The title of this piece is clickbait as all hell, but I viewed it as more of an anti-Google piece rather than an anti-AI piece. Like, I do think AI has some merits, but those are massively outweighed by the nefarious Silicon Valley ghouls(like Google) abusing it to make all of our lives worse.

But I think this begs the question of whether search was any good before. It wasn’t. It isn’t.

Yeah, I agree. Google had such a stranglehold on search for so long that they could make their product worse and not lose any meaningful marketshare. They knew damn well that people weren’t going to switch to Bing or anything, so they could enshittify the hell out of search to wring as much profit out of it as possible.

I’m really hopeful that federation continues to grow and bandwidth and storage costs can allow a simple hobbyist to maintain a site/node for minimal cost while contributing to the greater ecosystem. Smaller communities where reputation actually matters instead of being gamified into upvotes and downvotes as some sort of facsimile of trustworthiness or quality. I think with a more personal internet, AI becomes less of a threat anyway.

Absolutely. We’ve got to start cutting back on our use of corpo-internet, if possible. Especially considering that many of these companies are either collaborating with a fascist government or are enthusiastically supporting and influencing said fascist government.

honestly, at this point, I think people just said that because it sounded better than “I’d rather have children get slaughtered in school on the regular than accept any limitation on the guns that make me feel like a real man”.

Zelenskyy knows damn well he can’t trust Russia to uphold their side of the bargain. Taking this deal would only grant them a short reprieve while Russia recovers their strength and comes back to finish the job. Ukraine is in a terrible position(and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Russia ended forcing them to reinstall Viktor Yanukovych), but, as long as Ukraine has the will to fight, they should do what they feel is best. If they choose to fight a losing war to make it as painful as possible for the Russians rather than sign a “peace” negotiated by two hostile powers in which Ukraine was not even consulted, that is their right.

Trump and Vance are a fucking disgrace. They were trying to discredit Zelenskyy in the eyes of Ukraine and the world. It’s important to remember that this is one of the least ambiguous conflicts in recent years. Russia literally declared a war of conquest using one of the flimsiest casus bellis ever. And here comes this asshole Trump, who is like “maybe we should try to do that might makes right stuff”. Now Canada, Mexico, and Greenland are getting threatened with invasion and forcible annexation. That’s why Ukraine must be supported if they choose to continue fighting; not only are they the unambiguous victim in the conflict, but the more painful things get for Russia, the less likely they will be able to wage further wars in the short term, and maybe it might make belligerent countries think twice about stealing land and subjugating people they have no right to.

You might want to give a member of a minority currently directly targeted by the regime a little grace, yeah?

Yes, what’s done is done, and there’s not much point in re-litigating the election at this point. Let’s not turn this into another neverending argument about Gaza, because I guarantee that’s just going to drive a further wedge between all of us.

yeah, this isn’t the worst idea. I’ve largely resigned myself to getting my news from mostly non-american sources during the Stupid Reich.

In a virtual speech at the World Economic Forum, Trump suggested Canada could become a U.S. state to avoid his proposed tariffs on imports.

The remark elicited gasps from the audience.

yeah, so, rich people, perhaps pushing the “they’re eating the dawgs” guy so that you can continue to make late stage capitalism even worse was a bit of a mistake. he’s sundowning hard and completely off the rails.

this isn’t just dropping fact-checking. per the article:

Beyond the end of the facet-checking program, Zuckerberg said the company will be eliminating some content policies around hot-button issues including immigration and gender, and refocus the company’s automated moderation systems on what he called “high severity violations” and rely on users to report other violations.

Facebook will also be moving its trust and safety and content moderation team from California to Texas.

This is full bore capitulation to fascism, as capital will always do. soon, zuckerberg’s social media sites will be indistinguishable from musk’s x. everybody needs to defederate from threads if they haven’t already.

We’re seeing capitulating and knee-bending all over lately, and this trend is just going to accelerate. Like, the system is NOT going to save us. It gave up before the fight even began.

We’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that if we’re going to get through this, we’ll need to save ourselves. The time for building communities and engaging in mutual aid is now. We need each other. Do NOT comply in advance.

Oh, wow. I certainly was not expecting an assassination of a CEO anytime soon, despite how chaotic things are going to get. If the executive class starts feeling like they’re on the chopping block, things could get very bad for the working class, especially with Trump on the horizon. Unlike us, they have class solidarity.

Yep, the moment you have to explain it, you’ve already lost; the normies will check out. That’s the thing, these sites depend on having a huge userbase and people just aren’t going to go to a site with “nobody on it”. I maintain an account on both Mastodon and Bluesky… they’re both pretty neat in their own way. But Mastodon isn’t ever going to be the virtual town square. I kinda like it quiet there, tbh.

He was a few years ago, though I think the courts finally made him fuck off. his grift may have caught up with him.

lol, I still have no idea why he did that

ugh, Eyman is insufferable. dude tried to force $30 car tabs for like two decades.

There are plenty of cis gay folks. “Straight” just doesn’t work if you’re trying to describe non-trans people.

Had my name change hearing a couple days ago, I’m now legally Audrey! Going to the office for the first time in girl mode and I’m terrified. I’m honestly kinda concerned that the timing of this might prevent me from voting. I live in Seattle, though, so it won’t affect the Presidential election

The book has actually been out for a few years… this article was written in 2021. I’m not really sure why it was posted now.

sure, yeah, maybe you’ll end up about the same if trump gets in. However, as someone who would be made to massively suffer under a second Trump term, I’m sick and tired of seeing people not treat this election with the gravity that it merits. If you’re anything other than a cis white Christian male, Trump Part II is going to be a nightmare(and, to be fair though those cis white Christian males may not be aware of this, but they aren’t exactly going to have the best time of it either, especially if they’re not rich).

Yes, I agree, the Democratic party sucks and does little to actually help us. But, THERE ARE TWO, AND ONLY TWO OPTIONS UNDER OUR CURRENT SYSTEM. A Green Party vote accomplishes nothing, for they’re never going to be in enough numbers that anyone actually notices. Most people stuck voting in this stupid first-past-the-post system understand that a protest vote in a general election only serves to benefit the party further from your actual beliefs. Therefore, third parties are an utter and complete waste of time, and those voting for them were taken for fools. Not voting simply sends the message that you can be safely ignored. The time for protest votes and voting your conscience is the primaries.

Part of being an adult is having to make difficult and unsavory choices. I don’t like Harris much. I don’t like how the country is completely captured by corporate interests. However, Trump is so completely unacceptable in so many ways that not making the crappy choice to strategically vote against him is both monumentally stupid and, quite frankly, a slap in the face to every minority and every woman who stands to go through hell if that monster comes back. That’s the hand that we have been dealt. If too many people fuck around when fascism comes knocking, I’ll be one of the first to find out, though everyone will, eventually.

This is why I never really understand when people go “Just use Linux!!”. It isn’t a feasible option for everyone. For me, I work full time and I don’t have the energy to constantly fix things if they break. When I switched to Linux, I took great pains to ensure that my computer use case is one that could work in Linux, built a computer with parts known to be fine in Linux(including an AMD graphics card) and run Debian Stable on because I wanted something that wouldn’t be constantly updating. I’m in a comfy situation now, but I did a lot of planning beforehand that you can’t really expect people to do. Like, it’s great if we get more people using Linux, but that’s not a trivial ask.

Yeah, as soon as I saw the word “satellite”, I knew it was a nothingburger. If a submarine is on the surface, it isn’t trying to hide. If it’s submerged, it’s impossible for a satellite to detect it. You’d need sonar to pick it up.

I’m headed back into the office today after having had COVID last week. Yaaaaaaaay