even embarrassed at being caught - they are ANGRY because they don't understand why any of that was wrong. They think they should be able to brag about how good a job they can do giving political candidates, the surveillance state and predatory capitalist enterprises exactly what the customer wants targeted, even if the customer's fucking evil and it results in peoples' deaths. It's like the Nuremberg CITATIONS 'but look what a GOOD JOB we did, that should count for something, we were very effective helping fascists."

Amusingly, despite number 2, no Facebook executives allow their children to use Facebook. Or apparently screens in general for that matter.

Sheryl Sandberg is currently promoting a documentary about the October 7th victims of sexual assault by Hamas. There is nothing wrong with that at all, rape, particularly as a tool of racial/religious hate is vile and needs to be called out. But interestingly, Sheryl, where were you and the documentary film crews in Myanmar when it was Rohingya women being mass raped? And where violence, including sexual violence, is still happening in the year of our lord 2025? Oh, that's right, Facebook helped facilitate THAT ethnic violence, so we need to keep that one hush-hush. Oopsie! Another case as with her boyfriend Bobby K, if we did it it's fine, it's only a war crime when it's someone else!

In case you needed ANOTHER reason to hate Sheryl Sandberg, this charming vignette about Facebook's brief foray into promoting organ donation (this bitch actually wanted FACEBOOK to be INVOLVED in collecting people's transplant information!):

Sensing danger, I pivot to the risk of organ trafficking. I explain that countries have put a lot of thought into safeguarding organ donation information and guarding against cross-border transportation of organs. She turns to me, indignant. The edge in her voice is unmistakable. “Do you mean to tell me that if my four-year-old was dying and the only thing that would save her was a new kidney, that I couldn’t fly to Mexico and get one and put it in my handbag?”

Completely aside from the elephant-sized racist entitlement thinking that because a rich white twat waves a bunch of money at a Mexican doctor of course they would give her a kidney, perhaps wrapped up in a Thanks For Your Business! red and white plastic bag with a complimentary taco - what in the lacking even a BASIC understanding of "this shit's complicated and maybe there are good reasons for rules" - like, you think you can put a fucking kidney from a total rando in a Coleman, shake a bag of ice over it and go? BLOODBORNE ILLNESSES? FROSTBITE? DONOR MATCHING? I can't with these people who are allegedly supposed to be smart.

These people really are straight out of a Great Gatsby novel. Their singular drive is proving they're superior to people they despise, obsessed with the trappings of status while being wholly unable to enjoy them as an experience, just as "I'm better than you," who will expect you to go to JAIL for them but then literally step over your twitching body if you need help, and are incapable of imagining a world where they had accountability for their actions, as opposed to simply claiming credit. That's for lesser people, that's for the people who work FOR me.

Meta are claiming it's a smear job, but - these stories, this story, doesn't reflect flatteringly on the author, either. She freely admits that it took her way too long to realize Facebook was never going to be the "force for good" she envisioned, and when she had that realization she was still for a long time was trying to extricate herself in a way that preserved the financial and career benefits she had gotten used to, of being Somebody Important who advised global concerns and rubbed shoulders with diplomats and heads of state. If Meta had been smart enough to ignore this book, I don't know that I would have found the story sympathetic enough to pick it up.

And I'm glad I did, because it was a useful insight. Oh, not into exactly what it IS Facebook does to do its data criming at ALL, you need resources like WIRED and Techdirt for that, authors more interested in the technology itself rather than the implications. But to understand who the true believers are and the ...pettiness of it all, that's helpful. They're not supervillains. It's not a long-brewing plot of world domination. They're just assholes who don't want to pay taxes like every business ever.

(And clearly working in tech is even worse than working in medical. Man, I thought my previous employer sucked? They were a beacon of support and sanity compared to Meta, apparently and that's really fucking disturbing.)

[ritchiepage2001newaccount]

MAGA congressman says top priority is shutting down FEMA like the Department of Education

A Tennessee Republican congressman on Friday told a conservative podcaster that the first thing he wants to do when he returns to Washington D.C. is advocate to reorganize FEMA – and “shut it down.”…

[hasellia]

'What if Al gains sentience?" You techbros

can't even handle the idea of someone with

a communication disability being a sentient

being. You haven't even thought about a

human with a different pattern of thinking

let alone the sentience of an animal that

you can't keep in your home.

"Don't bully my mini Roko's basilisk"! lf it

gains sentience, it's going to wonder what

constitutes as the letter Y, a dwarf planet or

the colour red. It's not going to hate; it's

going to wonder why you're mad that it

doesn't care about money.

[chaoskirin]

Glaze Your Art!

I recently got Glaze and I've been running some tests on my art and style to see how it affects images. It's much better with highly detailed pieces... On cartoons, you can definitely see artifacts like it's got a JPG compression layover over it. But it prevents your art style from being stolen. The makers of Glaze have also developed Nightshade, which will start poisoning datasets if your art is stolen without consent.

Here's a few of the pieces I've tested Glaze on, and I'm happy with the results. While I used to like posting my ultra-high quality art for people to enjoy, I'm now finding that's no longer an option with all the theft happening lately. But this will do.

You can actually download Glaze and run it yourself with your own resources, but I was very opposed to having the AI dataset present on my computer (which you need in order to pollute your data). But they've come out with a web app that you can request to use with the form on their site, or you can message them on Twitter.

Protect your art!

[azspot]

What do TechBros and TheoBros have in common with Trump and his inner circle? All think their respective causes will be better served by ending American democracy. They want a strongman at top—their strongman. To hell with democracy, and with the rest of us.

