Gaywallet

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

Extremely useful article, thank you for sharing!

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

Finally picked up ghost of tsushima and started playing through it. Reminds me of RDR2

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

adorable

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

They were going to kill these people whether an AI was involved or not, but it certainly makes it a lot easier to make a decision when you’re just signing off on a decision someone else made. The level of abstraction made certain choices easier. After all, if the system is known to be occasionally wrong and everyone seems to know it yet you’re still using it, is that not some kind of implicit acceptance?

One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing — just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male. This was despite knowing that the system makes what are regarded as “errors” in approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all.

It also doesn’t surprise me that when you’ve demonized the opposition, it becomes a lot easier to just be okay with “casualties” which have nothing to do with your war. How many problematic fathers out there are practically disowned by their children for their shitty beliefs? Even if there were none, it still doesn’t justify killing someone at home because it’s ‘easier’

Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present — rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses. Additional automated systems, including one called “Where’s Daddy?” also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.

All in all this is great investigative reporting, and it’s absolutely tragic that this kind of shit is happening in the world. This piece isn’t needed to recognize that a genocide is happening and it shouldn’t detract from the genocide in any way.

As an aside, I also help it might get people to wake up and realize we need to regulate AI more. Not that regulation will probably ever stop the military from using AI, but this kind of use should really highlight the potential dangers.

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

When you abstract out pieces of the puzzle, it’s easier to ignore whether all parts of the puzzle are working because you’ve eliminated the necessary interchange of information between parties involved in the process. This is a problem that we frequently run into in the medical field and even in a highly collaborative field like medicine we still screw it up all the time.

In the previous process, intelligence officers were involved in multiple steps here to validate whether someone was a target, validate information about the target, and so on. When you let a machine do it, and shift the burden from these intelligence officers to someone without the same skill set who’s only task is to review information given to them by a source which they are told is competent and their role is to click yes/no, you lose the connection between this step and the next.

The same could be said, for example, about someone who has the technical proficiency to create new records, new sheets, new displays, etc. in an electronic health record. A particular doctor might come and request a new page to make their workflow easier. Without appropriate governance in place and people who’s job is to observe the entire process, you can end up with issues where every doctor creates their own custom sheet, and now all of their patient information is siloed to each doctors workflow. Downstream processes such as the patient coming back to the same healthcare system, or the patient going to get a prescription, or the patient being sent to imaging or pathology or labs could then be compromised by this short-sighted approach.

For fields like the military which perhaps are not used to this kind of collaborative work, I can see how segmenting a workflow into individual units to increase the speed or efficiency of each step could seem like a way to make things much better, because there is no focus on the quality of what is output. This kind of misstep is extremely common in the application of AI because it often is put in where there are bottlenecks. As stated in the article-

“We [humans] cannot process so much information. It doesn’t matter how many people you have tasked to produce targets during the war — you still cannot produce enough targets per day.”

the goal here is purely to optimize for capacity, how many targets you can generate per day, rather than on a combination of both quality and capacity. You want a lot of targets? I can just spit out the name of every resident in your country in a very short period of time. The quality in this case (how likely they are to be a member of hamas) will unfortunately be very low.

The reason it’s so fucked up is that a lot of it is abstracted yet another level away from the decision makers. Ultimately it is the AI that’s making the decision, they are merely signing off on it. And they weren’t involved in signing off on the AI, so why should they question it? It’s a dangerous road - one where it becomes increasingly easy to allow mistakes to happen, except in this case the mistake can be counted as innocent lives that you killed.

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

I cleaned up some of the comments because there was some bickering and fighting. This is a reminder for everyone to be nice on our instance.

It’s okay to not like the new flag. It’s not okay to call other users racist because they enjoy one pride flag over another.

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

I’m leaving this comment up because I think it’s fine to point out that the rainbow stands for anyone. But I’m also leaving this reply here to let you know that you need to disengage with this thread. Insisting that a pride flag is racist is not exactly creating a welcoming environment here or being nice to people who feel included with specific flags which highlight their identity.

