donuts
@donuts@kbin.social
- Comment on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sues Meta, citing chatbot’s reply as evidence of shadowban 5 months ago:
He lets the worm do the thinking.
- Comment on The Self-Checkout Nightmare May Finally Be Ending 9 months ago:
Well if you really want me to buy even more shit online (let's be real, from Amazon) this is a good way to do it.
At best I don't like small talk or dealing with other people through meaningless interactions. At worst I might have minor social anxiety. I hugely prefer to just walk into a shop, grab what I need, check myself out, and leave.
At this point I'm also just as fast (if not faster) than the paid cashiers and baggers (who need and deserve chairs or stools by the way).
So yeah, if self checkout goes away, I'm buying as much stuff online as possible and generally making fewer trips to the store.
- Comment on I dont understand why I have to bring a bottle to the restaurant 10 months ago:
Looks pretty heave g-good, Sweden...
- Comment on I dont understand why I have to bring a bottle to the restaurant 10 months ago:
Deserved revenge for the fact that the Japanese put ketchup in spaghetti.
- Comment on Instead of only voting for one candidate we should be able to upvote or downvote each candidate 10 months ago:
Afaik, you don't have to rank every candidate in most RCV systems. So If you don't like someone, you can just leave them unranked.
- Comment on Instead of only voting for one candidate we should be able to upvote or downvote each candidate 10 months ago:
As a note, Ranked Choice still has bullet voting. About 30% of voters in a ranked choice election bullet vote.
I think that stat could easily be attributed to a lack of familiarity with what is, to a lot of people, a new and different method of voting. You'd be surprised how many people don't adequately read or understand directions.
In other words, what you're describing isn't inherent to the system itself and it could be much worse.
I'd guess that the number of people who bullet vote will decrease as the level of education and familiarity around "new" voting systems like RCV increases.
- Comment on Spotify doesn't make profit from music streaming, despite having over 400M monthly active users, because it pays two-thirds of all its revenue to the rights holders. 10 months ago:
I call bullshit. Yeah I'm sure they spend 2/3 of their income on rights holders, mainly Joe Rogan, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift.
The average musician isn't making shit, and yet the spotify execs are sipping champagne.
- Comment on None of these anchors are real: Channel 1 plans for AI to generate news, broadcasters 10 months ago:
Wonderful. Nothing will help people differentiate between real, trustworthy news and fake opinion-laden disinformation like AI generated people and content!
/s for the kids in the back.
- Comment on Polls on reactions to Threads 10 months ago:
I can see from your other post that you're talking about Facebook's role in the Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar, right? I think this part of the wikipedia article is relevant to the conversation:
The internet.org initiative was brought to Myanmar in 2015. Myanmar's relatively recent democratic transition did not provide the country with substantial time to form professional and reliable media outlets free from government intervention. Furthermore, approximately 1% of Myanmar's residents had internet access before internet.org. As a result, Facebook was the primary source of information and without verifiable professional media options, Facebook became a breeding ground for hate speech and disinformation. "Rumors circulating among family or friends’ networks on Facebook were perceived as indistinguishable from verified news by its users."[227] Frequent anti-Rohingya sentiments included high Muslim birthrates, increasing economic influence, and plans to takeover the country. Myanmar's Facebook community was also nearly completely unmonitored by Facebook, who at the time only had two Burmese-speaking employees. [Emphasis added by me, btw.]
Like I said above, I got off Facebook more than a decade ago and I don't use their products. As a platform it has been very well documented that Facebook has been a hive for disinformation and social unrest in [probably] every country and language on Earth. You and I might avoid Facebook and Meta like a plague, but the sad truth is that Facebook has become ubiquitous all over the world for all kinds of communication and business. Weirdos like us are here on the fediverse, but the average person has never even heard of this shit, don't you agree?
So what's my point? Why is any of that relevant?
As true as it is that Facebook was complicit in the atrocities in Myanmar (as well as social unrest and chaos on a global scale), a key component there is centralization, imo.
There are an estimated ~7,000 languages on Earth today across ~200 countries. To put it bluntly, what I'm saying is that content moderation across every language and culture on Earth is infeasible, if not straight-up impossible. Facebook will never be able to do it, nor will Google, X, Bluesky, Tiktok, Microsoft, Amazon, or any other company. In light of that it's actually shocking that Facebook had 2 Burmese speakers among their staff in the first place, considering many companies have 0. In other words, there is no single centralized social network on Earth who can combat against global disinformation, hate speech, etc. I think we can all agree to that. Hell, even Meta's staff would probably agree to that.
So what's the solution to disinformation, hate speech and civil unrest?
