'People are panicking about AI tools the same way they did when the calculator was invented, stop worrying' cannot stress enough the calculator did not forcibly pervade every aspect of our lives, has such a low error rate it's a statistical anomaly when it does happen, isn't built on mass plagiarism, and does not obliterate the fucking environment when you use it. Be so fucking serious right now
answering a couple questions i got on this post since i realized ppl genuinely wanna know:
tl;dr:
israel lets very, very little aid get into gaza. even the UN can't get in as much as they want to. funding individual families, gazan led initiatives, and mutual aid collectives operating out of gaza ensures gazans can provide for themselves and pay for the extremely expensive aid that is available.
with all the civil infrastructure destroyed by israel, the situation on the ground has devolved into unrestricted capitalism, driving up the price of aid (that should be free!). this makes it more urgent for people to have funding for daily survival.
the post linked above has examples of how donating to individual families can help a lot. if you want to help more than one family at a time, there are many gazan-led initiatives focusing on rebuilding their infrastructure and distributing aid fairly that are worth donating to instead of large charities that already get the majority of donations.
as i mentioned in the last post: @/careforgaza on twitter is a nonprofit started by gazans, it's been endorsed by multiple palestinian journalists.
the sameer project is a collective organized by diaspora palestinians offering emergency shelter to gazans.
ele elna elak is a project aiming to bring water, food, shelter, etc. to gazans and has been promoted by bisan owda.
and the municipality of gaza itself is fundraising to rebuild water infrastructure.
all of these organizations are active inside gaza right now and are being run by gazans. if anyone knows of other gazan-led mutual aid projects, nonprofits or charities feel free to link them in the notes! hope this helped!
long answers under the cut!
if you wanna donate to a charity that's absolutely fine, but the thing is most charities (and even the UN!) are unable to make it into gaza in the first place, leaving aid rotting at the egyptian side of the border or subject to israeli settler attacks
not to mention, charities and nonprofits also maintain a paternalistic colonial relationship with the indigenous people they are trying to help, determining what aid they need for them instead of returning power to them and letting them make their own choices
i'm not here to say that one option is better than the other, just that they achieve different things and are equally legitimate. there's an attitude among people who question the legitimacy of these gofundme campaigns that somehow the people promoting them are telling them not to donate to charities. nobody is stopping you from donating to charities. we are just asking that you do not dehumanize the very real gazans in your inbox just because their method of asking for aid is more direct and risky.
unfortunately that's exactly what has happened. because israel destroyed all of gaza's more formalized infrastructure, it seems that organized crime and rampant inflation has taken its place. aid is supposed to be free, but in order to save for evacuation or the cost of living, people have started selling them at an inflated price. and aid that is truly free attracts intense, large crowds that are dangerous to navigate.
this was posted on abc a few days ago
it's pure, unrestrained capitalism. i've had multiple palestinians describe this situation to me confidence. that's why everything's so expensive now. why people have to rent out tiny plots of land for their tents to sit on, why my friend @siraj2024 still has to buy tarps to cover the broken windows of the overpriced bombed out apartment he rented, and why a bag of flour can cost a thousand bucks in the north.
even before israel closed and then bombed the rafah crossing, the egyptian hala travel agency was only allowing people to cross the border if they paid a hefty $5000 USD per adult / $2500 USD per child bribe. it denies doing this, but the hundreds of stories from palestinians say otherwise.
with regard to the economy, here in america we saw something similar happen in the wake of hurricane helene and milton. the podcaster margaret killjoy describes how she saw dual economies rise after asheville was fully cut off from the rest of the country - some people offered each other supplies for free in a sort of mutual aid honor system, and some people required payment when they lent supplies because they themselves needed to buy stuff for their families. these dual economies exist in gaza too. and this means they all still need money to survive.
sometimes i wish i could tell other women that you can just stop removing your body hair and in many cases the consequences will be way less severe than u expect. you can go to the beach with all your leg hair intact and nobody will stop you or say a thing. you can stop waxing your upper lip and people won’t stare at it the way u might be bracing yourself for. you can quit plucking your brows and eventually they will grow back into themselves and no one will even notice. like for sure women are punished for not participating in beauty rituals but i also feel like so much of it is like The Panopticon sometimes where you just convince yourself that if u stop that kind of gendered upkeep everyone will be mad and stop talking to u forever when in reality you just keep existing and nothing remarkable happens. it’s not always easy but you can kind of just stop for real
Oh gee, you're right! Why didn't the people who can't even move their arms think of just making a painting? /s
And before anyone starts spouting some "art is more than just painting" spiel, you don't know what kind of art someone might need to make in order to express their vision. An artist may have a very specific idea in mind to create the perfect piece of graphic art, and using music, performance, etc. just won't cut it for them. AI is a tool that can help the disabled in so many ways. Not even just with art. Get off your high horse and accept that disabled people have different needs and, guess what, ABILITIES than you do. Fuck you, asshole.
you're fighting against a tool that makes art more accessible, and actively dismissing the notion that it could even possibly be doing that. this IS ableist. YOU are the tar pit in this situation.
