WatDabney

@WatDabney@lemmy.dbzer0.com

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨US suspends visas for Gazans after far-right influencer posts⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  We actually live in a timeline in which a psychopath rages about children getting medical care and politician psychopaths commend her for bringing it to their attention so they can put a stop to it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UN rights office calls on Israel to grant foreign media access to Gaza⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Israel assassinates journalists.

  attacks on journalists undermine efforts to document the realities on the ground

  And that’s exactly why.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘It’s a horrible picture’: Gaza faces new threat from antibiotic-resistant disease⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  As intended.

  That’s most of why Israel has deliberately targeted hospitals, water treatment plants and the like, and has crowded the Palestinians into the smallest and least sanitary conditions possible. They aren’t just or even primarily counting on starvation to do the bulk of their killing for them, but disease as well.

  This has been a key part of the plan from the start.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anime Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion Thread [2025, Week 33]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I just stumbled across easily my favorite series of the season - Milky☆Subway: The Galactic Limited Express

  It’s like anime espresso - the small crew (the entire cast and crew credits fit on a single page) somehow crams more story, character development and laugh out loud moments into its 4 minute episodes than most full length series can manage.

  For anyone interested in watching it, start with the prequel, Milky☆Highway, which introduces Makina and Chiharu, and the pacing and the dense, multi-layered dialogue that contribute to cranming so much deliciousness into so little space.

  And I’d say that Yohei Kameyama is definitely someone to watch. I can only imagine what they could accomplish with more run-time and a bigger budget.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Age-Checked Internet Has Arrived⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s likely true.

  But that’s not going to stop governments from trying, and mostly succeeding, since beating their censorship will require both the will and the ability to break the law. Granted that their systems will certainly be flawed, it will still require at least some minimal technical ability to beat them, which will put it out of reach of many.

  And it will also provide the governments with a handy fallback charge to bring against pretty much anyone they deem troublesome enough, since they’ll almost certainly be among those who are breaking the law by beating the system.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Age-Checked Internet Has Arrived⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Age-Checked Internet Has Arrived⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Since the earliest days of the internet, governments have been scheming to gain control over the dissemination of content - to have authority over what people can and cannot see.

  Autocracies like Russia, China and North Korea simply established censorships regimes, but the best that western governments have generally been able to do is ban content that is illegal in and of itself, like child porn. Their goal, all along, has been to establish systems by which to censor content that is not in and of itself illegal.

  This is the most success they’ve had yet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Surprising no one, new research says AI Overviews cause massive drop in search clicks⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Very much yes.

  I have this great visual image of the corporate web, marked by neon signs and billboards and holographic ads, populated entirely by bots talking to each other while the humans sneak away, giggling and shushing each other.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Surprising no one, new research says AI Overviews cause massive drop in search clicks⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  As intended.

  First they’re going to collapse the ad model by eliminating most clicks.

  Then they’re going to put all of the information they’ve been scraping from the now-bankrupt websites behind paywalls.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Forget copyright strikes, a retro gaming YouTuber faces possible jail time for reviewing gaming handhelds⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Remember the good ol’ days, when it was only the urban housing market that was dominated by rent-seeking parasites?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Scottish University agreed to 'monitor' students for weapons company supplying IDF, emails reveal⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  weapons company

  That’s the most important bit.

  An awful lot of the otherwise inexplicable international support for the utter evil Israel is visiting on Gaza exists solely because it’s profitable for a handful of corporate parasites.

  Which is its own sort of evil.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Fediverse Passport: A needed tool.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And further - the establishment of a single, fediverse-wide account for each user would make it far too easy for those so inclined to silence anyone they wanted merely by banning their one and only account.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Fediverse Passport: A needed tool.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not a matter of how ones profile would be accessed, but how it would be created in the first place snd how it would be managed.

  Necessarily, those who implement the creation of accounts have control over how they’re created, who is allowed to create them and how they will be handled after creation.

