@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

LadyAutumn

@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone

Trans woman - 9 years HRT

Intersectional feminist

Queer anarchist

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

LadyAutumn ,
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It's hard to explain how significant the Voyager 1 probe is in terms of human history. Scientists knew as they were building it that they were making something that would have a significant impact on humanity. It's the first man made object to leave the heliosphere and properly enter the interstellar medium, and this was always just a secondary goal of the probe. It was primarily intended to explore the gas giants, especially the Jovian lunar system. It did its job perfectly and gave us so many scientific discoveries just within our solar system.

And I think there's something sobering about the image of it going on a long, endless road trip into the galactic ether with no destination. It's a pretty amazing way to retire. The fact that even today we get scientific data from Voyager, that so far away we can still communicate with it and control it, is an unbelievable achievement of human ingenuity and scientific progress. If you've never seen the image the Pale Blue Dot you should see it. That linked picture is a revised version of the image made by Nasa and released in 2020. It's part of a group of the last pictures ever taken by Voyager 1 on February 14th 1990, a picture of Earth from 6 billion kilometers away. It's one of my favorite pictures, and it kinda blows my mind every time I see it.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

The accuracy he achieved and in that time period with the information available to him is frankly staggering. The degree of his error is slightly complicated by the stadion not being a historically exact figure, but his calculation showed the Earth to be 252,000 stadia in circumference. Accounting for the variability in the exact length of the stadia dependent on what definition was used in the calculation, that gives us in kilometers 39,060km on the lower end and 40,320km on the upper. The actual circumference of the Earth is 40,075km. This gives him an error range of between -2.4% and +0.8%.

He also didn't just use a stick but used extensive geographic charts to calculate the distance between the 2 cities where he measured the shadow. It was a monumental achievement and is shockingly accurate. I also believe this knowledge was lost to time and for quite a long time after we did not have any measurements even close to this accuracy.

Here is a picture visually demonstrating how he performed his calculation.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yeah I can definitely see how the argument about "original semites" is coming very close to outright hatred and antisemitism. We have to be more conscious of the language we use than that. We shouldn't be making arguments in this vein but instead focusing on anti-colonial arguments. When discussing the colonialism of relocating European Jewish communities to Palestine there's no reason to be using this kind of divisive "race politics" language.

The relationship between Ashkenazi jews and the communities that were already present in Palestine is not something I understand very well, and more broadly the history of Ashkenazi jews as a whole is something I'm only familiar with as it relates to early 20th century European politics. It's something I'd like to do my own research on from reliable sources to better understand how these kinds of arguments feed into genuine hatred of Jewish people.

I'm not as educated on esoteric antisemitic arguments as I should be. I appreciate you adding context to why some Jewish students feel unsafe with the discourse going on at the moment. Anti-Zionist action has an obligation to protect Jewish people as much as it has an obligation to protect Muslim people and ethnic Palestinians. Our goals ought to be to separate ourselves from race hierarchy and protect human rights for all. It's critically important that in advocating against the Israeli government and the IDF that we do not tolerate anti-semitism in any form and that we reject the support of ant-semitic people wherever it appears.

'Horrific' violence at UCLA after counter-protesters attack pro-Palestinian camp ( www.bbc.com )

Violence erupted at the University of California, Los Angeles after pro-Israeli counter-demonstrators attacked a pro-Palestinian campus encampment. Bubbling tensions on the campus boiled over following the alleged breach of a "buffer zone" between the rival groups.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Jesus Christ. All over students protesting that their university is openly supporting a regime committing genocide and crimes against humanity.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It's very nitpicky of me, but towards the end of the article, they discussed various factors hypothetisized to "cause transgender identity," and I hate that framing. Being trans doesn't need a root cause to justify treating us with respect and affording us human rights and access to health care that improves our lives. Nothing made me a woman. It's just who I am.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I agree with them, very much so. There is no benefit to this kind of research because it's based on a false premise to begin with. Gender does not correlate with biology at all. It's part of who we are as people. There is no cause of transgender identity, and even attempting to find one is flawed. The transgender experience is not universal, and there is a vast amount of differing feelings and experiences amongst even just binary trans people. Any attempts to find a "cause" are really just attempts to find new justifications for gatekeeping trans people or subjecting trans people to conversion therapy.

