kava
@kava@lemmy.world
- Comment on OpenAI's move to allow generating "Ghibly stlye" images isn't just a cute PR stunt. It is an expression of dominance and the will to reject and refuse democratic values. It is a display of power 3 weeks ago:
You may or may not be correct in hating me but do not let my comments bring down the good name of kava
As for “doubling down so hard” I’d flip the message and ask you why you are simping for mega corps?
An AI is not doing anything a human wouldn’t do. You look at a bunch of content. You learn from it and incorporate it in new synthesis.
It’s not fundamentally different. So unless you can make a meaningful statement (beyond mild personal attacks) that illustrates the difference between the two, you will convince no-one
- Comment on OpenAI's move to allow generating "Ghibly stlye" images isn't just a cute PR stunt. It is an expression of dominance and the will to reject and refuse democratic values. It is a display of power 4 weeks ago:
first let’s get something out of the way
the actual way that copyright works is that a few giant megacorps buy up everything and they end up owning copyrights to the vast majority of recognizable content.
so for example in 2019 over half of the movies released in theaters was owned by Disney. The same company that unilaterally has the ability to change US federal law when convenient for them.
studio ghibli is no different- they’re a subsidiary of Nippon Television which has a $2B+ annual revenue
so keep in mind when you advocate here for stronger copyright protections, you are essentially saying that the biggest companies in the world deserve more money.
2nd- the “style” is not copyrightable. anybody can mimic the style. and guess what? if I make a cartoon and I make it look like studio ghibli style… people are still gonna recognize it as “studio ghibli” style. they are basically getting free marketing. they are not losing out here.
- Comment on OpenAI's move to allow generating "Ghibly stlye" images isn't just a cute PR stunt. It is an expression of dominance and the will to reject and refuse democratic values. It is a display of power 4 weeks ago:
They’re trying to make some type of argument that a private studio should have exlusive rights to a specific style of art and that by openai allowing users to generate art in that style, we are slipping into anti-democratic authoritarianism.
My opinion is that you can’t own “styles” of art and that there’s nothing wrong here. Legally speaking I can copy any art style I want.
- Comment on Organic Maps migrates to Forgejo due to GitHub account blocked by Microsoft. 4 weeks ago:
but_what_about_.jpg
whataboutism isn’t some magical phrase that you can utter every time someone brings up hypocrisy
if we’re going to support sanctioning civilians based on their countries breaking international law, then we should not have double standards. otherwise it’s very clearly a geopolitical issue and not a moral one.
and that’s what this is actually about. the US sanctions on Russia are a geopolitical tool meant to make the Russian re-subjugation of Ukraine more expensive. that’s it.
to me, that doesn’t justify banning individuals from participating in OSS projects. anybody that wants to contribute should be able to.
- Comment on Organic Maps migrates to Forgejo due to GitHub account blocked by Microsoft. 4 weeks ago:
Attacks against civilian targets are war crimes. When you do it through sanctions its OK.
I’m just asking that we are more honest about it. For example instead of putting sanctions on Venezuela we could have just done what Israel is doing to Gaza and gotten similar death toll.
- Comment on Organic Maps migrates to Forgejo due to GitHub account blocked by Microsoft. 4 weeks ago:
Research has shown it has historically had very little to no impact on policy. What it does do is harm the lowest rungs of society.
For example a 2019 report on Trump’s Venezeuala sanctions estimate up to 40,000 people died. Mostly poor people who went without healthcare and medicine because the US froze all of the government’s funds and access to credit.
In my opinion, I’d prefer if we just bombed civilians in the countries we sanction. It’s more honest. It really is a form of low level warfare. Something akin to a medieval raiding party
- Comment on Organic Maps migrates to Forgejo due to GitHub account blocked by Microsoft. 4 weeks ago:
When the big tech guys showed up to the inauguration and sat in the front row to pay tribute it was such a clear example of how capital always yields to authoritarians.
- Comment on Organic Maps migrates to Forgejo due to GitHub account blocked by Microsoft. 4 weeks ago:
The US supplied 80% of the bombs dropped on Gaza.
Do you believe US civilians should be prohibited from interacting with the rest of the world?
