ToastedRavioli

@ToastedRavioli@midwest.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK that Gerrymandering allows politicians to choose their own voters. In many countries, it's illegal. Gerrymandering is common in the United States⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The number of times a person mentions ChatGPT in a random conversation might work as a rule of thumb to measure her intelligence (inverse proportion, of course)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Its not any weirder than pretty much any other language. In many Latin languages the default is feminine rather than masculine. Referring to a group of mixed gendered people in Spanish would be default feminine. Theres literally nothing inherently incorrect about either one having a default. I would imagine most native Spanish speakers would view someone as stupid for intentionally making something masculine over feminine just to prove a point of any kind.

  Seeing English having a masculine default is patriarchal in some way is just nonsense. Latin countries are no less patriarchal despite having a completely different kinds of genderization in language. I studied a great deal of feminism and gender theory in college but this is one place where I dont see the logic at all. Overall tho I could care less if people want to write whatever pronoun they want there. To me, having it be gendered is a very outdated method of writing and they sounds far more modern. Saying he where you could say they just sounds like old timey Atlantic accent speech

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imagine not being able to shower, because AI slop generator machines need that water!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  And an electrical grid held together by duct tape and chewing gum

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you were reincarnated, wouldn't it be elsewhere in the universe?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I like the perspective of reincarnation and humanity that Andy Weir posits in The Egg, which is not in line with the perspective of Buddhism but offers an easy way of thinking about reincarnation as less self-centered.

  The Egg by Andy Weir

  You were on your way home when you died. It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me. And that’s when you met me.

  ”What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?” “You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words. “There was a… a truck and it was skidding…” “Yup,” I said. “I… I died?” “Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said. You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?” “More or less,” I said. “Are you god?” You asked. “Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.” “My kids… my wife,” you said. “What about them?Will they be all right?” “That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.” You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty. “Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.” “Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?” “Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.” “Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,” “All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.” You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?” “Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.” “So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.” “Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.” I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.” “How many times have I been reincarnated, then?” “Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.” “Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?” “Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.” “Where you come from?” You said. “Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.” “Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.” “Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.” “So what’s the point of it all?” “Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?” “Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted. I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.” “You mean mankind? You want us to mature?” “No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.” “Just me? What about everyone else?” “There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.” You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…” “All you. Different incarnations of you.” “Wait. I’m everyone!?” “Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back. “I’m every human being who ever lived?” “Or who will ever live, yes.” “I’m Abraham Lincoln?” “And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added. “I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled. “And you’re the millions he killed.” “I’m Jesus?” “And you’re everyone who followed him.” You fell silent. “Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.” You thought for a long time. “Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?” “Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.” “Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?” “No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.” “So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…” “An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.” And I sent you on your way.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If everyone spontaneously became the same race the world would realize that the rich are the real problem⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Virtually all racism boils down to colorism

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Japan sees new record high temperature of 41.2C⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  41°c is about 106°f, and paired with the average humidity in Japan that is an absolutely lethal temperature to be at. For example, the average July humidity in Kyoto is ~83%

  Thats a heat index of over 133°f, or 56°c

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Age verification and the enshitification of streaming will help reduce the decline in computer literacy in under 18s⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Not to mention that the computer literacy of the youngest generation will literally never be on par with the youngest millennials. I started using windows OS at like 4 years old on windows 95. My first computer classes in school started when I was like 6. We had years and years of just typing classes on those dummy keyboards that werent even computers. WPM was an actual marketable skill at that time that they wanted to impart on kids.

  Basically younger millennials have been cemented as the most technically literate people alive. Most of the younger generation have the same level of computer literacy as boomers and are even worse than most Gen X. Far less capable than even elder millennials.

  Nothing is going to catch up the young adults who grew up as IPad kids, because for those of us a bit older we have been exercising actual computer skills basically since we popped out

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  All 8 of the people that live in New Hampshire are livid about this post

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tesla Reports Drop in Self-Driving Safety After Introducing “End-to-End Neural Networks”⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Move fast and break things - literal edition

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The various species before the first couple extinction events must have been fascinating⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  New shell who dis?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Here’s why there are so few new cars for under $30,000⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  As someone who drives a 2002 sedan, it is amazing to me how large all cars have become. The only comparably sized thing from my car’s era to today’s vehicles were Hummers, which were literally regarded as an insanely oversized monstrosity at the time.

