Cycloneblaze's recent activity
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Comment on The US Democrats need to start acting like an opposition party in ~society
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Comment on US Joe Biden administration grants California waiver to ban gas car sales in 2035 in ~transport
Cycloneblaze (edited )Link ParentIt is ridiculous that out of all the very good points about very bad policies that scroll-lock makes in this long long comment the top, highly-upvoted reply excerpts one small part to complain...It is ridiculous that out of all the very good points about very bad policies that scroll-lock makes in this long long comment the top, highly-upvoted reply excerpts one small part to complain about rhetorical framing. Your priorities are absurd. God forbid that anyone get emotional about an important topic or, worse, decide to use it to be convincing!
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Comment on US President Joe Biden pardons son in ~society
Cycloneblaze Link ParentI'm kinda in disagreement with smoontjes in the wider argument but to your statement... yes, they are, unironically. They are qualitatively different. You can't reduce them all to "a government...- Exemplary
I'm kinda in disagreement with smoontjes in the wider argument but to your statement... yes, they are, unironically. They are qualitatively different. You can't reduce them all to "a government restriction" and call it bad. Uses of government power have moral value in both purpose and effect and there is a difference between good ones and bad ones! (And we do have bad ones in Europe too!)
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Comment on Finding real images in ~creative
Cycloneblaze LinkWikimedia Commons is a great place for useful photographs (that are usually free to use, too!) Here are some photos of tigers. Just searching for "tiger" worked better than I expected, actually.Wikimedia Commons is a great place for useful photographs (that are usually free to use, too!) Here are some photos of tigers. Just searching for "tiger" worked better than I expected, actually.
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Comment on Understanding the leftist that didn't vote: "Everybody else gets one, but not me" in ~society
Cycloneblaze LinkDisappointed by the other replies on this post which so far have done nothing but repeat points back to you that you already addressed, and are also typical of what I'm reading elsewhere on...Disappointed by the other replies on this post which so far have done nothing but repeat points back to you that you already addressed, and are also typical of what I'm reading elsewhere on Tildes.
With the caveat that I do use my vote whenever I have the opportunity, I empathise a lot with you, Daywalker. Everybody gets the freedom to honestly express their actual preferences except you. And when you do lend your power to a coalition which actively doesn't want the things you want, you unsurprisingly get nothing for it. If you were an American voting this time, you got less than nothing. And of course, nobody feels it necessary to offer any sympathy to a leftist for this. It's hard not to feel dispirited.
I think there are some counterpoints which do actually take into account what you're saying, but I won't try to make them here.
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Comment on Russian court fines Google $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in ~society
Cycloneblaze Link ParentIt is nonsense, but according to the article it's just the result of daily fines stacking up and the total doubling every week for over a hundred, and in one case over two hundred, weeks. No...It is nonsense, but according to the article it's just the result of daily fines stacking up and the total doubling every week for over a hundred, and in one case over two hundred, weeks. No matter how small a number you start with, that many doublings will make it actually astronomical. I suppose there aren't usually caps on these fines because either the finee will take the judgement seriously, in which case they will make sure to pay before it gets too big, or they won't, in which case (as here) it doesn't matter how big the number gets. But it doesn't appear like this is just a Putin crony looking at Google and going "one... decillion dollars"
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Comment on Russian court fines Google $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in ~society
Cycloneblaze LinkI enjoy how the amount is so large that it breaks headlines.I enjoy how the amount is so large that it breaks headlines.
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Comment on HTML for people in ~tech
Cycloneblaze Link ParentI used SSIs just last week for this exact purpose, making the nav on my website updatable! They do work in 2024, at least with Apache. When you don't want to do anything more I really like them...I used SSIs just last week for this exact purpose, making the nav on my website updatable! They do work in 2024, at least with Apache. When you don't want to do anything more I really like them for this purpose because you can use them with the tools you already have.