I am, by and large, against the further reduction of trans experience to a medical one. We aren't diseased. We are fortunate to live in a time where we can access care that improves our lives tremendously. There is a very real medical component to treating dysphoria. But being transgender is not a disease.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

You are misunderstanding why people become thieves in the first place, and how comparatively uncommon pure thievery is. The majority of theft is legal and is done in the name of capitalist profiteering. Not that break ins don't happen, nor that everyone will be a good person and accept a society of mutual aid.

Genuine theft will still occur. The consequences of something being stolen would not be the same within an anarchist society built on mutual aid. It is much easier to recover from theft when shelter, food, water, are all guaranteed things that you don't have to fret over. So the consequences will largely be interpersonal, grudges and disputes between people over less consequential things like valuables of some particular nature.

I am not of the opinion that violence of the community need be used on such a situation either. We aren't the police for Christ's sake. We can actually settle disputes in a proactive way that attempts to rectify the situation that precipitated the theft (maybe someone needs mental health help, maybe there are interpersonal issues) without kicking the shit out of anyone.

Violent crimes can be handled however the community sees fit. But things like theft or destroying someone's clothes should be handled proactively to ensure lasting solutions for everyone involved. Violence is a pretty bad deterrent for this kind of behavior.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Half elected officials with power are appointed not elected. The Supreme Court took away women's bodily autonomy. There was no popular vote for any of them not a single one. Also just because I vote someone in doesn't mean I agree with everything they do. Wouldn't it be more expedient to just use direct democracy so I can actually have a say?

"Your options are conservative A or B, and whatever actions they take are necessarily ones you voted for and agree with!"

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

If enough people want something it'll happen... how? Like no seriously how? Is there some reason that the people shouldn't be allowed to directly vote on things? Are you saying that elected officials are reliable in implementing the needs of their constituents? Why is politics so contentious then?

Iran launches drone attack against Israel as Biden rushes to White House ( www.theguardian.com )

Iran said it launched dozens of drones and ballistic missiles towards Israel on Saturday in a major attack following days of acute tension building up in the region and warnings from the US and elsewhere about a wider conflict erupting....

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It feels like watching the Cuban missile crisis. A sinking uncomfortable feeling. I think the news has legitimately traumatized me. Breaking news means the next horrible thing has happened.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Nintendo is seemingly able to write their own laws at this point, and both the Japanese and the American justice systems will give them anything they want. Throwback to the 80s and 90s when we legally determined that if you purchase a video game and a console, you are allowed to do anything you want with both of those things. Because you paid for them, so modifying or reverse engineering them was legally protected. We've just slowly been marching backward ever since then.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Unironically, yes. Copyright law should be completely removed. It was not created to protect artists. It was created to protect shareholder interests.

Capitalism illustrated ( media.mas.to )

Cartoon about a cat and a pig.
The cat is scruffy, the pig wears a suit.

Cat: Can I buy a house?

Pig: I already bought all the houses.

Cat: Well how much to buy one off you?

Pig: More than you could ever afford.

Cat: Is the rent cheap at least?

Pig: No it's double the mortgage so I can buy more houses.

Cat: We truly live in the best economic system possible.

The pig is now talking to a police dog while pointing at the cat.

Pig: Yes officer that's the one that was annoying me.

The police dog looks angry as he holds his baton in his hand.
ALT
LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It is here. We did the math, and a mortgage on a brand new house was literally half our rent at 20k down. The barrier to entry is the down payment. Those "good terms" entirely have to do with how much income you make and how much debt you have.

I pay for maintenance on my apartment. This is essentially universal where I live. Also, maintenance costs do not come anywhere near the gap between mortgage and rent payments. Mortgage is literally less than half on a very, very shitty apartment. We didn't even have proper heating when we first moved in to our last apartment. We both work full-time jobs. The building was very close to being condemned. It was the cheapest in our town of less than 100k. Mortgage on homes less than 10 years old was legitimately half our rent. Including HOA, including insurance, including taxes and utilities, it was literally half the cost.

But 20k we do not have. And we have not been able to save even a quarter of that, as our cost of living has doubled in the last 4 years. Entirely due to profiteering by corporations and landlords.

