My face when I took mushrooms at the family picnic cuz I thought it was gonna be boring.
I’ll use this to scrape the bottom of barrels looking for more friends.
Here's their full explanation: https://lemmy.world/post/49817942
It's pretty long and includes some insightful details about implementation (making the blocklist's usage at the discretion of the instance admin though not transparent of its contents and defaulting it to enabled) but this quote boils down the underlying sentiment pretty well:
“These are all rough edges of the threadiverse which I am attempting to round off so we might actually be able to retain some level headed people instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel by being a dumping ground for people rejected by civil society."
When you examine the list, by and large, it's pretty reasonable. Lots of false news, state propaganda, spammers, etc. But also the entire lemmy.blahaj.zone instance (where many of lemmy's trans denizens call home). We're included in what the lead developer describes as "bottom of the barrel" "people rejected by civil society."
Though I do fear the backlash. You've got a bunch of malicious spammers, hate-mongers and blackhat state actors who now have an open window to cause a lot of harm (harassment & general sowing of discontent) with the convenient smoke screen of upset trans folks who it can be blamed on.
We’re all witnessing a terrifying game of musical debt. At some point the music is going to stop.
politics @lemmy.world Opinion: I didn’t move to Seattle for progressive politics. I moved here to survive.
This is part of the current Republican modus operandi.
Start by accusing your opponents of false crimes. This excites their base and fills the media landscape with “that didn’t happen” language.
Next, you explicitly commit the crimes that you falsely accused your opponents of. Claim it’s not happening, but if it were, it would be justified because the other side did it already (which they didn’t), then re-use the same “that didn’t happen” language your opponents originally crafted. Now an ignorant public isn’t sure who to believe.
And it’s working.
Make no mistake: this is the biggest sign of any that Republicans are going to attempt a wide variety of election tampering, voter suppression and voter fraud tactics to tip the balance of the November (2026) election.
And it doesn’t have to be wide scale: they just need to disrupt a few urban districts in highly contested states. Any crimes they commit won’t be addressed until after the elections are over. See Musk’s million-dollar voter bribes recently maybe being considered illegal: big deal, the fascists already won and have deployed goons into the streets to deport and murder people.
Get your cameras ready.
Sounds like gender affirming care to me.
> Erik is now playing Fallout New Vegas > Erik is now playing Fallout New Vegas > Erik is now playing Fallout New Vegas > Erik is now playing Fallout New Vegas > Erik is now playing Fallout New Vegas > Erin is now playing Fallout New VegasKokaku’s website is blocking my VPN connection. Here’s the text of the article.
George Lucas Goes To The Dark Side, Says AI Is ‘The Future’
By Kenneth Shepard Published July 14, 2026
The Star Wars creator compares not using AI to riding a horse in the face of cars
I would like to think that not every prestigious filmmaker is vulnerable to the AI propaganda, but it feels like we’re getting new stories of someone partnering with or advocating for the use of artificial intelligence as the future of cinematic storytelling every day. The newest addition to the list? Mr. Star Wars himself, George Lucas, and man is his reasoning a bummer.
In an interview with A Rabbit’s Foot, Lucas discussed his career and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, opening this fall in L.A., which will be showcasing decades of human-made art and spotlighting, as its website calls it, “stories and people who tell them.” In the lengthy interview, Lucas shares some meaningful insights into filmmaking, discusses his collaborations with people like Indiana Jones director Steven Spielberg, and even offers some pithy observations about the pitfalls of testing films with focus groups and whether or not the average viewer is actually in touch with what they like about movies.
“If they don’t like a character, that’s interesting, and as a filmmaker I want to find out why,” he says. “But when the studios hear that, they take the wrong message. They let the audience actually make the movie. Of course, now they go crazy with that. Now, it’s all about what the fans think. That isn’t how you make the movie. You make a movie by finding someone that knows how to make movies, that has a story to tell and is passionate about it.”
Jarringly, this advocacy for human-led storytelling is followed by claims that AI is “the future,” and Lucas compares not using the new technology to relying on antiquated transportation in the face of cars.
“Artificial intelligence means it’s much easier for us to make movies,” he tells A Rabbit’s Foot. “It’s very much like sitting here saying, ‘Well, I believe the horse and the buggy is really where it’s at. These cars, they break down, they need gas, there’s all kinds of problems with them and pretty soon they’ll be making them into tanks, and then they’ll be killing people. It’s terrible.’ There’s nothing you can do about it. That’s progress, it’s the future.”
Though he acknowledged the risks of using the plagiarism machine when A Rabbit’s Foot questioned him further, he doubled down by highlighting other benefits he believes AI will provide in the future.
“If you want AI that tells you when something is fake and where it came from, AI can do that,” he says. “Humans can’t, we’re not that smart. The whole idea is you’re a human being, you’re responsible for what you say and what you do, and if you’re doing something that’s illegal you should be punished for that. Whatever you do, you should be recognized. It’s just like real life.”
There’s a scene in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back where Luke Skywalker is training alongside Yoda and learning the ins and outs of being a Jedi, and he asks if the dark side of the Force is stronger than the light side. Yoda replies that it’s not, but that many fall to it because it is “quicker, easier, more seductive.” That movie was released 46 years ago, but it is certainly illustrative of the logic Lucas is using here.
He advocates for the importance of human-made art, but then argues that using technology that is notorious for stealing from humans and whose results generally look like shit compared to work made by hand would make the filmmaking process “easier.” It’s “the future” and there’s “nothing you can do about it”? It’s contradictory to believe both that it’s the human spirit that makes great films and also that a technology that’s being used to remove the human element from the process is the future of making movies. If that makes me naive and means I’m fighting against the inevitable, then I will go down swinging.
The New York Times is among the organizations from whom I'm least-interested in hearing views of or about Democratic Socialists.
Fuck them transphobes.
Mittens just wants to explain how worm holes work.
Guillermo del Toro made that pretty successful Pinocchio film not long ago.
And let’s not forget how Laika was once Will Vinton Studios (California Raisins, The Noid ads for Dominos Pizza, The PJs, various holiday specials, The Adventures of Mark Twain etc) before a hostile takeover by the Knight family and eventually rebranded.
All that said, I got to see the trailer for Wildwood on a big screen the other day and it looks legitimately stunning. I’m definitely going to catch it in a theater.
Wasn’t he busy with that skibidy toilet movie?
The only acceptable response is “I heard he was good at making bitches wet.”
Toby Hooper, always pinching those pennies!
( ( stares at the Fibonacci sequence... ) )
This has to do something...
The "manifesto" is an excerpt from the CEO's book, posted as a twitter thread, reposted below for anyone curious about the flavor palate of boots.
Because we get asked a lot.
The Technological Republic, in brief.
- Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.
- We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.
- Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.
- The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.
- The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.
- National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.
- If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.
- Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.
- We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.
- The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.
- Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.
- The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.
- No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.
- American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.
- The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.
- We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.
- Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.
- The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.
- The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.
- The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.
- Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.
- We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?
Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska
It's worth listening to the More Perfect podcast episode on wtf Clarance Thomas's ideological deal is.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolabmoreperfect/episodes/clarence-x
News @lemmy.world “Journalism Deserves Better”: Ex-Washington Post Staffers Slam Billionaire Bezos for Gutting Paper
Not necessarily.
While it’s true that the job listing was probably fake, the reason for listing it is often to collect data on the current hiring pool, including how much response can be expected when listing a role with varying salaries. HR departments take this insight back to their current employees and use it to decide who to give raises to and who can be replaced by someone new who will work for less.