Probably a car, even though it's not always financially a great idea.
Any other big purchase that would enrich my life in some way (for example, broadening my education, getting a piano, traveling, putting together a family, etc.)
I'm not conflating anything. Just posting well-sourced and unbiased, objective historical record. Kind of odd how riled up that made you... (Remember, you're entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.)
Frankly I'm not really interested in your interpretation of that history, especially since you don't seem to have a very good or nuanced grasp of it in the first place. There are plenty of smart, informed and qualified people who have written on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No offense but I'll probably check out what they have to say before I check in with you.
On one hand, Kissinger was undoubtedly effective at achieving America's foreign policy goals and was undoubtedly one of the most influential Secretaries of State in US history. Unfortunately on the other hand, his brand of "realpolitik"--working pragmatically towards concrete policy objectives without concern for ethics or ideology--meant doing things that prolonged and worsened wars, knowingly propped up autocrats and dictators, etc.
Objectively speaking, Kissinger was a powerful diplomat who accomplished a lot of what he set out to do. At the same time, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, and a lot of us can only look back and judge him harshly for the long term effects of his decisions. Kissinger is the perfect example of a person who is highly intelligent and objectively effective at what they do, but because he had so little concern for simple human concepts like right and wrong, it's hard to look back at any of his "achievements" today with anything other than harsh judgement and disdain for the soulless husk of a man.
Today, I wanted to introduce you to Categories - a new feature that is essentially a multi-mags view. A new tab will appear in the user panel where you can create categories (public or private) and then add magazines to them (local or remote). In the magazine listing, there will be another tab that will list public categories...
I’m honestly hesitant to post this here, but… the absolute ludicrosity compels me. How? How does he have the gall to say something like that? He ought to burst into flames on the spot.
When will be your “this is the last fucking time I’m voting for the ‘lesser of two evils’, then I don’t care after that, let this country burn to the ground”? For me, this is basically it. This is last election I’m going for that " lesser of two evils" bullshit. After that I’m done. It’s just pointless. Let’s...
Uh, never? As an American I can easily recognize that we live in a 2-party political system in which you have 3 real options:
Vote for the Democrats
Vote for the Republicans
Don't vote / Waste your vote
American politics is a game of tug-of-war. You can spend as much time as you want lamenting that the rope isn't exactly where you want it to be right now. But the fact is that one party is pulling the rope to the left and the other party is pulling it to the right. If you want the rope to move right you better join the people on the right, and if you want the rope to move to the left you better join the people on the left. And more to the point, if for whatever reason you don't want to pull (maybe because it seems futile or maybe because you just don't like the people on your team) then where can you expect it to move other than away from where you want it to be?
There is no politician on Earth who perfectly represents my politics, ideals or philosophy. If I wanted someone who perfectly represented exactly what I want I would get politically active and run for office myself. In lieu of that, what else can I hope for but to vote for the people who happen to be pulling in my direction, or at the very least pulling back against the mob of right-wing fascist criminals.
I don't think Biden is perfect, but he's certainly not evil. What's more, I know exactly what we're up against when it comes to Trump and the Republicans (who at best are spineless impotent political cowards, and at worst are fascist activists who want to strip people of rights, further rob the working class, deny climate change in the name of profit, destroy what little democracy we have, and weaponize the government against political enemies).
I've said this before and I'll say it again for all takers, name any politician who you think would be making more progress on important issues (healthcare, climate, education, transportation, lgbtq rights, women's rights, the economy, etc.) than Biden right now and I'll give you at least 3 reasons why they wouldn't. (Hint: the House, the Senate, the courts, state legislatures, inflation, unstable geopolitics, post-pandemic economic change, etc.) Bernie or Warren could be sitting in the Oval Office today, and we still wouldn't have universal healthcare (because of Congress), we still wouldn't have been able to wipe out student debt (because of the courts), we still would have to deal with wars and terrorism overseas (because of aggression from countries like Russia and Iran), and we still would be feeling the effects of inflation (because of decades of low interest rates coupled with pandemic supply chain fuckery).
