Notices by Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)

@sj_zero
> going by intersectionality every human is a unique combination of attributes

That's not an axiom of intersectionality, it's just an observable fact accepted by everyone AFAIK.

> so any attempt to stack them together ends up failing

I don't understand what you mean by this.

@sj_zero
What it *seems* like you're saying is;

Because each person is unique, nothing can be said about populations in aggregate.

Which is clearly wrong, so it seems unlikely you're putting that forward as an argument. But it's equally clear it's not what intersectionality proposes, so it also seems unlikely you're saying it is.

Can you seen why I'm confused?

@sj_zero there's a lot in here. I'm not really sure how your conclusion (everything is an accumulation of individual decisions and actions) is supported by the rest of what you say, and I'm pretty sure I explained in the thread why I no longer find that conclusion credible.

If you have a problem with someone joining your workplace because they look like they do, or they have a "weird" name", or they don't speak the language properly (even if they're fully fluent), that's about their ethnicity.

If you have a problem with someone joining your workplace because it's a core part of the US government, and they're from China, and explicitly loyal to the CCP, that's about their nationality.

The first one is bigotry. The second one is politics.

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Only one of these is racism (the first one), but even the more serious kind. Which is not about the attitudes one individual has about others, or the things one does to others as a result.

The more serious kind of systemic. It's patterns show up in data about whole populations (or at least representative samples of them). But behaviour that may or may not be part of it can appear to be *the same behaviour* from an individual perspective.

We can't guilt trip our way out of this kind.

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Systemic racism works mostly on implicit bias. So people can't easily tell whether they're doing it or not. Which means conscientious individuals trying to fix our own behaviour - while it can and does reduce bigotry - cannot fix the systemic stuff.

Once, I firmly believed that the world was merely an accumulation of millions of individual actions. But what about network effects, and other ways the social background radiation can change and warp individual choices, without our awareness?

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If systemic racism can be fixed - and I genuinely hope it can - it can't be done through peer-to-peer moral persuasion. It has to be done through politics.

Politics that might includes systematically discriminating against countries known to introduce both bigotry and systemic racism into others. Being cautious about allowing their nationals to play any significant role in our social institutions. So addressing racism might involve stuff that looks superficially like racism.

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@icedquinn
> always has been

Maybe, but that doesn't stop people from firing accusations of racism at people addressing political questions that touch on nationality. I can furnish examples if this isn't something you've come across. But see the rest of the thread.

Something just clicked for me. Racism is about ethnicity not nationality.

Let me unpack that a bit ...

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#racism

Lithium ion batteries can be a fire risk, yes. But cheap ones in household devices (phones, charging packs, *toys*) are much riskier than the ones in EVs, according to Colin Peacock;

https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=0fc8e854-476a-4b94-a849-ecfac17b8e35

Lithium ion EV batteries are probably no riskier than a tank of extremely explosive fuel. Certainly not risky enough to justify a regressive crusade against EVs in general, which these days may have nonexplosive sodium ion batteries.

#podcasts #RNZ #MediaWatch #EVs #batteries #SodiumIon

Me:
> Lithium ion EV batteries are probably no riskier than a tank of extremely explosive fuel

I stand corrected;

"... we're talking about more than an order of magnitude less risk, so at least 20 times less risk associated with EVs than conventional cars."

#DrTroyBailsden, Co-President, NZ Association of Scientists, 2025

https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=0fc8e854-476a-4b94-a849-ecfac17b8e35

@tim

"If you go to Google and type in 'seabirds affected by light pollution', 3 or 4 years ago you would have been directed to our site with an organic link.

Today you get presented with an AI answer that occupies the top thirds of the page, the rest is sponsored links. There might be 1 or 2 organic links at the bottom, or else you're on page 2. And tell me the last time anyone clicked on page 2 of Google."

#JamesFrankham, publisher, #NZGeographic, 2025

https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=0fc8e854-476a-4b94-a849-ecfac17b8e35

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#Google

It's been well over a decade since I stopped using Goggle for web search, for reasons of principle. Everything I've heard about its enshittification since has supported that decision. But this description of the horrifying UX facing people these days takes the cake.

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@jackyan
> But in normal circumstances, it hasn’t been my default since 2010

I don't have a clear date in memory I when I abandoned Goggle Search as I do for FarceBook, because I wrote a blog post about that at the time. But it was probably around that same time, not long after.

I remember noticing the enshittification start to kick in hard around the time Goggle turned off federation in GChat and replaced it with Hangouts, which was in 2013;

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/google-abandons-open-standards-instant-messaging

@jackyan
> I remember having Google Buzz forced on us

Buzz or Goggle+? I remember thinking the One Ring to Rule Them All approach G+ involved was profoundly regressive step, pretty obviously done to ape FarceBook.

@jackyan
> Definitely Buzz, 2011

I think we're talking about the same thing using different nouns.

Goggle+ was their attempt to compete with FarceBook (primarily), and doing that involved aping the way they combined all their features under a single login. The integration of Buzz and every other Goggle app that existed at that time was all part of that strategy, and 2011 was when it all rolled out.

@BowsacNoodle
> there hasn’t been a deliberate attempt to break up European (White) countries through mass immigration

No, there hasn't. There's not a single piece of evidence to support this obvious nonsense. There's more evidence for the Loch Ness Monster than for the Great Replacement. It's the racial equivalent of flat earthism.

If you believe this nonsense, I have a harbour bridge you may be interested in buying. Also, would you like to invest in my new crypto coin?

@k0nd0r

If you're interested in the history of big demographic changes, you could learn about the period called the "Age of Exploration". A euphemism for despotic, theocratic empires - mostly but not exclusively European - sending out huge numbers of people to invade other people's countries - mostly but not exclusively brown people - and kill or enslave them.

This is the real Great Replacement, of brown people in their own countries (eg the US, OZ and NZ) by Europeans. Read a book.

@BowsacNoodle

"The short version is that YouTube used AI to 'enhance' the videos of Rick Beato and Rhett Shull. YouTube used an AI smoothing filter that made the videos look like they were AI generated, and didn’t tell Beato, Shull, or their viewers that they were doing it. They only admitted to it after the two made videos proving it happened, later claiming it was only a 'limited test'.”

https://joshgriffiths.site/youtube-is-awful-im-not-posting-there-anymore/

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#YouTube #MOLE #AI #enshittification

"These viruses have unstable boundaries, so many biologists call them “mutant swarms” or “clouds.” Since swarms and clouds constantly change shape, perhaps researchers are warranted in using fuzzy language as they talk about COVID-19 and the SARS-CoV-2 quasi-species."

#EbenKirksey, 2020

https://doi.org/10.1080/19428200.2020.1760631

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