Frankly I'm not sure that there is one, simple solution, as the openness and freedom of the internet will always allow for someone, somewhere, to say and do bad things. But at the same time I strongly believe that federation and decentralization can be at least a part of the solution, as it give communities of every nation and language on Earth the power and agency to manage and moderate their own social networks.
I think you and I probably feel similarly about Facebook (and, for me at least, Tiktok, Instagram, X, and other toxic centralized corporate social networks that put profit about all else). After all, that's why we're talking here instead of there, right? I would much rather have everyone just leave Facebook for somewhere that is owned and controlled by individual communities. But that's simply not in our power. And so, at least as I see it, ActivityPub becoming a widely-adopted standard for inter-network communication at least creates more opportunity for decentralization and community-moderation.
- Comment on Polls on reactions to Threads 10 months ago:
For me personally there are two main forces at play here:
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I generally dislike and distrust Facebook/Meta as a company, I don't use their products, and I think my life is better off because of it. I acknowledge that they have also been an accessory to a lot of toxic shit, such as political/emotional manipulation, privacy and user data violations, etc.
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Having said that, as someone who values and supports the idea of a free and decentralized internet built on top of open protocols, I also recognize that it's a very good thing when some of the larger players in internet technology adopt new free and open standards like ActivityPub.
I don't really know for sure, but I'd have to guess that the venn diagram overlap of people who care about the fediverse and people who genuinely like Meta/Facebook/Instagram/etc, is pretty fucking narrow. We'd be fools to ignore the real harm that this company and the people who run it have done (or at least catalyzed). And still, it'd also be pretty unfair and ignorant to brush off the things that Meta has done that range from being harmless to even being positive, such as maintaining and committing to some very popular and important open source projects. There is some nuance here, should we choose to see it...
So when I look at it objectively I land on feeling something between skepticism and cautious optimism.
I'm perfectly willing to call Meta out for doing bad things while acknowledging when they do things that are good. And as someone who believes that centralized social media is toxic and bad, and who also believes that a federated, community-driven internet is in all of our mutual best interest, I'm willing to give Meta a chance to participate as long as they are a good faith participant (which kind of remains to be seen, of course).
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- Comment on Grok refuses to answer a prompt, says its a violation of the "OpenAI Policy" 11 months ago:
I'm don't think I am.
The internet had a ton of legitimate and potential users too, but that didn't prevent the dot com bubble from bursting.
Not only is AI built on a shakey house of cards of stolen IP and unlicensed writing, artwork, music and other data, but there are also way too many players in the space and an amount of investment that, in my opinion, goes way beyond the reality of what AI can achieve.
- Comment on Grok refuses to answer a prompt, says its a violation of the "OpenAI Policy" 11 months ago:
AI is looking like the biggest bubble in tech history and stuff like this really ain't helping.
- Comment on [deleted] 11 months ago:
Part of my core philosophy is to never let other people define you. Define yourself and let other people define themselves too.
- Comment on Car dealers say they can’t sell EVs, tell Biden to slow their rollout 11 months ago:
You're not gonna sell shit with jacked up sky high prices, even more so in a time of high interest rates. We see your lots are full of unsold cars, both ICE and EV, so maybe it's time to bring prices back down to Earth.
We really ought to change the laws to allow for direct-to-consumer car sales. Dealerships are scummy motherfuckers who are perfectly happy to be a middleman and rip people off.
- Comment on Not if the lack of grammar and education gets you first... 11 months ago:
Probably because they vote... every damn time.
These are the exact type of people that sit at home watching Fox News all day, every day. Getting outraged at ridiculous made up controversies and big lies that are designed to convince them that the only way to "save this country" and solve all of their obvious problems is to vote Republican. And when the Republicans get in power of all three branches, like Trump for example, now it's the "deep state" and the Democrats that are holding him back and the answer is yet again, more Republicans.
That's why I personally will never understand the people who intentionally don't vote. The dumbest, most brainwashed motherfuckers in the entire country are going to show up and help put their corrupt overlords in place, and y'all are just gonna let them pull the rope? That's something i'll never understand.
- Comment on Why can't I argue against claims of suffering? 11 months ago:
Clearly not. There are a thousand ways to read a person. And they work pretty well.
Unless you can read minds, which you can't (even with your tinfoil hat on), then you literally cannot know things which are not somehow expressed (through words, facial expressions, body language, actions, etc.). Words are the most direct way that the vast majority of human beings express themselves, as things like body language and action require third-party interpretation, which obviously adds a second layer of subjectivity, and considerable flaws in terms of misinterpretation, bias, etc.
I stated that it is a privileged class of information. One that is excluded from scrutiny because we declare scrutiny, in this case, untrustworthy.