So yeah, I'm not gonna stop voting for the better candidate of the two, because what the fuck else would any reasonable person do? Pull the rope towards where you want it to go. It's not hard.
BTW: If you regret that we live within a political reality where we have limited choices and the risks of wasting your vote are high, then you should join the movement to implement more democratic voting systems like Ranked-Choice (aka Instant Runoff) or STAR, as well as reforms to political dark money.
Even still, many of these changes are more likely to happen at a state/local level before anything can happen federally. But that's just one more good reason to be interested and involved in regional politics also.
I think you're confusing Biden for Hamas or Netanyahu, both of which have advocated for genocide of the other.
Biden's stance on Israel has been no different than Bernie's. And that's probably because the situation in the Levant is more nuanced than you understand.
Voting a third party is not throwing your vote away. It’s actually often the best way to make your vote matter.
I strongly disagree with this.
Elections are simply a case of math. If you abstain from voting, write in some random name, or otherwise vote for a candidate who is statistically incapable of winning, then there are only still only two outcomes for your vote:
In the best case scenario, like you're describing, your vote has no effect on the outcome and your 2nd place candidate happens to win anyway.
In the worst case scenario, however, vote splitting leads to the well-documented phenomenon known as the spoiler effect. In which case the 3rd most popular candidate, who may not represent anything close to the will of the democratic plurality, will win.
Personally I always plan around the worst case scenario when making important decisions, and so I don't believe in the concept of the "protest vote". Especially since so little concrete information can be derived from "reading the tea leaves" of 3rd party votes. (A big part of your premise revolves around the idea that someone out there will somehow get whatever message you're trying to send by voting for a 3rd party candidate. And that's obviously a very indirect and abstract form of protest even in the best case scenario. )
Also I think it's a strech to attribute easily 20th century work reforms to 3rd parties as they exist today considering two points: (1) there was a radical shift in political power, generally towards progressivism, at that time and (2) it can be argued that many of these reforms could be attributed more to labor unions in general than any one political party.
Vote how you want, or not at all, but we can't escape math in the end. Statistically speaking, a protest vote is at best a benign waste of a vote and at worst the cause of undemocratic election outcomes via the spoiler effect. So I'll continue to recommend against it, and recommend for more democratic voting systems that are less prone to manipulation and spoilage.
OpenAI board of directors and investors: So... it's not a problem that our model is trained off a bunch of stuff that we don't own and haven't licensed, is it?
Meh, to me BlueSky is really just the dude who made Twitter deciding he wanted to try making Mastodon too.
Don't get me wrong, it's certainly better than "X" at this point, but I prefer Mastodon and the Fediverse in every way. (Features, community, population, etc). If BlueSky was compatible with ActivityPub then it'd be easy to recommend, but it seems unlikely for now at least.
Relax, you're only 25. You have plenty of time to fall madly in love, get married, fall madly out of love, get divorced, and repeat. Multiple times if you want to! People of all ages and in all walks of life are dating and getting together, so no, you're never too old.
Also as far as weight goes, in my opinion you should lose it because you want to lose it, not simply because you think it'll make you more attractive to others. You're more likely to keep it off that way, and when it comes to building meaningful relationships I think being fit is much less important than being yourself and being comfortable in your own skin.
Today, we managed to update the main instance. Everything should slowly return to normal. Now it's time for things that will be less visible but no less important. Currently, the priority will be interactions with other instances - limiting spam, improving communication in the fediverse (including moderation) in order not to add...
I think it actually requires passing a federal bill, but I'm not honestly sure. Either way I'm with you, it should never have been made illegal and it certainly didn't still be federally illegal today...
