Ilandar
@Ilandar@aussie.zone
- Comment on 'From the river to the sea': Labor senator breaks ranks to accuse Israel of genocide 13 hours ago:
This seems like a perfect example of why increased diversity in parliament is a good thing. Her age and background allow her to offer a different perspective to her colleagues on matters such as this.
- Comment on Google is redesigning its search engine — and it’s AI all the way down 15 hours ago:
Oh, it will impact a lot more than one private search engine. Watch The AI Dilemma presentation given by Asa Razkin and Tristan Harris from last year if you want an idea of what could be coming.
- Comment on David McBride: former army lawyer sentenced to five years for stealing and leaking Afghanistan war documents 2 days ago:
I think often when people think of other people dying they internalise it as a headline does. Such and such died, ok that’s sad I guess.
Exactly. I touched on this in another reply but this could easily be us in a parallel universe (or even our own, one day). We are civilians too. The murder of civilians by armed forces should concern us, regardless of where they live in the world. I wonder how this person would feel about the situation if it was reversed, and a whistleblower in another country was being prosecuted for revealing the murders of Australian civilians by foreign armed forces.
- Comment on David McBride: former army lawyer sentenced to five years for stealing and leaking Afghanistan war documents 2 days ago:
Yes, although I did find it a little ironic that when I went to Wikipedia to check this it specifically mentioned “at least 10” deaths. All human lives are equal, of course, but to me there is an important difference between the deaths of completely innocent and uninvolved civilians vs the deaths of service men and women to have chosen to involve themselves in a conflict. Western bias makes it easy to overlook this point, but those civilians who were murdered are literally just us in a parallel universe. We owe it to ourselves as much as anyone else to properly investigate these crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice. And if governments and military organisations are unable to do this transparently, then anyone who does (journalists, whistleblowers, etc) should be celebrated and protected.
- Comment on David McBride: former army lawyer sentenced to five years for stealing and leaking Afghanistan war documents 2 days ago:
Men (and children) did die, though. That’s the point.
- Comment on David McBride: former army lawyer sentenced to five years for stealing and leaking Afghanistan war documents 2 days ago:
The understanding young people have of the world around them is so heavily influenced by algorithm-based social media now, and English-based social media is in-turn heavily influenced by American current affairs which tends to dominate the algorithms. It is very hard for the trial of one Australian whistleblower to compete with that and even if students are aware of it the pro-Palestine/pro-Israel student movements are so much more appealing. They give those young people the opportunity to become part of a global movement and feel like they are effecting real change beyond their own borders. Additionally I’m not sure if the Afghanistan War is actually relevant to the current generation of undergraduate students. They were very young during the period in which it was something Australians felt strongly about and likely can’t connect to the historic war crimes committed by Australian soldiers there in the same way they can connect to the war crimes they are seeing in their feeds now.
- Comment on The Disinformation Machine: How Susceptible Are We to AI Propaganda? 2 days ago:
Agreed, I think it is a mistake to think we are somehow above it and that only stupid people fall for this stuff. The Social Dilemma explained this idea really well, I thought. One one side of the screen we have computers that are gaining power exponentially and constantly improving algorithms designed by graduates from the top universities in the world. On the other side of the screen is our monkey brain which has barely improved at all across hundreds of thousands of years. Who do you really think is going to win in that battle, particularly when we throw generative AI into the mix? Maybe I can sort the fake from the real today, but if we continue on the same trajectory then that is going to change very quickly.
- Comment on Australian man says border force made him hand over phone passcode by threatening to keep device indefinitely 2 days ago:
That’s fucked, I hope this story gets sent around to local MPs and gains a bit of traction. Civil and digital liberties have been on the decline for decades now under the guise of “anti-terrorism” or “security”, and this is a perfect example of how that can manifest into something that directly affects the lives of law-abiding citizens.
- Comment on aussie zone's anniverssary date? 6 days ago:
WOW ANOTHER PERSON FROM ADELAIDE WE NEED TO DIGITALLY REPRODUCE AND REPOPULATE OUR GREAT CITY’S COMMUNITY
- Comment on Men Use Fake Livestream Apps With AI Audiences to Hit on Women 2 weeks ago:
I’m not sure about that. The only examples given in the article of this actually “working” were from people directly advertising the product. The women in the videos are quite likely to be associates or paid actors, as is the case with most of this stuff on social media. The whole concept of the product relies on the misogynistic myth that women only care about money and/or fame, so to assume the app itself is actually working is kind of implying that you believe there is some truth to that myth.