TheoBros, TechBros, & Trump

[davekat-sucks]

I think Sollux should just leave behind his warm colors hoes and settle down for a more polite Eridan

Aka, Sollux and Equius scratch a funny itch in me. Maybe cuz that error pic Paradox Space gives you when you type /413 at the url

Pros: They both wear glasses, their lives kinda go around animals, they're incredibly powerful, they're good with machinery, Sollux has a bit of blue goin on, I think they both dislike Eridan, at one point they had the only two trolls with shiny eyes with them... It's interesting.

Cons: All what I said are pickpoints, they would be hard to work out on camera with their personalities, for a genderless species with no idea of what sexual orientations are, they're surprisingly hetero

But I say almost unironically "I can fix them!" as I write the worst, nonsensical fanfic you've ever read about them trying to bond

Sollux x Equius aka Techbros is better than Davekat. I would be happy to read it if you do get the chance to write it down. Send me it once you're finished!

[inkbotkowalski]

cool we're back at ppl unquestioningly reblogging AI shit

[anthophilafalls]

i feel like we inch closer to this every day

[ankewehner]

Moving fast and breaking things is vandalism.

[ritchiepage2001newaccount]

Project2025 #TechBros #CorpMedia #Oligarchs #MegaBanks vs #Union #Occupy #NoDAPL #BLM #SDF #DACA #MeToo #Humanity #FeelTheBern

JinJiyanAzadi #BijiRojava Rojava Dispatch Three: Members of Commune Sehid Kawa C Decide on New Boundaries [UPDATES]

The two Hyundai minivans cruise caravan style through the backstreets of Kobane. In the first van are two representatives of the Kobane Canton’s TEV-DEM, the body charged with implementing Democratic Confederalism. In the trailing minivan I ride with the translator and driver. Tiny children play on either side of the street and seem ambivalent to the passing cars, if they can survive a month long siege by ISIS, a few stray cars are nothing…

RELATED UPDATE: HPG releases balance sheet for March: 43 occupiers killed

RELATED UPDATE: Turkish invasion is doomed to fail

RELATED UPDATE: TJK-E: Let's fill the streets with the slogan 'Jin Jiyan Azadi'

RELATED UPDATE: Call from 150 people to France to 'defend Rojava'

RELATED UPDATE: Kurdish artists in Amed: We stand by the Rojava Revolution with our art

RELATED UPDATE: Rojava Tribunal: Investigating Turkey’s war crimes, attack on a democratic revolution

RELATED UPDATE: Bayik: With the Jin Jiyan Azadi uprisings, a new process of struggle began in Iran

RELATED UPDATE: Message to Rojava from Sahrawi Solidarity Summit

FURTHER READING:

[eubedoo6]

Flim and flam are techbros, not convinced?

Here's my argument

they both(the flim flam brothers and techbros as a group) push a mixture of working(but not to human quality) technology and scams

they both have tried to steal from people doing the thing they're trying to make tech do (apples from the apple family, and art from artiss)

neither cares about much other than the money they can make from it

both try to paint themselves as victims when people refuse things from them that would lose those people their home and current food supply (and somehow don't seem to understand why those people refuse)

and they both try to pass off their money making schemes as "opportunities" or increasing the availability (admittedly the apples could have made more Cider with help, and they proved that, but art isn't about amount of supply, and EVEN neck down paralysis only makes specialised equipment a requirement)

both have tried to sell things as what they aren't (nfts, and a "miracle curative tonic")

and, I'm going to say this again for those who haven't thought about it since last time, THEY BOTH ONLY CARE ABOUT THE MONEY THEY GET FROM IT

However, in all honesty, I have 1 argument in defence of them on this, the flim flam brothers have style, and at least give you a song with their shady presentation, they're good songs too.

[cynicalclassicist]

Tech just seems to be going backwards into ways to make everything worse. It makes one sympathise with Tolkien's luddite views against cars and love for trees.

[chaoskirin]

"But I WANT Chat GPT To Finish this Fanfic! :( :( :("

The most frustrating thing about the rise of the techbro is that they don't understand copyright because they've never had to. It's never been a concern for them, so why would they have ever thought about it?

This leads to a plague of asshats with chronic Dunning-Kruger-itis just deciding they know more about copyright than people who have been well-versed in it for their whole lives.

That's why you get these clueless AI users saying things like "you don't own fanfic, haha got youuuu" because they only have a vague, transparent understanding of IP and how content works.

Here's some actual truth: The reason writers, showrunners, producers, and actors don't read fanfic is because if they do, and they get an idea from your work, and then that idea APPEARS in the media, they have to prove they didn't steal it. (actually, because of the mega-billion dollar entertainment industry, the accuser has to prove the company DID steal it. Harder, but not impossible.)

If it turns out to be stolen, the company MIGHT HAVE TO PAY THE FANFIC AUTHOR FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTION AS A WRITER. This depends on how the court case goes and how similar your work is to the "official" work. Generally, even though it's a fanfic, there's a LOT of original content in that writing, which does NOT automatically belong to the IP.

The original content belongs to the writer, unless the company buys it.

SO! If you, as Techbro McDunning-Kruger, loads that shit into a chatbot or AI text generator, the ONLY shit that doesn't have a natural copyright is anything that VERY SPECIFICALLY pertains to the media itself. Generally, this includes names and extremely unique concepts. Everything else is stolen.

You want to know how I know?

Fucking 50 Shades of Gray.

It's a fanfic, where only the names and hard concepts from Twilight have been changed. It's still being sold, and no money is being paid to Stephanie Meyer.

There's other examples, too. 50 Shades is just the most well-known.

Fanfic is protected. The original material in that fic is copyrighted to the original author. If they tell you you can't use it, you can't use it.

In conclusion: I don't care how much you scream and pound your fists on your chest and piss on trees to assert your dominance. Spewing this nonsense about how fanfic is public domain and you get to use it because you want to is theft. Stop doing it.