Having 2 dominant political parties is a reflection of how our political systems have been designed at almost every level (federal, state, local). American politics is very much based on first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all elections. These kinds of election systems are terrible for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the very real problem of vote splitting and the spoiler effect--leading to "third parties" which are almost all unserious, nonviable, and potentially backed by people with ulterior motives. The vast majority of the time, voting for a third party candidate in America is simply throwing your vote away and is effectively the same as not voting. (Even as a "protest", it's not a very good one, because it's never clear what can be interpreted from why people vote the way they do.)
The solution to this problem is changing how we run elections so that the most popular candidates are more likely to win, and so that people's individual votes are less likely to become nullified in various ways (like by voting for a statistically nonviable candidate, for one). I like Ranked Choice Voting and STAR voting, but just about anything is better than the way that most American elections currently work.
Even in a hypothetical future where we have 10 viable parties (and more democratic voting systems), no political party is going to "give a fuck about you" as an individual. Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, Vegetarians, Librarians, and whatever other parties spring up. The truth is, they all only give a fuck about getting your vote, so that they can get in a position of political power to do the things that they and their influential backers want (all the while reaping the benefits of doing so). There is no political party on Earth that is in it for the benefit of all of mankind--they all have some kind of agenda and ideology that they want to put in place.
In that way American politics is like a tug of war, we current have 2 viable parties, one pulling the rope to the left and another pulling the rope to the right. You can spend as much time as you want lamenting where the rope currently is compared to where you would like it to be. But if you want the rope to move left, it makes sense to join the left side. And if you want the rope to move right, it makes sense to join the right side. Sitting out just makes it easier for the "other side" to make "progress". Having more parties doesn't really change that, it just turns a 1-dimensional battle into an n-dimensional battle.
The biggest benefit that comes from having multiple (viable) political parties is increased competition of ideas. But again, America truly require huge systemic changes to how we run elections to make that a reality.
I'm going to be voting for the party that more closely aligns with the direction that I want the country to move in. It's the only smart move in the game of American politics.
Not really. If they're fulfilling their contractual obligations to their employer(s), then who the hell cares?
It's long past time that we stop treating employees like they're chattel of the company that they work for. You hire someone to do a job, which they either do to your satisfaction or not, but you don't own them and you shouldn't get to control the parameters of their life.
If you're calling for a specific reason, like ordering food or whatever, write down what you want (plus any questions you have) ahead of time.
If they ask you something that you're not expecting or don't understand, it's ok to take a bit of time to think or ask them what they mean.
Practice your intro or write it down if you need to. Something as simple as "Hello, I'm calling to make an appointment with Dr. Jones", or "Hi, I'd like to place an order", or whatever.
And as a general anxiety tip, know that it's always worse just before you do something. Most of the things we worry about never end up happening, and sometimes when they happen they aren't that big of a deal.
Take a second to remind yourself that what you're doing is super normal, and so is making mistakes or being a bit awkward. The people who you're talking to are used to dealing with all different kinds of strangers on the phone, including a lot of people with anxiety, hearing/speaking problems, etc.
From what I can gather this conflict as been going on a long time and the Hamas group has existed for a while too. Why are all the news cycles suddenly focusing on this the past few weeks?
For context: DirectX support in Intel’s ARC GPUs were really lacking due to running on a transition layer, it was one of the sore spots of their new graphics card. This update looks like it will help massively.
I use Kbin so I don't really care, but couldn't someone with at least a little bit of sanity just fork Lemmy? Or at the very least create more instances that aren't run by brainless delusional extremists...
Generally when your opponent points a gun at their foot, you don't tell them to stop.
McCarthy was never ally to democrats and if he wanted their vote to save his ass from his own party, he could have easily offered them something in exchange. Like it or not, that's the way politics works.
You should try to talk to a doctor or psychiatrist about this habit, especially if it's beginning to bother you and affect your life in other ways.
