#JennyHypertwin would have been 61 today. I can't quite comprehend this.

@ruby

Anything the billionaires are against can be assumed (as a first-pass approximation) to be a good idea.

(I'm not sure who needs to understand this that doesn't already, but maybe we should be saying this more often or more loudly.)

@paul Yes, that is a good hypothetical example.

I can offer less ethically-clear-cut but also real-world scenarios too, if that would help, @shadowfals

@wohali I don't understand either (a) why people prefer a time that isn't as close as possible to representing the sun's actual position or (b) how an arbitrary numbering of hours has any kind of "alignment" with our natural rhythms.

If a particular time-system has us getting up too early or too late with respect to sunlight, in order to get to work on time, then...

[finds a sound-deadening box to scream into]

...open the businesses and schools earlier or later, ya dumdums!!!

RE: https://fedihum.org/@lavaeolus/117535932167420365

fuck yesssss, Posteo! i really lucked out choosing them as my email provider 5 years ago.

I picked them because:

1. privacy and sustainability oriented
2. not US-based
3. not pursuing exponential growth or trying to be an "everything app"

I've never found a reason to consider switching.

Frens, I have several projects that have potential to generate revenue to try and make it until I find a job, but I could use some help deciding on a direction.

Please, only vote if this is something you would use and support for a subscription or per-use basis

(P.S. this is a real request to try and replace income)

@fullywoolly Yes -- that should be some excellent fodder for collecting my far-flung ducks, when I finally have proper roosts for them. Thank'ee ^.^

@fullywoolly My ducks are scattered the heck all over the place at the moment 🦆 🔭 :blobcatupsidedown:

@Kalshann The phrase "not thinking things through" comes to mind...

...though it kinda came to mind even before alt-text was a thing here. Like... why have a limit? Are we just copying (the network formerly known as) Twitter? Literally no other social network ever had a post size-limit that small (to the best of my knowledge).

Fortunately, individual instance-owners can change it... [coughs quietly] :tootcat:

@fullywoolly This is what I meant about waiting until I had my ducks in a row...

I will try not to make this a huge ramble. It's a complicated subject, with many large areas of ethical clarity.

For examples of ethical clarity, the following are straight-up unacceptable:

• generative "AI" being used to create commercial works with no compensation to the authors of nonconsensually-used training materials
• server farm construction reversing a lot of progress towards reducing emissions of CO2
• fossil-fuel plants being built and recommissioned solely to power new server farms
• "AI" industry actively encouraging people to use LLMs even where highly inappropriate
• "AI" industry buying up rare books and destroying them in the process of converting them into training materials

This is not an exhaustive list.

Does that help answer your question?

@brianhonan @moelassus @zackwhittaker

cat \proc\nap

@fullywoolly I think it lies somewhere between "very negative take set within a specific context or set of contexts" (acceptable) and "absolutist take which specifically disallows any room for exception or remediation" (unacceptable).

@tuban_muzuru I'm not even sure what to make of that...

I'm sorry to be cantankerous about this, but I strongly disagree with the assertion that there is no way to use "AI" (LLMs) ethically.

I've been trying not to talk about this until I had all my ducks in a row, but... that statement crossed some line for me, and I felt compelled to push back (in whatever small way this side-toot constitutes pushback).

@xenophora Truth. The Dem leadership plays to lose, because they know the positions they supposedly represent are far more popular than the positions their biggest donors want them to represent...

That said, I think it's important to note that there are at least a small handful of "good" (as in: sincerely working for the common good) Dems in (or running for) office, while it'd be difficult to find a single GOP Congressbeast who isn't a steaming pile of corrupted offal.

@geekysteven I just want a lair, pure and simple -- is that so much to ask.

@xenophora I agree there are reasons why people might choose not to vote, while still participating in the political process.

I'm just noting that there are a number of lines of reasoning which suggest that not voting is, by itself, going to be better at effecting positive change than voting for "the lesser of two evils" -- and suggesting that this reasoning should be examined carefully, because in most cases I don't think it's true.

@CptSuperlative

@xenophora You'd think they would figure that out -- but on the other hand, if we don't vote for them, they listen to their donors instead... and their largest donors almost always want them to go further Right.

When you choose between two distasteful choices, your vote is a vector -- it is a line which starts with the candidate you rejected and goes through the candidate you reluctantly chose, with an arrow on the other side.

The direction towards which that arrow points indicates approximately which way you would like society to be moving.

(Not voting in that race means you're equally ok (or not) with either direction -- but society will move, one way or the other.)

Refusing to vote because you're disgusted by both parties is like refusing to bail water because the fact of the hull failure is just as disgusting as the idea of being forced to swim to shore.

I mean, I can imagine that -- if the boat is almost underwater and the shore is only a short distance away and you're wet already, it would make sense.

I guess I'm just saying: consider the options, decide which one you hate least, and then go for that.

...whlst bearing in mind that doing nothing is still making a choice; it just means you get wetter first.