cabbage

@cabbage@piefed.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨With what's happening to Grok AI (generating nonconsensual images), how do you think AI would be taken care of? (repost!)⁩ ⁨⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  A lot of it will correct itself once the bubble bursts and AI companies have to be profitable. AI needs to be regulated and all that, but also importantly it needs to not be subsidized. Make them pay for the environmental cost of computing. Subject them to the same laws you would anyone else - don’t allow crazy data centres that steal people’s water and electricity.

  Then again, even when it becomes more expensive than it is now creeps will still pay to have non-consensual content produced. So regulating the fuck out of the industry is also essential, but I honestly doubt we’ll make much progress before after the crash. The EU is making some decent efforts but it’s also too afraid of missing out on the slop bubble.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I CAN'T go outside without permission - is there any way I can help fight for a better world from the comfort of my bedroom?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
  1. Be informed. Read books rather than endless snippets of doom. Arendt, Orwell, Graeber, Steinbeck there’s plenty of options. Avoid spiralling into ideological rabbit holes - reading Marxist scholarship is good, exclusively reading Marxist scholarship is deeply concerning.
  2. Share quality content on the open web where fascists cannot sensor speech. Focus on building communities.
  3. Encourage others by being kind and supportive, and understanding of differences. Inspite of popular opinion there’s still a big gap between centrists and fascists—welcome the centrists with open arms, take their points seriously, and debate on reasonable terms. You can both learn something from each other—just because you understand the contours of the system of oppression it doesn’t mean you’ve got it all figured out. Remain humble.
  4. Take care of yourself, if it feels heavy maybe make some tea and craft something or read a pleasent book.

  That would be my advice, I guess. In general I think there’s more positivity to be found in long-form content, as people have had time to think about issues beyond the initial shock and disgust of the state of affairs expressed in daily news and short form content.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump Threatens to Take Greenland ‘the Hard Way’⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Historical footnote: It was actually Norwegians who settled in Greenland, not Danes. Greenland only became part of Denmark-Norway when Norway was forced into a Union with Denmark for 400 years. In the span of those 400 years the current population of Greenland settled the island, and the one Norwegian settlement left probably due to bad crops or something. There’s no sign of conflict.

  In 1814 Denmark-Norway was split up after the Napoleonic wars, but Greenland remained in the hands of Denmark, despite it never having been Danish and the Norwegian settlement being long gone.

  Currently the Danes are spending quite a lot of money on welfare in Greenland, which is not yet very wealthy in its own right. There’s a lot of bad things to be said about Denmarks Greenland policy, and their historical claim to the territory is a complete joke, but for now they are providing a decent enough service to the people there.

  That Denmark’s claim is a joke of course does not help the case of the US one bit. It belong to the Greenlanders.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How to get greasy spots out of wooden cutting board properly?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Maybe fighting fire with fire and setting the whole board with olive oil now would help at least hide the spot.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Say, the country/countries you have citizenship in, decided to not want you anymore and threw you to some random "3rd world country", how do you survive?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I guess this is where the insight that you should judge a society by how it treats its weakest comes from. That’s a problem with OP’s scenario, as you’d be thrown into a completely foreign context without access to the more family and community-based security nets that are essential in poorer parts of the world.

  I have travelled to some not very wealthy regions to small communities that can only be accessed by a 4x4, horse, or motorcycle (or by foot, as I prefer), and seen severely handicapped people in such places live what at least appears from the outside to be highly dignified and decent lives as the community works together to take care of them. It’s not at all obvious that they would be happier in a western city. Once anyone needs professional medical care or expensive treatments it of course becomes more clear-cut, and if you’re an outsider (or just unlucky) you’re of course out of luck.

  Taking away enforced regulations on housing, employment, and banking makes things easier for me, not harder

  In the short run, maybe, but sawing off the branch one is sitting on is dangerous business. :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Say, the country/countries you have citizenship in, decided to not want you anymore and threw you to some random "3rd world country", how do you survive?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, in general if you have a good starting point anywhare not affected by tyranny, war, or genocide you’ll be alright. Behind a veil of ignorance there’s a whole lot of developing countries I’d go to before I’d risk being poor in the United States.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Say, the country/countries you have citizenship in, decided to not want you anymore and threw you to some random "3rd world country", how do you survive?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I wonder what people in this thread think the third world is, and what they imagine living there is like.

  It’s not like there’s a clear answer. I guess technically Sweden is a third world county, while North Korea is second world. And America is as first world as it gets, and it’s a fucking shithole.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it a bad idea to learn Russian because of everything?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Learning the language is not a political statement, and you’ll outlive Putin. Besides we’re not solving anything by refusing to communicate with each other. If you want to learn Russian, learn Russian. Just be careful not to fall for the propaganda.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t forget to report, if you have good reason to believe you’re seeing a bot that is not properly marked as such.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do .ml users get a bad rep?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I think instances with ideological underpinnings is fine, and maybe inevitable. The crucial thing is that they need to be honest about it, so that those not interested can go elsewhere.

  The problem with lemmy.ml is that it pretends to be a catch-all instance when it’s in fact very much not, and that it doesn’t tell users up front what it’s all about. Both Hexbear and Lemmygrad are better in that respect—at least they’re honest.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do .ml users get a bad rep?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The admins over there have some profoundly questionable views, which tends to push away reasonable people and attract bootlickers.

