We Can Do This @myveryhelpfulblog - Tumblr Blog

WELCOME TO MY VERY HELPFUL BLOG!

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Hi. The purpose of this blog is exactly what the URL says. I plan to update this pinned post with urgent appeals as they happen, so do check back from time to time if you wish.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ˖ .

I started this blog after way too much doomscrolling and being exposed to a certain set of files. The horrors happening in the world right now are a lot. Feeling helpless is crappy. I don't think it has to be this way all the time. I think we all need to band together and be there for each other, because change for the better can only happen if we all work together. I'm just an ordinary person trying to feel less helpless through this blog.

On this blog you'll (hopefully) be able to find useful resources and links in an effort to drive changes within areas I, and potentially you, care about. These being anti-AI, tech/piracy, anti-capitalism, mental health, LGBTQ rights, women's rights, POC rights, animal welfare, and more. Hell, even if local causes need a signal boost. Anything to try and make the world a better place for all of us.

So, yeah, that's my intro. I hope this blog ends up serving its purpose.

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CURRENT URGENT APPEALS/CAMPAIGNS

MASS SLAUGHTER OF DOGS IN MOROCCO (PETITION) - In preparation for the 2030 World Cup, government appointed men in Morocco are brutally killing street dogs. Sign the petition to stop this. Read my post with more information here.

ATTACK ON TRANS RIGHTS IN KANSAS - Overnight, driving licenses of trans people in Kansas were invalidated. Speak up, support trans people, and keep making noise about it. Read my post here for more resources.

DEFEAT OPENAI WITH QUITGPT - OpenAI's support of Trump and ICE is leading people to boycott it entirely. This blog is against AI as a whole, so while I don't agree with the movement recommending alternatives, it is a first step in bringing down these big AI companies. Read my post about it here.

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#blog introduction #blog intro #introductory post #activism #anti ai #anti ice #lgbtq rights #women's rights #poc rights #animal welfare

ellipsus-writes

Right y’all 😮‍💨—we worked our way though over 5,000 responses for our survey on writing in the age of AI. We crunched the numbers, made some lovely infographics, gathered a ton of phenomenal quotes, data’d the data—and shared the results over on our blog.

Who’s ready for some pie charts?!🧵🧵

gayteensupreme

"queer-owned business" means nothing anymore. OpenAI and Palantir are both queer-owned businesses.

gayteensupreme

if this is how you find out that both sam altman and peter thiel are gay im sorry

selenekallanwriter

So, apparently, editors are making authors remove em dashes, similes, and metaphors from their manuscripts because "it's giving an AI feel" to their novels. Just one more reason to stay indie. I'm using all the em dashes, similes, and metaphors I fucking want. Fuck AI. Fuck sloppers. Fuck people who think proper grammar means you've used AI. Fuck bland, repetitive, soulless, boring as shit books published by editorial houses that actually do use AI because they are run by cheap-skate, mediocre cowards who are helping the powers that be make us dumber via their garbage content.

holdoncallfailed

ever since i was a little girl i knew i wanted to deny location sharing and turn off personalized ads and reject all non-essential cookies and not set up siri and face ID

theconcealedweapon

ooc-posting

Just opened Bumble and got a pop up that asked if I wanted AI feedback on my pictures??? Absolutely fucking not. So then I try to contact them to ask why they want to scan my face into an AI program but— surprise surprise— I get an AI chat bot. After asking for a live agent several times, I finally said “I don’t want to talk to a fucking ai” and it said someone from the team will send me an email in 24-48 hours.

Not one app needs to have AI but especially not fucking Bumble.

sulkysnape

(not my screenshots but I felt the need to say something about this)

I opened up my feed this afternoon and saw that this ao3 user has decided to start an AI witch hunt with absolutely no real credibility behind any of it.

I hate AI and want to see it disappear from this planet too, but I can also recognize that there is absolute no way a person can 1000% confirm that a piece of writing was created with AI unless it was said outright by the creator. I don't care who I piss off when I say this, but YOU ARE NOT FIGHTING AGAINST GENERATIVE AI BY ATTACKING WRITERS WITH BASELESS ACCUSATIONS. YOU ARE ALMOST AS BAD AS THE GENAI USERS.

Commenting "is this AI?" under another person's fic just because you feel like it?? Not the move you think you are making. You are rude.

I saw a post a few days ago that said "all of the 'ai signs' people speak of, are just what most writers actually do." People shouldn't fear using an em dash or writing overly detailed scenes just because some robot that is TRAINED ON HUMAN WRITING exists.

I have been writing fanfiction for over twelve years now and personally, if I were added to a list like this, you guys probably wouldn't see me on here for awhile. Some people are already insecure about their writing as it is and this witch hunting thing is only hurting those who spend long hours working with real passion.

So the next time you decide to harass a poor author with no credibility to back you up, ask yourself this:

Is this question rude or harmful?

Could I be reading a fic that was not written in someone's first language?

Do I think this detailed fic is AI or am I just not used to reading overly detailed fics?