Long and gist of it, no, unless it's a government run property rent is literally 0 out of 10 times going to be cheaper. Do you not understand the fundamental purpose of being a landlord? Are you under some kind of delusional belief that any measurable amount of landlords are in the business of renting properties out of the kindness of their hearts? No, being a landlord is just like being a company that sells water. You're going to charge absolutely as much as you can possibly get away with, because literally the entire purpose of being a landlord is to make money while doing as little time investment as possible. Our last landlord did literally nothing for over a year while the house fell apart around us. We gave him over 20 thousand dollars in rent. The land tax there was peanuts. He pocketed at least 10k for doing literally nothing.

The point of being a landlord is having enough net money at the start to literally not work. To literally do no labor for which they are beholden to someone. To collect tax from the serfs that occupy their land. They are part of a separate economic and social class. And profiteering is the entire reason anyone chooses to do it. There's literally no other measurable reason. There may be one or 2 mythical landlords who are running themselves into debt cause they love their tenants or whatever the fuck, but they're not even a thousandth of a percentile. Literally statistically irrelevant.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Neo liberalism is the core ideology of modern conservatism. For example, both the republican and democrat parties in the United States adhere to Neo Liberal ideology. They are both conservative.

Neo liberalism is the ideology of deregulated capitalism. Neo liberalism holds that everything should be marketable without government interference, including healthcare, real estate, power generation, water, etc. Pioneered by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, it is the dominant political ideology across Western democracies. Liberals and Conservatives are both adherents of Neo Liberal capitalist ideology. Leftists are those who support regulation, they are definitionally anti-capitalist. When people refer to the democrat party as socialist or democrats as Leftists, they're just misusing those terms. Democrats are Neo liberal conservatives who, by and large, support deregulated capitalism.

LadyAutumn ,
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Their platform at times advocates regulation, but they don't do much in the way of it. They are largely still in favor less regulation. We have had Democrat presidents since Reagan, quite a few actually and despite that unilaterally regulation had decreased pretty constantly over that time period.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

She is one of the most influential activists in a generation. I greatly admire her dedication and commitment. She's been arrested like half a dozen times now, and she shows no sign whatsoever of backing down.

LadyAutumn , (edited )
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Just going to preface this by saying yes please vote for Biden. If nothing else he is not openly fascist and he will not himself actively work to forward queer genocide and the removal of women's rights. Please vote for him. If you're not going to take any measures to change this system and have resigned yourself to existing within it, do one good thing for women and minorities.

If you think it's fine for a totalitarian fascist state to become established and to mass murder queer people, don't even fucking bother responding to me. If you're saying "don't vote and also don't revolutionize. Just let trans people and women fucking die" then fuck off. You're not even worth engaging with. If fascism takes over and my friends, my family, my loved ones and my community are mass murdered I'll remember how you watched it happen and did literally nothing. Our blood will be on your hands.

I'm not engaging further in this thread.


It's amazing how passive and tolerant the working class has become of the state. If half the energy that was devoted to arguing about why the system sucks but can't be changed was instead put into organizing and committing to revolutionary action... Actual real-world change might have already happened.

Like, what's the line for people? They took away women's bodily autonomy. What about if they took away women's right to work? What if they did away with the 40-hour work week? What if they made it so only land owning whites could vote again? Like, where is the line that people will respond by actually trying to change the system?

"The system is broken, but I'm not here to talk about why we should materially do anything to change that" like what kind of argument is that? Are you just going to watch as fascism literally takes over and then try and revolutionize? If Trump wins, are you then going to try and change the system? After the guy who's definitely a-ok using the military on civilians takes over?

Is this just what it's going to be forever? Forever arguing for the lesser of two evils, the person who will still cause human suffering but not as much as the other guy? Why are so many people seemingly resigned to this status quo? "It sucks but here we are," like what?? Even when revolutionary thought is put forward, people say that it would never work, as though no revolution in history has ever worked or achieved any of its aims. Which is just wrong. Neo liberal propaganda has got yall so bad that you genuinely believe that Western capitalist democracy is the only possible way for society to exist and that any and all attempts to change it are impossible.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Honestly, same boat. Our power bill has gone up over 20% this past year like it's insane. Our grocery costs have easily doubled in that time, too. Like I'm doing the math and seeing the numbers like I'm making more than I was 3 years ago, but I wasn't living paycheck to paycheck then, and I'm rationing food today.

I also can't count the number of times prices have gone up on common groceries in the last year. Every time I go in I'm spending more than I did the previous time. And the grocery stores around here have started phasing out their cost saving brands. More and more lately what used to be the expensive brand is the only one left, and I'm paying twice as much for half as much compared to what I was getting before. They're not even trying to hide what they're doing.