Simply restarting your opinion may make you feel correct (which you're entitled to feel), but it doesn't actually change the objective truth:
Feelings are "excluded from scrutiny" not because "we [who?] declare scrutiny untrustworthy", but because of the simple objective truth (that almost every human being has intuitively understood since the dawn of time) that the internal thoughts and feelings of others are fundamentally unknowable, and that we rely on expression to have a window into the minds of others.
If you believe that's not true, then answer this:
If I tell you that I'm feeling hungry right now, what basis could you possibly have to tell me that I'm not?
If you can't answer that question, then you straight up have no argument in the first place, and that alone answers your original question.
So now I've lead you to water, and it's up to you whether you drink or not. I'm not going to waste any more of my time on this.
- Comment on Why can't I argue against claims of suffering? 11 months ago:
Of course people lie, and they could easily lie about how they're feeling. But what possible basis do you have to argue against what someone else says they're feeling?
If I tell you that I'm feeling hungry, for example, how could you possibly make an argument that I'm not?
You could see that I just ate a sandwich, but that doesn't mean I don't still feel hungry. In fact, you could see that I just ate 10 sandwiches, but it's entirely possible for someone to still feel hungry, based on how the brain and human psyche work.
The best case arguement is that a person's actions are seemingly inconsistent with a certain stated feeling: for example a widdow who says that she's crippled with sorrow, only to be caught going on dates with other men. But again, you're not arguing feelings there, you're arguing an opinion about the consistency of behavior.
The feelings of others are fundamentally unknowable to us. Expression (words, facial expressions, body language, behavior, etc) is our only window into the feelings of others.
- Comment on Why can't I argue against claims of suffering? 11 months ago:
You see how this creates a privileged class of information, right?
No. It simply reflects the reality that human feelings are only knowable to others by means of expression.
If I tell you that I'm feeling hungry right now, what basis could you possibly have to tell me that I'm not?
You have none. How I feel inside is unknowable to others. It is a fundamental truth of subjectivity.
Any information based upon a claim of suffering becomes inscrutable.
Objective truth and facts cannot be argued, only uncovered.
Likewise feelings, while subjective, cannot be argued, only expressed. (Again, because the feelings of others are unknowable.)
If you want to argue something, then I recommend arguing subjective opinions, and hopefully you do so based on a bedrock of facts.
That’s a good argument for disallowing it. It kind of breaks the system.
Disallowing what? Feelings? And what system?
- Comment on Why can't I argue against claims of suffering? 11 months ago:
I'm not even sure exactly what you're asking here, but emotional states like suffering are subjective expressions of feeling, not opinions.
Trying to arguing about some else's experiences with regards to suffering is like trying to argue that someone isn't happy, sad, cold, warm, hungry, thirsty, tired, scared, etc.
As always the ultimate authority on how a person thinks and feels is the person themselves. In other words, you can argue opinions (hopefully based on a foundation of unarguable, objective facts), but it makes no sense to try to argue against another person's feelings.
- Comment on OpenAI, Microsoft hit with new author copyright lawsuit over AI training 11 months ago:
What's more, people have agency that allows them to seek new information on their own and they form subjective opinions.
As human beings we also spend every moment of our lives taking in all kinds of various sensory information that informs our eventual character and mind (and that's to say nothing of our individual mental/neurological nature). We also have an imperfect and complex ability to retain information.
When a human being expresses a thought they are expressing it based on a lifetime of broad experiences that are unique to their specific circumstances. Similarly, when a human being paints a painting of a tree they are doing it not based purely on some library of other people's art, but also based on their own lifetime of experience.
People who equate "artificial intelligence" with human intelligence and lived experience are completely off base.
- Comment on OpenAI, Microsoft hit with new author copyright lawsuit over AI training 11 months ago:
This is fearmongering bullshit that incorrectly equates machine learning with human intelligence and is totally ignorant of the law.
I get it, you want to use AI. Don't worry, it'll stick around.
But the free ride of big companies owned by millionaires and billionaires helping themselves to every piece of data and knowledge that happens to be on the internet somewhere is going to end. Every bubble bursts eventually, and hopefully AI comes out better in the end.
- Comment on DDoS attack takes down Blender.org servers. 11 months ago:
Absolutely batshit to attack a piece of free and open source software that everybody loves. I guess they must have struggled with the donut tutorial.
- Comment on YouTube Launches Experimental AI Feature With Voice Clones of Major Artists 11 months ago:
The thing I've found with AI tech bros is that they're rarely interested or informed about any creative process, and instead are much more interested in typing shit into a web form that spits out some garbage that they can pretend that they created.
It's like arguing with people over NFTs or whatever, we could get down to the technical details and the merits/flaws with the concept and current implementation, but at a certain point it's like trying to tell a flat-earther that the world is round or an anti-vaxxer that vaccines have saved millions of lives over the last century. I really don't want to be an ass to any of them, but after months of trying to get through to them I'm kind of over trying to talk them through it.