- Comment on FBI warnings are true—fake file converters do push malware 4 weeks ago:
imagemagick handles almost all image files
images ) ls 001.jpg 002.jpg 003.jpg 004.jpg 005.jpg images ) convert 001.jpg example.pdf
ffmpeg handles almost all video files
ex ) ls rock.mp4 ex ) ffmpeg -i rock.mp4 rock.avi
if you use gnome there’s a nice little feature of the file explorer where you can just drag and drop scripts into
~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts/for example
make a fish script (ignoring error checking for brevity here, my real script had a couple guard rails)
#!/usr/bin/env fish set file $argv[1] convert $file (basename $file .png).pdf
then when you right click on a file in your gnome file explorer you can click the scripts option
and the script is right there so you can just easily convert with the press of a button
note, i crossed out some stuff that includes client names
tldr: there are so many ways to do what you need to do there’s no reason to trust random websites you don’t know. there’s a lot of slimey people out there wanting to take advantage of people. and everybody should strive to be at least a little computer literate. the examples i gave here aren’t complicated. they’re simple commands
- Comment on YSK that if you lose your Social Security Card (USA) more than 10 times, the Social Security Administration will have to, by law, refuse to issue anymore replacement cards, for the rest of your life. 4 weeks ago:
i’ve never had my SS card stolen because it stays at home inside of the random shit drawer
i’ve also never had my SSN stolen. maybe i’m just lucky but I don’t recall a time I ever inputted my SSN online besides the last 4 digits for some ID verification
GRANTED I agree that the 10 cards rule is silly. I think it was written for a different time. and realistically, you could lose your SSN card every 6 years from 18 years old ↦ 78 years old and you’ll only be denied at 78.
by then hopefully we’ve modernized the system a bit. maybe that’s too optimistic
- Comment on Why I recommend against Brave. 4 weeks ago:
absolutely. people gotta realize when they put themselves in a bubble and not project that experience outwards to everyone else
there’s a word for this… lemme see if i can find it
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge
The curse of knowledge, also called the curse of expertise[1] or expert’s curse, is a cognitive bias that occurs when a person who has specialized knowledge assumes that others share in that knowledge.[2]
- Comment on Why I recommend against Brave. 4 weeks ago:
niche:
relating to or aimed at a small specialized group or market
Browser stats: gs.statcounter.com
Do you see LibreWolf on here? Do you see Brave on here? Do you see Vanadium on here?
Even Firefox, of which LibreWolf is essentially a reskin of, is at 2.6% and considered niche
- Comment on Why I recommend against Brave. 4 weeks ago:
And i don’t have the strengh to care about the CEO of them. I don’t care. i’m tired
you care enough to find multiple niche browsers and write comments about them
- Comment on Microsoft is killing OneNote for Windows 10 5 weeks ago:
One big plus for Obsidian in my book is that it’s just plain text. All your notes are stored in simple .md files
So even if Obsidian goes to shit you can use virtually any text editor to edit and view your notes
Plus it has a vim mode and allows css style changes since it’s Electron
- Comment on Why aren't there mass protests in the USA? 5 weeks ago:
“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
www.cato-unbound.org/…/education-libertarian/
Peter Thiel is the financier behind JD Vance and one of the co-founders of PayPal- later on with Elon Musk. They’re part of the same group of people, along with various other Silicon Valley tech executives, who subscribe to what has been called the “Dark Enlightenment” philosophy
JD Vance, for example, has openly expressed his support for Nick Land and cited him as a major influence.
Both Yarvin and Land believe that gradual, incremental reforms to democracy will not save Western society; instead, a “hard reset” or “reboot” is necessary. To that end, Yarvin has coined the acronym “RAGE” – Retire All Government Employees – as a crucial step toward that goal.
Does that sound familiar?
Yarvin advocates for an entirely new system of government – what he calls “neocameralism.” He advocates for a centrally managed economy led by a monarch – modeled after a corporate CEO – who wouldn’t need to adhere to plodding liberal-democratic procedures. Yarvin has written approvingly of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for his pragmatic and market-oriented authoritarianism.
They’re essentially trying to reshape the government to function more like a corporation. Something akin to the Chinese or Singapore method of governance. Democracy is not compatible. What’s interesting is that this isn’t happening in secret. They’re out in the open about it.