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

Given the unprecedented attacks on trans folks and the much higher murder rates of poc queers I think giving them space on the progress flag is more about making a statement about inclusivity and intersectionality than anything else.

Trying to include more groups like bisexual is just missing the point and people arguing that the progress flag should stay the way it is (although no one is talking about the intersex inclusive one which is an interesting statement on the erasure of intersex individuals), is more about the recognition of that statement and trying not to water down the message with a dash of design because it’s already pretty crowded.

Ultimately I do not care which flag you fly. It’s okay to say that you don’t like the design of a particular flag, but you should stop a second before commenting that and think a bit about what you could possibly accomplish with such a statement. It’s not your flag and you’re not flying it, so ultimately does it matter what you think of it’s design? Do you walk up to people with shirts you think are designed poorly and say “your shirt sucks, get a new shirt”? All you’re going to do is make them defensive and you’re pretty likely to start a fight, especially if you go off on some weird tangent about how you think the flag is bigoted in some fashion. The old adage ‘if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all’ is pretty much designed for situations like this.

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

The entire purpose is that it doesn’t represent an entire any specific group, but the unity of the spectrum of human sexuality.

A minor point to bring up here, but being transgender is about gender, not sexuality, and I think you unintentionally just highlighted a very good reason why including the trans flag can help make that statement of inclusion and unity.

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

This is akin to the classic argument that no one has gotten communism right, and in theory it’s a good model. The reality is that humans are going to human, and some things do not work at scale because humans will inevitably do the human thing and some systems just aren’t designed well for human behavior. The insistence that people just aren’t following the definition that you’ve chosen disregards how words come to be - people create them to describe something new which was not previously defined, and they are generally created on the fly by people, not by people sitting down and writing out a specific definition before publishing and/or using it. Definitions also change, over time, to reflect how the words are being used or how the world itself has changed.

With all that being said, you did ask for sources on how capitalism plays out in the real world in response to people abundantly telling you that capitalism is harmful, so here’s a few sources you might find interesting that approach the harms or outcomes of capitalism as it has played out in the world in various countries.

1. The Impact of Advanced Capitalism on Well-being: an Evidence-Informed Model
2. Capitalism, socialism, and the physical quality of life
3. Testing hypotheses about the harm that capitalism causes to the mind and brain: a theoretical framework for neuroscience research

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

Yes I understand, hence the preface about why caring about what definition one chooses for a word is a pointless argument. I guess I misunderstood what you were asking for with your comment about “how it plays out in the real world” and thought you were inviting the question about what damages a system ruled by money causes to the world, regardless of whether you call it capitalism or commercialism.

Gaywallet, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

The idea that a person can be socialized into being trans is directly contradictory to the idea that a trans person is born trans and that their gender identity is an unchangeable biological reality of who they are (which causes dysphoria when mismatched with their body).

You are collapsing too many ideas into one here.

There are people who through some combination of nature and nurture find themselves wanting to be treated in a way which aligns much closer to how one gender gets treated in a particular society. They may choose to transition to get this treatment despite having no dysphoria about themselves or their body. Being upset about how someone treats you is not necessarily dysphoria. There are also individuals who don’t experience their gender negatively but experience another gender more positively. They do not have dysphoria yet may choose to transition to maximize their happiness. Do not erase these individuals.

Arguing that dysphoria is central to the trans experience is a trans medicalist (truscum) viewpoint and exclusionary rhetoric isn’t nice and therefore isn’t allowed around here.

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

No one is erasing anyone

You’re literally erasing me, lol. I’m agender and trans. I did not start transitioning because of gender dysphoria. I don’t even experience gender dysphoria. If you don’t think I have the right experience to identify as trans, that’s on you my friend, but I’m not going to change my labels because you don’t think that I exist. I’m sorry if you feel that my existence jeopardizes your existence or invalidates it in any way, because there are many compatible world views in which it does not.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter either way - I only intervened here because you got reported for not being nice. So please, stop it.

