stylishtaboos

[stylishtaboos]

ed zitron, a tech beat reporter, wrote an article about a recent paper that came out from goldman-sachs calling AI, in nicer terms, a grift. it is a really interesting article; hearing criticism from people who are not ignorant of the tech and have no reason to mince words is refreshing. it also brings up points and asks the right questions:

if AI is going to be a trillion dollar investment, what trillion dollar problem is it solving?

what does it mean when people say that AI will "get better"? what does that look like and how would it even be achieved? the article makes a point to debunk talking points about how all tech is misunderstood at first by pointing out that the tech it gets compared to the most, the internet and smartphones, were both created over the course of decades with roadmaps and clear goals. AI does not have this.

the american power grid straight up cannot handle the load required to run AI because it has not been meaningfully developed in decades. how are they going to overcome this hurdle (they aren't)?

people who are losing their jobs to this tech aren't being "replaced". they're just getting a taste of how little their managers care about their craft and how little they think of their consumer base. ai is not capable of replacing humans and there's no indication they ever will because...

all of these models use the same training data so now they're all giving the same wrong answers in the same voice. without massive and i mean EXPONENTIALLY MASSIVE troves of data to work with, they are pretty much as a standstill for any innovation they're imagining in their heads

[stylishtaboos]

I've been reading some more of the works of eugenicists while thinking about the state of education about this ideology. Yes, "Eugenics" is a dirty word nowadays; in my opinion, it's not nearly dirty enough.

Here's a fact to make your head spin: Eugenics wasn't about killing people. Yes, it ended up killing people, and if you examine the way eugenics has influenced the world, you realize it still does kill people, but the architects of eugenics weren't leading with, "My fellow countrymen, we should On Purpose Kill People."

The reason that's important is, people keep coming up with ideas labeled (by their critics) "uncomfortably similar to eugenics"--- ideas for a compassionate, scientifically-grounded way of improving humanity by understanding the heredity of good and bad traits and influencing the fertility rates of people with different genetic traits.

There is already a word for this kind of idea. That word is: eugenics. It is silly to set yourself apart from eugenicists by explicitly repudiating killing people or forcibly sterilizing them, when many founding eugenicists also explicitly repudiated killing people or forcibly sterilizing them.

Here is an Internet Archive link to "Heredity in relation to eugenics," a work by Charles Benedict Davenport, an early eugenicist. Please read at least the first four pages.

I'm afraid that his brief introduction to eugenics could sound, to the layperson, surprisingly less scary and disgusting than expected. Mister Davenport's word choices may provide a "red flag" to the reader: he refers to human babies as a "valuable crop," to marriage between people as "mating." The disquiet these word choices cause is because they dehumanize the subjects. Humans, from Davenport's perspective, are essentially the same as agricultural plants or animals, which in turn are assets, sources of economic gain---they are things.

Davenport articulates the contribution of a human being to the United States: "...forming a united, altruistic, God-serving, law-abiding, effective and productive nation." However, relatively few people are "fully effective" at this purpose, because a proportion of society is "non-productive"---either criminals or disabled, or among the people required to care for and control criminals and the disabled.

After you read the introduction of Davenport's book, read his wikipedia page. He was a Nazi. He was a Nazi until the day he died. He was rabidly and repugnantly racist, so much so that his later scientific works fudged together garbage conclusions that contradicted his actual data in order to prop up his racist beliefs. He lobbied Congress to restrict immigration into the USA, out of the belief that the immigrants would poison the blood of our country with inferior genetics.

Overwhelmingly, eugenicists were concerned with disability. They believed that disability would normally be eliminated by natural selection, and that caring for the disabled and allowing them to grow up and to have children would cause a steady increase in the proportion of society made up of disabled people---who were, as Davenport puts it, a "burden" on society.

Eugenicists were also concerned with race. They wanted to gather data that demonstrated what they already believed: that race was a biological reality, a reality that could only appear unclear or malleable because of harmful, aberrant, unnatural scenarios, namely miscegenation or race mixing. Basically, race was both a natural reality, and in need of enforcement.

But eugenicist ideology was not just about the inferiority of disabled people or people of color. Eugenicists thought of their ideas as a science and thought of themselves as scientists, and they broadly addressed virtually everything we would now consider a matter of "public health." Eugenicist writings almost universally address crime, and often don't recognize a clear distinction between crime and mental disability, or between either of those things and poverty. Criminals, disabled people and poor people were basically the same; they had something wrong with their genes that made them that way.

