#this is so capitalist coded

[henrick-at-large]

the things i do for capitalism 😒😒 (sell my soul to the coffee overlords only in exchange for a massive gaping shin wound and a whole pile of medical bills that i didnt have to worry about before i started that job)🌜‼️

[vangoghsmissingearr]

[statementlou]

So I see folks pointing out that Louis' circle A tattoo is more likely an aesthetic choice than an announcement of a political commitment to anarchism, and saying basically that that maybe makes him a bit of a poser and I mean- I GUESS. But I don't like to look at things that way and I don't think it's useful. As I see it the subversive sexiness of the symbols of resistance have ALWAYS been gateways for people who are drawn to the struggle in vague ways and that's GOOD. Aligning yourself with those values is good no matter the reason, in my book, especially given the wretched options available out there, but also the journey doesn't necessarily stop there. Gatekeeping queerness victimizes people who are just trying things out and starting to discover that it may run deeper than just trying on a new look who should instead be welcomed and helped along their path, and I fail to see how gatekeeping political affiliations is any different (plus how counterproductive to actual movement building is that?)

ANYWAY. What I really want to say about Louis is that while I KNOW that Louis is probably not secretly a theory reading anti-state communalist anarchist, I think that actually Louis' optimism and idealism (and his unwavering commitment to allying himself with the working class and embracing those roots) are a perfect fit for the philosophy and always have been. I know that anarchism is mostly understood as being about throwing molotov cocktails and fighting the state (and the allure of its symbols are that they signify this, a terrific aesthetic for him to choose to sign on with in my book), but that's honestly largely cartoonish stereotyping that comes directly from anti-anarchist state propaganda. That resistance is necessary in this hellscape of oppression we live in and is super important, but in its heart anarchism is only about the state in that the state and capitalism currently stands in the way of its goals. The whole point of anarchism is that it's NOT about the state! It's about being able to imagine something better than a state, it's about how we live and about how we SHOULD live, it's about HOPE and picturing something utopian and something free of the ways capitalism pits us against one another! What could be more Louis than that?

"I need you and you need me and I love that" is as beautiful a way of talking about the cornerstone of anarchism that is mutual aid as any long winded essay I've read (even if what he meant was contextually different), and I think when he talks again and again about how special the space fans have made around him is he is expressing an intuitive understanding of the importance of autonomous zones, places and moments outside of the shitty life imposed on us by the system (also a huge part of anarchist thought). Maybe I'm just being an optimist but I think that Louis DOES understand that caring for people and wanting self-determination and freedom for all and allying himself with the working class involves a certain amount of resistance to and positioning yourself in opposition to the state. Thinking the symbols of smashing that state are cool isn't meaningless; it's a CHOICE. There are other cool symbols out there and I just happen to think that feeling a resonance with certain ones is something in and of itself, even if at this moment he does not choose to start a fight with the media about it all.

[thegreatyin]

💀 for the scoundrel, 🃏 for caeru, 🐀 for both

putting this under a cut bc it got surprisingly long (blame the cardsru question)

💀 What's their relationship with the Boatman like?

Ever since she finished Evolution and picked the Naturalist's fate? Not exactly swell. He's not exactly pleased about her choice, and she hasn't exactly gotten any better at chess. And she has a bad habit of dying. A lot. Usually in really stupid ways (such as trying to fight two dozen tigers, to name a completely absurd and definitely totally absolutely not recent hypothetical)

To keep a long story short: They don't get along. Most of their boat visits these days are spent in silence. Or vague small talk. Or awkwardly trading weasels back and forth. The Scoundrel tries to avoid him... mostly. Emphasis on the "tries" part of that sentence.

-

🃏 What would be/will be their name and domain as a Master?

I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED BECAUSE MASTER!CAERU IS SO BASED AND ALSO HAS BEEN HAUNTING ME.

Aaanyway, despite myself, as unequivocally funny as the nickname "Cardsru" might be, I don't think it'd end up being his domain in quite the same way it is for the Scoundrel*.

Instead, I could see him being a way more general hoarder of knowledge, if that makes any sense? Facts, histories, lore both mundane and eldritch in nature, everything he could get his grubby little batty hands on. He'd trade in secrets and clues, acting as an information broker for anyone able to pay the price for his services. The price in question, of course, being a trade in mysteries of equal or greater worth to what he's giving up- street gossip for street gossip, arcane secrets for arcane secrets, maybe even the results of an especially chainbreaking experiment for a few dozen notes on tests of his own making.