Kamala Harris Calls For Marijuana To Be Rescheduled 'As Quickly As Possible' ( www.huffpost.com )

Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday called on the federal government to move “as quickly as possible” to change the way it officially classifies marijuana, saying that “nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed.”...

LadyAutumn ,
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I'm glad they want to change that. I hope they do. Far too many people, especially minorities, serving sentences for weed. It does feel like a bit of a hollow victory when women's rights are being rolled back to the 19th century, though.

It wasn't just the goblins — is J.K. Rowling doing Holocaust denial now? ( forward.com )

The most famous forms of Holocaust denial and revisionism tend to focus on Jews, casting doubt, for example, on how many were exterminated in the camps. But denying the impact the Nazis had on the other groups they targeted, including queer and trans people, disabled people and Romani people, is still Holocaust denial. Maybe...

LadyAutumn ,
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She's denying that nazis committed genocidal actions against trans people during the holocaust.

I get that that may not matter to you, but that is incredibly important to me. I cannot ignore when someone is trying to claim that trans people like me were not victims of the holocaust. I cannot ignore genocide denial. She had a real effect on politics and public opinion. It is very important that she be called out for her words and actions.

LadyAutumn ,
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The amount of people defending her statements in this thread is absolutely disgusting. I wonder why she feels so emboldened as to say such horrific things in public?

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Move to the end of the track and undo the constraints of people on the track. You will have infinite time until the trolly reaches the end, and can thusly save infinite lives by doing so.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Actually, that's assuming that the track is a straight line. The distance from the beginning to the end of the track could be just a few feet, and the distance along the rail and thusly the number of people infinite.

Nex Benedict's mom raises doubts about police statements: It's a "big cover" ( popular.info )

The mother of Nex Benedict — the non-binary Oklahoma teen who was assaulted in a school bathroom and died the following day — is raising doubts about statements released by the local police. On Wednesday, the Owasso Police posted a statement to the department's Facebook page, which appeared to defend the Owasso High School's...

LadyAutumn ,
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The people who are pushing for these laws, organizing these harassment groups, calling in bomb threats, and pushing their hatred and violence into politics - they're the same people who were doing this to gay kids.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

A teenage non-binary child was beaten within an inch of their life and drops dead the next day. Honestly, I doubt the toxicology report will show anything. If you've read the reports it is downright grizzly what those girls did to them. Unbelievable violence, cruelty, and unspeakable acts. They brutalized this innocent child for being themselves for being different. It was hatred pure and simple that motivated this inhuman crime.

Even if, let's say, the toxicology reports show that they did take their life. What exactly does that change? The assaulters beat them within an inch of their life. How can you imagine someone could go on living after that happened to them? Is it any less murder because the victim literally lost the will to live after being brutalized by 3 of their peers? It's just disgusting that those girls aren't in holding cells right now. I had to stop reading the reports at several points. It's horrifying. Even considering the assaulters were all also minors, it doesn't in any way diminish the horrific nature of their actions.

This is the result of MAGA. There is blood on the hands of Chaya Raichik (libs of Tik Tok), of Matthew Walsh, of Candace Owen's, of Kevin Stitt, of the entire movement of trans hatred. This is and always was their goal.

LadyAutumn , (edited )
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I mean, you picked like one of the handful of socialist market economies that does that.

Canada nominally provides you with money in the form of social assistance if you're unemployed. It's not enough to pay for rent on a studio apartment. Let alone food.

The point is that being alive is not a voluntary contract. We don't ask to be born, and we are continually told by society that suicide is unacceptable. This is fine, I think that it's generally a good idea to promote being alive. But capitalism has actually decided that being alive is only half of it. You can't kill yourself, but you can't exist if you're not useful to the capitalist system either.

So basically if you're mentally ill, if you're disabled in any way, if like me you have medical conditions that make routine employment significantly harder than it is for people without these conditions - you're just screwed. Here's your 600$ a month social assistance check. Rent is 1000$ on the absolute most basic apartment in your area. Bare minimum groceries for a single person are close to 300 a month. You might be able to afford to live in a multi bedroom dwelling with strangers without central heating and lead plumbing that often doesn't work. At that point, your best bet to eat is at food banks, which are overcrowded and underfunded. Every single person, company, and political group across the entire country will demonize you as being essentially worthless and openly talk about how you should be forced to output labor that you are unable to output.