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Comment on Weekly Israel-Hamas war megathread - week of September 30 in ~news
Cycloneblaze Link ParentYou've said that describing the conflict as or as including a genocide is "dumb" and "silly", which are just insults only conveying you don't like the idea. You've said it would be divisive - I...You've said that describing the conflict as or as including a genocide is "dumb" and "silly", which are just insults only conveying you don't like the idea. You've said it would be divisive - I have a bit more respect for the users who proposed the change, that they were being careful not to be divisive while insisting on a more factual description. What you have not said is why it would be incorrect to do it.
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Comment on The Steam subscriber agreement has dropped its forced arbitration clause, allowing gamers to take legal action against the platform in ~games
Cycloneblaze Link ParentA natural continuation of this is that as soon as Valve's lawyers figure out how to make their forced arbitration clause more robust against this kind of "death by a thousand cuts" attack on their...A natural continuation of this is that as soon as Valve's lawyers figure out how to make their forced arbitration clause more robust against this kind of "death by a thousand cuts" attack on their financial resources, it'll come right back.
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Comment on They stole my voice with AI in ~tech
Cycloneblaze Link ParentWell then I've completely failed to make myself understood đThis feels like a very capitalist mindset
Well then I've completely failed to make myself understood đ
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Comment on They stole my voice with AI in ~tech
Cycloneblaze Link ParentI'm sympathetic to the philosophical argument but I'm not making that argument, I'm making a practical argument. For one thing it seems like for these machines to create better and better art -...I'm sympathetic to the philosophical argument but I'm not making that argument, I'm making a practical argument. For one thing it seems like for these machines to create better and better art - more expressive, more skilled, more natural to the human eye, closer to the request - requires more and more art made by actual humans to train it. That's labour which should be fairly compensated.
Second and more broadly, I'm not saying that we might prefer creative works made by humans because the works made by AI are empty and soulless, I'm saying we might prefer it because there are humans who can do it and want to be paid to do it. I'm very, very sceptical that the human labour freed up from market demands for art will be employed for equal or comparable pay to that given for the artwork. Artists have a variety of knowledge and skills which they'd probably prefer to use to get paid, than learning to code or whatever. In this future world where AI makes all art, no person could get paid for making art even if they wanted to and were good enough. Of course they could make art as a hobby and for a lot of people, that's enough - a whole lot of artists are already in this position, whatever their skillset, where they have to make art in the time they aren't working. But we'd lose all the artists who are, through the ability to sell their art, able to make art their full-time vocation. I think it is good that artists can get paid to make art.
(I wonder what would happen to art residencies and grants and fellowships and other funds, that allow artists to exercise their creative skill without having to worry about commerce at all? Because I think that's better, and I'm even more sceptical it'd continue to exist when AI can generate art of the highest calibre.)Finally, of course, these art-making machines will be vastly cheaper to operate than paying people for their labour. Most of those savings are going to accrete to the companies that own them, and most of the AI models will be locked up by those comapnies so that you still have to pay to generate the images. For all the elimination of scarcity of art, it still won't be anything close to free. Because why would it? The goal isn't to usher in an age where anyone can realise their imagination with the help of a computer, it's to make money by fulfilling a demand (in this case, for art) for the highest price with the lowest costs possible. And I'm really dubious how that's any better than the state we're in now where I have to pay a person to make me art I couldn't make myself.
I will say though my actual point wasn't as far as "this is the view we as a society must take about AI producing creative works", it was just that the fact that AI can, or will be able to, replace artists doesn't make it inevitable. We should think about the societal effects it will have, how we want to address them, or if we want to reject them. We shouldn't just let it happen like it's a force of nature, because it's not. To take a quote from the original comment-
Creative work has never been about what's fair.
Well, maybe for once we should see that it is.
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Comment on They stole my voice with AI in ~tech
Cycloneblaze Link ParentI do not think it is necessary nor inevitable that society adapts its moral and legal frameworks to permit whatever technological changes money is able to produce and push. We've done that too...As usual, society (and all of society's frameworks, including legal, moral, and other general expectation frameworks) are lagging behind advancement.