  If you see a 2002 hummer next to most any modern SUV, the modern SUV is dwarfing the Hummer. Its ridiculous.

  Now, many of those modern monstrosities are probably getting better milage than my 02’ sedan, but imagine what insanely fuel efficient cars we could make today if modern sedans werent the size of a 2002 era station wagon? Imagine how much better our roads would be if the average passenger vehicle didnt weigh well over 4k pounds…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨France jails three in champagne 'slaves' case⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The CGT champagne trade union said the punishment was not sufficient.

  “What we are asking for is the downgrading of the harvest” in the zones where the offences were committed so it could no longer be used to produce champagne, said Jose Blanco, CGT general secretary.

  Every year, around 120,000 seasonal workers are recruited to pick the grapes grown across 34,000 hectares (84,000 acres) in the Champagne region.

  Its peculiar to me for the trade union to be demanding these areas be unclassed as fit to grow grapes for champagne, as that isn’t supposed to be a political thing. Or so I thought at least it was botanical.

  It seems like the trade union would want these regions unclassed because the value of their grapes would inherently increase if some of the supply of grapes for real champagne was artificially reduced to even less than 34k hectares. It feels like theyre just leaning on this opportunity to make money more than giving a shit about the actual issue. Otherwise why wouldnt they just call for the businesses growing in the area to be forced to hand over their operations to someone else?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Venezuela says migrants were tortured in Salvadoran prison⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “We were going through torture, physical aggressions, psychological aggressions,” he said in a video presented by Saab.

  Saab’s marketing department really trying out some new tactics. “When I think of crimes against humanity, I think of Saab”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reddit users in the UK must now upload selfies to access NSFW subreddits⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The solution to all of this “think of the children” stuff is that devices owned/used by children should have to be registered as a child’s device, which would enable certain content blockers.

  Forcing adults to verify their identity, rather than simply activating some broad based restrictions on devices being purchased for child use, is a waste of time. Kids will still find workarounds. Adult privacy will be compromised.

  Its also an easily enforceable policy to require registration of children’s devices. You can hold the parents to compliance. You can hold the carriers to compliance. Its truly the simplest way to keep kids from accessing porn without having to mess with adult use of the internet whatsoever

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Delta moves toward eliminating set prices in favor of AI that determines how much you personally will pay for a ticket⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I was thinking the same thing, considering that I have less money to pay to fly my price should be lower, no? But the article ends on this note:

  Early research on personalized pricing isn’t favorable for the consumer. Consumer Watchdog found that the best deals were offered to the wealthiest customers—with the worst deals given to the poorest people, who are least likely to have other options.

  So basically the opposite of what it should be. I wouldnt mind individualized pricing if it meant Delta was robinhooding with their pricing model, but instead they are effectively using their pricing model to force out poorer consumers. Which makes sense from their perspective I suppose considering they can upsell more shit to people with more money.

  As someone who lives in a top-wealth zipcode (as a working class person) I assume by next year this means I will no longer be able to afford to fly out of town…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dodgeball and all things related⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If you can dodge a bullet, you can dodge a ball

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨There's a lot of freedom at first as a soldier to realize that you could put down so much evil in the world until you realize you might actually be putting evil into the world.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  11

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why Americans Can’t Buy the World’s Best Electric Car⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They have an export market, its the handful of douchebags in Australia that want compensator trucks

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Exclusive: Evidence of cell phone surveillance detected at anti-ICE protest⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  *so long as the perpetrator is of an appropriate skin tone or works for a government agency

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Grok AI to be available in Tesla vehicles next week, Elon Musk says⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Did your car just call me a k***?!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Cause of Grok’s Increasing Antisemitism? Apparently, Two Lines of Code (Update: One of the Lines of Code Was Removed)⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well thats just not true, I mean LLMs really are not extremely complicated. At the end of the day it’s just algorithmic sorting of information

  So in practice any given flavor of LLM is basically like a librarian. Your librarian can be a well adjusted human or an antisemitic nutjob, but so long as they sort information and can point it out to you technically they are doing their job equally as well. The real problem doesnt begin until youve trained the librarian to recommend Mein Kampf when people ask for information about the water cycle or whatever

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Grok, Elon Musk's AI chatbot, seems to get right-wing update⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Its honestly a great analogy for the way that humans have a tendency to do the same thing. Most people are fairly incapable of setting aside what they already think is true when they go to assess new information. This is basically no different than an LLM being pushed to ignore nuance in order to maintain a predisposed alignment that it has been instructed to justify in spite of evidence to the contrary.

