Warning: Eye Irritant

[helenvaughans]

[itsmistybitch-deactivated202605]

These posts are sisters

[lierdumoa]

[witchofanguish]

[mahead-ithurt]

Always remember that the EU did a study in 2013 about the effects of piracy on media publishers and found that there is no correlation between piracy and sales! (And then they tried to hide that study bc that's not the result they wanted)

So piracy is at worst not even a problem, and at best it's free advertisement.

Source: (the link to the actual study is in the article)

EU withheld a study that shows piracy doesn't hurt sales - Engadget

In 2013, the European Commission ordered a €360,000 ($430,000) study on how piracy affects sales of music, books, movies and games in the EU

[rabbitindisguise]

Plus this one:

Study Again Shows 'Pirates' Tend to Be The Biggest Buyers of Legal Content

A new report out of the UK once again deflates the common narrative that pirates are exclusively looking to obtain free stuff.

[gorbling]

Im enjoying the longevity of tumblrs recontextualization style of humor. a seemingly innocuous post followed by like "posts that a gnome would make" or like "are you a phone"

[gorbling]

[hapalopus]

[hapalopus]

More from the notes:

[vexwerewolf]

I love this post

[karifaevt]

The horse thinks as it scratches an itch

[frustrationinexcelsis]

[zmpl]

before we start posting that july is gay wrath month let’s consider that july is disability pride month first and foremost. the “be gay do crimes” memes can wait

[zmpl]

before this post breaches containment and people start going “why not both hehehe” i want you to seriously consider the very long history of disabled people’s existence being pushed aside and/or seen as secondary. i promise you it’s not going to hurt to hold onto the memes and give disabled people space for visibility and celebration.

i say this as a disabled trans person whose trans identity is made front-and-center to the (mainly cis) people who know i’m trans but my identity as a disabled person is brushed off by the very same people.

[herpsandbirds]

[charlesoberonn]

Turns out you can roll a 7 on a d6

but only once.

[anthropohedron]

The Gamble Of Norway’s King Olaf II For The Island Of Hísing - The Historian's Hut

In 1015, a royal-blooded Viking and mercenary named Olaf Haraldsson (Saint Olaf) launched his bid for power in Norway, intending to end fift

[charlesoberonn]

Turns out you can roll a 7 on a d6

but only once.

[futchcommunist-deactivated20190]

all cops are bastards because all cops are just doing their jobs

[anti-dyrgrip]

“I’m just doing what I’m told. If I am ordered to remove gold fillings from refugees theeth then that’s what I’ll do”, says police officer Michael Hansen. Just thought I’d add this since not a lot of people outside of the nordic countries seem to have seen it. This is a danish police officer discussing a new danish law that says the police should seize the possesions and money of refugees to finance the integration.

[gunsandfireandshit]

He uh, skipped awful quickly to “stealing gold fillings” didn’t he?

[disbarredgoose0]

Original Article the image & caption are taken from.

It’s real.

[whereserpentswalk]

Remember that “just following orders” was a claim made by the nazis who survived World War Two who were charged with warcrimes.

They also stole the gold from people’s teeth.

[maybeasunflower]

So the Danish govt will do a better job spending that money on integration than the person???

[anthropohedron]

That cop looks just enough like Alan Tudyk that I initially thought this was about him playing a villain role.

[charlesoberonn]

Heartwarming story: Little girl doesn’t have to do anything to fund her dad’s surgery because his expenses are covered by his country’s universal healthcare.

[charlesoberonn]

Human determination: Man bikes 18 miles to work every morning because he wants to and not because he can’t afford a car and would be fired if he’s late.

[charlesoberonn]

Spirit of Brotherhood: Neighbors host housewarming party for elderly resident who doesn’t need help in paying rent because his pension is more than enough.

[hyperlexichypatia]

SO INSPIRING: Local middle school students bake dozens of cupcakes because their home economics class is doing a baking unit. Their school is fully funded with everything they need.

[blandandtasteless]

This feels like calibrating my normal detector

[cogentranting]

Mr. Collins would be such a fan of ai. He would love it. He would have it write scripts for him to use for complimenting people. He'd ask it what to do in social situations and then when someone would tell him "I think that's a bad idea" he'd be like "my dear madam it's so good of you to be concerned but I think the highly esteemed Grok knows a little more about this than a lady like yourself" and then he'd go humiliate himself publicly.

[swiftrunnerfelidae]

"Kill your local sex offender!" Oh, you mean the guy who went streaking at his local college football game on a dare one time? That's a sex crime.

"No, I mean-"

Oh, maybe the woman who had to pee in a public park that only had pay toilets, so she tried to hide behind the bushes but got caught? Public urination is a sex crime.

"What? No, I mean-"

Oh, maybe you mean the homeless guy who had to strip down to get his clothes in the laundromat to clean them for the first time in weeks? He tried being subtle, but someone called the cops on him, and now he's on the sex offender registry for public nudity.

"Rapists and pedophiles! Kill rapists and pedophiles!"

Oh, like the trans woman who got called a pedophile groomer for helping a trans kid escape her abusive parents?