All this while like 10% of apartments sit empty, we throw out like 30% of the food we produce, and most labor in society has become about capitalist maintenance (office job, desk job, working for companies that essentially do nothing to feed or house people, that produce unnecessary goods in mass quantities for profit motives). Like capitalism has openly determined that we are worthless. We're worth less than garbage. They'd rather throw food away than feed us. They'd rather leave perfectly functional working apartments empty than give us homes. Capitalism has no use for people who cannot produce capital. This isn't new, and it is a fundamental aspect of the system. They call it merit. How much merit do you have? How much do you deserve to be alive and be happy?

And I work 40 hours a week and have for years. I take medications that make that possible, and I'm very lucky that medications exist that can essentially make me compatible with the capitalist labor system. But I lived that life before, and have many friends who still do. Barely surviving because society has decided that it's not worth it for them to live.

Not everyone can output labor. The point of society should be to ensure that all members of society can live healthy safe and happy lives. There is no reason this cannot be the case. It has just been decided by those with majority power that it shouldn't be the case. Suffering is legally mandated.

LadyAutumn , (edited )
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yeah, I specified in the first line that Germany is a socialist market economy. As are the Scandinavian countries to varying degrees. Those are not features of capitalism. Those are features of those specific countries. You could do away with market capitalism and still not throw away food, or leaving residential properties empty. Free market capitalism actually dictates that food and housing are private industries that should be controlled by private interests with little (or no) government oversight. Socialism is what says that those thing should be government regulated and that measures should be taken to ensure everyone has access to food and shelter.

The socialist market economy is not the same thing as a capitalist free market. To be clear, I also believe that a socialist market is insufficient. Simply taking half or quarter measures to ensure people don't starve to death and have homes isn't enough either. A modest step in the right direction, but not what the end goal should be.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

That is not what capitalism is lol

I said half measure not half homes. They could just, you know, provide homeless people with homes. Taxing property owners for not renting properties is doing pretty well nothing for people who are homeless and half no income. Over half a million Germans are homeless.

Edit: I see where the half home confusion is coming from, that was a typo meant to say "have homes".

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

No, a market using currency does not make it capitalist. Capitalism is the free market. Capitalism is the economic ideology of private markets. Capitalism is the labor ideology of private ownership of the means of production. That one person can own a hundred factories and be entitled to the fruits of labor of those factories.

A country is more capitalist the less government control of its free market. It is more capitalist the more privatized its industries are. It is more socialist the greater the government control of its markets are, and the more nationalized its industries are.

Communist nations still use currency. Currency, or capital, has existed long before capitalism came into existence.

If you want to know more there are plenty of freely available resources online that explain it in much grater detail than I will here.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

What do you mean long winding diatribes? Or did you just say that cause you think it makes you sound smart lol. You're failing to understand the difference between money and capitalism. Markets predate capitalism. Money predates capitalism. Capitalism is an ideology.

Literally Google and read for five minutes.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It's the way you used the sentence in reference to my description of capitalism. It was 2 paragraphs, a very short explanation of a socio-economic ideology.

You've just shown yourself to have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not going to teach you what capitalism is. You can do that yourself.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

You never even actually engaged with anything I said. Just tried to say that capitalism is good because some nations with market economies are less shitty than other ones, failed to understand what capitalism itself actually is, and refused to learn. There's no winner or loser in this discussion. You're just wrong about capitalism. You do not understand what it is. It's not a matter of winning, it's a matter of you trying to engage in discussions about subjects that affect hundreds of millions of lives without even actually understanding what you are talking about. It's okay for you to not understand or know something, but don't act like you're an expert at something you know nothing about. There are loads of resources online. If you want to talk about capitalism and the free market do yourself the service of learning what those things are.

Business Insider would like Gen Z to know that workplace anxiety is healthy and their problem is that they need more of it. ( www.businessinsider.com )

"Suzy Welch, an NYU business professor, previously said the trend is fuelled by Gen Z's 'strong desire to avoid anxiety at any cost' because they haven’t made hard decisions or done hard things....

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

The pre pandemic status quo was still horrible. Around 2015/6 was the last time I felt that my job compensated me fairly and that the government was taking necessary action to ensure that I can eat and sleep on the salary I make. The pandemic just made workers rights a fucking dream of the past, as companies literally stole money from directly in front of our faces.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

We can also imagine a reality where Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were collectively not elected and global neoliberalism failed to crystallize.

