Do you really think some white middle class middle Americans that only vaguely care about Palestine weren’t moved a notch against voting for Harris? There was percentage of them that was demotivated by a straw that broke the camels back.
Or more significantly that young new voters weren’t moved in this direction by pro-palestinian tiktok?
Sure, I wouldn’t put all the blame on that, but some of the blame goes there.
Also I fucking hate Leftists who “never vote” anyway so fuck them regardless.
Artistry is not simply the assembly of images. And good artistry requires intention and expression, typically in order to communicate a novel idea.
How does that refute my statement? I never claimed an assembly of images = art.
How long do I need to analyze a piece of material to determine whether it is a real message or a procedural generation? How do I discern real conversations from automated prompts my partner never meant to send? How do I manage my own response to a deluge of clumsy attempts at manipulation?
This isn’t an issue of AI content being “art” or not. This is an issue of AI content being industrially generated spam content.
I don’t think even the people who unironically call themselves “AI artists”, as delusional as they are, would defend using AI to manipulate people or generate ad spam with it. (maybe some of them would)
This stuff doesn’t exist without commercialization precisely because of the volume of material and resources necessary to make it work.
I think again you are missing what my point was. I was talking about this at an individual usage level. A person could load up a local model as is and generate some stuff for use at home. No transactions occurred.
As for how generative AI got to this point, I don’t think even then commercialization was an inevitable requirement for its existence. That’s how it played out to a certain degree, but technology frequently is created by massive government grants historically. The internet itself is an example of this.
I think the discourse around AI Images as to whether they are art is irrelevant.
AI generated images are images. Images can serve a purpose and use. Whether its “art” should never have been the point people attempted to defend.
Even without commercialization, people make AI generated images for their own personal use. No money has to exchange hands at any point for someone to make use of generated AI images.
People who unironically call themselves “AI Artists” are easy targets.
Microsoft’s Copilot funnily enough actually provides sources that it pulls from the internet if you ask it to.
This is the reason I’m a Mutualist/Market-Socialist.
I think that its a system that metaphorically is trained in Aikido against some of human’s worst elements and maximizes the positive of human being’s behavior.
I enjoy Sudoku, but that is something I learned. There is no “enjoy sudoko” element within me that I did not put there myself.
You didn’t enjoy learning Sudoku in the first place? Did you have to force yourself? Did someone teach you how to enjoy sodoku after you learned how to actually play?
Maybe there isn’t a specific Sudoku drive in human beings but that’s not what intrinsically means. There is an intrinsic drive to follow your natural intellectual and physical interests that do not have to be taught. They are variable depending on the person’s personal inclinations, but you are not “trained” to enjoy something. Even as seemingly fundamental like reading. You might have to learn how to read first, but that’s not being “trained to enjoy” reading. Whether you enjoy it depends on the type of person you are.
Like, if I saw someone doing something that looks fun or interesting, I’d want to participate intrinsically.
If someone offered me money to participate I would be extrinsically motivated.
They did. Everyone I knew back in the Windows 3.1 days already had computers. Most of those people didn’t have Windows, and used standalone applications. The increase in ownership came when hardware prices finally fell enough for them to be affordable. Windows development was a result of that uptick, not the cause.
I mean, maybe, price is obviously a compelling aspect here. Its hard to separate correlation and causation, though I’ll hand you that price was probably more compelling.
That said, the people you knew who already owned computers were part of a minority, only about 15% of American households had a computer when Windows 3.1 released.
Dude, in a previous job I had a superior aggressively refuse to let me teach him how to do some extremely basic things on his computer (he’d just call me over to do it whenever he needed it done) and told me he did not know what an internet browser was (he used one everyday).
Now, I did not understand his thought process, but he exists. There are 100% people who understand the basics but experience intense cognitive stress at the mere sight of a command line.
The only things that people “intrinsically” want are food and fornication. Everything else, they have been taught and trained.
EVERYTHING? I enjoy doing things that aren’t eating and sex on a intrinsic level that I was never trained to enjoy. I just… wanted to do those things. A lot of things are intrinsically fun that are not eating and sex.
The training they have received from Microsoft domination has been “don’t learn how to use a computer”.
Why didn’t people adopt personal computers en masse before Windows came to be then? After Windows 3.0, personal ownership of computers more than doubled over the course of 5-6 years and then continued to balloon, speeding up adoption well beyond the previous decade.