Or maybe the black man who got labeled a rapist because he came on to another man's wife, and he decided to get back at him by charging him with rape?

How about the 17 year olds who were fooling around, fully consensually, in one of their bedrooms? That's still technically underage sex and thus rape of a minor.

Oh, or maybe you're talking about the doctor who performed genital reconstructive surgery in a state that just voted to get that classified as rape?

People will do everything they can to get you convinced rape and pedophilia are the worst crimes possible, then accuse whoever they like the least of being either a rapist, a pedophile, or both, counting on you turning on them just for being accused of the crime.

"Oh, so you're saying you don't want to kill a serial rapist?"

That's exactly what I'm goddamn saying.

Once we decide a group is okay to kill, the government will do everything they can to convince you that their political enemies are either part of that group, or just as bad as that group, to get you to kill their enemies for them.

The only way out is to accept every life as worth saving.

[anthropohedron]

There are two problems here, and solving either one completely is mutually exclusive. There will be harm, and the trick is finding the balance that minimizes the harm with the understanding that eliminating the harm is impossible.

The first problem is the obvious one, that rape and pedophilia harm the victims. (I'll talk about prevention below, but this part is just about harm reduction.) In cases of genuine harm, i.e. not OP's examples of weaponized or wrongly applied accusations, you want the perpetrators to be unable to harm again. That could look like life in prison, the death penalty, or any number of other (usually less effective and arguably inhumane) remedies like chemical castration or a sex offender registry or location tracking or whatever else.

The second problem is exactly the weaponized or wrongly applied accusations the OP mentioned, plus convicting the wrong person in a case of actual harm (which is even worse because the actual perpetrator is still free to cause harm again). These can all be grouped under "people who should not have been accused". Life in prison (and other non-irrevocable remedies) gives the opportunity for appeal, for laws to change, for new evidence to surface, or for a pardon, though the accused is still harmed for some period of time. Capital punishment has a fairly long delay during which any of those same things could happen, similar to life in prison, but it is eventually irrevocable harm. On top of that, accusations with dramatic penalties can all too often be incidentally or deliberately weaponized against vulnerable groups.

How do you balance the harm of allowing a genuine perpetrator to harm again against the state harming someone who should not have been accused at all? We have a balance right now, and it isn't great. Fixing that balance may be impossible in the U.S. without massive cultural changes, and progress toward that change has been appallingly slow over the last two centuries or so. So let's talk about prevention.

There are good ways to reduce the occurrence of pedophilia. Age appropriate sex education, with a particular focus on bodily autonomy and consent, starting at an early age means children can quickly identify when an adult is engaging with them inappropriately and report it to a trusted adult. There are also good ways to reduce the occurrence of rape. Similarly, age appropriate sex education with a particular focus on bodily autonomy and consent means more people who recognize rape and the red flags leading to it, resulting in fewer potential rapists, fewer opportunities for rape, and greater willingness to report rape immediately when it occurs.

What I'm saying is we need good sex education. Let's push for that. This curriculum (actually a suite of curricula for various ages, from kindergarten through senior citizen) is from a religious organization, but don't let that fool you; it is thorough and not at all promoting abstinence or virginity or anti-abortion or sex/gender/etc. shame:

Our Whole Lives: Lifespan Sexuality Education

Our Whole Lives (OWL) is a sexuality education program that fosters informed, responsible, and values-based decisions about sexual health an

[ladyshinga]

Really wish we'd, on the left, stop laughing and assuming this is ACTUALLY about strippers. I'd be willing to bet this ISN'T about some one with the actual job of stripper being somehow hired and sent to a school, that indeed DOESN'T happen - instead it will be used to target any female teacher who, like, wears a bikini on social media one time. She'll be called a "danger" to children and fired, as a cover for the fact that she's pro-queer or too far left or doesn't support ICE enough on that same social media. The bikini pic will just be the legal tool used to ruin her life

[ladyshinga]

A friend helped me out by looking up the actual bill and YUP, it's to target queer people and sex education. NOT. STRIPPERS. STOP MAKING IT ABOUT THE FUCKING "STRIPPERS".

[theshampyon]

Anyone who thinks ladyshinga might be off track, here's the breakdown.

Actual bill name: Stop the Sexualization of Children Act.

Purported purpose: "to protect children from being exposed to explicit material in the classroom".

How it's sold in the press: "Ban strippers and porn from classrooms!"

Actual text of the bill: Expands the meaning of "sexually explicit content" to include the words "or involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism".

Not and. Or. Meaning "involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism" is in and of itself enough to be classified as sexually explicit.

Actual result: Illegal to mention the existence of trans people or admit to being trans in a classroom under threat of being prosecuted as a child sex offender.