  The problem is not the users as much as the site itself and its admins. I wish reasonable people (not bootlickers) would stop using lemmy.ml and go somewhere better. It’s biggest function right now is to scare away good people who would have been happy elsewhere.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why isint lemmy more popular?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I think whoever wants to promote anything on the fediverse should probably just pick an instance they enjoy and promote that, without caring to explain how it’s all part of a federated network or whatnot.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why isint lemmy more popular?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  To be fair, telling people it was founded by Motorhead fans is a better selling point than that it was started by Marxist leninists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What browser(s) should I use?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  A proprietary source chrome based browser that is. But nevertheless one that seems to superior I’m considering seeking refuge there until Servo is ready.

  After a few months in LibreWolf I still don’t feel at home.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it's costing the economy⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Confirmed—only journalists would have the audacity to place spaces around an otherwise fine em-dash.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it's costing the economy⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I would have little respect for a journalist who didn’t know how to use an em-dash, so I don’t think that proves anything. But I agree that there is a lack of coherent thought throughout, though that’s something humans are also fully capable of.

  But yeah, fully agree. Never mind that network connection speed is not really the relevant bottleneck for most office situations these days. If Germans are less productive due to technology it’s because they still use freaking fax machines over there, not because employees are stuck with five year old smartphones.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it's costing the economy⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s all over the place. In the middle of the article they suddenly talk about how software updates, modularity and repairability is important so that old devices can be made to keep up with contemporary demands, blaming the fact that this is an issue on big tech.

  Then again, other parts are completely nuts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does this post appear on Lemmy?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  What is this post?

  It seems to be an RSS feed showing this post, which is then bridged back to the fediverse by web.brid.gy, which then posts itself back into the fediverse.

  Could this create a recursive loop? Whatever is going on here it looks a bit messed up, but if this post itself makes it back to the RSS feed and then becomes bridged things get messy real quick.

  @anewsocial@mastodon.social - this might be worth for you guys to be aware of, even though I guess the bridge is technically working as intended.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You should quit social media for good⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Then again, it might be easier to make people stop doing something than it is to make them do something mindfully. Doing anything with intent is difficult.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pornhub says UK visitors down 77% since age checks came in⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Based on 404media’s coverage of Girls Do Porn, I feel like PornHub can hardly be described as not being “unregulated and sketchy and extreme”.

  Long story short, PornHub knowingly cooperating with a porn producer operating on the basis of institutionalized rape for years. Lots of women have committed suicide in the wake. The ringleader of the network PornHub cooperated with was recently sentenced to 27 years in prison. I’m of the personal belief that PornHub executives should have been brought in to keep him company—they are as guilty as anyone in this. I really doubt that Girls Do Porn is a unique story in anything else than the fact that it ended up before the courts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨During the lead up to the Holocaust did the N... regime just kidnap people who they even thought were Jews? Kind of like ICE is doing to citizens today?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Historically death camps tend to start out as mere camps, but then suddenly they are full of people who are deemed unwanted anyway and keeping them alive is expensive so why bother anyway.

  On its current trajectory there’s no US camp that shouldn’t be expected to turn into a death camp. And as others have pointed out, thousands “missing” from a huge, poorly managed camp in the middle of a swamp is worrying to say the least.

  Americans today are like Germans in the 30s, watching the trains roll by.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Where is modern Punk?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d say the Clash were simultaneously highly mainstream and true to the spirit of punk. Dead Kennedys as well, albeit slightly less mainstream.

  Honestly I’d say there’s a lot of punk bands that enjoyed something close to mainstream success without being sellouts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Where is modern Punk?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d say he’s imitating the 60s more than the 70s, but he writes some good tunes nevertheless. :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘There isn’t really another choice:’ Signal chief explains why the encrypted messenger relies on AWS⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah. I’m the nerdiest person I know—I’m not gonna try to convince people to use something I struggle to understand myself. Signal is good because it does not feel like a compromise, and the advantages are easy to explain. Matrix I wouldn’t even know how to sign up for myself, as much as I would love to see the entire internet run on decentralized technology.

  I am sure it’s not so difficult and that I could find a good instance and figure it out if I sank some time into it, but that’s really not the point here. The point is that me doing that would be worthless as I still couldn’t convince anyone else to join, and nobody I am interested in talking to is currently on there. (In other words: this post is not me asking for help to sign up for Matrix)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Goon Squad⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s brilliant. Australian culture is criminally underappreciated in Europe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Goon Squad⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t believe he did?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Goon Squad⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Just a victim of globalization I guess. Was introduced to it by a guy who did farmwork in Australia for a while.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Goon Squad⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What the fuck. Back in my day gooning meant having someone pour alcohol into your mouth, typically from a bladder container such as a wine bag from boxed wine. I have fun memories of gooning with friends in hot tubs. I guess that’s a sentence I can’t use any more.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cynical and pessimistic people. 🫤⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Move to a different area if your current area it’s not pleasurable to you. Find a higher quality group of friends or become someone that can enjoy their own company. I could keep listening, but I’m not going to make this thread too long.

  I guess a lot of people people don’t have this opportunity because they need to work boring jobs in order to feed themselves. They should be plotting a revolution, but instead are exhausted by work and get pacified by brainless entertainment the few hours they are not either working or sleeping.

  For whoever can afford freedom there’s plenty of things to do in the world, yet a bunch of them end up bored anyway. I agree that they could often escape their boredom if they were braver.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Framework under fire for Omarchy/DHH/Hyprland support?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I have tried to buy good laptops in the past (ThinkPads) and have been profoundly disappointed, part of the appeal of the Framework for me was that I could choose myself exactly what I wanted from my laptop. And I really couldn’t be happier with the hardware - build quality and everything is really great, and a completely different league from machines I have wasted money on in the past even though I tried my best to do my research.

  It’s possible I should have tried System76 or Tuxedo, but I am really very happy with my Framework. Don’t think it makes sense to say it’s worse than the competition. But of course, a small company + repairability is reflected in the price.