- Comment on The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software is Unsustainable 11 months ago:
If you develop software for a living that means you spend the bulk of your work week writing code for money, probably for a for-profit business writing closed-source, proprietary software.
And please don't get me wrong... That's not to invalidate the volunteer work that you've done in your free time for whatever FOSS projects that you've contributed to. That's a commendable and generous use of your free time and as a FOSS enthusiast I appreciate whatever you've done.
But now just imagine if you could spend your work week writing code for FOSS projects, while still making a decent living for yourself or your family. Imagine how much more FOSS code you could write with entire weeks of time instead of just the odd weekend here and there. Imagine how much effort you could dedicate towards maintaining larger projects and reviewing code from other contributors to accelerate the pace of development. Imagine how much more, high quality FOSS software would be available to everybody to use, for free, all over the world if more people like you could spend their days writing FOSS code instead of writing proprietary code.
That's the point of what I'm saying.
Obviously not every project can afford to pay every developer for their one-off patch that they submit on a random weekend. Most projects don't have the funding to do that, and even if they did the logistics of it are unreasonable. But that's not really the point. More sustainable funding for FOSS means that more developers would be able to spend the bulk of their time writing FOSS code and maintaining FOSS projects. Large FOSS projects like Blender absolutely rely on this concept.
- Comment on YouTube Launches Experimental AI Feature With Voice Clones of Major Artists 11 months ago:
Whoops... Sorry if I gave you the impression that I gave a fuck what you want.
Please direct your future response to ChatGPT.
- Comment on The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software is Unsustainable 11 months ago:
I'm not saying I think it's wrong, I am just curious how and why people believe that FOSS development should be funded.
Why FOSS should development should be funded is the easy part... At scale, FOSS maintainership and development often becomes a full-time job, just like any full-time software development job.
Users file bug reports of varying degrees of urgency. Community contributors submit merge requests (patches) that need to be tested, reviewed, iterated upon, and merged. Changes need to be documented and releases need to be made and delivered to users all over the world. Finally, for projects to improve, a future direction for the program needs to be planned and features need to be designed so that the project isn't just aimlessly stagnating. That's why people are paid full-time salaries to work on projects like Linux or Blender, because otherwise it is almost impossible for FOSS projects to handle a large number of users and contributors. (There are exceptions to this, but keep in mind that they are exceptions)
Lots of volunteer contributors obviously do good work for FOSS projects for free out of pure generosity and wanting to make things better. I appreciate that and I think we should all appreciate that. But unless they are independently wealthy, they are very unlikely to have the time to commit to spending 32 hours or more per week on contributing to FOSS. In our current world, most people have to make a living and they spend most of their time doing just that. They might have enough free time and energy to write a one-off feature/bug patch to some FOSS project, and that's a great and noble thing, but they likely do not have infinite time to continually maintain or develop a large project.
How FOSS projects get funded is the tricky part, because FOSS funding mainly relies on corporate support (as in Red Hat paying developers to maintain and work on the Fedora Project, for example) and individual user donations (like the ones that you might find on the Blender Development Fund, for example). Sadly many users don't value FOSS, as can be seen in this thread, and so they may never see the need to contribute to FOSS development funding.
I don't understand the idea that people should be paid for FOSS work.
In an ideal world, nobody would need money for anything (food, water, shelter, education, healthcare, infrastructure). We would all do exactly what we want, when we want, and society would just take care of itself.
In the slightly less than ideal world that we live in, everybody should be compensated for work that they do, and people who volunteer their extra time for free to some project or ideal should at the very least be appreciated.
title is saying FOSS is unsustainable but we are here decades later with Linux the dominant server platform (I was there when this was very much in doubt) and tons of our infrastructure continues to run on free and open software.
Much of which, including Linux, is funded by companies and individuals so that talented and knowledgeable developers can afford to spend the bulk of their weeks maintaining these projects. What would happen to if you dropped Linux's funding to $0/month? Obviously development and maintenance would no longer be sustainable.
Sadly not every project is as well-funded as Linux obviously, and there are important pieces of software at every level that are falling victim to the tragedy of the commons because, in some cases, FOSS development at scale is not sustainably funded.
- Comment on The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software is Unsustainable 11 months ago:
Unless you develop FOSS, in which case clearly random entitled bitches on the internet get to tell you what to do with your time and what it is worth, judging by these comments.
- Comment on The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software is Unsustainable 11 months ago:
That wasn't an answer to my question.
What do you do for a living and why don't you do it for free?
- Comment on YouTube Launches Experimental AI Feature With Voice Clones of Major Artists 11 months ago:
Holy fuck. Nobody fucking wants this shit.
- Comment on The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software is Unsustainable 11 months ago:
What do you do for a living and why don't you do it for free?