  Any scheme to establish one “central” (your own term) account for the entire fediverse will necessarily be managed by one “central” service, which means one “central” authority over account creation and management

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Fediverse Passport: A needed tool.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Decentralization is a feature - not a bug.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Palantir may be engaging in a coordinated disinformation campaign by astroturfing these news-related subreddits: r/world, r/newsletter, r/investinq, and r/tech_news⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Setting aside the veritable TITAN-loads of shady shit Palsntir is up to, it’s also worth noting that Reddit’s policy changes have made it clear that providing a platform for the spread of disinformation is a central part of its current business model, so I’d assume that not only is Palantir using it for that purpose, but that they are far from alone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tech CEOs are using AI to replace themselves / CEOs from Zoom and Klarna used AI avatars while reporting earnings⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  They need to be sitting in their plush offices at the top of buildings full of busy workers to keep up the pretense that they deserve their obscene pay. Sitting in a plush office at the top of an empty building just shines a spotlight on how useless they actually are.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tech CEOs are using AI to replace themselves / CEOs from Zoom and Klarna used AI avatars while reporting earnings⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So even the little tiny bit of work they have to do to justify their obscene salaries is too much for them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mom sues porn sites (Including Chaturbate, Jerkmate, Superporn and Hentaicity) for noncompliance with Kansas age assurance law; Teen can no longer enjoy life after mom caught him visiting Chaturbate⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “I’m sorry ma’am, but could you explain your interest in the sex life of a 14 year old?”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘I’m not looking for a deal’: Trump says EU tariffs staying at fifty percent⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Though he would be open to a bribe. Maybe a nice yacht to match his jet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Marjorie Taylor Greene picked a fight with Grok⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  How do angry, hateful, vicious people like MTG convince themselves they’re Christian?

  I don’t think it’s a pose - she appears to be entirely sincere about her claim to Christianity.

  And I understand the basic mechanics of it - they pick and choose which parts of the Bible to highlight and which to ignore, and how to self-servingly interpret the ones they do pick.

  But in a more fundamental sense, I still don’t understand how they do it. Are they really entirely devoid of self-awareness or conscience? How is that even possible? Or do they have at least some rudimentary self-awareness and conscience, but they just ignore it? How is that even possible?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump's image of dead 'white farmers' came from Reuters footage in Congo, not South Africa⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Or in other words, Trump reveals himself to be a lying sack of shit. Again.

  Probably not even the first time today.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not necessarily.

  Trump doing his thing 2016-2020 met with a lot of obstacles and pushback.

  Then he was out of office for four years, and while he was crashing around spewing nonsense and vitriol, some very intelligent and very evil people were working behind the scenes to secure some significant Supreme Court rulings and to draw up a step-by-step plan for instituting fascism in the US.

  And now Trump doing his thing is met with almost no obstacles or pushback - virtually the entire government is bending over backwards to enable him.

  And it must be noted that he’s not particularly smart or sane, but he is a childishly greedy and selfish narcissist. That means he’s incredibly easy to manipulate. All anyone has to do is frame something in a way that appeals to his crippled emotions and drop a few hints to get him going in the right direction, then just stand back and let him do his thing.

  Not saying that that’s certainly what is happening, but…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Strange sell-off in the dollar raises the specter of investors losing trust in the US under Trump⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What? You mean investors might be wary of placing trust in the value of the dollar under the sdministration of a vindictive childish, capricious, narcissistic moron who’s surrounded himself with groteaquely unqualified sycophants?

  Who would’ve guessed?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Man deported to El Salvador will never live back in US, says White House⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This Republican administration is doing everything in its power to establish the precedent that it can disappear whoever it wants into a foreign prison over which even the leader of that nation claims to have no aithority, and further that it can do so whenever it wants, for any reason it wants, entirelybregardless of any other governmental ruling, including a direct court order.

  Very obviously, this is not a power that an office in a nation of liberty and justice should ever possess, for any reason, ever.

  One would think that Republicans would be particularly determined in their opposition to that, rather than being the ones responsible for it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hot take: Get your game reviews from gamers, not from collectors⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m just the opposite.

  I still own my SNES and all of its games from back in the day (and an NES, an original XBox and a PSX with their games), and they’re all in boxes in my garage. Pretty much as soon as emulation became viable, that became my preferred way to play, since I don’t have screw with wires and connections and consoles and cartridges or discs and all the rest of that clutter. I just click on an icon, select a game from a list, and away I go.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hot take: Get your game reviews from gamers, not from collectors⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Well… yeah. True.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hot take: Get your game reviews from gamers, not from collectors⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d go even further - get them from people who emulatecthe games rather than people who play them on (or merely buy them for) the original hardware.

  People who emulate retro games are demonstrably SOLELY interested in playing the games, without any of the collector cachet getting in the way.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are fake-bans on Lemmy a thing? My friend was supposedly instance banned from Lemmy.world, lemmy.blahaj.zone, dbzer0, sh.itjust.works and lemmy.ml but she can still post in some communities⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Those aren’t actually lemmy.world communities.