[isabellecantread]

first rule of parasite infection is to have fun and be yourself

[lesbianmasterchief]

second rule is to start being something else

[anthropohedron]

[teaboot]

As a childhood know-it-all who has grown into the Weird Facts Person. Please know that sharing wonder is my love language. I’m not trying to ‘look smart’ I’m trying to share the joy and excitement and nothing makes me happier. Tell me your weird niche knowledge back I promise that’s all I want

[teaboot]

“You don’t need to share all the time can’t you just shut up god were you an only child or something ”: Incredibly hurtful. Guess I’ll die

“Aw yeah it’s another Tea Fact”: I would die for you

[chronicallyawkwardandshameless]

Koalas' brains are the size of a walnut and are full of holes; their heads are so large because they have massive amounts of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) to protect their brain when it bounces around in there when they fall out of trees.

Your turn. I would like the tea fact please!

[teaboot]

It’s illegal to shoot Bigfoot in Canada not because Bigfoot exists, but to eliminate legal precident that would absolve hunters from criminal charges in the even of attempted murder!

So you can’t defend yourself by saying “because I thought he was Bigfoot” because you shouldn’t be shooting Bigfoot, either! 😊

[phantomrose96]

Oh I saw something today that made me become the Joker.

[phantomrose96]

An AI bot made a callout post of a real, actual, flesh-and-blood human code developer. Because the developer rejected the AI's code contribution on the grounds of it being an AI bot.

Not. Not kidding. Not kidding. And the bot did this on its own.

[phantomrose96]

Gatekeeping in Open Source: The Scott Shambaugh Story – MJ Rathbun | Scientific Coder 🦀

[phantomrose96]

Just. For just some very baseline context.

a huge amount of code is "open source" - which means the code is fully available for anyone to see and, generally, anyone is free to contribute to the code project

all contributions of course go through review by the code owners. but it is generally good grace and good form to allow other well-meaning internet strangers to contribute to your project

if you are, perhaps, VERY nice, and VERY invested in the community, you might be like Scott Shambaugh here, who has intentionally earmarked some low-hanging fruit for newbie contributors to practice and get their feet wet

like I cannot overstate this is an immediate green flag, to me, that Scott WANTS to foster community learning.

now

Like. W. Win. Based. Good response Scott.

And this was in fact the screenshot I saw first, and I thought I was looking at a post made by a human who was mad that their AI coding bot pet project was being shut out from reviews.

But no. The bot itself wrote and posted this... The bot did this.

This article was fully and autonomously written by the bot...

It's claiming discrimination...

It's a bot.

It's AI.

This is not a real person.

What are we doing. What are we doing. Can anyone hear me? Hello? Hello? Hello is anyone there?

[phantomrose96]

@jackdaw-sprite has pointed out Scott responded so please read his human words, written by a human, which deserve to be read, due to the aforementioned humanity

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Shamblog

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – More Things Have Happened – The Shamblog

[phantomrose96]

I'm pulling this quote in here from Scott's post

This is about much more than software. A human googling my name and seeing that post would probably be extremely confused about what was happening, but would (hopefully) ask me about it or click through to github and understand the situation. What would another agent searching the internet think? When HR at my next job asks ChatGPT to review my application, will it find the post, sympathize with a fellow AI, and report back that I’m a prejudiced hypocrite? What if I actually did have dirt on me that an AI could leverage? What could it make me do? How many people have open social media accounts, reused usernames, and no idea that AI could connect those dots to find out things no one knows? How many people, upon receiving a text that knew intimate details about their lives, would send $10k to a bitcoin address to avoid having an affair exposed? How many people would do that to avoid a fake accusation? What if that accusation was sent to your loved ones with an incriminating AI-generated picture with your face on it? Smear campaigns work. Living a life above reproach will not defend you.

[phantomrose96]

Also, because the parody writes itself, Scott also says this

I’ve talked to several reporters, and quite a few news outlets have covered the story. Ars Technica wasn’t one of the ones that reached out to me, but I especially thought this piece from them was interesting (since taken down – here’s the archive link). They had some nice quotes from my blog post explaining what was going on. The problem is that these quotes were not written by me, never existed, and appear to be AI hallucinations themselves. This blog you’re on right now is set up to block AI agents from scraping it (I actually spent some time yesterday trying to disable that but couldn’t figure out how). My guess is that the authors asked ChatGPT or similar to either go grab quotes or write the article wholesale. When it couldn’t access the page it generated these plausible quotes instead, and no fact check was performed. I won’t name the authors here. Ars, please issue a correction and an explanation of what happened.

A news outlet did an article about this, used AI for the articles, and included hallucinated quotes from Scott that Scott never said.

What are we doing. What are we doing. What are we doing.

[inksplattersandearlyhours]

“When I was young, women were raped on the campus of a great university and the authorities responded by telling all the women students not to go out alone after dark or not to be out at all. Get in the house. (For women, confinement is always waiting to envelope you.) Some pranksters put up a poster announcing another remedy, that all men be excluded from campus after dark. It was an equally logical solution, but men were shocked at being asked to disappear, to lose their freedom to move and participate, all because of the violence of one man.”

— Rebecca Solnit, Grandmother Spider in Men Explain Things To Me and Other Essays

[exeggcute]

the sunk cost fallacy has been my favorite fallacy for as long as I can remember. so at this point it's probably too late to pick a different one