t3rmit3

t3rmit3 , 1 month ago to Technology in Chinese social media companies remove posts ‘showing off wealth and worshipping money’ while the gap between the country's rich and poor widens

Just hide the problem!

t3rmit3 , 1 month ago to Technology in Google Search adds a “web” filter, because it is no longer focused on web results

"Google, how do I calculate the circumference of a sphere?"

"Sign up for online math classes with University of Arizona today!"

t3rmit3 , 1 month ago to Socialism in Should You “Put Your Life In Order” Before Criticizing the World?

Setting aside the sad man that is Peterson, this rhetoric has always existed in some form throughout history as a way to shut down criticism.

Whether through 'whatabout-ism' (which points out issues on the side of the criticizer in order to assert their lack of ground to criticize), or through claims of lack of experience or knowledge (which must be 'made up for' to whatever extent the dismiss-er feels is warranted before they will accept criticism, which is probably never), this rhetorical device is just a trick to discount and dismiss.

The CurrentAffairs author seems to be taking this claim at face value, insomuch as they spend much more time attempting to validate Marx, rather than discussing the bad-faith employment of this argumentation.

Instead of devoting a whole article to attempting to somehow disprove the relevance of literal cleanliness to political acumen or the 'right' to speak on politics, it might have been better spent examining the purpose of these types of claims, or the mechanisms by which they function. There is one line- the literal last line of the article- in which "ad hominem" is said; it should not take that long, or require that much prefatory work, to name "I (selectively) don't listen to you because your room/body/desk/life is dirty" as such.

t3rmit3 , 1 month ago to Socialism in Media Scorn Gaza Protesters for Recognizing Corporate Reporters Aren’t Their Friends

Yeah, if you read Unicorn Riot or The Intercept, you oddly don't run into this issue... I wonder why?

t3rmit3 , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to Socialism in As Peace Protests Are Violently Suppressed, CNN Paints Them as Hate Rallies

My news site list nowadays is

• AP, whose coverage of Gaza and the protests has usually been well above a "passing grade" for me
• Al Jazeera, who is obviously and very overtly biased, but has a wide range of world news, and has a lot of good opinion contributors
• The Intercept
• Unicorn Riot
• The Hill, because I feel it's important for me to see how The State views itself and actions within it
• Hacker News, for tech stuff
• Gaming news sites

I used to check CNN and Fox to see 'what the enemy is doing', but frankly it's entirely predictable what stances they're pushing on any given subject, and it's frustrating to the point of exhaustion to read it without being able to scream at those responsible.

Also, kudos to Time for publishing actual student coverage of the protests.

t3rmit3 , 1 month ago to Socialism in What Can Go Wrong When Police Use AI to Write Reports?

God fucking dammit.

Moreover, as with all so-called artificial intelligence taking over consequential tasks and decision-making, the technology has the power to obscure human agency. Police officers who deliberately speak with mistruths or exaggerations to shape the narrative available in body camera footage now have even more of a veneer of plausible deniability with AI-generated police reports. If police were to be caught in a lie concerning what’s in the report, an officer might be able to say that they did not lie: the AI simply mistranscribed what was happening in the chaotic video.

Computer systems like ShotSpotter are already given undue defference by courts, who don't actually understand how inaccurate they are. I can't wait to see how much cops and courts abuse this tech.

t3rmit3 , 2 months ago to Technology in It’s the End of the Web as We Know It

I legit have been considering buying a minidisc player, just for the sheer cool factor of them. Sometimes truly special form is lost as function evolves.

t3rmit3 , 2 months ago to Technology in Net neutrality is back as FCC votes to regulate internet providers

With Thursday’s party-line vote, the FCC redefined internet service as similar to legacy telephone lines, a sweeping move that comes with greater regulatory power over the broadband industry.

Leading FCC officials have said restoring net neutrality rules, and reclassifying ISPs under Title II of the agency’s congressional charter, would provide the FCC with clearer authority to adopt future rules governing everything from public safety to national security.

“Broadband is a telecommunications service and should be regulated as such,” said Justin Brookman, director for technology policy at Consumer Reports. “The Title II authority will ensure that broadband providers are properly overseen by the FCC like all telecommunications services should be.

“These 400-plus pages of relentless regulation are proof positive that old orthodoxies die hard,” said Jonathan Spalter, CEO of USTelecom, a trade association representing internet providers.

My god the fucking irony. The trade association made up of Broadband ISPs, arguing that they shouldn't be regulated as Telecom providers, is literally called... USTelecom.

