WatDabney
@WatDabney@sopuli.xyz
- Comment on Photographers Push Back on Facebook's 'Made with AI' Labels Triggered by Adobe Metadata. Do you agree “‘AI was used in this image’ is completely different than ‘Made with AI’”? 1 week ago:
No - I don’t agree that they’re completely different.
“Made by AI” would be completely different.
“Made with AI” actually means pretty much the exact same thing as “AI was used in this image” - it’s just that the former lays it out baldly and the latter softens the impact by using indirect language.
I can certainly see how “photographers” who use AI in their images would tend to prefer the latter, but bluntly, fuck 'em. If they can’t handle the shame of the fact that they did so they should stop doing it - get up off their asses and invest some tome and effort into doing it all themselves. And if they can’t manage that, they should stop pretending to be artists.
- Comment on Why The Left Hates It When You Point Out We're 'A Republic' 1 week ago:
Oh look - oligarchic apologetics in a periodical named in honor of the country’s original oligarchists.
- Comment on U.S. Sues Adobe Over Hard-to-Cancel Subscriptions 1 week ago:
I’ve never really understood what the deal is with Adobe.
They put out a couple of notable pieces of software relatively early on that have become the standards for their fields. So from that point of view, it would seem that their corporate identity should be that of a staid, venerable old institution.
But instead, for whatever reason, the company has always been and still is more like a fly-by-night used car dealer bent only on fleecing as many saps as possible by whatever means might serve.
They genuinely appear to be entirely and completely without ethics or integrity, entirely willing at any time to implement any scheme no matter how odious.
It’s just weird to me that a company that could be well respected for quality software is instead run like a Nigerian prince scam.
- Comment on Starfield's latest update draws player ire by sticking a bounty hunting quest behind the Creation Club paywall 2 weeks ago:
How is anybody even surprised by this?
This is exactly the sort of thing Beth has been moving towards ever since their first ham-handed attempt to monetize mods deservedly blew up in their faces.
They didn’t give up on the idea - they just shifted to a strategy of doing it incrementally.
And this is just the latest step in that ongoing process.
Think about how bad it’s (very deliberately) going to be by the time TES 6 finally comes out…
- Comment on How does affective empathy work with anger? 3 weeks ago:
It strikes me that I went on at great length but didn’t directly answer your main question.
Targeted emotions felt via affective empathy (at least for me and presumably for others) can be either directed at the same target as they are for the source or untargeted.
I think the way it works is that if I both feel affective empathy and experience cognitive empathy, then the emotion ends up aimed at the same target, since the cognitive empathy provides a framework for it. And that’s the way it is most of the time.
And yes - if I’m the target and I grasp the idea behind it, so experience cognitive empathy, then I do become my own target.
If I don’t have the context for cognitive empathy though, the emotion is just sort of there. I’m just aware that being in this place or around these people or whatever is putting me on edge. I don’t quite feel the full sense of the emotion then, presumably because it needs context and a target to fully manifest. Instead, I feel a vaguer, less directed form of it - like being around angry people without really focusing on it, so not getting cognitive empathy, just leaves me feeling unaccountably stressed and cranky. Or being around sad people makes me feel unaccountably melancholy.
And along with that, one thing it definitely does is prime me to find something to direct it at. It’s not just that I feel unaccountably cranky or melancholy or whatever, but that I’m likely going to (over)react to the first thing that happens that provides something like justification for the full-blown emotion. Like once it starts, it has to find a way to fully manifest.
- Comment on How does affective empathy work with anger? 3 weeks ago:
For myself, other people’s anger makes me really uncomfortable, and I avoid it as much as possible, in part specifically because if I don’t, I end up sharing in it, but without a reason or a target. It’s really unpleasant because in a sense, it’s not real.
Real anger - my own anger - feels complete. Not that it’s pleasant or anything - it’s still anger. But in a way, it’s a sort of relief to feel it, since it at least makes sense. I have a reason for it and a target for it, so it fits. Empathetic anger is weird and unsettling, since it’s just there, but it’s not a complete, sensible thing.
And you’re right about targeted emotions, at least in my experience, and while anger is a good example, it’s not the worst.
Grief is awful, because it’s such a horrible, desolate feeling, and just that much worse when it doesn’t even really mean anything.
Jealousy is another bad one - in fact, thinking about it, I’m tempted to say it’s the worst of them all, because it’s so unpleasant, and in multiple ways, and it’s so entirely pointless without an actual reason or target (it’s arguably fairly pointless even with both).
On a somewhat different note, just because I’m thinking about the trials and tribulations of affective empathy - embarrassment is weirdly bad. Partly it’s that it’s unpleasant, but more it’s that it’s such a common aspect of other people’s enjoyment - there’s a great deal of comedy that hinges on laughing at other people’s embarrassment, and it’s all completely lost on me, because I’m stuck just feeling pointlessly vicariously embarrassed.
Broadly, the way I have to deal with all of it is to try to avoid situations in which I’m going to be subjected to other people’s unpleasant emotions, and if I find myself in one, to try to shut myself off from whatever they’re feeling. I’m okay up to a point, but I can feel it coming if I’m getting to the point that it’s going to suck me in, and pretty much all I can do then is resign myself to it or throw up a barricade and just shut it out. Which sort of ironically makes me come across as aloof - as if I’m insensitive rather than overly sensitive. That gnaws at me, but there really isn’t much I can do about it, since I already have enough to deal with with my own emotions, and just don’t have the fortitude to deal with everyone else’s as well.
- Comment on Trump guilty on all counts in New York criminal trial 4 weeks ago:
Presumably because the modern conservative viewpoint only favors the rule of law being applied to poor minorities and leftists.
Rich people, and especially rich whote people,care supposed to be above the law.
So by the modern standard, upholding the rule of law over a rich whote person is actually not conservative.
I’m not sure what it is then though. Maybe “woke?”
- Comment on Twitter co-founder Biz Stone joins board of Mastodon's new US nonprofit | TechCrunch 1 month ago:
I would presume it’s not paid yet (though the CEO certainly is). That phase of the operation comes later.
For the moment, they’re working to solidify as much control as possible of as much of the fediverse as possible, which control will allow them to gatekeep it, monetize it, extract rent from it and inevitably enshittify it. That, so it’s hoped, will be the phase during which their investment now will pay off.
- Comment on Twitter co-founder Biz Stone joins board of Mastodon's new US nonprofit | TechCrunch 1 month ago:
So… by my count, the board of directors actually outnumber the employees.
At a “non-profit” (until that was revoked) company that gets most of its funding through Patreon.
Years from now (and at this rate, not very many of them), when people wonder how it was that such a promising venture that championed decentralization turned into just another enshittified megacorporation squatting over a piece of internet real estate and extracting rent to pay obscene salaries to a handful of executives - this is how. We’re watching as the foundation is being laid, right now.
- Comment on Opinion | Why Has Obamacare Worked? 2 months ago:
Ah - I was wondering how in the hell anyone could say that it’s worked, and then when I clicked on the link, I instantly got the answer - it’s Paul Krugman, who’s made an entire career out of carrying water for the ruling class.