He wouldn't be kind. And he wouldn't accept lies or forgery. But he'd always be fair, and he'd always look the other way when it mattered most. And if rumor on the street claims he's the most revolutionary of the Masters, the most destructive of their own ranks and ties, the council's man on the inside, the one who heralds the Liberation and welcomes its embrace with open claws-

Well. You'd need to trade a particularly enticing bit of information to learn the truth, wouldn't you?

His name is trickier to imagine. Mr Arcana sounds cool. Or maybe Mr Memoirs. Mr Enigma? Whatever he is, he'd be Mr Pages' worst nightmare, and he'd absolutely revel in it.

*and the scoundrel would actually have an entirely different spacebat special interest if they Actually Got A Say In Things! unfortunately they very much do not.

-

🐀 Are they friends with any rats?

At this point? Considering how many actions I've spent grinding fourth city echoes at LB Industries? There's no way the Scientist doesn't have a whole rat social network going. He probably gets along great with the little buggers. Inventor for inventor behavior. I haven't played Dream of a Thousand Tails yet, but he'd probably be best friends with the Piebald Dreamer if/when they ever meet.

Overall though, he's just a weird ratty guy! He respects rats!! Even if he tries to eat them sometimes. Unaccountably peckish, and all that. You know how it is.

The Scoundrel, by comparison, tends to see rats as vague annoyances at best. They tolerate their existence, but it's pretty much just that- toleration.

They'll be buddy-buddy with rats for as long as it suits their own interests. And as soon as those interests diverge from the rat's own?

...it's probably best to get the heck out of dodge before they get caught in the inevitable crossfire of whatever hairbrained scheme the Scoundrel happens to be pursuing at that particular moment.

[everythingsinred]

controversial opinion of the year is that i dont think barbie was that great bc its message was all over the place and also they didnt realize they had made kens the women in their story so it just seemed bizarrely misogynistic to me

[king-ludwig-ii]

in work drama updates: the person who outed me is the same person who’s been ratting people out to our supervisor.

This one guy joked about not working out his full two weeks bc he was so excited to leave so they went to management and told them that he straight up said he wasn’t going to show up on his last day so they sent him home half a week early.

Another coworker told them she was in the final round interviews for another job and they also went to management and they ended up firing her the same day

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

revealing your slightly morally wrong business ideas to a close friend feels like coming out

[ireonic]

getting Christmas out of the way so I can focus on my true love (Valentine's Day)

[jupiterjunebug]

Being in the comics g! J0e fandom is an exercise in constantly reliving the "is it problematic to sexualize hydra" discourse in my own head abt the guy who, in the original marvel comics, pops sig heils and is a thinly veiled reference to kkk/neo nazi shit

[blueish-bird]

burnout is sapping my hyperfixation of creative energy, but not to worry! I’m still thinking about Aki and Angel an incredibly abnormal amount

[navree]

every time americans do their whole ‘woohoo the french are striking for the 300th time in a 20 day period for no fucking reason’ shtick i just remember that time leftists were full throatedly cheering on the yellow jacket protest when the yellow jacket protest was a protest against mild environmental regulations to make sure the planet doesn’t die

[hikarisouai-blog]

The perks of salary - during the off seasons, you get paid to do nothing at work except scroll social media looking for time to kill or something to do. You have weekly meetings detailing office shenanigans and how Sales is about to start a robot battle using modified Roombahs to showcase how good our firm is at the "techy nerd stuff". People want in and don't know the first thing about modifying, much less programming, Roombahs. But your team does - and your phone is blowing up from Slack messages. Teams from other offices you ain't ever heard from dub it the RoboDome. You and your coworkers at the same position/dept. across all branches are banned due to accusations of bribery, theft, and schematic alterations ripped from the iRobot website within the first few hours of the announcement. You become "consultants" for the participating teams, by accepting dog/cat pics, donuts, and covered shifts on holidays. You go back to scial media scrolling the rest of the week, before you remember that you don't need to even be at the office anymore (a habit of yours from the insane crunch period from last month) and file with HR for "work from home". You dread the upcoming crunch time in a few months so you pretend this is how work is done the entire year. You go to tumblr to view your favorite fandom trending and see Neil Gaiman' blog. You remember the dread of work in the last few 'crunches'. You doomscroll more. Still get paid to reblog.

