Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

It is quite possible to create a heavily biased media environment by reporting accurately, but selectively. Lying on the part of the media is actually largely unnecessary, at least for the kind of propaganda that the anglosphere prefers

Apropos of nothing in particular, having terms to describe your behaviours increases your awareness of them.

"Autistic polling" is a good example. Having a label for the tendency to ask more questions to make up for the inability to read cues from the environment both helps you understand yourself and lets you give context to others

But it also helps you recognise a handicap. Like realising that my tendency to "dolphin" in conversations is a liability in debates.

Happy Sunday! Here's a site I've built because I've been thinking about this and want to see more of it in the world: a space for describing and sharing scholarly skills that I've picked up and nurtured over the years.

Also this is a no AI zone in at least two ways: no talking about it and no using it.

https://critical.computer/

From @olivia: "Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists."

https://osf.io/dkrgj_v1

If you want AI put in the context of the replication crisis, with a healthy dose of reminders about how and why we should do science in the first place, then this is for you!

@icing I would argue here that the stock market _is_ malicious intent. It is the legally mandated purpose of most publicly owned companies to Try To Take Over The World, and that by definition means either co-opting FOSS or eliminating it. And even if it *were* "economically"(*) reasonable, it is not reasonable for the environment, nor for people outside the C-suite, i.e. the people who actually write and fix the code. See also, The Lorax.

I'm not a policy wonk; I don't know how to _really_ fix this in readable fashion. Maybe it's just that we put together something that works _well enough_ until this AI-fuelled bubble (which has already been poked) finishes bursting. It's no longer, strictly speaking, my problem; I've exited the game. AND, I value the next generations enough to stick my furry-except-on-top head up 👴 and give the Overton window a shove away from voracious bigtech and towards people who actually give, and matter, a damn. They want to keep Biggering and Biggering. Y'all want to _keep your sanity_ (and hopefully do something Actually Useful with it). I am _passionately_ in favour of the latter.

(*) define "the economy" << rich people's yacht money >>

So, we cannot really stop playing this suicidal game, racing to the bottom, without you losing access.

We can stutter the onslaught, somewhat under the radar, for short durations of bliss. We have not found another remedy, so far.

Should you think this sounds like a hostage situation, you might be right.

RE: https://chaos.social/@icing/117460774409401144

One effect of using LLMs in code that I have readily observed in my own workday is the DDoS effect, where it’s much, MUCH cheaper for various unrelated parties to use LLMs to generate bug reports—and sometimes “proposed solutions”—but it costs much, much more for maintainers to wade through the voluminous reports to figure out which are actually substantial.

#ai #llm

"Trans Lives are Real. Harry Potter is Not"
Sticker spotted in NYC

@bkuhn @copiesofcopies @cwebber i think it can be reasonable to use unethical technology if there is no other choice, for example if your employer is forcing you to use proprietary software or genai; or your government (or bank) requires a proprietary app. however, this doesn't mean it's good. we should strive to minimize usage of these unethical things as much as we can

systemic issues generally are not solved by personal decisions, but many people going against a systemic issue can be a path to solving it. it's sort of a "when do a few pieces of sand become a heap of sand?" kinda situation. the way this informs how i do activism is that i try not to target individuals, and try to go against the wider issue

also, personal decisions can cause ripples if people are open about those decisions: i openly decide to avoid proprietary software and i openly object to all genai. i also openly decide to avoid consuming animal products. the act of doing this by itself may not do much, but i am setting an example for others, who can do the same, and together we are much stronger

i don't think it's possible to use genai to destroy it, imo the path forward is to completely reject it and band together with others that reject it. this is unethical and anti-social technology that has no place in the world

When Anthropic warns that models are "months away" from "self-replication" on internet-connected appliances, this translates to one or more of the following:

- Those in IT who have always firmly believed that the correct number of "smart" appliances to own is zero, have been correct
- "Frontier" AI companies are literally selling malware as a product. You know, the kind of toxic waste that 20 years ago had an entire array of companies selling you products to defend against and prevent?
- Anthropic are lying out their ass as usual and this is their latest incarnation of "this tech is dangerous!" and "just N more months, bro"

@seesalt

I guess one question is whether there's a statute that grants commercial delivery robots access to public sidewalks, and that requires pedestrians to give way to them? Unless the state legislature municipality passes a law or code establishing these things, it seems crazy to me that police should be empowered to order a human being off the sidewalk. Then again, this wouldn't be the first time that "disorderly conduct" ended up being abused.

I try to suppress my contempt for the "news" organizations that fell for Musk's "flying car" con. But I fail. Almost everything that is wrong with journalism is embedded in that coverage of nothing real.

Zelenskyy with the receipts:

Quote from Zelenskyy: "To understand whether these are really technical problems at SpaceX, or whether it is some kind of operation or agreement to restrict us, to disconnect us, to prevent us from defending ourselves and protecting our people... we sent a couple of cars with Starlink to the territory of European Union countries, and they drove at speeds of over 180 km/h where permitted. Starlink works. We have the corresponding records and the corresponding evidence."

Zelenskyy on Starlink operations: test in EU has proved restrictions apply only in Ukraine

#USPol #RussiaUkraineWar #Ukraine #Krasnov
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/10/17/8058503/

There's a dust-up over an AI ad from Bookshop.org. But they didn't use AI; Meta's ad platform automatically created an AI "variation" of the original, non-AI content.

I went to disable this crap in our Shiraki Press ad account, and got served a popup *demanding a reason why*.

Fuck Meta for this. Consent matters. We've just pulled all paid advertising from their platforms.

Trifecta: Meta screwed with the accounts of the non-fascist Brazilian presidential candidate: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/meta-employees-said-lulas-accounts-were-hindered-during-brazil-election-folha-2026-10-16/

The American tech oligarchs are completely beyond control at this point. They need to be stepped on, hard and soon.

Meanwhile, Larry Ellison and his pals have locked out of TikTok the account promoting the new, scathing documentary about Elon Musk.

Big (Tech) Media is on a censorship rampage aimed to shut down the critics of the escalating right-wing extremism.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/musk-movie-tiktok-banned-theaters-showtimes-1236734308/

Let's hope this is (yeah right) an innocent mistake that will be quickly fixed. But if Meta has banned the No Kings account from Instagram, as alleged, it is a direct and vile act of censorship. Of course, it'll please the endlessly hypocritical Trumpers. https://x.com/HQNewsNow/status/2111534415369437300?s=20

Casting call at the White House. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/10/16/800113335/cartoon/press-secretary-auditions/

From 2022.

US corporate lobbyists mounted ‘blitz’ to dilute landmark EU #deforestation law, report finds - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/17/us-corporate-lobbyists-europe-deforestation shame on #eu politicians for letting them...