Hi I’m disabled I’m crippled I have a disorder that makes my fingers suddenly dislocate while I’m holding my pencil I have a spinal issue that makes it hard for me to bend over a desk half of the time I have leg issues that make it difficult for me to get around etc etc etc. I also have a bunch of other issues I don’t want to tell you about.
I’m also in art college. And even if I wasn’t, I’ve been doing art for almost a decade now. I’ve been disabled the whole bloody time.
AI, isn’t art.
There are many disabled artists and we have adapted our own ways of dealing with how we create. Fuck you, we have been doing this forever.
Vincent Van Gogh had temporal lobe epilepsy; Henri Matisse became a wheelchair user after surgery for cancer; Michelangelo had osteoarthritis, limiting mobility and causing pain in his hands and feet.
Paul Smith had a severe case of cerebral palsy and created art using typewriters.
Peter Longstaff has no arms due to Thalidomide, and paints with his feet.
Frida Kahlo not only had polio that disabled her as a child, but of course as we all know was injured in a bus accident at the age of 18, which caused her lifelong pain and medical problems.
Fuck, you want a personal annecdote? I knew a girl (we have lost touch since) who was paralysed from the neck down and she painted with her mouth and there are other artists who do so too! And with eye tracking technology I’m sure disabled artists will be getting more and more tools as the years pass. But we do NOT condone AI art. All that does is put us, real disabled artists, who exist and need support, out of jobs and commissions.
hi, another disabled person here for more personal anecdotes! here is an art piece i made entirely with my non dominant hand 1 week before my most recent shoulder surgery on that same arm. i also wear splint rings to keep my fingers from dislocating while painting (or playing bass guitar cause i do that too). i make most of my income off hand painted art despite having hand tremors, frequent wrist dislocations/subluxations, and migraines.
my friend and her wife also make their incomes off wig making, leatherwork, and digital collage prints. both have chronic pain as well.
our lines arent perfect because we have shaky hands but thats ok, make it a feature not a flaw in your art. fuck AI.
Anyone who thinks physically disabled people need to use art stealing AI to make our own art is the ableist, actually.
Mine isn't as drastic (yet) but I've been having to wear wrist braces and finger splints since childhood off and on because using my hands in a repetitive motions causes them to be in pretty excruciating pain.
What is my art medium of choice? Knitting. You know, that thing where you have to do a repetitive motion over and over again. I hold my needles a bit strange, I knit through the pain, I sometimes have to give up working on it for weeks at a time. But I will not stop because it's what makes my heart sing.
Disabled artists don't need your pity, we've been getting by, doing what makes us happy despite the pain and hardships for thousands of years, probably longer, I bet there were neolithic disabled artists.
No actual real artist wants or uses AI, including disabled artists. AI is for losers who are scared of the extremely important phase in art where you suck and want to skip it by stealing and not even in a cool "I'm emulating your style because I wanna learn from it" way.
Go suck at art for a couple years like the rest of us and stop talking over disabled artists.
Chuck Close was a painter and photographer who specialized in ENORMOUS portraiture. If you've never been in the same room as one of his works, try to remedy that if you can, because it is an awesome experience. Close had a number of mental and physical conditions as a child, but in 1988, in his 40s and already a celebrated artist, he suffered a blood clot that left him paralyzed from the neck down. After intensive physical therapy, he was able to regain enough control to move his arms (more his upper arms than forearms), enabling him to paint with a brush strapped to his wrist. He adapted his painting style for his disability... and he continued painting enormous, hyper realistic portraits.
Close with self-portraits before (left) and after (right) his paralysis:
Alternatively, they could just try not being dickbags who murder for shareholder profit.
Bit late for United Health to scrub its CEO information, all things considered, but I'm sure Brian Thompson's replacement feels really secure right about now.
when i was a homeless 20-year-old i was rejected from multiple housing opportunities because i had 5k in medical debt from going to the ER after getting roofied and sexually assaulted (i was unconscious so calling 911 was not my decision) and UHC denied my insurance claim. so yeah, i'm actually deriving an enormous amount of pleasure from watching health insurance CEOs snivel and hide like the heartless cowards they are. may those who profit from our suffering live in fear of those they seek to deny.
as of now she’s facing 15 years in jail for ‘threatening’ the ceo of the insurance company that denied her claim. and isn’t that ironic? since women always get told that ‘threats don’t mean anything unless there’s action’ when it comes to reporting stalkers, ex and present partners who threaten abuse. but now a threat warrants this disproportionate action?