But this is just day dreaming. The reality is those things didn't happen and here we are.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I do think it's important that people know what it is they're celebrating, but yeah like my local Chinese community always does a lunar new year celebration that is open to everyone. I think a lot of Chinese people (and other communities that celebrate the lunar new year, like Okinawan Korean Vietnamese and many others) see open celebration as creating more appreciation for and understanding of their culture.

LadyAutumn ,
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Wow, 60 years on and they're still raiding gay bars. Can't express how profoundly depressing that is.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Lot of people didn't read the community title before commenting lol.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It'd be nice if they'd stop bombing hospitals and depriving millions of people of the basic necessities of survival then. Oh, and it'd also be nice if they'd stop referring to Palestinians as animals and shooting children in the west bank. And It'd be nice if Netanyahu would stop saying his goal is to annex the west bank and the Gaza strip. And if the Israeli state would stop encouraging settlers to illegally (by their own laws) occupy the west bank.

The attack was also 3 months ago. And tens of thousands of Palestinians have been murdered since then.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yeah. Not that it's the fault of artists that capitalism exists in its current form. Their art is the fruit of their labor, and therefore, means should be taken to ensure that their labor is properly compensated. And I'm a marxist anarchist, no part of me agrees with any part of the capitalist system. But artists are effectively workers, and we enjoy the fruits of their labor. They are rarely fairly compensated for their work. In this particular instance, under the system we live in, artists rights should be prioritized over

I'm all for janky (getting less janky as time goes on) AI images, but I don't understand why it's so hard to ask artists permission first to use their data. We already maintain public domain image databases, and loads of artists have in the past allowed their art to be used freely for any purpose. How hard is it to gather a database of art who's creators have agreed to let it be used for AI? All the time we've (the collective we) been arguing over thise could've been spent implementing a system to create such a database.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Fair enough, and I can't claim to be a fan of copyright law or how it's used. Maybe what I'm moreso talking about is a standard of ethics? Or some laws governing the usage of image and text generating AI specifically as opposed to copyright law. Like just straight up a law making it mandatory for AI to provide a list of all the data it used, as well as proof of the source of that data having consented to it's use in training the AI.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I'm not talking about IP holders, and I do not agree with copyright law. I'm not having a broad discussion on copyright here. I'm only saying, and not saying anything more, that people who sit down and make a painting and share it with their friends and communities online should be asked before it is scanned to train a model. That's it.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I'm just gonna ask you to read my above comment again. What I'm suggesting is:

"Before you scrape and analyze art with the specific purpose of making an AI art generator model, you must ask permission from the original creating artist."

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Those are corporations. I'm concerned about how this impacts individuals. Small artists on social media, who make a living off small commissions. I think it is morally and ethically wrong to steal from them.

I also strongly dislike the way you are portraying artists as a monolith. There are some artists who would be willing to submit their art to make an image generation model. You're essentially complaining that not enough people would say yes in your opinion. As though there aren't hundreds of millions of public domain paintings drawings music and all sorts of things that can already be used without screwing over Charlotte and her small time Instagram art dig she affords her 1 bedroom apartment with. You're refusing to even ask her if she's okay with her creations being used in this way.

You're wrong. What you're describing is immoral. I don't care about corporations. They're not who I'm interested in protecting. Its artists themselves. You're also wrong that AI art is some boon for humanity. It's cheap, barely passable noise. Literally, that is what it is. A beefed up toy that mostly exists to generate shitty articles and images that corporations can churn out en mass to manipulate people. That's its best use case at the moment. It's gonna be a very long time, if ever, that human creativity and wit can be engineered.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yeah, I'm not too concerned with janky AI generators having to ask before training a model on someone's art. Sucks for them I guess.

I don't agree with copyright. I'm an anarchist. I'm openly in favor of piracy, derivative, whatever else a human being might do with something. I don't agree with judicial systems, let alone market economies or even currency as a concept. And that's all fine and dandy, but there are people alive right now under capitalism. Unlike piracy, which pretty much exclusively takes from corporations like the overwhelming majority of things that are pirated are produced by corporate studios and studio funded artists, this one very specific thing takes the most specifically from artists the overwhelming majority of whom are already very poorly compensated many of them literally barely get by at all. AI models should have to ask them to copy and repurpose their works.