The downsides to having a salary - you work overtime almost every day/week during crunch times with no OT pay or bonuses. You reenact a breakup scene everytime you leave your bed, it hasn't had the bedding washed in over a month, and your coworkers are all zombies begging for someone with brains (to come relieve them from the slog of chugging out code in PHP because one of our clients demanded it in that language). One of the clients called about a syntax typo that crashed everything on the user end and made their systems look "like the Matrix if it was a Scy-Fy knockoff". There's a programmer who has quit at the lunch table at least three times this week but can't officially send off his resignation because his wife is pregnant and needs his insurance benefits (she's doing her residency and can't afford shit). The coffee you reheated in your mug is from last week, and your breakfast of one wrinkly apple and half a bag of Veggie Straws was the only fresh thing you've seen in days. No one knows who is in charge of what, and you keep getting texts asking where you are hiding because all of you engineers owe the dept lead a program from last week that was due a month ago. You get the first email from the owner/CEO of the year, thanking you all from his office that he has been sleeping in for a few days now. There's 4 shareholders that you've never seen or met and they all want monthly updates from each dept. Someone's calling out because their kid is sick and you can taste the salt in the air. You are hiding with the other engineers in one of the 'executive' workstations, feeling like you are putting your forehead against a cheesegrater when you see the jumbled mess of PHP and what you think is PowerShell. You quietly type away and remind your coworkers and yourself, "I need this job".

Between all of this you have periods of normal, healthy, and productive periods of work. You stay at home, get up and shower and get to work, and you do all of your tasks from your living room. You come in for meetings once a month, excited to see people. On special projects you come in everyday. You see code and you see hardware and you see all kinds of cool things that made you fall in love with your career. You hate the "Big 4" in IT for corrupting and warping your industry. You hate what greed has done to necessary industries like IT, education, medical and public services.

You hate how everything that is a commodity eventually seems to turn into a necessity and in turn gets warped for profit and gains. Need a degree? Go get a pricey degree! Need medical attention? You need pricey insurance! You want to use public services? Sorry, we have underfunded those in the last decade or more. They aren't gonna be as helpful - or you can spend more money on this other useless service that kinda sorta works better and is more than the other one! (I'm looking right at you Amazon, and your stupid book subscription thing.)

You are sick of it, but because you make more money than should be possible at your workplace you try to suck it up and tell yourself that it's what you signed up for, like how retail workers know about Black Friday. So you suck it up. And go back to mindlessly scrolling through social media feeds while getting paid.

The benefits of salary: paid to browse.

The downside? Your career's enshittification has you regretting your life choices.

[lumsel]

I don't strictly "like" taking ADHD meds, the comedown is awful and they play havoc on my appetite. But I kinda need them. I write software for a living. Software requires a great deal of focus that I simply cannot muster up off my meds. If I didn't have my meds, I would lose my job.

Part of this can be blamed on the cruelties of our modern capitalistic system. If the world understood my condition better, maybe I would not need to take stimulants to survive. I read an article once that really went all in on the idea that ADHD's negative perception is a symptom of perception, not an objective truth. Maybe people with ADHD are just as capable, but they do things in a different way to neurotypicals. Maybe all we need is better support, and social solutions, and more understanding of the different way that ADHDers think.

Which is all very compelling. Except.

I often find myself procrastinating activities that I want to do. My apartment has been accumulating dust because I keep forgetting to vacuum. One time I let the dishes in my sink stack too high and it was months before I could get myself to clean the mould off them. The demands of capitalism mean I need to software to pay rent, but sometimes I just want to do software, and no amount of narrative reframing or social support will clear the noise in my head long enough to let me focus on the code.

The notion that ADHD isn't a deficiency, just a different way of thinking, is something I find condescending. The implication here is I shouldn't have to write software, I should be given a different job, and I shouldn't have to maintain my own apartment, I should have the support of my community coming into my room and cleaning my things. But what if I want to do those things? What if I like software, or the privacy of an atomised existence? Maybe society has no right to decide what the correct way to live my life is, but surely I do!

The reason it sucks that it's hard for me to keep my dishes clean is not because the world says so, it is because I say so. It is because sometimes I want to be able to remember to do things and it sucks that I cannot live my life in the way that I want.

[reachartwork]

PLEASE JUST LET ME EXPLAIN REDUX

AI {STILL} ISN'T AN AUTOMATIC COLLAGE MACHINE

I'm not judging anyone for thinking so. The reality is difficult to explain and requires a cursory understanding of complex mathematical concepts - but there's still no plagiarism involved. Find the original thread on twitter here; https://x.com/reachartwork/status/1809333885056217532

A longpost!