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

This could be easily interpreted as hostile or negative, I’m removing it. If you wish to be helpful to others, I’d suggest that you never start a reply with “No it doesn’t” when someone is sharing something they could be happy about.

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

We defederated from hexbear, please don’t post links to hexbear on our instance. If you’re a beehaw user and believe hexbear is worth reconsidering, feel free to start a conversation in support explaining why you think they should be refederated with.

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

At no point am I arguing that it is a made up social construct. I’m just letting you know about my existence. If my existence threatens you so much that you must throw me into a box that is not you, then go ahead and do so. I’m not out here shouting at the world about how people like me exist, I’m merely replying to your attempt to erase me. There are compatible world views which don’t erase me - which many other people have pointed out here.

I’m sorry that your country is taking away your right to life saving medical care. The same thing is happening in my country. I’d rather spend my time and energy on preserving access to medical care for everyone than fighting with folks online. Best of luck, I hope things improve for you. 💜

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

Went to a bunch of shows last weekend. Of note, Saturday night was amazing, I got to see 2 good friends DJ at one venue and then when they finished we made our way out to the forest rave to see another friend spin. A recent first date (three days prior) mentioned they didn’t get out enough so I invited them to come, and despite having never been to a rave they showed up! We ended up staying at the forest all night long. It’s the first time in years I’ve truly pulled an all nighter on purpose and not due to bad insomnia and it was wonderful and magical in all the right ways. I’m not certain whether it left me sick (I was feeling worse yesterday) or my body is just still recovering, but it was completely worth it.

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

Popping in because this comment got reported- a reminder to you and everyone in this thread to do your best to be nice to each other. If you’re getting heated or exhausted over this discussion it might be a good idea to step away. 💜

Gaywallet, 1 month ago

Alt text: A picture of an older smiling white man with long curly white hair is holding his jacket open, revealing a vest, tie and a gold medal around his neck. The text reads: In 2013, Brian May of Queen bought 157 acres of land that was about to be developed into buildings. He planted trees with the help of volunteers and restored it into a thriving woodland. The area is called “May’s Woodland” and has over 100,000 trees growing there.

Gaywallet, 2 months ago

If there’s anything that’s not in the survey that you’d like to discuss, please leave a comment!

Gaywallet, 2 months ago

Could the low effort comments, indicate a criticism of the article selection itself?

If we create a culture in which those who are upset about “question headline article” enter these threads to vent their frustration through low effort comments, it’s not necessarily a criticism so much as it is a culture we’ve created. Think about what kind of content does well on Reddit or Twitter - often times people are engaging in a way because they know the community will respond in a way and they’re looking for that particular kind of validation or engagement.

We need to take a step back from time to time and think about what we’re encouraging and whether that’s helpful. If you are uninterested in interacting with “question headline article” than simply don’t. If many people share your opinion and don’t want to interact with these threads, they’ll die off and not get engagement and discussion whereas articles which don’t suffer from the same problem will have active and healthy discussions.

Not every discussion is for you, and that’s okay, but engaging with content in a way that can be easily seen as negative is generally not helpful. In fact, it’s a lot worse than “not helpful” - we talk quite a bit about how we want to have an explicitly nice space and how nice spaces evaporate quickly in the face of behavior like this. There’s a good deal of nice people who don’t like being told “law of headlines, no” and will quickly leave the space if that’s the kind of engagement they see. In order to encourage these kinds of people to stick around, we need to be careful about when we choose to criticize them.

I understand that you care a lot about whether a headline is reflective of the content and are triggered easily by headlines which are clickbait-y. But this isn’t a sentiment shared by everyone and some of the people who don’t share that sentiment are great people with lots to offer to this community. They may simply not have the time or the energy to correct what the author did, and are simply excited or happy to share an article they found interesting and aren’t as easily triggered by poor quality headlines. They might be doing so because they’re particularly interested in some insights and want to share in the joy of those insights with others. Or they may want to spur a discussion on which is elaborated upon within the article. The hyperfocus on the title and how it’s presented and leaving an ultimately negative comment which discourages discussion and can leave the poster disheartened is not helpful to creating a nice environment.