Look, I’m not a fan of Microsoft either but this is conspiracism.
Microsoft is not the reason I believe its a pipedream to turn people into computer techs. Its a cold hard reality.
Even particularly smart people have to want to be computer techs. I work with teachers, genuinely smart people, who have zero desire or motivation to learn computer use outside how it can help them teach in a fairly “if its not broke don’t fix it” mentality. They aren’t incurious but they have limited time and resources and they use such elsewhere. My attempts to get them to even try Linux Mint has thus far failed, the idea that I could get them to learn CLI is absurd.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe even dim wits could learn to be computer techs and use a command line, but that requires them to want that. Most people do not intrinsically desire that.
What is your goal? Are you content with Linux being niche?
If not, what group do you think this appeals to?
The casual device user continues to ignore Windows desktops and use their phone let alone Linux at this point.
The normie desktop user who just wants a internet browser and basic office software can easily be won over to Linux Mint. You advocating everything be CLI based will kill that.
The casual desktop enthusiast & PC gamer will get irritated and impatient and go back to comfy Windows. They mostly just want their games to run smoothly and maybe look pretty. Maybe install an application that does something moderately technical for them with tweaks here and there.
You already have the hardcore techy users. They don’t need to be converted.
In my opinion, Linux and its various distro’s main goal ought to be to undermine for-profit OS. Not to turn everyone into computer techs. The latter is a pipe dream anyway.
Look, on many things, we probably agree. Maybe even more important things.
And I don’t even love this comic, its just, fine, its whatever.
That said I upvoted this comic to spite you and your comment here, because I don’t like your sentiment that people can’t like and share things that they like because your hipster instinct kicked in.
The average “not a computer person” does not own a computer at all, they use their smartphone for literally everything
Absolutely. If anything, this reinforces my thought towards many Linux evangelists. Hell, I am arguably a Linux Evangelist myself, but I know realistically the biggest group of people Linux has a shot at getting on board (that aren’t already) are the “middle group”. People who are semi-techy who insist on having and using a desktop but still want to be able to do things as easily right up front as they could with a new Windows OS. And this is the group many Linux users seem to aggressively despise for a lack of purity.
This group in particular is made up of a lot of “casual enthusiasts” and PC gamers, which is probably why the Steam Deck represented such a huge bump in linux usage.
I use both Windows and Linux. I also mess around with github programs here and there and they almost all require use of a command line to install or manipulate. And because a command line intrinsically is going to inform you way too little or way too much about what you are doing I end up having way more technical issues because I don’t realize I’m missing a dependency or I glazed over an error that popped up in a sea of text during installation.
Linux’s leaning on CLI is good for extremes: ultra-techy programmers and perfectionists and the exact opposite: people who just want internet and a word processor (who will install like basically nothing anyway so CLI wont bother them and probably keep them from breaking something in a GUI settings page).
People in the middle who are semi-techy end up annoyed because if they want to do some middle of the road changes to their system they have to use a command line or even code something themselves. Instead of just using a search engine to find the 1 out of a billion different little windows based applications that already exist to do the small yet very specific thing to a “good enough” level. Which just requires a minute or two of internet research, clicking download, waiting a bit, then installing a thing. Some of those tasks you can do while doing something else.
Or yes, maybe they end up needing to edit an ini file or a registry file (very rarely in the latter case).
Basically I’m talking about tech users that always use the path of least resistance rather than the most advanced or custom. People who want to do 20% of the work to get 80% of the results.
As a Windows & Linux user, I can, in the same way that I get that car people love working on cars.
I still really don’t ever want to work on cars but I understand.
I largely use technology of any kind for the applications of its use, not because of an intrinsic desire to knee deep in technical work.
I kind of mildly disliked them. I thought they were too sweet and thought the texture was kind of unpleasant. I was usually able to just scarf them down anyway if I was hungry enough.
TBH, my feelings on them have only evolved to mildly enjoy them.
Lightly edited copy paste of my response elsewhere:
Creation’s are not that of only the individual creator, they come from a common progress, culture, and history. When individual creator’s copyright their works and their works become a major part of common culture they slice up culture for themselves, dictating how it may be used against the wishes of the masses. Desiring this makes them unworthy of having any cultural control IMO. They become just as much of an authoritarian as a lord, landlord, or capitalist.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that copyright also harms individual creators once culture has been carved up: Producing brand new stories inevitably are in some way derivative of previous existing works so because they are locked out of the existing IP unless they sign a deal with the devil they’re usually doomed to failure due to no ability to have a grip on cultural relevance.
