Wasn’t it Ruby (or sapphire) back in the day? Might’ve just been the cartoon but I think they had that in there at some point. It’s such a weird power that at I think writers just go with whatever they can to carry the story forward.

The final two seasons were bad, but it ended like 10 years ago. Probably time to stop thinking this hard about it.

Damn, that’s where my anxiety came from. I had the positive and negative terminals in my wiring diagram mixed.

Just need a few friendly faces so the US media can push it as ‘it’s what they want.’

As someone that has been to a bazillion fests, burning man never really sounded like one I wanted to go to. Maybe 30 years ago, but it sounds like its all techbros.

Like three days after ‘normalizing trade with the EU’, it’s right back to antagonizing and tariff threats. Who could have seen this sudden reversal coming?

True Detective: Mandy

I believe the OP was referring more to consumers of ai in the statement, as opposed to people trying to sell content or whatever, which would be more in line with what you’re saying. I agree with both perspectives and I think the Op i quoted probably would as well. I just thought it was a good description of some of the why ai sucks, but certainly nit all of it.

Someone on bluesky reposted this image from user @yeetkunedo that I find describes (one aspect of) my disdain for AI.

Text reads: Generative Al is being marketed as a tool designed to reduce or eliminate the need for developed, cognitive skillsets. It uses the work of others to simulate human output, except that it lacks grasp of nuance, contains grievous errors, and ultimately serves the goal of human beings being neurologically weaker due to the promise of the machine being better equipped than the humans using it would ever exert the effort to be. The people that use generative Al for art have no interest in being an artist; they simply want product to consume and forget about when the next piece of product goes by their eyes. The people that use generative Al to make music have no interest in being a musician; they simply want a machine to make them something to listen to until they get bored and want the machine to make some other disposable slop for them to pass the time with.

The people that use generative Al to write things for them have no interest in writing. The people that use generative Al to find factoids have no interest in actual facts. The people that use generative Al to socialize have no interest in actual socialization.

In every case, they’ve handed over the cognitive load of developing a necessary, creative human skillset to a machine that promises to ease the sweat equity cost of struggle. Using generative Al is like asking a machine to lift weights on your behalf and then calling yourself a bodybuilder when it’s done with the reps. You build nothing in terms of muscle, you are not stronger, you are not faster, you are not in better shape. You’re just deluding yourself while experiencing a slow decline due to self-inflicted atrophy.

Maybe 45 minutes from there is a little reservoir based vacation area called ‘Kentucky dam village’ that was the location of a family reunion trip that is legendarily hellish in my family from 20 something years ago. Also the moment when my immediate family more or less cut off all contact with another part of the family.

Is she going to try and pull off the triple lundy of cognitive dissonance? Feign disappointment in the House after they pass something she voted for and explicitly had a hand in the final language of? If this were a swimming competition the GOP would be checking for the gigantic cajones she must have. Always been far more impressed with her over collins (and ol’ mittens) in whatever you call that awful thing they do.

He couldn’t even wait until the planes had landed to send a tweet about bombing Iran. They included a reporter on war plans using non-allowed comms. This isn’t a secret they could keep. If anything, I’ve always interpreted the fix the election mumbles as being about fixing the electoral system for the future, which they are hard at work dismantling things.

I wonder with today’s SC ruling if they actually are going to try and deport him. From what I understand that would now be an actual option, fucked up as it is.

Amazed it didn’t happen the night they first reported it wasn’t the bigliest success in history.

Andy Ogle (R-TN), of ‘had his cell phone seized by the fbi shortly before the election in relation to $320k campaign filing disclosure discrepancies that magically disappeared with the new admin’ fame, has already pushed to have him denaturalized. I’m not linking to racist trash, but you can look it up or I’m sure it’ll be on Lemmy.