"Don't treat us like ducks!" said the trade association representative from USDucks.

t3rmit3 , 2 months ago to Socialism in Insurers Are Deserting Homeowners After Natural Disasters

If insurance providers were not legally bound to pay out for plans, and if failure to pay wouldn't see customers flee, they never would.

Nowhere is safe from climate change, but insurers will continue to sap up as much money as they can, and pay out as little as they can, before they finally shut down and leave the government to pick up the mess. They'll charge premiums for decades, and then right as the disasters those premiums are supposed to cover folks for start to ramp up, they'll close up shop and laugh their way to the bank.

Private insurance is a cancer that should be cut out.

t3rmit3 , 2 months ago to Technology in Does enshitification happen because companies are publicly-traded?

Corporations are inherently the vehicle of non-mutually-beneficial capitalist profit-seeking. They cannot really be anything else. That's what differentiates them from e.g. a profitable 'mom-and-pop' grocer.

The purpose of incorporating as a business is to limit liability by separating the assets and incomes from the owners and investors, in order to allow profits to be gained without actually engaging in a good-faith exchange with prospective business partners/customers (since corporate bankruptcy limits their ability to recoup losses from the individuals running the business).

Weapons are a means to do harm, but they are not something that the mere ownership of implies a threat from; most people do not being their guns everywhere. If they do bring it somewhere, that indicates an adversarial stance towards the place or persons who they're meeting. Put another way, "gun ownership" is very different than "having a gun present at all times with which you could threaten someone".

Corporations, on the other hand, are at all times and in all business dealings leveling that threat of one-sided liability/risk, because it is intrinsic to them as corporations. You can own a gun without threatening to shoot anyone with it. You can't operate a corporation without threatening to evade rightful liability.

So it's possible to be a "responsible assault rifle owner", but it's not possible to be a non-exploitative corporation.

t3rmit3 , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to Technology in Generative AI is still a solution in search of a problem

I have a deep love of change, just intrinsically. I have medical issues which have meant that since I was a kid I've been accutely aware of my significantly shorter prospective lifespan, and I think that really drives the desire in me to witness major changes and historical events, sort of like truly internalizing that I (literally) can't afford to wait for slow change.

That doesn't mean I want to see changes that cause suffering, like wars, it means I want to see incredible changes that have the potential to better peoples' lives, like electric vehicles, space exploration, ^socialistrevolution^, advancements in healthcare, etc. I am hopeful that the wide-ranging availability of AI, beyond just corporations, means it has the potential to be one of those changes (I'm also wary that it may end up just being subsumed by Capitalism into enriching the already-wealthy even further).

I still feel that desire that many tech-folks do, to buy a plot of land in the middle of nowhere and just raise llamas and serve artisanal coffee to the parents of the kids that come to play with the llamas, and never look at a computer again, but I still want the world to be out there advancing and getting better even if I don't engage with every new advancement directly, myself.

t3rmit3 , 2 months ago to Technology in Generative AI is still a solution in search of a problem

I am not a huge fan of generative AI, but even I can see it's potential (both for good and for harm). Today I found out about Suno in another thread on here, and tried it out. As a mid-millennial (1988) who grew up with CD players and still thinks MiniDiscs and ZIP discs are the coolest cartridge formats, aesthetically, that thing absolutely blows my mind.

We are like, 5 years into generative AI as a widely-available technology, and I can use it to generate entire songs on the fly based on just a couple sentences, complete with singing. I can use it to create logos and web graphics on my laptop in a matter of seconds, as I build a webpage. I can use it to help me build said webpage, also running locally on my laptop.

And it's still accelerating. 10 years from now, this stuff could be generating entire movies on-demand, running on a home media box.

t3rmit3 , 2 months ago to Technology in You can now buy a flame-throwing robot dog for under $10,000

Flamethrowers have been legal and very easily and publicly available for a looooooong time. This thing is not going to change that.

t3rmit3 , 2 months ago to Technology in Does enshitification happen because companies are publicly-traded?

Private companies still have investors and board members they're accountable to.

t3rmit3 , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to Technology in Does enshitification happen because companies are publicly-traded?

Enshittification happens due to greed and power; It's just the process of removing the false mask of mutually-beneficient business that Capitalism uses to hide its true self.

First you make users think you're beneficial to them, so they get locked in,

then you make businesses think you are beneficial to them, and get them locked in,

then you give up that facade and admit you don't care about benefitting anyone but yourself.

You can enshittify something even as an individual; it's not being publicly traded that makes it easier or more likely, it's that being a large enough business to be able to successfully enshittify without losing all your customers probably means you're publicly-traded.