As for things you can do right away, how about sticking bandaids on your sores, this will help them heal and it'll also keep you away from the area. And don't wait until it gets bad, but even put bandaids on prematurely if it'll get you to stop compulsively messing with your skin.
Another thing is to buy some basic skin care tools. As someone who has the habit of biting my nails, sometimes until they bleed or are painful, I know that biting them can lead to making them rough, which just leads to making me even more compelled to bite the rough bits. For me it can really become a cyclical problem that's also likely driven by anxiety and depression. But by clipping and filling my nails with proper tools I can quickly break the cycle, because my nails will start to generally feel better. So maybe you can do something similar with your skin by exfoliating and using lotion! It's worth a try!
Finally I want to say that cannabis has been good for my personal type/level of anxiety, though I hesitate to recommend it because when though I don't find it addictive I think it maybe isn't great to recommend to someone who is experiencing addictive or compulsive behavior.
In the end I think some combination of therapy, behavior pattern breaking and maybe drugs if necessary, might be able to help you get away from self-harming compulsive behavior. Good luck!
I don't know about the active userbase so who knows. Personally I don't think the Twitter brand is as strong as it was a year and change ago.
Even without the change to X, is there anyone who feels that Twitter is anything more than a shell of its former self? It's not as simple as just bringing back the bird, in my opinion.
Well, why shouldn't they have to pay artists a license to use their work, especially in ways that could drastically affect the market?
There is a thing called copyright, and the exception to that rule is called fair use.
Artwork is copyrighted by default and, under the law, to use someone else's copyrighted works requires a license (that is usually bought). Whether AI training counts as fair use is the question and ultimately that is the point that will need to be proved/justified.
So again, what makes AI "fair use" and why shouldn't companies have to pay a license for their use of copyrighted artwork?
If you look at a hundred paintings of faces and then make your own painting of a face, you’re not expected to pay all the artists that you used to get an understanding of what a face looks like.
That's because I'm a human being. I'm acting on my own volition and while I've observed artwork, I've also had decades of life experience observing faces in reality. Also importantly, my ability to produce artwork (and thus my potential to impact the market) is limited and I'm not owned or beholden to any company.
"AI" "art" is different in every way. It is being fed a massive dataset of copyrighted artwork, and has no experiences or observations of its own. It is property, not a fee or independent being. And also, it can churn out a massive amount of content based on its data in no time at all, posing a significant challenge to markets and the livelihood of human creative workers.
All of these are factors in determining whether it's fair to use someone else's copyrighted material, which is why it's fine for a human being to listen to a song and play it from memory, but it's not fine for a tape recorder to do the same (bootlegging).
Btw, I don’t think this is a fair use question, it’s really a question of whether the generated images are derivatives of the training data.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Whether something is derivative or not is one of the key questions used to determine whether the free use of someone else's copyrighted work is fair, as in fair use.
AI training is using people's copyrighted work, and doing so almost exclusively without knowledge, consent, license or permission, and so that's absolutely a question of fair use. They either need to pay for the rights to use people's copyright work OR they need to prove that their use of that work is "fair" under existing laws. (Or we need to change/update/overhaul the copyright system.)
Even if AI companies were to pay the artists and had billions of dollars to do it, each individual artist would receive a tiny amount, because these datasets are so large.
The amount that artists would be paid would be determined by negotiation between the artist (the rights holder) and the entity using their work. AI companies certainly don't get to unilaterally decided what people's art licenses are worth, and different artists would be worth different amounts in the end. There would end up being some kind of licensing contract, which artists would have to agree to.
Take Spotify for example, artists don't get paid a lot per stream and it's arguably not the best deal, but they (or their label) are still agreeing to the terms because they believe it's worth it to be on those platforms. That's not a question of fair use, because there is an explicit licensing agreement being made by both parties. The biggest artists like Taylor Swift negotiate better deals because they make or break the platform.
So back to AI, if all that sounds prohibitively expensive, legally fraught, and generally unsustainable, then that's because it probably is--another huge tech VC bubble just waiting to burst.