This is a reimagining of the legendary "Please Just Let Me Explain Pt 1" - much like Marvel, I can do nothing but regurgitate my own ideas.

You can read that thread, which covers slightly different ground and is much wordier, here; https://x.com/reachartwork/status/1564878372185989120

This longpost will; Give you an approximately ELI13 level understanding of how it works Provide mostly appropriate side reading for people who want to learn Look like a corporate presentation

This longpost won't; Debate the ethics of image scraping Valorize NFTs or Cryptocurrency, which are the devil Suck your dick

WHERE DID THIS ALL COME FROM?

The very short, very pithy version of *modern multimodal AI* (that means AI that can turn text into images - multimodal means basically "it can operate on more than one -type- of information") is that we ran an image captioner in reverse.

The process of creating a "model" (the term for the AI's ""brain"", the mathematical representation where the information lives, it's not sentient though!) is necessarily destructive - information about original pictures is not preserved through the training process.

The following is a more in-depth explanation of how exactly the training process works. The entire thing operates off of turning all the images put in it into mush! There's nothing left for it to "memorize". Even if you started with the exact same noise pattern you'd get different results.

SO IF IT'S NOT MEMORIZING, WHAT IS IT DOING?

Great question! It's constructing something called "latent space", which is an internal representation of every concept you can think of and many you can't, and how they all connect to each other both conceptually and visually.

CAN'T IT ONLY MAKE THINGS IT'S SEEN?

Actually, only being able to make things it's seen is sign of a really bad AI! The desired end-goal is a model capable of producing "novel information" (novel meaning "new").

Let's talk about monkey butts and cigarettes again.

BUT I SAW IT DUPLICATE THE MONA LISA!

This is called overfitting, and like I said in the last slide, this is a sign of a bad, poorly trained AI, or one with *too little* data. You especially don't want overfitting in a production model!

To quote myself - "basically there are so so so many versions of the mona lisa/starry night/girl with the pearl earring in the dataset that they didn't deduplicate (intentionally or not) that it goes "too far" in that direction when you try to "drive there" in the latent vector and gets stranded."

Anyway, like I said, this is not a technical overview but a primer for people who are concerned about the AI "cutting and pasting bits of other people's artworks". All the information about how it trains is public knowledge, and it definitely Doesn't Do That.

There are probably some minor inaccuracies and oversimplifications in this thread for the purpose of explaining to people with no background in math, coding, or machine learning. But, generally, I've tried to keep it digestible. I'm now going to eat lunch.

Post Script: This is not a discussion about capitalists using AI to steal your job. You won't find me disagreeing that doing so is evil and to be avoided. I think corporate HQs worldwide should spontaneously be filled with dangerous animals.

Cheers!

[txttletale]

can you explain family abolition in a few words?

sure. there is no one unitary 'family abolitionist' perspective so be aware that i'm explaining this as a marxist and not as an anarchist or a radical feminist.

basically, "the family" is a social construct rather than a fixed self-evident truth. the family has been created and can be shaped, altered, or--indeed--abolished. this is evinced by the broad anthropological and historical record of radical transformations in what constitutes 'the family' (cf. clans, the extended family, the nuclear family). viewing the family as such opens it up to critique and also to the concept that it could be replaced with something better (in much the same way that, for communist and anarchist, refusing to accept the timelessness / naturalization of the bourgeois state opens up new horizons of political thought outside of engagement with electoral politics.)

among these critiques of the family are:

that it is a tool of patriarchal control over women and children by creating an economic dependence upon spouses / parents

ergo, that it enables and causes 'abuse' -- that child abuse, spousal abuse, and intimate partner violence are not abberations of 'the family' but in fact a natural consequence of its base premises re: power and control

that it serves as a site of invisiblised economic labour (e.g. housework)

that it is a tool of the capitalist (formerly the feudal) economy's reproduction of inequality via e.g. inheritance laws

that it serves as a site of normalization and reproduction of hegemonic ideology--i.e. that it is the site where heteronormativity, cisnormativity, gender roles, class positionality, & more are ingrained in children

among solutions family abolitionists propose to remedy it are:

the total dissolution of any legal privilege conferred by romantic or blood relationship in favour of total freedom for any group of people to form a household and cohabitate

the recognition of housework, the work of childrearing, & the general tasks of social reproduction as 'real' labour to be distributed fairly and not according to formal or informal (feminized) hierarchies

the economic and legal freedom of children--(i.e., allowing children unconditional access to food and shelter outside 'the family', allowing children the legal right to informed consent and self-determination)

similarly, the emancipation of women from economic dependence on their partners--both of these can only really be achieved via socialism (as marx put it, 'women in the workplace' only trade patriarchal dependence upon a husband for patriarchal dependence upon an employer)

communal caretaking of children, the sick, & the elderly

yeah. i know. this is a lot of words. its not few words. sorry. it's a complex topic innit. this is a few words For Me consideri ng that i've got a long-ass google doc open where i'm writing up a whole damn essay on this exact topic.