Now, desiring the ability to make a living being an individual creator? That’s completely reasonable. Copyright is not the solution however.
"Thing is, land ownership also served a purpose before lord’s/landlord’s/capitalists decided to expand it to the point of controlling and dictating the lives of serfs/renters/workers. "
Creation’s are not that of only the individual creator, they come from a common progress, culture, and history. When individual creator’s copyright their works and their works become a major part of common culture they slice up culture for themselves, dictating how it may be used against the wishes of the masses. Desiring this makes them unworthy of having any cultural control IMO. They become just as much of an authoritarian as a lord, landlord, or capitalist.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that copyright also harms individual creators once culture has been carved up: Producing brand new stories inevitably are in some way derivative of previous existing works so because they are locked out of the existing IP unless they sign a deal with the devil they’re usually doomed to failure due to no ability to have a grip on cultural relevance.
Now, desiring the ability to make a living being an individual creator? That’s completely reasonable. Copyright is not the solution however.
I suspect your assessment is at best subconsciously biased and at worst in bad faith. You’ll need to elaborate on the mechanism of how they’d “keep copyright as restrictive as possible” in a world where it is not possible to copyright AI generated works.
Because the propaganda surrounding Zionism and the level of support for Zionism overwhelmingly is on the republican’s side. Zionist democrats are primarily in the leadership not voting base. Zionist democrats among the voting base who would legitimately not vote for Harris if she had said she intended to reign in Israel (which she implied non-noncommittally to anyway) is undoubtedly smaller than pro-palestinian activists. Netanyahu is not even a popular leader among Israelis.
Even if the stance of reigning in Netanyahu was unpopular among Zionist democrats, there wouldn’t be nearly the same level of rage and zeal over such a move.
Now, I would say this was a tactical mistake on the part of democratic leaders in terms of winning, but more than likely their allegiance to Zionism is strong enough that they were clearly willing to increase the risk of losing in order to keep the political discourse more favorable to Israel if possible and did not want to give in rhetorically. And they paid for it. We all are going to pay for it.
Make no mistake, I fucking hate them for it. But I can be repulsed and disgusted by more than one group of people.
You are making the grave mistake of overestimating people with in-group thinking. Most people who are voting around hot button issues like this are not deeply educated and even so being educated on world affairs doesn’t prevent irrational and emotional decision making.
That said, I wasn’t blaming Arabs and Muslims in my post maybe you should reread it.
I’m talking about the net effect of discouraging or demotivating non-arab & non-muslim democratic voters with “A vote for Harris is a vote for genocide” I’ve seen this type of propaganda first hand in real life.
Guilt is a strong (de)motivator. Just as much as outrage (maybe more so). Palestinian activists utilized both to largely harm Harris’s campaign.
Its not racism because I’m not directing my blame at a racial group. I’m directing my ire at dipshit white people who watch too much Tik Tok and decided not to vote because they did not want to “be complicit in genocide”. Just as much as dipshit Arab and Muslims who thought that it earnestly did not matter for Palestine who won. Or the portion that thought Trump might legitimately be better for Palestine. Even if most Arabs & Muslims who voted did in fact mostly vote Harris basically every minority group including them shifted towards Trump in 2024 compared to previous elections.
And make no mistake, I’m well aware that most white people voted Trump. My antipathy towards them is much much stronger, but I don’t want to yell at them and call them stupid. I’ve said on this very platform that if Canada (or Mexico) and the US legitimately had some kind of war and I had to pick I’d fight on the Mexico/Canada side and probably seek out MAGA homes and do some very not good things to those people. Maybe things international organizations would view… poorly. Most MAGA are white.
I just also feel zero motivation to assist people who helped the fascists win. Even if the blame on them is only partial. I wouldn’t commit violence against them but I’m not lifting a fucking finger for them either. They made their fucking bed.
Same with the non-voter people who suddenly realized its bad for them personally that Trump won. Whether they’re moderate Republicans, Centrists, “apolitical”, or anti-electorialist labor.
There are very few good people left by my count after this election.