Do I think this fic is AI because it's too short or did the author just prefer to write it that way?

Could my comment contribute to a person stepping away from writing all together?

Could this be an author's first fic who just wanted to write about their favorite character?

Do I actually KNOW if this fic is written with AI????????

I have been wanting to say this for awhile & I'm glad I finally did. Here is a link to the fics that this bozo of a creator decided to harass. PLEASEEE go give them some kudos and comment positive things to combat this weirdo's negative behavior.

WRITING IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN GUYS! WE ARE A COMMUNITY! IT IS FUCK AI ALWAYS, BUT DON'T LET AI RIP APART THE COMMUNITY WE'VE BUILT TOO.

(the link incase you missed it)

-> Bookmarks by i_hate_ai_fics

myveryhelpfulblog

I'd also like to add that some people like to pre-write their fics before they post them. E.g doing multiple drafts and then posting the final version once they're happy, or spreading out the updates across a period of time that might seem "too fast"

#fuck ai #anti generative ai #ao3 writer #fanfic #fanfiction #archive of our own #anti ai

hope-for-the-planet

Forty-three years after the last free-ranging rhinos were seen in the country, the Uganda Wildlife Authority has welcomed four southern whit

From the article:

Forty-three years after the last free-ranging rhinos were seen in the country, the Uganda Wildlife Authority has welcomed four southern white rhinos to Kidepo Valley National Park, in the country’s north, from a breeding sanctuary designed for the species’ reintroduction. “We are glad and privileged to be taking back rhinos much as it is a different subspecies from that that used to exist, because the northern white rhino is the one which used to exist there but was hunted to extinction,” UWA executive director James Musinguzi said at the Ziwa sanctuary on Mar. 17. According to the wildlife authority, a total of eight rhinos will be released in the park by May this year, marking the beginning of a longer process aimed at establishing a viable free-ranging rhino population in Kidepo Valley National Park.

mossbawn

you can leave the house with a bare face and suffer no consequences btw. if you're a woman you do not have to wear any makeup

mossbawn

places and events i've worn no makeup to: every job interview i've ever done (i'm employed), every doctor's appointment i've ever attended (i still get treated), every shift i've ever worked (nobody gives a fuck), every pub and nightclub i've ever been to (they still let you in)

ellipsus-writes

Back to scheduled sad boy hours from your favorite local writing tool! As surveillance capitalism has expanded over the years, so has the scope of data Google collects.

Biometric data (face, voice), location, private medical data, search terms—if it can be used to identify you, to sell to you, it creates value for Google. It may not seem like it, but a single image can transmit loads of sell-able data: from the activities you enjoy, to your interests; "mood, gaze, clothing, gait, hair, body type, and posture"—Google can use all of this to beef up their behavioral predictions. (Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 252).

A photo of your cat, a group shot from Friendsgiving, the tabs you open while researching a character’s illness or a historical execution method; everything is a potential reservoir of data that advertisers would very much like to own.

But it doesn't stop there 😣

There's also a new type of data on the rise—so-called "emotional analytics"—that collects emotional states down to the micro-level. It isn’t just what you click, but how you feel while you’re doing it. A lingering gaze (whomst among us hasn’t gazed into the void of late); a furrowing of the brow; where your cursor or eye travels on the screen… Advertisers track your real-time emotional state so the algorithm can time ads for when you are most easily influenced (or vulnerable).

Which is kind of a nightmare for anyone whose work involves introspection. Writing is slow and vulnerable. Writing requires sitting with discomfort, ambiguity, obsessions... unpublishable thoughts, all the fun stuff. And on platforms like Google Docs, that process happens inside systems explicitly designed to observe, categorize, and monetize behavior.

For-real dystopian.

Three years ago, a growing sense of fatigue/horror at Tech's general authoritarian lurch—and the need to carve out a space, however small, where human work could exist without being harvested—prompted us to build something better than Google Docs (... yeah, we're getting there.) Our need has only grown stronger. As has the Ellipsus community that's grown up around it (that means you babes! Almost 300,000 of you! 😱)

We could have never predicted how bad it would get out there, or how fast. But we’re incredibly optimistic that an effort to move away from Big Tech into human-first, privacy-focused creative spaces will play a huge part in impeding the tide toward surveillance and authoritarianism online.

(... Anyway, they might have the algos: we've got actual people. 🔥) - the Ellipsus Team xo

robertreich

Trump pardons allies who boost his crypto coin. Trump invests in corporations that he's supposed to be regulating. Trump cuts deals with autocrats to advance his family's real estate business. The list goes on. We must not become numb to this blatant corruption.

sex-favorable-aces

This is what I mean. I scrolled for 20 minutes in the asexual tag. These were the posts I found. Guess how many I found that weren't equating asexuality with sex repulsion?

One. And it was someone who was lementing how they've been told their non-strictly sex repulsed orientation will make it difficult for them to find a partner who loves them the way they are.

And this isn't just "I personally don't like sex".

It's erasing asexuals who do have sex.

It's lumping all of us together, with the unspoken addition of "if you aren't like this then you aren't asexual".