tldr: the family is not inevitable, it is constructed & can be replaced with something better. full economic freedom from dependence on interpersonal familial relationships for everybody now. check out cuba's 2022 family code for an idea of what this could look like as practical legislation.

[beescake]

i am in love with your sollux i think

sollux love party :]

if you’re interested heres some of my personal fondness thoughts on him.. big warning for the mega long read ahead aye

as we alr know sollux's rejection of participation somewhat mirrors dave's rejection of heroism, but even without getting cooked to completion i still find sollux's character v compelling beyond the fourth wall

as someone who doesnt get a pinch of that Protagonist Sparkle to begin with, he can openly say he wants to leave anytime…. and unlike dave, he actually Can leave the scene anytime. but he can never be truly Free from the story via permanent character death like the other trolls.

his irrelevancy is indeed relevant - he’s there so u can point him out.

while his image is intended to be a relic of past internet subculture, his role is not only about hehehaha being a Chad or a 2000s cyberforum 2²chan haxxor ragequit gamebro.

his continued existence also happens to add a Bit to the overarching themes of homestuck! a Bit that gives him longer-lasting thematic relevance compared to the trolls who could’ve had more character potential but didnt get to survive beyond the main story.

the Bit in question:

his defiance contributes to the illusion of agency (treating characters = people with autonomy). he’s “aware” of it, and that recognition is worth noting enough to forcibly keep him alive as both reward and punishment.

considering how his personality & classpect is designed its definitely a very haha thing for hussie to do LOL. he’s made to be op asf so he's resigned to doing dirty work, gradually deteriorating along the way but never truly dying. as fans have mentioned before, him openly rejecting involvement after a while of grim tolerance is like if the sim u were controlling suddenly stopped, looked up and gave u the finger while u were step six into the walkthrough for Every Possible Sim Death Animation.

but since he’s just a sim… the more he hates it, the more you keep him around. if ur sim started complaining abt your whimsical household storyline you’d definitely keep that little fuck.

but yeah i like that sollux is just idling. the significance of his presence being that one dude who's always reliably Somewhere, root core Unchanged, no individual ambitions (possibly due to fear of consequence?), and design-wise: a staple representative product of his time.

compared to dirk's character, who has aged phenomenally well into the present (themes of control + AR + artificial intelligence, clearer exploration around navigating relationships/sexuality, infinite possibilities of self-splinterhood and trait inheritance), sollux's potential is really... contained. bitter. defeatist. limiting and frustrating in the way old tech is.

the world continues moving on to shinier, brighter, more advanced automated things - minimalist and metaverse or whatever but sollux is still here 🧍‍♂️ going woohoo redblue 3d. (tho personally i imagine his vibe similar to what the kids call cassette futurism on pinterest mixed w more grimy grunge insectoid influences eheh)

conceptually-speaking,

at the foundation of it all, the rapid pace of modern development was built off the understanding of ppl like sollux in the past, who were There actively at work while the dough was still beginning to rise

thats one of the cool things abt the idea of trolls preceding humans! the idea that trolls like sollux excelled back when lots of basic shit still needed to be discovered, building structures like networks and codes from scratch, and humans will eventually inherit and reinvent that knowledge in ways that become so optimized it makes the old manual effort seem archaic, slow, and labour-intensive.

but despite information/resources/shortcuts being more accessible now, much of the new highly-anticipated stuff released on trend still end up unfinished, inefficient, or expiring quickly due to cutting corners under severe capitalistic pressures

meanwhile, some of the old stuff frm past generations of thorough, exploratory and perfectionistic development still remains working, complete, and ever so sturdy.

those things continue to exist, just outside our periphery with either:

zero purpose left for modern needs (outdated/obsolete)

or

far too important to replace or destroy, bcs of its surprisingly essential and circumstantial usefulness in one niche specific area.

which are honestly? both points that sum up sollux pree well.

dramatic ending sorry. anw are u still on the fence or are u Sick abt him like me </3