I’m guessing you refuse to see what’s in front of your nose out of fear, which is why you keep saying everyone else is afraid. Me personally, I’m not afraid at all. I’d say I’m more morbidly curious to see how it all ends up. I’m fairly privileged and I’ll be fine no matter what. As long as you shut up and do your job you’ll be fine.
But it’s happening. We’re witnessing a coup right in front of our eyes. They are purging the federal government and Trump has started to ignore court orders- dipping his toes in the water. There’s a lot more to this if you’re interested. There’s many articles out there and you can even read stuff by Vance, Thiel, Yarvin, Land, etc. They’re not shy
- Comment on Why aren't there mass protests in the USA? 5 weeks ago:
then please wise one- assuage my fear by showing me how the purge isn’t a purge. release me from this trembling terror by convincing me that the administration is not actually breaking federal law. save me from this horror and show me the light
- Comment on Why aren't there mass protests in the USA? 5 weeks ago:
Roman history didn’t end after Julius Caesar. In fact, the empire would reach its peak a couple hundred years after that moment and then dominated for hundreds of years afterwards.
It just wasn’t really a Republic anymore.
Of course that isn’t to say the US will get stronger, I think the opposite. Just that the end of democracy doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the country.
- Comment on Why aren't there mass protests in the USA? 5 weeks ago:
we’re watching an unprecedented purge in only a couple months of an administration. led by people who have openly admitted they want to destroy American democracy and institute a dictatorship.
me personally I think Trump already crossed the Rubicon. but in the very near future there will be an order by the Supreme Court for Trump to stop doing something. He won’t stop doing it. And then it will be abundantly clear to everyone we’re in a new stage of US history
- Comment on How do the Republicans feel about Project 2025 now? 5 weeks ago:
this was actually a key part of Hitler’s strategy. early on in the Nazi meetings they would try to pin down and give an exact agenda and set of policies.
he would yell at everyone that they’re missing the point. it’s more about the vibe than the logic. being vague and ambiguous keeps your options open.
“It is not truth that matters, but victory.” Adolph
By refusing precise definitions, you are able to retroactively decide what the ideology “always meant”. so when it’s convenient to hate against health insurance CEOs you are “against the swamp”. when it’s convenient to dismantle the government you are “against the swamp”
it can mean whatever you want it to. similar with the “enemies of the state”
nazis would use the word marxists or “degenerates” very loosely. makes it very easy to shift blame to a specific target or another when necessary
berin’s degeneracy is because of gays, somewhere else it may be gypsies, another it’s the jews, etc.
today we see phrases like “radical leftists” “cultural marxists” “woke ideology” etc
a federal judge blocked some of Trump’s orders (Trump ignored it of course) and what does he call him? a radical left judge. something that couldn’t be further from the truth- radical left would imply some type of communist or socialist. but it doesn’t really matter because the term is vague enough it can work
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
i say be polite. you don’t have to be super friendly or anything
being a “homewrecker” is bad, but sometimes there’s more context you don’t know about. i tend to give people the benefit of doubt and give them an opportunity to show who they are before I make assumptions.
i do this because in the past i have judged too quickly and been wrong about people
- Comment on dear republicans, what's the point of alienating every single ally of the US? 1 month ago:
If a new World War was coming, we would definitely want to be closer with our border countries than give our foreign enemies a chance
think of it this way. let’s say WW3 kicks off with China tomorrow. Will Canada or Mexico suddenly ally with China?
Reality is that Canada and Mexico are totally dependent on US trade. It really doesn’t matter if you piss them off they’re gonna be forced to deal with you anyway.
80% of Mexican exports are to the US. 30% of their GDP is based on American trade. If US exports stopped tomorrow, Mexican economy would immediately enter a deep depression. They have no choice but to play nice, even with 25% tariffs.
Canada is similarly stuck. 75% of exports are to the US. 50% of their imports are from the US. 20% of their GDP is based on American trade.
If you took both Canadian and Mexican trade combined and compared it to the US economy, though, it wouldn’t even reach 5%. If trade with both of these countries were to stop tomorrow, America will suffer- but growth may slow by 0.5% or 1%. Both Canada and Mexico would see a depression.
Do you see why Trump feels like he has the power to do this? This is the point I was trying to make above. Historically US presidents have been more diplomatic and subtle about how to abuse the leverage that America has by the nature of being a superpower. Trump isn’t fundamentally different except he’s exploiting this leverage loudly and in an ugly and aggressive way.
