The fact that annas archive exists despite how fucked up everything is right now gives me hope. Every time I start to feel cynical about the future I remind myself that there’s people out there working to preserve the art and culture of our modern era with all the most powerful corporations and governments working against them, and they’re succeeding.
Anyway, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Said model contains gigabytes of a bunch of weights that can never go back to the exact words of the book.
And yet, the tech bros do have access to the exact words. The only difference is that they don’t share, instead choosing to extract value from it by training an LLM and (eventually, hypothetically) turn a profit. The product is created by processing the intellectual labor of billions of people into a formless amalgam of human creativity, which is then exploited for their private benefit.
If we’re pirates then they’re privateers, and I know which I respect less.
That’s just the imperialists telling on themselves. They don’t consider what is Taiwan’s as Taiwan’s, but as being made exclusively for the US’ benefit.
Agreed about Machado, but Maduro isn’t this populist champion of the working class he presents himself as. I’m about as convinced of Maduro’s commitment to socialism as I am of Trump’s commitment to “affordability.” He’s just another corrupt campist, willing to stoop to any means necessary to secure and consolidate his own power under the delusion that it’s the only way to resist US imperialism (while doing little to nothing to actually improve the living standards and autonomy of the working class).
I’m down. I recently read The Dispossessed and have been wanting to read some of Ursula’s other works.
I would like to know some specifics. For one, where is this charter you mentioned? Another, is there some kind of technology that you’re attempting to pitch to activist groups or are you just describing organizational strategies using computer science jargon? If there is actually something tangible that you’re presenting here then your communication skills need some serious work.
If this is meant to be a call to action it contains way too much technical jargon and not enough straightforward instruction. What is it you expect people to do after reading this? You can’t recruit people to prefigure a new society by just describing how you expect it to work, you need to give clear instructions and concrete steps that can be taken. You’ve asked people to examine your charter but you haven’t told us where that can be found.
The way you’ve written this sounds more like a pitch for a crypto scam than a political project.
I’m no scientist but I think it would take an absurd and unrealistic amount of these to have any sort of noticeable effect on average wind speeds.
I appreciate the well thought out response. My main point of contention is the enforcement mechanism. I agree with point 3 as a strategy, and I have actually participated in groups that follow this general principle, but I have always had the option to simply leave and find another group or form my own. The problem arises when the group is the only permissible form of organization (such as, for example, if it is the one party in a one-party state). You actually see this problem in China, when the state cracks down on workers who attempt to organize on their own terms by forming independent unions. I see this as an unambiguous moral failing of the Chinese state, and is an issue on which I will not budge. Bureaucracy makes determining the will of the majority complicated (no democracy is perfect), but even if it is indeed the will of the majority, tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.
There are things more important than unity. I do not believe that a better world must necessarily come at the cost of individual autonomy.
It’s still a net positive for candidates like Mamdani to achieve electoral victories. Even if you believe that a true socialist can never make it to a high enough office to establish a socialist government (which I agree is likely correct), making the attempt and achieving some reforms in the face of very public resistance from the bourgeoisie is great for class consciousness. It sends the message “hey, it actually is possible to improve your material conditions, and the rich really don’t want it to happen.” Give people a taste and they will want more, which is why the establishment is so terrified of Zohran Mamdani.
Personally, I think that Democratic Centralism is too strict. I understand the idea behind ensuring the subordination of the minority to the majority, but as the party grows and especially after it seizes state power that subordination becomes enforced, and at that point it becomes oppression. It doesn’t get rid of factions either, it just hides them and fosters resentment towards the majority faction.
Just so we’re clear on what we’re talking about, here are the tenets of Democratic Centralism as I understand them:
- That all directing bodies of the Party, from top to bottom, shall be elected.
- That Party bodies shall give periodical accounts of their activities to their respective Party organization.
- That there shall be strict Party discipline and the subordination of the minority to the majority.
- That all decisions of higher bodies shall be absolutely binding on lower bodies and on all Party members.
I believe that point 3 should be a suggestion, and never enforced. It should be up to the individual whether any given disagreement is enough to warrant going their own way, and an option should be given to “stand aside” in cases where someone would prefer not to participate in an action but otherwise wants to remain with the group.
Point 4 is backwards IMO, and a recipe for authoritarianism. Any sort of elected authority should always be instantly recallable by the electorate, and any “lower” body should always have the autonomy to make their own decisions.
Factionalism is not a bad thing if you embrace it rather than trying to fight it.
I’m sure the velociraptors helped you stay focused too.
They might not know all the details. Even between people who’ve known each other for a long time it’s not common to know their precise legal status, and that goes double for family/friends of a friend.
I sorta prefer the lower quality tbh. It hides some of the big tells that it was AI generated.
You forgot to mention that it’s watered down. That’s what the emulsifier is for, to make the oils in the cheese mix well with the added water. The concept is fine - for some applications - if it were only that, but this is hyper-processed American food we’re talking about here. Gotta pad out that ingredient list:
CHEDDAR CHEESE (CULTURED MILK, SALT, ENZYMES), SKIM MILK, MILKFAT, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, WHEY, CALCIUM PHOSPHATE, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, SALT, LACTIC ACID, MILK, SORBIC ACID AS A PRESERVATIVE, OLEORESIN PAPRIKA (COLOR), ENZYMES, CHEESE CULTURE, ANNATTO (COLOR).
The above is the standard Kraft singles ingredient list, and at a glance is the shortest one I saw on their website.
Of course it isn’t just sitting around unused, it’s being reinvested to make more money. Billionaires typically put most of their net worth into assets and stocks and then live off of loans, just like the comic I posted alludes to. Just because they don’t have literal piles of cash sitting around doesn’t mean they aren’t absurdly wealthy.
And let’s be honest, if a billionaire wanted a Scrooge McDuck style gold pile they could have it arranged within a week at most.
Colloquial use of the word Nazi is pretty much synonymous with fascist, and I don’t really have a problem with that outside of - like - academic discourse and such.