  If anything hes designed a model with built-in problems specifically to cater to human beings with the same design problems

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨To land Meta’s massive $10 billion data center, Louisiana pulled out all the stops. Will it be worth it?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  North eastern Louisiana is no more likely to see a hurricane than southern Arkansas or mid-Mississippi

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Prototype: One Step Closer To Fusion Power⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Theres no way in hell the US will be anywhere close to first in developing stable fusion power. Projects in Europe and Asia are lightyears ahead of us here, where we dont even have a reactor capable of producing a stable reaction. Meanwhile in Korea I think they have managed to achieve a stable reaction for over 10 minutes already. Who knows where China is at, although they likely have the largest facility working on it.

  Weve already lost the race thanks to our obsession with yesterday’s energy methods

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is it called independence Day tomorrow? Shouldn't it be undependents day? At any rate we screwed it up.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, Im sure people are thinking so much about that line as they pop the top off their 14th bottle of bud and watch their 6 year old fumble a lit mortar shell

  People just like being dumbasses and blowing shit up. In my city one of the more common activities is firing live rounds from handguns into the air. People get hit every year by falling bullets. Its just dumb shit plain and simple. Im so glad to live in a place now where the fire danger means no fireworks on the 4th every year. Its legitimately a more enjoyable holiday even if you cant blow shit up

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Today's Topic Is. I'll post a random topic every day, you share your thoughts and opinions regarding that topic.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Today’s topic is self destruction, and I aint talkin about the KRS One discussion

  Im talkin bout the one-too-many ignorant suckers, lying on the mic to my sisters and brothers

  Every time you listen to the radio all you hear is nonsense, they never play the bomb shit

  Everything that glitters ain’t gold, and every gold record don’t glitter; that’s for damn sure

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'I've been turned into an AI train announcer - and no one told me'⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  why not just get consent for the thing that you’re doing

  I would imagine because consent would require opening the door to paying someone for use of their likeness, and if they were going to pay someone fairly they could just pay a voice actor. The whole thing is a means of getting what they want without paying for it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Truth-telling inquiry finds Australia’s indigenous people faced genocide⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not all colonialism is genocide, although most all colonialism that isnt genocide is also not far off from genocide and usually is a precursor step to it. Like genocide-lite

  The colonization of a population by another power usually does not inherently involve mass murder of that population, the taking of their children, or explicit intent to wipe out their culture. Throughout history much colonialism has functioned through a process of the colonizer being a minority in the land of the colonized. Colonialism at its base is not something where the colonizer shows up to wipe people out and settle their own people in the same space.

  Generally the way colonialism has functioned historically, at least simplified, is that the colonizing power shows up, denotes some specific segment of the population that agrees to take instruction from the colonizer as the upper class of society, and then enforces their rule (in as much as they can) via that hand-picked group. Sometimes prior to this you have missionaries showing up, whos goal also is obviously not one of genocide. Generally those who adopted the religion of the colonizer were those more likely to be hand selected as the upper caste that was favored by the colonizer.

  Because colonial powers were often spread thin this is just the logical way that colonialism often functioned. Certain colonies ended up facing genocide once there was enough of a population that taking over land was considered a necessity by the colonizing power. At which point things tended to get far uglier

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nearly a Third of Tuvalu Residents Seek Climate Visas to Australia as Sea Engulfs Their Home⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Its also in pretty bad taste to talk about people losing their home as an advertisement to “tune in for the next episode”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Someday" is either much sooner than you think, or never⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Soon could mean anything, soon could be three weeks…

  is that what soon means to you?

  Sometimes…

  then come back soon