shoomt

[shoomt]

it's neat how periodically marxists will talk about this and not like the consequences of improving conditions of the developing world.

keep talking about the mysterious absence of "American revolutionary potential", noting that Americans are pampered over and over is true material analysis.

Kind of painful to admit that at the heart of the lack of revolutionary struggle in the US is the fact that conditions haven't deteriorated enough. Like when people talk about declining standards of the quality of life they're talking about "fries used to automatically come with a burger now you have to pay extra if you want a side".

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There is a truck on occasion past my street, nothing but sound and wind billowing after it. It is akin to a local deity common to the salt flats, that of the streamliner, though very much in form opposite. Still stands the wind before it, as it moves through the air with no roar or quake, but a hurricane of a fire perfect. At such a point the machine overtakes the driver, but in no case of it being smarter, or more powerful than him, but all-encompassing, as a keystone to a cave, or a leak out of a dam.

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the few ancient greeks thinking the whole world was made of one element or another were on the one planet where it was the least intuitive, I'd totally have thought that on mars or pluto

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Jaywalking is the best aging filter, the worse you get at it the better it is for you to get hit by a truck

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having an opinion on containers is difficult, the shipping cost reductions seem very impressive but where will the dockworkers go!!

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"the cruelty is the point" is probably the stupidest and most reductive slogan to come out of the internet left in decades.

"What if we stopped all political economic analysis and just said they're mean because they're bad instead?"

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Artfight attack on user Phyrx

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I hate pensioners.

[shoomt]

the second part is much less coherent than the first but most of the claims in general seem silly

The fundamental problem is that the process of aggregating content and creating output based on that aggregation is going to inherently lead to the blandest possible outcome.

this part blames synthetic data which is a very strange take considering models that don't use them aren't any less bland. like if that's "the fundamental problem" we can just skip that part of training.

Human artists draw inspiration from earlier artists and work within an artistic tradition, but they also can choose to rebel against tradition or against specific aspects of traditions. .... the fact is that the complicated interaction between conformity and contrarianism is what makes art interesting.

OP seems to heavily overestimate the weight of rebellion on why art is interesting for the sake of justifying why ai art isn't. not only is this artist sentiment prevalent in a narrow timespan of the history of art (even within these times it was represented by one out of multiple concurrent art movements), it ignores all other factors that go into making art styles diverge (some of it subconscious to the artist) like:

personal creativity

growing technical sophistication

inspiration from older times

admiration of foreign people

change in market tastes

current events and cultural atmosphere

the appearance of new mediums

religious lore

miscommunication

Al is not capable of internalizing the values of an art movement

if we ignore the unwarranted emphasis on art movements, I don't understand the apparent assumption that AI model selects its own prompts. When I look at a photograph, I don't consider that the camera behind it couldn't even comprehend the subject matter, I think of the photographer! The AI model doesn't need to "internalize" any value whatsoever as long as the promopters can describe the piece in a way to get the result they want.

it doesn't actually correspond to anything in the material world. Since matter can't be created or destroyed, pure negation is impossible

what the fuck does this even mean?

There's no such thing as "the opposite of a chair." In the realm of aesthetics this mean you can't replace an aesthetic value with an "opposite" aesthetic value, you can only replace it with what you judge to be "the most different" aesthetic , which is always going to be somewhat subjective.

please consider thinking of some "aesthetic values" and try to find whether they are just negations of artist values that are themselves negations all the way into the first cave paintings, or if they are born for and are reflective of the conditions and cultural concerns of their time. This conception cannot be more reductive of the process it intends to venerate.

The era of interesting AI art is pretty much over. The glitchy early generations were fun, but as the kinks get ironed out it has become boring. The fundamental problem is that the process of aggregating content and creating output based on that aggregation is going to inherently lead to the blandest possible outcome. Human artists draw inspiration from earlier artists and work within an artistic tradition, but they also can choose to rebel against tradition or against specific aspects of traditions. People tend to roll their eyes at the idea of being contrarian (see: all the mockery of hipsters throughout the years, as well as people being mad at dadaism for "not being real art"), but the fact is that the complicated interaction between conformity and contrarianism is what makes art interesting. AI is not capable of internalizing the values of an art movement, imagining what the opposite might look like (and again here there is a space for creativity: any given set of values can have more than one set of opposing values to choose from*), and intentionally doing the opposing thing. Art based purely on synthesis is always going to be bland and forgettable. *To drill down more into the "each set of values can have more than one opposing set of values" idea: the fundamental issue is that "negation" is a part of human psychology, but it doesn't actually correspond to anything in the material world. Since matter can't be created or destroyed, pure negation is impossible; things can only be transformed into other things. Even the idea of "opposition" is a figment of human psychology. There's no such thing as "the opposite of a chair." In the realm of aesthetics this mean you can't replace an aesthetic value with an "opposite" aesthetic value, you can only replace it with what you judge to be "the most different" aesthetic value, which is always going to be somewhat subjective.

[shoomt]

a few weeks ago I was walking out of a mall before a security guard randomly called me, so I went to this 60 year old man to see what he wants from me. he gave me his Nokia and asked me to call someone he gave me the name of.

I helped him ofc (mildly amused by myself still remembering how to type characters on these) but it's distressing in such a way to see people the age of my dad who are totally illiterate, it is (irrationally) demoralising.

I'm reminded of being like 8 and typing the numbers my grandma memorised only in speech on her telephone, my one attempt to teach her numbers didn't go well.

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saw 2 kids ask a black cat to meow if its a jinn. I thought this shit would have died out by now, but you gotta appreciate when life gives you replays of your childhood

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the aesthetic consequences of cars on cities seem very mixed

nighttime car flow, traffic lights, painted road indicators, overpasses, gas stations, complex intersections, fatal accidents are beautiful additions, while traffic signs, drive thrus, parking lots, and wider roads all look terrible.

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"biblically accurate angels" for retards annoying about thought experiments instead of religion

riding the trolley out of omelas because i'm a little too shaken to walk rn and i just heard this weird thump from the tracks. probably nothing

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when I was young and browsed arguments in YouTube (Arabic) comments, I remember noticing shias and christians tended to be more sophisticated in their apologism which confused me considering they were on the Wrong Side. I eventually guessed that while the average individual of the majority grew complacent and obv didn't bother understanding the less respected positions which they rarely had to be exposed to, minorities were certainly exposed to the majority takes and searched counters to them. this slightly-above-layman experience seems to create the most annoying online personalities

[shoomt]

when I was young and browsed arguments in YouTube (Arabic) comments, I remember noticing shias and christians tended to be more sophisticated in their apologism which confused me considering they were on the Wrong Side. I eventually guessed that while the average individual of the majority grew complacent and obv didn't bother understanding the less respected positions which they rarely had to be exposed to, minorities were certainly exposed to the majority takes and searched counters to them. this slightly-above-layman experience seems to create the most annoying online personalities

[shoomt]

was late for Friday prayer and because the mosque was full I had to do it by the gate, if I were a catholic or at least what i wish them to be I'd think of the occasional puffs of the A/Cs against the 40c air as a divinely intended metaphor

[shoomt]

at awe of the sentience gap between tumblr posters and tumblr commenters, tumblr comment sections are really the slums of slums