No, if he runs it will be as an independent, and he would have to meet whatever requirements NYC has for getting in the ballot as a third party/unaffiliated candidate. Theoretically he could even win as a write-in candidate without ever even qualifying for the ballot as that’s really just to keep ballots from being potentially ginormous. It’s only shitty because it’s him haha. The main thing is that by winning the primary Mamdani has secured access to the democrats party infrastructure while denying it to Cuomo. That’s not to say that the insiders in the party won’t be in the tank for Cuomo, but as far as party resources go it should all be Zohran.

I feel you on the misanthropy, and it’s always been a fine line I’ve had an eye on haha. Or as I like to say, my entire life I’ve tried not be a nihilist and after many years of hard work I can finally say that I’m an absurdist.

I’ve got a degree in ecology and evolution, I think about this stuff way too much. I think many of the adaptations that allowed us to get to where we are now are also what will bring about our end. The super organism that is humanity cannot change itself fast enough to recognize our collective power. Or as some have put it, we cannot properly conceptualize exponential growth.

The fact that using reusable bags, again not life altering but insanely simple, is too big of an ask says everything you need to know about our hope of making real change for the future. Actual sacrifice is coming, and we aren’t going to have a choice. If this is too far, then we are well and truly fucked.

As soon as that real change comes, people are going to look to a strongman who can turn it all around. He’s gonna tell them what they are doing isn’t that bad and it’s the mean old scientists that are making life difficult. That and the freeloaders. And those people are going to eat it up. And all of the little environmental improvements that now seem like no big deal but were fought over for years are going to be removed. Asbestos of all things may be deregulated. Sound familiar?

Now for the democrats. Zohran Mamdani is, I would assume, going to have a bag ban as part of his platform if NYC doesn’t do it already. I’m sure Eric Adams will hammer him over it at some point as well. And I am equally sure that there is at least one liberal in that city that is going to say ‘you know what, fuck that, I like my bags, especially those one’s with the handles.’ Will it make a difference? Maybe not, but it still sucks knowing that’s how it is and that’s how it’s gonna be.

Sorry if that went off the rails haha, and I don’t think anything bad about you. But I’m not exaggerating when I say this is why I think we are doomed. I’ll still be using my bag though, which by the way is a fucking rad petrified forest national park one that I’ve used for almost four years now.

You keep bringing up the eating out of the trash can thing. My counter to that is, we throw too much away. That’s another issue we should be working on. I used to live near the Portland Fred Meyer with the famous photo of cops guarding a dumpster because it was filled with unspoiled food during covid.

It isn’t about whether or not I am willing to eat food out of a dumpster (do donuts count?) it’s that we as a society need to all work towards addressing how much food is wasted. There are a multitude of ways in which this can be addressed both on an individual level and on a societal level.

But if you keep wantonly wasting food of your own, because ‘fuck it, have you heard about the time armed police barricaded a dumpster?’ then I’m going to (hopefully politely) spend apparently a full 24 hours pushing the issue of maybe don’t do that.

Again, it’s the same energy as with the bags. It is a trivial step to take. It is easier than continually coming up with reasons to tell a stranger on the internet that you just don’t want to.

And that’s fine. Like you said, we have different ideas of what the line is. We all justify our actions. I do it as well. And we as a species are going to justify ourselves into completing the sixth mass extinction of this planet.

Haha, I’ve had years of practice failing to persuade my father in similar ways for forty years now. I know it changes nothing, but the other option is to not try. I appreciate the support.

It isn’t a different problem set though, just a different flavor of the same issue: over-consumption and overexploitation. It is also something that can be addressed through legislation, as the article this discussion originated from is an article about how legislating bag bans is effective.

People do need to take responsibility. That’s the whole issue. People at the bottom do not take responsibility, they do not push for people above them to take responsibility, and they will actively curtail measures to improve things because ‘it’s the big guys we need to worry about.’ No, we all need to make efforts. And in the example of bags, I am asking you to make a trivial change to your lifestyle, that you would all but forget about once you had made the change.

Let me try to use a different example. Cigarette butts on the ground are fucking gross right? Major ecological concern as well. Nobody should be throwing cigarette butts on the ground, I think we can all agree. You throw a cigarette butt on the ground? No big deal, coal plants are worse. Same energy.