I do not think it is necessary nor inevitable that society adapts its moral and legal frameworks to permit whatever technological changes money is able to produce and push. We've done that too many times already. We can just turn on it this time. Looking to the future you point at - is an infinity of creative work, produced with the minimum price possible paid to people to make it but sold to the maximum number of people, actually good? Or is it happening anyway and "good" must simply change to encompass it when it comes?
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Comment on Can solar costs keep shrinking? in ~enviro
Cycloneblaze LinkThis part took me aback a little. I think it's a combination of the naked greed and the admonition to both produce and consume more energy - this is an article strongly promoting renewable energy...Think about it. If we had stayed on the Adams curve, we would be consuming 2-5x more energy than we do today. For the US, that means that GDP per capita today would not be the current amount of $65k, but $100k-$200k. It is a catastrophe that we donât have more energy: We should be much richer.
Energy stagnation makes us poor. If we want to be richer, we must produce more energy
This part took me aback a little. I think it's a combination of the naked greed and the admonition to both produce and consume more energy - this is an article strongly promoting renewable energy and clearly trying to reckon with climate change, yet somehow the moral viewpoint is totally opposite my own in this topic. To me the obvious, sustainable solution to climate change is to find ways to produce less and consume less resources and do more with less. At least, it's the viewpoint that seems to always follow with green policy. Here though you have an explicit assertion that not only is more consumption and more money necessary, its deficit is a catastrophe. The author says "we should be much richer", but why? What is the justification? The US is not poor. Why can the US not continue on its current energy consumption with its current world-leading wealth, and work on substituting that energy for sustainable and renewable sources while ensuring that wealth is distributed fairly? Why can't we all?
I don't know, I was just a surprised to read such an maximalist position in an article about green policy, it was very dissonant.
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Comment on Donald Trump vs Kamala Harris: Who is leading in the US presidential election polls? in ~society
Cycloneblaze Link ParentThat's an unsupported assertion. Perhaps they would if they saw a candidate trying to appeal to them, specifically, with unapologetically progressive policies that they want. That's politics,...The group that the 'going full left' appeals to appears much bigger on the internet than they are in reality,
That's an unsupported assertion.
and the demographics that actually vote won't show up for it.
Perhaps they would if they saw a candidate trying to appeal to them, specifically, with unapologetically progressive policies that they want. That's politics, isn't it?
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Comment on Saluting the Chromecast, one of the great HDMI dongles in ~tech
Cycloneblaze Link ParentI'd certainly also buy a dumb TV, but I haven't been able to find any, at least new for sale... What models of TV have you been using?I'd certainly also buy a dumb TV, but I haven't been able to find any, at least new for sale... What models of TV have you been using?
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Comment on Young people should be banned from buying drinks with high levels of caffeine, say health and consumer groups in Denmark in ~food
Cycloneblaze Link ParentThis is telling me that I can safely eat a lot of flødebollerThis is telling me that I can safely eat a lot of flødeboller
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Comment on Two more women accuse Neil Gaiman of sexual assault and abuse in ~books
Cycloneblaze Link ParentThank you!Thank you!
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Comment on Two more women accuse Neil Gaiman of sexual assault and abuse in ~books
Cycloneblaze Link ParentWhat was the other podcast? I don't disbelieve Tortoise Media's reporting about this, but I have always been suspicious as to why it's them publishing this, so I would like to see a different...What was the other podcast? I don't disbelieve Tortoise Media's reporting about this, but I have always been suspicious as to why it's them publishing this, so I would like to see a different source mention it.
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Comment on Bethesda Game Studios workers have unionized. Not the same as the QA union. This time itâs âwall to wallâ⌠in ~games
Cycloneblaze Link ParentThe only game that Bethesda has released since the QA union was formed is Starfield, and that was scarcely eight months afterwards. It does not explain anything.The only game that Bethesda has released since the QA union was formed is Starfield, and that was scarcely eight months afterwards. It does not explain anything.
I'm kind of wondering why the onus should be on people like snake_case to figure out what the Democrats could be doing to at least look like they oppose Trump and the Republican party, or want to protect their ostensible base, instead of on the party itself.
Do you feel like they did the most they could, either with the power they undeniably did wield, or towards winning the election, to vindicate people's rights?