Notices by mybarkingdogs (mybarkingdogs@freeradical.zone)

@TheGibson @tek I'm probably going to be deleting my account to be less obviously findable as a trans person :( I might keep it around or come back, IDK, but right now I'm just terrified of being thrown in a camp when the asshole becomes day 1 dictator

Very hot take: for the last 20 years or so we should have been developing better infrastructure/intentional pathing to relocate water from areas where it is in excess to areas in need - if we could have just redirected that 20 inches of rain on an already flooded dam to an endangered aquifer..

That we have essentially paved over natural flood plains and flood basins etc WHILE not even trying to make anything but dams (no alternative flow paths, etc) is why flooding disasters will only get worse

(I've started posting less because I feel like my existence on here comes off as problematic *because* my own path, engagement with theory, etcetera leads me differently, and I don't want to be *that person*/be a source of strife in the left

Like, I *get* some of my stances could be seen as friendly to/forgiving of stuff like space exploration or futurism or technology etc, and I'm so anti-trump I could be mistaken for a us lib, so against antisemites I could be mistaken for pro-israel etc)

(And honestly, I feel bad about those things - but not bad in the sense that I feel my stances are wrong or anti-left - I've *arrived at* my stances from my own understanding of leftist theory and texts and discourse. More bad in the sense of having to *explain* every time I mention anything related to them just out of having to *make sure* people don't mistake my stances for any of the bad ones that arrived there via different and wrong paths or without applying any critical thought...)

@BeAware @sandwich @bob @adhdeanasl Agreed here. Also, while I tend to write my own descriptions, fast descriptions would let me post/discuss more images - there's so many times I see something interesting I want to share or discuss (or even something I've created) and I feel too tired to do an in-depth alt-text

And that's not discounting personal, human-made descriptions and all the love and attention that goes into that. Those are awesome and the best, still, *for* all that goes into them

@inquiline Like, I personally am not judging *anyone* for their choice unless it's a direct vote for trump (and therefore *direct support to a fascist*) or RFK.

I'm not judging someone for not voting or for making a "wasted vote" for a third party or write in that reflects their own personal feelings and priorities and needs.

And yet I'm *also* not judging anyone who sees the calculus as necessary to electorally defeat outright fascists or save their own life

@inquiline I can *kind of* understand where they're coming from *to a degree* (as a trans man who does NOT want to see a trump/vance regime in the US for survival *and* who doesn't want to see nazi-level fascists at levers of power)

And yet that they'd call not voting inaction is like, WTF? It's a principled choice, and one SHOULD probably make to be a little less complicit/guilty - *especially* now that trump is looking more defeated by liberals/electoralists and leftist votes aren't needed

@BeAware I agree with you there too. There's no justification for harming children ever

@BeAware Ugh seriously. (Also that anyone can advocate that ANYWHERE is disgusting. I wish there would be a concerted effort to ban child abusers from even using the software/protocol if that were possible - like to prevent them from spinning up servers in the first place much less federating with anyone)

@inthehands Agreed, and that's the other thing - israel has nukes and a stated doctrine of using them all in the event of state collapse.

As fucked as it is, I think the us empire is (partially) coddling israel for the same reason it isn't boots on the ground for Ukraine (with the added complication of israel being a colonizer "ally" so it can offer carrots rather than sticks, which also looks and *is* terrible to everyone observing)

@inthehands owning The Bomb has a way of insulating its owners from consequences for genocides and wars and whatever other harm they do. See, the us empire itself, russia, the DPRK, etc etc ad nauseum :(

I have a creeping nauseated feeling that *might be* what's happening behind the scenes where none of us know what's really going on.

@inthehands And to be clear - I'm not centering *anything* above the Palestinian people with this commentary: personally, I believe israel to be an apartheid state, I want to see it abolished for an independent autonomous zone controlled by no one, the land acknowledged to be equally the mutual heritage of everyone Indigenous to the area (Palestinians, Jewish people, and *all* of the many other peoples)

@inthehands (Like, one thing that bothers me about this entire situation is assuming it's some sort of capital cash grab or Western imperial mustache-twirling *alone,* because while those ARE major, serious factors - the other one *is* a local far-right theocratic fascism problem - and obviously addressing that is a whole hornet's nest because of how antisemitic and Islamophobic bigots have flooded the zone of talking about it - it NEEDS to be considered)

@inthehands like unfortunately, the furthest right, most authoritarian sects of zionism (israel) and islamism (in Iran) are in power, which throws an "unstoppable force meets immovable rock" problem into the mess that already exists of imperialist domination of Palestine, of capitalist exploitation of the entire region. That makes me worried that even *if* an amazing victory like the US cutting off israel happened - things might get worse before better :(

@inthehands While I'll be the first to say intent doesn't matter and impact *is* all that matters...

I'm not certain I like the often associated idea of *always* divining (the worst possible) intent *from* impact, if that makes sense, because that leads to helplessness re refusing to analyze horrible things from a "let's prevent this in the future" perspective, primarily - because if everything is solely due to a singular evil, why address anything else?

@inthehands I was just going to comment this. As frustrating as it *is,* it's another way power corrupts and the larger and more rotten and with more moving parts a structure or institution is... at the same time, if such institutions communicated the same way many of us do, the world would be on literal nuclear fire in maybe a few hours. It's not GOOD and I'm not endorsing it, btw.

That said, I'll actually believe it when I see results (even marginal, miniscule ones)

@jonah That's on purpose - many people and servers have privacy settings to prevent everything from AI scraping to harassment/doxxing. It's more security by obscurity, but it also is one of the few benefits of Mastodon - if we didn't have it, we'd have even MORE driveby trolling, doxxing, etc than we do as it is

@inthehands Yeah, I'm in the "fuck goldman sachs but stopped clock" view here.

And I'm not even wholly an AI cynic: I think that some LLMs, if care is taken with issues known to affect training data and power, *can* be fun to play with, can be artistic tools for making surrealism/remix art and music *if* their output is correctly labeled and obvious influences are credited, *and* some could handle rote tasks/busywork/"spot The Thing" tasks

But "chatbots everywhere" is just bullshit hype

@ernie Copyright is a tool of those rich enough to enforce it #AbolishCopyright

#Odessa #Texas will be shutting down their water plant in the next couple of hours - the statement is that water will be shut off around 2pm CDT and will be off for at least a few hours, with a Boil Water Notice for 24 hours after that

If you have water needs there, you should probably prepare as necessary

#UsNews #Emergencies #WaterCrises