Notices by maybenot (maybenot@mstdn.social)

@gilgwath @GossiTheDog

^this

even the dogforsaken antivax movement of today exists precisely because a *doctor was paid by VC pharmabros to write a BS paper*. Which has since been thoroughly debunked *and* eventually retracted, but as you say (and as we're constantly grimly reminded) the damage has been done.

there's no reason to expect this bunch of them bros to be any better, evidence seems to suggest they're even worse.

a whole bunch of assholes are about to find out that (surprise surprise):

1. laws of physics cannot be waived by presidential executive order
and
2. aviation is a fragile thing and it has a lot of requirements in the skill tree

looking forward to the new golden era of passenger rail in the us of a.

@feld @malwarejake @lain

now this is a loaded topic, often raised in bad faith, but whatever.

the main promise there was that coal miners will get upward economic movement (how this turned out is another matter), while those grinning at the tech layoffs are explicitly cherishing that this is gonna make them nerds poorer.

there's also a qualitative argument to be made (and i recognize my hypocrisy here) that coal is somewhat more quantifiable and malleable than all of tech and culture

@feld

c'mon that was not to be taken that literally,

it's more "practical effects are now economically unviable" + "the only legal cgi is all owned by the 3 CGI-as-a-Service vendors" + "they've legislated themselves impossible barriers of entry for potential competitors"

the end result is that unless you're made of money they may well be illegal

@feld

the attempted government/regulatory capture by the sam-altmans of the world?

clearly their goal is to

1. make this technology "unavoidable" / deeply enmeshed in everything

2. regulations worded very specifically so only they can do it

3. now you have to go trough them

@feld @malwarejake @lain

oh i love this video,

all this is true. and you would be right in these conclusions were it not for the dreaded political aspect of this.

the "shitty 90s era cgi" is being forcibly baked into everything now, with the intent to then have it mandated by laws that practical effects are illegal. and if you want to have *any effects at all* you have to pay one of the 3 vendors.

also, then there's the small sidenote that these things have more malicious uses than 90s cgi

@feld @malwarejake @lain

anyway, the important part where we disagree (i think) is whether the current push to entrench these technologies (with the explicit goal of owners/funders/providers riding out the crash) is gonna make the whole thing worse for everyone except the c-suites and a-round investors

@feld @malwarejake @lain

yes, i do think working on a pointless widget and getting paid is better than being laid off and having the widget be made even shittier by genai, while one starves.

there's now a surplus of tech workers (and "creatives" too), all the investment is tied up in bullshit, and the shitty widget may well be the least-bad option available for many.

@lain @feld @malwarejake

any effort to limit/slow-down the deployment of these systems is commendable.

the genie cannot be put back in the bottle, but the lamp-holding oligarchs can be forced to ration their wishes.

and not only does this disrupt the entrench-fast-become-irremovable shock doctrine ploy, it also means a bunch of ppl not laid of /yet/ can still pay rent

the whole "harm reduction is pointless, i only deal in Axiom and Absolutes" really needs to be put on ice.

@dalias @chu @hyc

*laughs in copyright infringement*

@lowqualityfacts

this is an important, but rarely mentioned detail in the origin story of the one angel famous for going all "fuck it" having had enough after 7 dings

@chucker @chaosmonkey @jwildeboer @taschenorakel

the issue here is that, while different from legacy media, twitter/facebook have this overwhelming misinfo and propaganda barrage delivery ability precisely /because/ the are centralized.

to say nothing of the size and funding of the "smaller information sources", a state- (or oligarch-) funded disinfo op (which is then amplified and repeated by the idiots and grifters) is hardly at a resource/financial disadvantage against a tv press room