100% this. I feel like I haven’t discovered any new artist since what.cd went down

Imane Khelif won gold, the most satisfying Olympic win.

I’m a

But yea I saw people posting about it and that was the easiest reference to find on my phone

IRGC report that Haniyeh killed by short range missile. Maybe a shoulder launched missile? https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2024/8/3/haniyeh-killed-by-short-range-projectile-fired-from-outside-home-irgc

That certainly seems like the idea most techbros have, turn white-collar workers into quality checkers rather than producers. The thing is I’m not sure the output of a lot of white collar jobs can be treated the same as manufacturing output.

If you replace half your labour in manufacturing a TV, the value of a TV drops and with competition between firms prices & profits tend to drop too. But you can slow down this profit loss due to competition with anti-competitive behaviour: patents, cartels etc.

If you replace your graphic designers with AI, the value of graphic design drops but what you were really trying to “produce” with your fancy branding and packaging was a sense of perceived quality (value). Now that this is lower, consumers adjust their perceptions quickly and you have to demonstrate your product quality by spending money on things AI can’t replicate yet e.g. in-person experiences, or even just video promotion (in the short term at least).

I quite like Ed’s writing for a cathartic rant against the stupidity of AI.

Has anyone got any reading recommendations on the LLM insanity from a marxist perspective though? Assuming AI can replace labour in some industries, it immediately comes up against the LTV, with the value of the output immediately going to almost zero. Companies therefore have to maintain monopolistic false scarcity, which of course tech companies are already trying to do, but it seems to have wider implications for the economy - technofeudalism I guess.

1. No
2. No, not to my knowledge

Definitely some odd things about it. It also seems to not exactly match other studies that found plant-based diets reduce severity rather than occurrence. Might be asymptomatic/low severity cases that aren’t being reported

Edit: actually it does seem to line up with this meta analysis (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jmv.28298) but I can’t find it in sci hub to compare details

“Yes we won’t be able to assist in any meaningful way, but we’d like to confirm that we are, in fact, the bad guys”

Cop cloning technology

The COTW, NZ has deployed 6 soldiers to the Red Sea: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/507356/new-zealand-to-deploy-defence-force-to-red-sea

Need a :nz-cool: emote

Hey it’s my little corner of settler-colonialism in the South Pacific. I can throw out a few thoughts here, although take everything with a grain of salt.

Many of the points can be looked at through a familiar settler-colonial lens. Think the Canada of the Pacific. Maori arrive about 500 years ago, with the Brits beginning colonisation about 200 years ago. Familiar story of decimation of the Māori population through introduced disease, violence and land dispossession. The nuance here is some of the concessions Māori were able to get from the British, most notably Te Tiriti (note: it’s a very short text, worth reading if you’re interested). This has helped to get: dedicated Māori seats in parliament, some reparations for stolen land, co-governance of some land and assets, etc.

This goes along with significant racism towards Māori (and Pasifica) that has always been a major part of our politics but is currently being leveraged in a more American style culture war approach by the right. E.g. demanding government departments to use English names

In terms of foreign relations and economy: Our economy consists of exporting milk powder and trees to China (a mostly lactose intolerant country?), Tourism (don’t look too closely at how fucked the land is from all the dairy cows), consultants sending emails, service workers serving the consultants, and majorly: investing in houses.

Economically we are completely reliant on China, but culturally aligned with the UK and more recently the US. Which is going to make the next decade… Interesting.

I’m somewhat dubious conservatives have the forethought to actually plan a future economy like this though. Based on my local context it seems like a pretty classic case of wanting to eliminate a big line item on the govt budget and a “fuck you I’ll be fine, I can afford private schooling”. With any gains due to a low wage workforce a by-product, but maybe I’m not giving them enough credit.

New

https://twitter.com/revolutionaryem/status/1739374528461967620

https://nitter.net/revolutionaryem/status/1739374528461967620

This one too. Also RIP (fuck Isisrael)

This seems like a decent bullet point history, but it doesn’t cover the last two months:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/9/whats-the-israel-palestine-conflict-about-a-simple-guide

Walking (or biking) to get around town is the most underrated fitness trick. Walk to and from work and you can get 10k steps in without much time or financial cost, mentally feels good, and gets you noticeably fitter.

Convinced my mum to read Ilan Pappe, she’s now on the right side of history

This is absolutely wild. I was wondering how they managed to mine the camp, but it looks like the IDF set up tents right on top of a tunnel?

I think I have a different one to you, because I did that exact thing yesterday