andrewrgross, 19 days ago

I want to add a word that I never see that needs to enter the mainstream lexicon:

“Pogrom”.

Apparently, this isn’t a commonly known term, although it’s less obscure to Jews. A pogrom is a form of terrorism in which a population decides to get rid of or inflict their hatred on a marginalized ethnic group by routinely rolling through their towns or neighborhoods dolling out unrestrained violence. It is often accompanied by warnings and demands that the population relocate or face constantly escalating barbarism. It’s a form of persistent mass terrorism, usually sanctioned by the state.

Pogroms as a familiar concept emerged as a practice in Russia in the 19th and 20th century toward Jews, though they’re well known to have been used throughout history. Traditionally, Jews have been the historical target of pogroms for centuries, and it’s not a coincidence that Israeli Jews are using these tactics. These are familiar to them. They know exactly what they are doing. This is NOT independent acts of violence, this is a reenactment of atrocities faced by the grandparents and great grandparents of many Israelis Jews.

Pogroms are always horrific and depraved on their own. But the added context that these people are appropriating the weapons of extermination that they know well from the receiving end, it’s just… I don’t quite have the words to capture my horror.

These are pogroms. They are a relic of the medieval era and of the atrocities of the 1800s and early 1900s. They should stay in history, but they are being dusted off with deliberate intent by Itmar Ben-Gvir and the exterminationist wing of mainstream Israeli society.

These are not “Rising tensions” or “Settler violence”, they are POGROMS. We all need to say it.

More info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom

andrewrgross, 11 days ago

I think a polite congratulation and a continued offer to cooperate is fine. I was just disappointed that Biden through Modi a state dinner. That’s kind of crazy.

I believe he did it because everyone in Washington worries about the big recently industrialized countries embracing China more than the US, but I don’t think that’s ultimately a good use of our influence in the long-term.

andrewrgross, 12 days ago

Thank fucking God.

I’m not totally surprised. There was so much artificial strength projection, and a more desperate air to the late stage of the campaign that looked to me like a campaign that was seeing different info than what they were saying.

Hopefully, a lack of a super majority might limit the damage he’ll cause.

Also, I don’t want the US to meddle in foreign countries’ affairs, but I’d like our leaders to refrain from flattering and supporting nationalists and authoritarians.

andrewrgross, 12 days ago

This is neat.

I’ll say upfront that it doesn’t immediately seem practical, but I won’t let something as trivial as that get in the way of whimsy and imagination.

I like this as an idea for a small community that circumnavigates around a desert. For some reason, the idea of a large, mech-sized roving multi-legged structure that travels across Antarctica really appeals to me.

andrewrgross, 12 days ago

I’m just learning about this site. This is cool.

andrewrgross, 12 days ago (edited 6 days ago)

To add to this, I’ve been using GIMP on and off for a decade and I’ve never given any thought to the name. It’s all capitalized. I didn’t think it was a backronym, I thought it was just an acronym.

I’ve used this in professional settings (I used to work in academic molecular bio), and I was very evangelical about it. Especially because we’re not doing high-level artistic work, we just sometimes need something for processing microscope images or making graphics for scientific publications.

I’d say to any and everyone, “You know, you don’t have to pay an annual subscription fee for Photoshop: there’s this free, open-source program called GIMP that does most of what you need and you don’t have to pay a thing! Want me to install it for you?”

I didn’t even think to be embarrassed about the name, and no one ever seemed to care in conversation. As others have said, the bigger impediments are people’s attachment to commercial software and interface challenges. This is just an absolutely silly complaint to make.

andrewrgross, 10 days ago

Yeah. And it’s so bad that I feel like the functionality barely goes down.

They should release the following:

‘Out of an abundance of caution, we advise against any user charging this device and attempting to rely on it for communications or regular assistance. Fortunately, we’ve found a workaround and suggest customers looking to continue enjoying the benefits of the Humane pin consider wearing it down in an unpowered state. This will provide infinite battery life and a 100% reduction in unwanted heating while enabling users to continue to receive nearly all the same functionality to which they are accustomed.’

andrewrgross, 14 days ago (edited 6 days ago)

Yeah!

Fully Automated is the game system and world. And “A Demonstration of Power” is a playable story. It’s basically a short, interactive story about an auditor trying to find out why someone appears to be trying to keep them from accessing some unremarkable archival sensor data from the date of a blackout five years earlier.

andrewrgross, 16 days ago

Good

andrewrgross, 15 days ago

This is a good question.