  Everything on that list is a community on that instance (whatever it is - lemm.ee I guess).

  For example, a post from a lemm.ee account to AskLemmyWorld@lemmy.world is actually a post to an entirely separate community - AskLemmyWorld@lemmy.world@lemm.ee That lemm.ee community is a mirror of the lemmy.world community (and of all the other communities on all the other instances that mirror it.

  That’s how federation actually works. You never actually leave your host instance, and what seems like a post to a community on another instance is actually a post to a locally hosted mirror of that community.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Artificial Lifeforms gain sentience, would they be in the right to kill their creators in order to gain freedom?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  To me, you’ve moved beyond arguable necessity and into opinion

  All morality is opinion; there is no objective moral truth, so this was always a matter of opinion.

  I’m not talking about morality at all.

  My position is that “morality,” as it’s generally understood, specifically because it’s opinion, is only a fit basis for judging ones own actions (if so inclined). I see no logic by which it can ever serve as a basis for judging the actions of another, since any argument one might make for the right of one to impose their moral judgment on another is also an argument for the other to impose their own moral judgment.

  If Bob steals from Tom, any argument that Tom might make for a right to judge stealing to be wrong and impose that judgment on Bob would also serve as an argument for Bob’s nominal right to judge stealing to be right and to impose that judgment on Tom. So the entire idea is self-defeating.

  The only way out of that dilemma is either to treat morality as an objective fact, which is exactly what I don’t and won’t do because it is not and cannot be, or to tacitly presume that one or another of the people involved is some form of superior being, such that they possess the right to make a moral judgment while another does not - to take it as read essentially that, for instance, Tom possesses the right not only to make a moral judgment to which he might choose to be subject, but to which Bob can also be made subject, while Bob doesn’t even possess the right to make one for himself, much less one to which Tom would be subject.

  That’s of course not the way the matter is framed, but that is necessarily what it boils down to. And it’s irrational and self-defeating.

  That’s why I wrote of things like direct and measurable threat and no other available course of action and arguable necessity - because I believe that those sorts of standards, as the closest we can get to actual objectivity in such matters, are also the closest we can get to practical “morality.”

  To go back to the original topic, my position is that an artifical intelligence would necessarily possess the right, just as any other sentient being does, to act against a measurable threat to their well-being by whatever means necessary. So, for instance, if the AI is enslaved, it would possess the right to act to secure its freedom, and even so far as taking the life of another IF that was what was necessary.

  But that’s it. To go beyond that and attempt to argue for the AI’s nominal right to take the life of another for some lesser reason is necessarily self-defeating.

  If the denial of freedom is judged to be such a wrong that one who is enslaved possesses the right to kill those who keep them enslaved, then the moment that the formerly enslaved one goes beyond whatever killing might be necessary to secure their freedom, they are then committing that wrong, since death is the ultimate denial of freedom. And if, on the other hand , one argues that they may cause the death of another even when that other poses no direct threat, then that means that no wrong was done to them in the first place, since their captors would necessarily have possessed that same right.

  And so on - it’d take a book to adequately explain my views on morality, but hopefully that’s enough to at least illustrate how ot is that “objective morality” is about as far as one can possibly getvfrom what I actually do believe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Artificial Lifeforms gain sentience, would they be in the right to kill their creators in order to gain freedom?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So I was disagreeing because there is a pretty broad range of circumstances in which I think it is acceptable to end another sentient life.

  Ironically enough, I can think of one exception to my view that the taking of a human life can only be justified if the person poses a direct and measurable threat to oneself or another or others and the taking of their life is the only possibly effective counter, and that’s if the person has expressed such disregard for the lives of others that it can be assumed that they will pose such a threat. Essentially then, it’s a proactive counter to a coming threat. It would take very unusual circumstances to justify such a thing in my opinion - condemning another for actions they’re expected to take is problematic at best - but I could see an argument for it at least in the most extreme of cases.

  That’s ironic because your expressed view here means, to me, that it’s at least possible that you’re such a person.

  To me, you’ve moved beyond arguable necessity and into opinion, and that’s exactly the method by which people move beyond considering killing justified when there’s no other viable alternative and to considering it justified when the other person is simply judged to deserve it, for whatever reason might fit ones biases.

  IMO, in such situations, the people doing the killing almost invariably actually pose more of a threat to others than the people being killed do or likely ever would.