- Submitted 2 weeks ago to technology@beehaw.org | 48 comments
- Comment on It’s a good thing they died at Gallipoli 3 weeks ago:
I’m a person living My own truth and speaking to that truth.
Not in this instance. You’re making sweeping and unfounded generalsations about very large and diverse groups of people with whom you have absolutely zero connection.
- Comment on What do you personally use AI for? 3 weeks ago:
I’ve only used DuckDuckGo’s implementations of GPT and Claude. I haven’t really found a use case yet. I don’t trust it enough to for queries related to things I don’t understand (gaps in my knowledge) and would rather solve these problems or learn these skills through exisiting sources of information that I know have had at least some level of human refinement/vetting. Personally I enjoy the challenge of problem solving in life, particularly when the solution involves learning a new skill that I can utilise again in the future. I find it interesting that AI is advertised as being able to maximise our capabilities as humans, because it appears to be used for the complete opposite in most cases. People want to use their brains less and just be spoonfed the answers.
- Comment on It’s a good thing they died at Gallipoli 3 weeks ago:
I don’t think OP is surprised at all by the responses, based on their replies here which have mostly been attempts to further debate the point they are (poorly) attempting to make. I think they wanted to get attention and create discussion and that’s part of the reason why the piece is so imflammatory. As I see it there are two ways to respond to this: you can get mad and post low-effort, off-topic replies as you’ve chosen to do (the average redditor response) or you can actually attempt to engage with the person and critique their writing/argument where applicable to draw out a less hysterical, more nuanced response from them. Most of the replies in this thread are an example of the latter and are contributing to the discussion. Yours achieves literally nothing other than making you feel like you “won” on the internet today. I really don’t understand why people like yourself use discussion-based social media if you are incapable of having a discussion about anything even remotely controversial. You just shit up the discourse and make these platforms worse for the rest of us.
- Comment on It’s a good thing they died at Gallipoli 3 weeks ago:
I’m not sure what the point of this reply is. I never claimed that anti-war sentiment didn’t exist at the time. None of what you’ve just quoted has anything to do with my criticisms of your writing.
The Nazi state discriminated against all kinds of minorities, yet the one group you specifically chose to mention (other than the obvious choice of Jewish people) was trans people. It is very obvious why you chose that particular minority group, given how topical trans issues are in modern society. Attempting to sway people through this kind of emotional manipulation is lazy writing and only plays well to the echo chamber.
- Comment on It’s a good thing they died at Gallipoli 3 weeks ago:
Your comments in this thread to date are a single sentence reply, moaning about downvotes and a direct insult. Go back to reddit if this is your idea of participation.
- Comment on It’s a good thing they died at Gallipoli 3 weeks ago:
This is a very 2024 take on history, complete with unnecessary references to trans people to grab the attention of the modern reader. Blanket condemning every Allied participant in the war and portraying them as evil, whilst glossing over the German people’s complicity in the creation and rise of the Nazi state because they were “desperate”, displays a level of nuance and research nowhere near that which is required to cover such a deeply traumatic period in human history. Overly-emotional, intentionally controversial writing like this does absolutely nothing to further your cause or improve society; it just pushes people further into their respective corner and encourages hatred for the other side. I wish people like yourself would understand this and put more effort in.
- Comment on AI Is Poisoning Reddit to Promote Products and Game Google With 'Parasite SEO' 3 weeks ago:
You don’t even have to enter an email address. Just click next and you skip straight to username/password confirmation.
- Comment on AI Is Poisoning Reddit to Promote Products and Game Google With 'Parasite SEO' 3 weeks ago:
As far as I know you still don’t actually need an email address to create a reddit account. They try to make users think it’s compulsory but there are workarounds during sign up.
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to technology@beehaw.org | 47 comments
- Comment on Should we allow job-sharing in parliament? 3 weeks ago:
I don’t see any immediate issues and I’m not opposed to the idea. I assume they would share the single wage which might require some fiddling around for tax purposes. I wonder if/how this would impact their expenditure for taxpayer funded travel.