It's shaming people who like sex (including asexual).

This is what I mean when I talk about we as a community need to be more mindful about how we talk about and to our community as a whole. As a sex favorable asexual, stuff like this reminds me that the rest of my community would rather I didn't exist, because they either already act like I don't, think I'm not "ace enough", or think I'm disgusting. None of that is community behavior.

But there will be a whole essay post talking about how sex favorable asexuals get all the media representation and there's nothing for the sex repulsed asexuals (fucking where? I'm so serious as soon as someone can send me at least five canon sex favorable asexuals I'll stop making this point)

clarabosswald

“It is one of the worst mass killings in contemporary world history.”

via the new york times

hope-for-the-planet

Denmark’s red streetlights cut light pollution, protect wildlife, and could reshape how cities light the night.

From the article:

Denmark has introduced a revolutionary transformation: to change the street lighting. In the region called Gladsaxe, red LED streetlights have been installed along selected roads as a way to protect wildlife while keeping residents safe. It is also a way to reduce the harmful effects of artificial light at night. Nocturnal animals, especially bats, are highly sensitive to bright urban lighting, and this change could cut down the disruptions. Backed by scientific research, the shift hints toward a new way of thinking about urban design, balancing safety and environmental responsibility. [...] However, red-spectrum lighting appears to have far less impact on bat activity. "We've found these bats to be equally active in red light and in darkness. White and green light, on the other hand, substantially reduce the bats' level of activity," said lead researcher Kamiel Spoelstra, per Euro News. In Gladsaxe, officials replaced standard white streetlights with red LEDs. The move aims to reduce harm to wildlife while still providing safe and effective lighting for the public. Changes have already been made in the city by officials who replaced standard white streetlights with red LEDs along Frederiksborgvej, a road close to a bat colony. The focus is to protect species like the common pipistrelle and the brown long-eared bat. Besides helping wildlife, the red streetlights also carry a clear signal. In Gladsaxe, the red glow is known as the area where city life meets natural habitats. It serves as a reminder for residents and commuters that these regions consist of vulnerable species and should be treated with care. The red lighting is a way to raise awareness. Gladsaxe’s approach could be inspiring for other cities as the environmental crisis grows. It is time to rethink how infrastructure can reflect sustainability values.

Thanks to an anonymous messenger for sending in this story!

fangedjester

Rest in piss

ellipsus-writes

Once more unto the breach, dear friends (sigh)—this time, we'll look at the ways AI keeps eating the internet (and itself 🐍).

It's a well known fact that Big Tech scrapes material to train their LLMs—but what does scraping actually look like? What exactly goes into it?

Even before their use of the controversial “Books 1” and “Books 2” datasets was exposed, Big Tech’s data appetites extended deep into the open web. In a 2023 investigation, the Washington Post analyzed Google's C4 dataset, which was used to train their early LLM models. The Post found content from over 15 million websites, including heaps of original writing: news articles, academic writing, personal and public blogs, and (of course) fanfic were all represented.

Much of this writing came from well-known and well-loved hosting sites: Tumblr, AO3, scribd, b-ok.org, Patreon, Kickstarter, medium, WordPress, Blogspot, LiveJournal, etc.

The C4 dataset itself was sourced from a large database belonging to Common Crawl, a nonprofit who's whole raison d'etre is to scrape the internet bare. Nearly every name in Big Tech has dipped into Common Crawl's enormous database to train their AI models (OpenAI, Meta, and so on—all of whom "donate" to the non-profit for privileged access.)

Common Crawl is definitely a bit… problematique. They've been known to conceal contents in their archives; and shoot down simple requests for attribution of scraped content: "It's not our job," said Rich Skrenta, its executive director, in conversation with The Atlantic.

And once the data's scraped into the archive, it's nearly impossible to remove. Skrenta said: "you can't delete anything from [the Common Crawl archive]. (Which is why AO3 received a big no when it requested for all scraped data to be removed in 2023.)

If that weren't awful enough, the Common Crawl's databases are actively making the internet (even) worse, more dangerous, more racist, more generally fucked up. In a 2023 paper analyzing datasets used to train image-generators, researchers found that models trained on one of the Common Crawl datasets were "five times more likely […] to label black male faces as criminals." Another study in the same year discovered that a different Common Crawl data set "contained thousands of images of verified and suspected [CSAM]." (Karen Hao, Empire of AI, 137)

Since 2023’s blowback, the behemoths have gotten hyper-secretive about the datasets they use to train their AI. We don't know what OpenAI’s GPT-4o was trained on, much less Sora or GPT-5.

We also know that in 2024, LLM trainers hit a data-wall. Meaning, the models exhausted all the available data on the internet, pushing them to find new, and non-public, sources of data.

Given the secrecy of it all, we should all be, hmm........ a lil skeptical of any claims of transparency.

And then, of course—there's Google. When you’ve spent decades cataloguing the internet (and when you effectively own the archive), training your own model—Gemini—comes with certain… conveniences.

But! More on that next time… 🫣 - the Ellipsus Team xo

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