That's my only statement. You can assume I effectively don't agree with any other thing. I'm not here to have a long winded nuanced debate about a legal system I don't agree with and am not supporting in literally any capacity. I'm pointing at pixiv the website and saying "hey can you guys like actually ask before you start using these people's shit to make AI that is purposefully built to make sure that they are run out of jobs"

Unless you're going to somehow explain why artists aren't worth existing or something then don't even bother answering. I'm genuinely not interested in what you have to say and am tired of repeating myself in this thread.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

'Charlotte' draws for people. She's good at it, and it's her livelihood. People like her are hurting literally no one by drawing things. She enriches the lives of all the people who enjoy her work. She should have a choice in whether or not her works are used to make image generators. That's it. It's not complicated. You shouldn't get to decide this for her, she never posted her images to the internet with the knowledge that someone would use them to figuratively build a machine with the expressive purpose of rendering what she does useless (even if it's very bad at doing so).

AI art stands against everything that every artist had ever taught me. It's spit on the face of art as a concept. It's art devoid of creation. Art made out of very long, very complicated algorithms weighing weights adjusted by billions of pictures passed through it. It's no more expressive or inspirational than an RNG function attached to a midi keyboard. It's mimicry, mimicry that really only stands to benefit corporations. I'm not about it.

AI in pretty well any other case? I'm on board. Let's automate human labor, all the things that we are forced to do for work. No more physical labor, no more 9 to 5, no more retail or fast food or corporate jobs. Do away with it all. I'm totally with you there. Doing away with human art? I mean, I've got no interest in that. If you like staring at what amounts essentially to nothing, then be my guest. I'm very open minded with art in general, totally down with avant guarde pieces, performance art, noise music, all the stuff at the fringe that offends the delicate sensibilities of those who seek to gatekeep what is or isn't genuine human expression.

Pretty big difference there is all those things are made by people. People with talent. Artists. We are enjoy the fruits of their labor. Their rights should be respected. They should have a say in whether specifically AI is allowed to copy their works.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I dont want copyright to be expanded, I dont want laws governing intellectual property at all. I've described what I think is right pretty fully. I don't need you to tell me where I stand.

You can read my other comments if you want to engage with it any further. I'm not mistaking you for someone else. I'm just tired of people rehashing the same endless points. Arguing with AI bros is tireless, pointlessly futile. It consistently devolves into innane nonsense. I'm fully on board with doing away with copyright as a concept entirely. My request is that artificial image and text generation be regulated in a way that is ethical with respect to small content creators who should have a say in what software their art is used to generate. That's it fam I'm out

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yes, an-caps lol famous for standing up for small time by commission digital artists trying to avoid exploitation of their creations. Totally yup you got me. All my criticism of corporations and pointing how AI art specifically benefits corporations at the detriment of actual human beings is very ancap of me.

Your whole bit about a new owner class is just, so far out there I don't even know what you're on. I don't have time to try and work through the justifications for why you think that you're entitled to make a mimic program for other peoples stuff. Not just to do it, but to claim that it makes you an artist.

Sorry but nah you're in the minority here. In this specific community in this specific space your voice is overrepresented. I've never met another person who agrees that our prototypical Charlotte and others like her are demonic overlords of the new ruling class who are seeking to subvert creativity and lock it in their hands. God, most of the artists I know willingly train others and a lot of them make content to train others. Now you're essentially complaining that you can't draw lmao like it's just ridiculous. I can't draw either, that's fine I don't want to put in the work to be able to create real visual art. I can live with that. I wouldn't use an ethically sourced AI image generator anyway, as it's literally an elaborate RNG function with a mimicry algorithm attached to it. It has no meaning and is empty.

Like typing "a cool painting" into bing image generator, which then tries its best to copy other real paintings made by real people, makes you an artist somehow. It doesn't. And you're not going to convince me of that, of all people. Let alone the majority of society who definitely do not agree that that makes you an artist, or that it makes it right to scrape images from artists like that.

Also the bit about me deeming people to have talent is just stupid. I'm not judging their artistic ability, I'm saying they're literally not making art they're not showcasing any artistic ability whether I think it's good or not.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I'm not sure that's their logic in this case. Has this been used to disqualify cisgender candidates? Is there precedent for this in the last decade?

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