- Comment on Bondi Junction attacker's interactions with Queensland Police 'forensically' examined amid debate over stop-and-search laws 4 weeks ago:
STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM
- Comment on Bondi Junction attacker's interactions with Queensland Police 'forensically' examined amid debate over stop-and-search laws 4 weeks ago:
Legislation, known as Jack’s Law, allows Queensland police to use hand-held metal detectors to search people in all safe night precincts, at public transport stations and on public transport without a warrant.
Clearly a moronic idea but no doubt there will be some idiots in the community who support it, just like proactive policing in NSW or mandatory data retention online.
- Comment on Who to vote for? 4 weeks ago:
More than any other major party, which I guess is good enough for me. Not every Greens voter is the same, so it would be quite silly to expect the party to perfectly represent the views of every supporter. If I really wanted them to better represent my personal views/beliefs then I would become a member and try to create that change from the inside but I don’t care that much.
Unlike the other person who replied to you I don’t pay much attention to candidates from these major parties since they all vote along party lines anyway. That kind of vote monitoring is more relevant for independents - at the party level it’s pretty obvious how they’re going to vote.
- Comment on Arab and Muslim voters in Australia feel unheard by our major parties 4 weeks ago:
The alternate (what I would actually consider the main) title is almost always better on the ABC News site. And even though I say “almost”, I haven’t actually seen a case where the front page headline was actually better than the one on the article page. It is always less accurate and more clickbaity. Often more emotional/inflammatory too.
- Comment on Who to vote for? 4 weeks ago:
I vote pretty similarly at both the state and federal level. At most elections there has been only one left wing option on the lower house ballot that somewhat aligns with my beliefs - The Greens. They are consistently on the ballot everywhere and are an easy first preference, There has never been a left wing independent candidate in my area, but in recent elections there has sometimes been an Animal Justice Party candidate who I will preference above The Greens. I don’t necessarily think they have superior policy positions, but they are an alternative and I think competition within a a political sphere can help bring new ideas or challenge/reframe existing ones. I am concerned that The Greens are becoming a monolithic catch all for anyone further left than Labor, and I feel like it is pushing their voters into a bubble where they are never challenged by anyone they would consider listening to.
In the upper house I rarely preference The Greens first since there are usually many more small, left wing alternatives that I can prioritise. For example, at the last federal election I believe I numbered the Fusion Party first (or very high) because they have a much broader range of policy areas than The Greens as a result of being a merger of several different micro-parties. Like they have a whole section about intellectual property, copyright and civil/digital liberties through the Pirate Party.
Before any election I’ll always take a look at who is running and skim read their public policy statements/positions to determine who is worthy of my vote. I usually do this about a week before the election day since some smaller parties and independents can be quite unorganised and only get information online at the last minute. Because of the way I vote, my options often change from election to election so keeping myself updated is very important.
it doesn’t seem to make a difference beyond undoing the last governments work… Maybe you see something I don’t.
It depends how you vote/who you vote for, but in my case I am making a difference (or attempting to) by boosting the numbers of lesser known candidates, encouraging them to run again in the future. If they can gain enough first preference votes they are also eligible for election funding, which helps to cover their campaign costs and gives them a better platform to build on. There is also always a secondary goal of preventing a Liberal/Coalition government, which I achieve/try to achieve through preferencing. I think it’s easy to get fixated on who wins/loses and feel like nothing changes but there is a lot of nuance in our system that can you can use to help you feel like you’re contributing, even if your favourite candidate/party didn’t win.
- Comment on Wikipedia is gauging interest for an extension that uses AI to see if any claim is cited on Wikipedia 5 weeks ago:
Obviously Wikipedia is not a definitive or 100% accurate source but this sounds like a genuinely positive use of AI to combat misinformation. The people it really needs to reach likely won’t use it but it’s still a good idea.
- Comment on "No, seriously. All those things Google couldn't find anymore? Top of the search pile. Queries that generated pages of spam in Google results? Fucking pristine on Kagi – the right answers, over and over again." 5 weeks ago:
I’m sorry, but citing other examples of bad research practices does not magically make AI good. That is a whataboutism.
- Comment on "No, seriously. All those things Google couldn't find anymore? Top of the search pile. Queries that generated pages of spam in Google results? Fucking pristine on Kagi – the right answers, over and over again." 5 weeks ago:
All of those questions you asked it return authoritative answers which you take on face value, unless you spend extra time fact checking them yourself.
- Comment on Push to lower Australia's compulsory voting age to 16 as advocate says youngsters feeling 'disenfranchised' 5 weeks ago:
Increased opposition is a significant downside.