"Sexual deviance" is generally included in this, and Davenport explicitly references this in his introduction, where he says that "normal" people are not likely to have the kind of sex that leads to the transmission of STIs.

For many proponents (including Davenport), the key dogma of eugenics was that genes predetermined everything about a person. Tuberculosis was a huge problem at the time, and eugenicists were insisting that, although the disease was known to be bacterial, susceptibility to the disease was genetic, and therefore people who became sick with tuberculosis were genetically defective. Likewise if a child developed epilepsy after a head injury, the injury did not cause the epilepsy but instead revealed an inherent genetic weakness that was already there. This implied that spending resources on healing or rehabilitating anybody was a waste of time.

If you read more of Davenport's book, you will see that he makes some WILD statements---he asserts that artistic talent is a Mendelian trait controlled by a single gene, basically that you are either born an artist or you aren't. This seems absolutely absurd but, there is a good amount of popular belief in inherent aptitudes for art or music or math or what have you.

Eugenics isn't just about named prejudices like racism or ableism, it is even bigger than that, it is a set of beliefs encompassing how the potential and value of human beings is determined and how society should care for its members as a result of that.

[stylishtaboos]

Seriously. I'm starting to block y'all on sight it has been quite long enough of a campaign to get you weaned off this terf's books and shows (and now games!)

[stylishtaboos]

[stylishtaboos]

From the people who brought you Squid Facts, Horseshoe Crab is Calling

I don't know about you, but I need a little joy right now. Earlier this month, I was walking down the street in my neighborhood and I came upon this:

I was like "Wow. Ok. Yes I AM picking that up." I couldn't resist! What an enticing strategy!

I had to try it myself.

After kicking the idea around with a few friends, I landed on "Horseshoe Crab is calling", and we updated to the modern iOS. Maybe i should have kept the green and red, I'm not sure.

Who the hell wouldn't be intrigued by this?!

(P.S. shout out to Basic Barbie, another street artist in the city who is unapologetically femme in a predominantly male scene. We love Basic Barbie.)

The link on the bottom goes to a list of actionable things people can do to slow climate change. Very curious to see how many people visit the page.

If you would like the print file so you can get business cards printed yourself to pepper around your natural habitat, DM me. Happy to share.

[stylishtaboos]

Hey do y’all remember when Boeing fucking killed a guy last year. And we all said “huh I guess Boeing fucking killed a guy” and then went on with our lives. And everybody knew that Boeing had fully just fucking executed a guy and nothing came of it. Like there was no police investigation no justice no nothing. Like literally EVERYBODY knew that Boeing had full on murdered a guy to silence him and there wasn’t any consequences for them. Kinda crazy.

[stylishtaboos]

As the link between animal agriculture and climate breakdown becomes clearer, if anything, we are seeing more ordinary people falling over themselves to defend an industry that is destroying our planet, polluting our communities, exploiting animals and human workers. This is especially worrying to see from leftists, in spaces that are supposed to be progressive. I promise you, you do not need to spend your time greenwashing leather and wool, repeating blatant industry propaganda about veganism, 'regenerative agriculture' or whatever other buzzword they're using to sow doubt this week. The industry already spends millions of your dollars to lobby our politicians and influence public opinion; they don't need you to do it for free.

Vox – The greenwashing of wool explained

New Republic – The comforting lie of climate-friendly meat

Guardian – Big Beef’s climate messaging machine

The Breakthrough – Is Feedlot Beef Better for Environment?

International Journey of Biodiversity – Misinformation on Science of Grazed Ecosystems

Food Climate Research Network – Grazed & Confused

Science 2.0 – The regenerative ranching racket

DeSmog – A guide to six greenwashing terms

Truthdig – The backlash to plant-based meats

Independent – Meat & dairy industries downplaying role in climate crisis using tobacco tactics

Guardian – Meat & dairy lobbyists turn out in record numbers at COP28

Greenpeace – How Big Agriculture is borrowing Big Oil’s playbook at COP28

Guardian – Plans to present meat as ‘sustainable nutrition’ at Cop28 revealed

Guardian – Ex-officials at UN farming body say work on methane emissions was censored

Guardian – How UN food body played down role of farming in climate change

QZ – The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

The Times – Red Tractor farms more likely to pollute environment

Influence Map – European meat & dairy industry weaken EU’s climate policies

The Grocer – Meat Industry lobbying behind cultured meat bans

Food Unfolded – Truth, tactics and the mist of meat lobby science

Business Green – Climate lobbying: Are meat and dairy lobbyists the ‘new merchants of doubt’?