But then you need to factor in that the rights holders would need to agree to that. AI companies don't get to simply decide what peoples work is worth, they need a licensing agreement. (Otherwise they need to successfully argue that what they're doing is fair use.)
And when you add it up and realize that "AI" is a black box based off a training dataset of thousands (if not millions) of pieces of copyrighted artwork, all the sudden you start to see the profit margins on your magical art machine (POOF!) disappear. Oh, won't someone think about the tech venture capitalists?!
All laws are artificial restrictions, and copyright law is not exactly some brand new thing.
AI either has to work within the existing framework of copyright law OR the laws have to be drastically overhauled. There's no having it both ways.
What you should be advocating for instead is something like a mandatory GPL-style license, where anybody who uses the model or contributed training data to it has the right to a copy of it that they can run themselves.
I'm a programmer and I actually spend most of my week writing GPLv3 code.
Any experienced programmer knows that GPL code is still subject to copyright. People (or their employer in some cases) own the code the right, and so they have the intellectual right to license that code under GPL or any other license that happens to be compatible with their code base. In other words I have the right to license my code under GPL, but I do not have the right to apply GPL to someone else's code. Look at the top of just about any source code file and you'll find various copyright statements for each individual code author, which are separate from the terms of their open source licensing.
I'm also an artist and musician and, under the current laws as they exist today, I own the copyright to any artwork or music that I happen to create by default. If someone wants to use my artwork or music they can either (a) get a license from me, which will likely involve some kind of payment, or (b) successfully argue that the way they are using my work is considered a "fair use" of copyrighted material. Otherwise I can publish my artwork under a permissive license like public domain or creative commons, and AI companies can use that as they please, because it's baked into the license.
Long story short, whether it's code or artwork, the person who makes the work (or otherwise pays for the work to be made on the basis of a contract) owns the rights to that work. They can choose to license that work permissively (GPL, MIT, CC, public domain, etc.) if they want, but they still hold the copyright. If Entity X wants to use that copyrighted work, they either have to have a valid license or be operating in a way that can be defended as "fair use".
tl;dr: Advocate for open models, not copyright
TLDR: Copyright and open source/data are not at odds with each other. FOSS code is still copyrighted code, and GPL is a relatively restrictive and strict license, which in some cases is good and in other cases not depending on how you look at it. This is not what I'm advocating, but the current copyright framework that everything in the modern world is based on.
If you believe that abolishing copyright entirely to usher in a totally AI-driven future is the best path forward for humanity, then you're entitled to think that.
But personally I'll continue to advocate for technology which empowers people and culture, and not the other way around.
Possession or consumption [of cannabis] can result in a maximum of 10 years in prison, with a possible fine of $20,000, as well as caning, under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Trafficking, import or export of more than 500 grams may result in the death penalty.
As we say her in the USA, let the punishment fit the crime. There's a Star Trek episode where Wesley gets sentenced to death for walking on the grass or something like that... Singapore is basically that.
The President has limited authority and cannot make laws unilaterally. For sensible AI regulations and laws we will certainly need Congress to do its job, and clearly they're pretty damn bad at that.
Most readers want publishers to label AI-generated articles — but trust outlets less when they do (www.niemanlab.org)
What is something you'd gladly go into debt for?
An example: for me, I’d happily go into debt to travel, or make sure my son has a good education.
deleted_by_author
So Kissinger must have had use to someone? What did he do right and for who?
It stands to reason he must have been doing something right to have stayed so close to the halls of power....
RTR#29 Another boring update: Categories and bug fixes (kbin.social)
Today, I wanted to introduce you to Categories - a new feature that is essentially a multi-mags view. A new tab will appear in the user panel where you can create categories (public or private) and then add magazines to them (local or remote). In the magazine listing, there will be another tab that will list public categories...