My analysis:

First and foremost: It is not a demand that Israel accept a ceasefire, it is a demand that Hamas accept the terms of a ceasefire. Sometimes this is a very subtle difference, but one the key elements of a ceasefire negotiation is that each side is trying to continue fighting while making their adversary look like the aggressor. So far, it looks like Biden has moved slightly, but he still is not applying pressure on Netanyahu to end the war.

Second: Continuing on that last point, there is no leverage. Biden has persistently chosen not to do anything that would actually apply pressure. He has deferred to Netanyahu’s judgement and supported him while gradually shifting in tone, but it’s become 1000% clear that Netanyahu will stop when he is forced to, and not a moment sooner.

Third: The focus is constantly on micromanaging the situation. Debating how many civilians can get killed, what fraction of the homes can be demolished, how much territory Israel can appropriate in Gaza. None of this actually addresses the foundational issues: one side is imposing apartheid with genocidal intent on a neighbor that is largely powerless, and the other side’s only real avenue for expressing itself is through terrorism. Which is bad for both sides. If these realities persist, then the cycle that has governed nearly three generations is allowed to continue. There must be a breaking point in that cycle, and referring back to point 2: it’s going to have to be imposed on the leadership in Israel. They WILL NOT accept it willingly.

In summary, this is a very welcome change in narrative for Biden, but we are far past the point of fiddling with narratives. We need policy action, and it’s incredible that he’s still dug in like this after another state department official just resigned because she said that she was being pressured to be an accomplice in breaking US law against knowingly aiding war crimes.

andrewrgross, 7 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

This is a great point.

The technology that excludes transwomen from the app is the clear warning that the app is populated exclusively for transphobes. It’s obviously wildly dangerous for a transwoman to be on the app.

The notion that AI is going to clock them is absurd AI hype. There’s no reason to expect AI to be capable of this kind of discernment, and that assumes you even had a training set. Where in the absolute fuck would someone find a training set like that?

Edit: I didn’t read the article. It seems it’s a lesbian dating app. Well, probably less dangerous for transwomen, but still not technically sound.

andrewrgross, 7 days ago

Why do you guarantee that? It seems obviously wrong, on a technical level.

The point I’m making is that even if we take it as a given that a shrewd enough AI could correctly distinguish sex at birth – which I think is obviously impossible based on the appearances of many ciswomen and the nature of statistical prediction – you’d still need a training data set.

If the dataset has any erroneous input, that corrupts its ability, and the whole point of this exercise is trying to find passing transwomen. Why would anyone expect that training set of hundreds of thousands of supposed cis women wouldn’t have a few transwomen in it?

andrewrgross, 6 days ago

Yeah, but the training set is nowhere near clean. That’s my point. “Close” is no where near good enough within this context,

andrewrgross, 12 days ago

The impression is surprisingly bad.

Still weird, though. But I guess this is what we’ve got to get used to. Eventually, they’ll probably sound much more convincing.

andrewrgross, 12 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

Are you saying that if the turkey that I mailman is frosty it could jujubee the training data microwave?

andrewrgross, 10 days ago

Can you give any examples, either good or bad?

andrewrgross, 21 days ago (edited 21 days ago)

I’m shocked more people aren’t already better prepared for this, but it’s actually the same thing we should be doing now, and continue to do if Biden actually wins:

Organize locally. Get hyperlocal. Organize your city, neighbors, block, building, workplace, and friend group. Establish mutual aid networks, take back city councils, county boards, and school boards from the stewards of landlords and big employers.

Establish protection for those who need it, and plant the crop of future national leaders who will do the long overdue work of putting government to work for the masses. Make it harder for any president or governor to exercise state violence by getting our people in prosecutors offices and judgeships.

The Democrats are not going to save us. Biden is just planning to go down with the ship. Absolutely vote for the lesser of two evils if you live somewhere where your vote matters, but recognize that the Democratic party is not an ally to the antifascist movement, because combating fascism conflicts with the interests of capital.

That can change, but until it does, don’t put faith in them. Anything positive they do will be because power-players were replaced. And that starts in your own neighborhood.

Edit: Since this has been well received, I want to say a quick word on third parties: don’t be afraid of them.

Without getting into a lot of details, there are a lot of myths about the risks that third parties present, but before we parrot all of that, we should just acknowledge that there is no harm in listening to their platforms. It doesn’t make you a kook to hear ideas that often get suppressed by the mainstream, or to use third parties as a way to network and meet people. I think Jill Stein has a lot of useful things to say, and if a pollster asks me, I will gladly try to bump her numbers up so that she is harder to ignore. Don’t be afraid to do that.