As for the upcoming war, I think it’s only a matter of time. But we’re talking a time scale of 5-10 years. We’re preparing for the future showdown. There will be one or two more flashpoints before the main war. Ukraine was one, Israel is another.
If we had to make an analogy with WW2, I’d say we’re roughly in mid ~1930s. Our Spanish Civil War is the Ukrainian war. Our Italian invasion of Ethiopia is the Israeli conflict. (Gaza, Israeli invasion of Syria, war with Lebanon, Iran, etc)
- Comment on dear republicans, what's the point of alienating every single ally of the US? 1 month ago:
Anyone who’s even remotely qualified to lead the military is being replaced with sycophants
it’s a purge. we’re watching our own version of what Saddam Hussein did when he took power. it definitely weakens the country overall but it strengthens the hold on power for the executive.
as for the military, we’ve been spending more than like the next 8 countries combined for decades. it’s hard to understate the relative power of the US military. there are hundreds of military bases all over the world.
even a weakened superpower is still a superpower
- Comment on dear republicans, what's the point of alienating every single ally of the US? 1 month ago:
If no enemies exist, they are created.
i don’t disagree. that’s why the rhetoric. but I would disconnect the rhetoric from the policy. trump says one thing and does another. he wants to deport everyone but at the rate he’s going we won’t even see a 10% reduction in the illegal immigrant population.
notice how tariffs were a trend that started a decade ago. Trump placed tariffs on China on his first term and then Biden increased the number of tariffs.
Trump isn’t doing this because he’s some brilliant strategist
couple of things. first, i wouldn’t underestimate trump. he successfully hijacked the Republican party which is a party full of wealthy and powerful people.
second, the people around Trump are very principled ideologues (ie people like Peter Thiel and the dark enlightenment ideology they’re enamored in)
these people are educated, intelligent, and dedicated to their cause. they also have near-limitless money and now they have the control of the federal government of the strongest country in the world- a country that has an executive branch that has gotten progressively more powerful.
they have a vision and they planned for this and they are enacting it. this is not a spontaneous thing. they view a future where there is a showdown with China and tariffs play into that future
- Comment on dear republicans, what's the point of alienating every single ally of the US? 1 month ago:
the analogy was in reference to the size differential between david (boy) and goliath (giant)
sure david wins in the parable but to quote bo burnham
South of queers, north of Hell
The queer ones suck and the brown ones smell
We guard the border and we guard it well
But some slip through the cracks of the Liberty Bell
Did I say liberty? I meant taco, Paco, hey you better let that rock go
'Cause in real life, Goliath wins
And then sells all the silk that the widow spins
- Comment on dear republicans, what's the point of alienating every single ally of the US? 1 month ago:
because there’s a war coming soon that will destroy most global trade. trump wants the US in a better position in that near future by having more factories and such inside of the US.
in a peaceful world, you allow free trade and specialization to do its thing and everybody gets richer. you farm bananas, i farm apples, and we trade. we create value out of thin air, it’s an amazing thing.
but in a world where superpowers are at war and the world splinters into factions, half of the global economy will be cut off from the other half. therefore it’ll be a huge liability if we for example depend on Taiwan for 90% of our computer chips when China can blockade Taiwan and we cannot reliably break that blockade. that’s one industry… now imagine the thousands of other products we need for a modern economy. it would cause massive economic shockwaves.
so this tariff thing is accepting that this will happen in the near future and preparing for it, slowly weaning off the economy from that connection to the rest of the world. so when it does come, it doesn’t hurt as bad.
it doesn’t really matter if you piss off your allies. since you’re the biggest military power they are going to have to rely on you anyway. you have leverage over them. the difference is that Trump is a reality TV star and so he is loudly exploiting this leverage whereas most past leaders would be more subtle about it.
Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan, etc aren’t really allies. Being someone’s ally implies there’s a sort of equal footing. When someone has no choice but to bend to your will, is that a voluntary relationship?
to give a recent example, Ukraine. Ukraine in 2014 had the Euromaidan coup and the president had to flee the country. The new government that was quickly appointed without an election realized one thing very quickly- Russia was about to invade them. they had only one option in terms of getting military aid and that was the US. so immediately, the same day that the government was appointed, they started cooperating with the US. a few days after that, little green men showed up in Donbas and the Russian army waltzed into Crimea
so you can say they “allied” with the US but a more honest way to say it is that they were desperately pushed into America’s orbit. and the US ultimately doesn’t care about a country like Ukraine. people are starting to see it more clearly today because of Trump, but I honestly don’t think the situation would have been meaningfully different with Biden or Kamala. The primary difference would have been rhetoric. Instead of calling Zelensky a dictator, we would have just dragged our feet with military aid instead, like what has been happening the last year or so
tldr: the US is a imperialist superpower and this is what they do.
- Comment on Reddit will warn users who repeatedly upvote banned content 1 month ago:
just means they are in bed with Nazis
Fascism is always the best business decision. This is the inevitable result of capitalism. The institutions on a good decade are strong and resilient. Oligarchy, yes, but still a more or less free society.
Eventually though, there will be a series of crisis in succession that causes the establishment to weaken just enough for a strongman to slip in and take the reigns. In the 20th century it was the fallout from WW1 and the Great Depression. In our time it was COVID and the Ukraine + Israeli wars (and to some extent, 2008 housing crisis)
One key part of fascism is that it is almost paradoxically
a) A populist-driven ideology, which means it appeals to the lowest common denominator
b) An elitist-driven ideology, which means it idolizes and puts value in the elites of a society
What ends up happening is the state picks and chooses elite groups of people who end up running the show. So for example, if you are Zuckerberg or Musk or Bezos… you know that if you play nice with Trump that he will reward you and you will have certain advantages by having a friend in an authoritarian government. You also know that if you don’t play nice with Trump, he will try and hurt you using both legal and illegal mechanisms.
Therefore, the best investment you could make is aligning yourself with the fascist state.
This was always going to happen. Sort of humans eventually will catch a cold or develop cancer. The immune system on a good day is strong enough to repel these types of problems. But eventually, you will be under some stress for one reason or another and your immune system is not enough to stop the inevitable cold or what have you.
- Comment on Israeli speaker of parliament calls for bombing food stocks in Gaza now that Israel has cut off their food and water. 1 month ago:
yeah well said. and while there isn’t much of a difference to the people getting rained on with bullets and bombs… i think there is a fundamental ideological difference between at least pretending like you care.
we’ve reached the point where the executive is so powerful he doesn’t feel the nice to put the mask on. it’s a blatant and almost ostentatious use of power. Trump says and does ridiculous things (did you see that Gaza AI video?) that have no coherence because he understands his power lies in the chaos. one day he says one thing, one day he says another. ukraine and US will make a good deal one day, zelensky’s a dictator the next day, zelensky’s a good leader one day, and then zelensky’s disrespectful the next, etc etc
it’s sort of like when Stalin would go through one of his purges. He would have a long list of names on a paper and he would look through him. Every once in a while, for no apparent reason, he would cross a name off the list. He was reminding everyone that his power was absolute and he could arbitrarily choose to end you or spare you.
Trump is toying with this same type of arbitrarily derived chaos but instead of it being occasional he seems to be embracing it as his source of power
- Comment on Israeli speaker of parliament calls for bombing food stocks in Gaza now that Israel has cut off their food and water. 1 month ago:
and privately supported
we openly sent over thousands of MK84 2,000lb bombs that have used to kill thousands of civilians. not really private to be honest
- Comment on The situation got so bad that actuall news overtook memes in top posts on Lemmy 1 month ago:
kamala was more biden. the same group of people that was around behind created the conditions for a kamala run to even be possible.
they had to pull some weird “democracy games” to even get her on the ballot. pretend like biden was gonna run so he automatically wins the primary and only then announce he’s gonna leave. really shows how far this democracy has fallen
as for kamala, biden’s immigration proposals were “compassionate approach” and “immigration reform”
if you went to her website and looked under immigration there was only “strong border” and “border security”
to be honest, i only wanted kamala to win because she was a woman and that woulda been cool. but the descent into fascism would not have been meaningfully slowed down, i think
- Comment on Microsoft begins turning off uBlock Origin and other Manifest V2-based extensions in Edge 1 month ago:
a chromium skin