Arizona voting officials charged for refusing to certify 2022 election results (www.theguardian.com)
Republican county supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd initially refused to certify their county’s election results...
Threads Is Coming to the EU in December (www.macrumors.com)
I'm a fan of "Southern Rock," but sometimes the lyrics make me wonder if i should drop it. Generally I listen more for music than message, but I don't want my kids hearing "be proud you're a rebel..."
“…cuz the South’s gonna to do it again.”...
Putin says we must think how to stop 'the tragedy' of war in Ukraine (www.reuters.com)
I’m honestly hesitant to post this here, but… the absolute ludicrosity compels me. How? How does he have the gall to say something like that? He ought to burst into flames on the spot.
when will be your last time to vote for the "lesser of two evils"?
When will be your “this is the last fucking time I’m voting for the ‘lesser of two evils’, then I don’t care after that, let this country burn to the ground”? For me, this is basically it. This is last election I’m going for that " lesser of two evils" bullshit. After that I’m done. It’s just pointless. Let’s...
:3 rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Ice cream rule (lemmy.world)
Was Sam Altman fired because OpenAI was moving too fast or too slow?
I know there’s other plausible reasons, but thought I’d use this juicy title....
18+ Shitter rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Is it too late to date for me?
Hi my fellow Lemmy users! It’s been a while since I used this platform and boy did I actually miss you all ❤️...
/kbin RTR#8 The update of kbin.social and plans for the near future (kbin.social)
Today, we managed to update the main instance. Everything should slowly return to normal. Now it's time for things that will be less visible but no less important. Currently, the priority will be interactions with other instances - limiting spam, improving communication in the fediverse (including moderation) in order not to add...
Valve says it has sold “multiple millions” of Steam Decks (www.theverge.com)
Apple exec defends 8GB $1,599 MacBook Pro, claims it's like 16GB on a PC (www.theregister.com)
Ohio votes to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use, becoming 24th state to do so (apnews.com)
Two Party System. Why. (lemmy.zip)
EDIT: To the people downvoting this post because democrats > republicans: you’re missing the point.
It shouldn't matter if people work multiple jobs. The former VP of HR at Microsoft shares how to react to double dippers — 'get over it.' (money.yahoo.com)
rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
does anyone know how I can overcome anxiety/embarrassment talking on the phone like calling
why is the world suddenly focused on the irsali-palestine conflict and hamas group?
From what I can gather this conflict as been going on a long time and the Hamas group has existed for a while too. Why are all the news cycles suddenly focusing on this the past few weeks?
Gay text rule (lemmy.sdf.org)
"Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. " - GOP 2025 Mandate For Leadership (www.project2025.org)
Full Text PDF Source...
My little Pockets passed away yesterday (sopuli.xyz)
Intel's New GPU Drivers Boost Performance Up To 750% in DX11, 53% in DX12 (www.tomshardware.com)
For context: DirectX support in Intel’s ARC GPUs were really lacking due to running on a transition layer, it was one of the sore spots of their new graphics card. This update looks like it will help massively.
Lead Lemmy Developer, Dessalines, denying the Tiananmen Square Massacre and praising the Uyghur Genocide (sh.itjust.works)
Biden would veto any Israel-only aid bill, White House says (thehill.com)
how to break an addiction?
hey i’m not sure the title is accurate but i couldn’t think of anything better...
What are your thoughts in mobile games? (lemmy.ml)
X is officially worth less than half of what Elon Musk paid for it (www.theverge.com)
A year after he bought Twitter for $44 billion, Musk thinks the company is now worth $19 billion, a 55 percent drop....
Midjourney, Stability AI and DeviantArt win a victory in copyright case by artists — but the fight continues (venturebeat.com)
The dream 🚲 (jlai.lu)
America from a European perspective (startrek.website)
Biden releases AI executive order directing agencies to develop safety guidelines (www.theverge.com)
The executive order comes after a series of non-binding agreements with AI companies....