[stylishtaboos]

Idgaf if you don't want to write essays for school. I don't care if you don't want to write corporate emails yourself. I don't care if you can't draw well, I don't care if you can't write well, I don't care if you just really really want to talk to your favorite fictional character but don't want to RP with a real person because you have social anxiety or whatever

If you're still regularly using generative ai, chatgpt or midjourney or character.ai or literally whatever the fuck, im personally blaming you when my utility prices start going up.

[stylishtaboos]

We need to bring back the athletics body type post

[stylishtaboos]

the trolley problem vs. systemic oppression: a comic.

[stylishtaboos]

yall have got to be more normal about Southern people and I'm not kidding. enough of the Sweet Home Alabama incest jokes, enough of the idea that all Southerners are bigots and rednecks, and enough of the idea that the South has bad food. shut up about "trailer trash" and our accents and our hobbies!

do yall know how fucking nauseating it is to hear people only bring up my state to make jokes about people in poverty and incestuous relationships? how much shame I feel that I wasn't born up north like the Good Queers and Good Leftists with all the Civilised Folk with actual houses instead of small cramped trailers that have paper thin walls that I know won't protect me in a bad enough storm?

do yall know how frustrating it is to be trans in a place that wants to kill you and whenever you bring it up to people they say "well just move out" instead of sympathizing with you or offering help?

do yall understand how alienating it is to see huge masterposts of queer and mental health resources but none of them are in your state because theyre all up north? and nobody seems to want to fix this glaring issue because "they're all hicks anyways"

Southern people deserve better. we deserve to be taken seriously and given a voice in the queer community and the mental health space and leftist talks in general.

[stylishtaboos]

Representative Rashida Tlaib (the only Palestinian member of the US Congress) holds up a sign saying "WAR CRIMINAL" and "GUILTY OF GENOCIDE" as Benjamin Netanyahu addresses Congress.

[stylishtaboos]

Hello wonderful donors, thank you for your donation to me, but I did not collect even 10% of the amount.

please donate , my family is in danger, my future is unknown, donate to me to build a more beautiful future, I only collected 20214 SEK approximately 1928 USD

Verified by @90-ghost @sar-soor

Please share & donation if you can 🫶🏻

@90-ghost @nabulsi @northgazaupdates @lady-raziel @pcktknife @tamamita @queerstudiesnatural @sayruq @animentality @arabian-batboy @punkitt-is-here @punkeropercyjackson @sar-soor @90-ghost @vakarians-babe @northgazaupdates @helppeople @ibtisams-deactivated20240709 @appsa @annoyingloudmicrowavecultist @feluka @marnota @el-shab-hussein @sayruq @tortiefrancis @flower-tea-fairies @tsaricides @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @vivisection-gf @belleandsaintsebastian @ear-motif @ibtisams-deactivated20240709 @animentality @communistchilchuck @brutaliakhoa @raelyn-dreams @troythecatfish @the-bastard-king @tamar @4ft10tvlandfangirl @queerstudiesnatural @northgazaupdates @90-ghost @awetistic-things @gentl3manly-deactivated20240712 @baby-girl-aaron-dessner

[stylishtaboos]

Hate that afab/amab are just "progressive" replacements for the same oppressive female/male binaries

btw amab and afab do not define chromosomes or a persons junk or their facial hair situation or even their testosterone/estrogen levels. intersex people exist.

assigned male at birth and assigned female at birth are events. thats just a thing that happened it doesnt define anything about who anyone is.

[stylishtaboos]

Hey guys Karam ( @karamrafeek ) reached out to me to share his fundraiser, so pay attention and please don't scroll by

Karam is a software engineer student from Gaza in his last semester. But his dreams of graduating as a successful engineer were shattered when the genocide began in October and his family's home and university were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.

Now, Karam and his family live in a makeshift tent with insufficient necessities of life. To make matters worse, Karam's mother battles incurable diseases aggravated by the harsh conditions of displacement, extreme cold, and no access to proper care.

Their only ray of hope lies in the possibility of seeking refuge outside the Gaza Strip, where Karam can continue his studies and provide better care for his sick mother.

Please donate and share to help Karam rebuild his life and escape genocide.

JULY 14: €9,827 out of €20,000 goal

[stylishtaboos]

source

[stylishtaboos]

I bring a sort of "actually mass traumatic events have an effect on the public's mental health and you're NOT acting in isolation from that trauma, and ignoring it doesn't make it go away" vibe to the party that Americans do not like