Heads up/warning that I'm going to start posting articles related to the Israel-Palestine War
I've worked really, really hard to keep my blog about positive news only, and that's going to continue - these posts will be only about good news related to the war.
Of which there really, really isn't much, so I don't know that there will be a lot of posts, but I will be posting articles about humanitarian aid reaching those who need it and actions that will prevent more lives from being taken.
I know that, no matter my position on the war, this is something that would be very controversial and make a lot of people upset, so I wanted to be explicit about my position on this - and my posting policy, which is not the same thing. I also wanted to give people a heads up because I know the war in general is really, really triggering for a lot of people right now, for a lot of different reasons. I'll be tagging all relevant posts, so if screening those out is something that you need to do, you can.
I have worked very hard to make this blog a space with only good news because I know how much it can matter to have just one place, if nowhere else, that you can count on to not give you emotional whiplash with horrible news. To know you have one place you can go where you are guaranteed not to see bad news that will send you into a tailspin. That's why I've had a policy of not including signal boosts or PSAs about tragedies, no matter what they are, on this blog. (I do post about some of that stuff, including the Israel-Palestine War, on my main blog, though. I consider this blog to be me trying to run a public service, basically, and so have specific policies for myself around that, including my editorial and fact-checking standards.)
I'm going to be honest, I was really, really hoping the war would end after a couple of weeks, which has historically not been uncommon for wars with/involving Israel.
But that's clearly not happening, and I can't keep not acknowledging what's happening on here, so, this post.
With that, I imagine people probably want to know my actual stance on the war, since that's what I'll be posting in accordance with.
So, here's the official stance of this blog:
Every time a civilian is killed, it is a tragedy; Every time a child is killed, it is a tragedy, no matter their nationality. I condemn all antisemitism and all Islamophobia.
I support all calls for a ceasefire, as well as demands that Israel immediately stop its repeated bombing of hospitals, ambulances, shelters (including UN shelters), and refugee camps.
There is no situation in which the repeated and/or intentional bombing of hospitals is justified.
There is no situation in which the repeated and/or intentional bombing of shelters or refugee camps is justified.
There is no situation in which the repeated and/or intentional bombing of ambulances is justified.
There is no situation in which the killing of children is justified. Yet more children have now been killed in Gaza than in all global conflict zones combined in each year since 2019.
There is no situation in which cutting off an entire country and/or territory's supply of food and water is justified.
Yes, this applies to every group involved in the war, including countries supplying either side, and any countries or non-state organizations who may yet join the fighting.
The initial Hamas attack on Israel was a tragedy. The continued Israeli bombardment and invasion of Palestine is also a tragedy.
Most of the things I post will be about aid reaching Palestinians or news about tangible, confirmed progress toward a ceasefire. I probably will not be posting good news posts about aid reaching Israel, unless it's explicitly and only humanitarian and/or barring drastic unforeseen changes in circumstance. This is because as of yesterday, November 7, the Palestinian death toll is over 10,000 to Israel's roughly 1,400 (only about 200 of whom have been killed in the past month, starting on October 8, aka outside of the initial attack by Hamas). At least 3,195 children have died in Gaza, 33 in the West Bank, and 29 in Israel.
The Palestinian death toll is nearly 8 times the Israeli death toll. The number of children killed is 110 times higher in Palestine than Israel. (Source for death toll here, ratios via calculator.) Every single one of those deaths is a tragedy - and there have been far, far too many tragedies this past month.
(On a related note, Israel stands very, very little chance of actually eliminating Hamas with this war. The US has attempted this same strategy and failed many times: the US failed to eliminate the communist/North Korean regime in the Korean War, which is technically still ongoing 70 years later; failed to eliminate the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War; failed to eliminate numerous groups of Iraqi insurgents in the Iraq War, which triggered Iraq's civil war; and failed to eliminate the Taliban in the Afghanistan War, even though that war lasted for literally 20 years. Afghanistan is once again under total Taliban control.)
The last thing we need is another 20 year war. The last thing we need is more civilian deaths. Bombing civilian settlements, as well as hospitals, shelters, and refugee camps are war crimes under international law, meaning that both Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes.
It's time for the war crimes to stop.
Humanitarian aid reaching civilians is good news, and I will be posting accordingly.
Ceasefire now.
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want to give my two cents on the AI usage in the maestro trailer--
i think seventeen doing a whole concept that is anti-AI is very cool, especially as creatives themselves i think it's good that they're speaking up against it and i hope it gets more ppl talking about the issue. i also understand on a surface level the artistic choice (whether it was made by the members, the mv director, or whoever else), to directly use AI in contrast to real, human-made visuals and music in order to criticize it. i also appreciate that they clearly stated the intention of the use of AI at the beginning of the video
however, although i understand it to an extent, i do not agree with the choice to use AI to critique AI. one of the main ethical concerns with generative AI is that it is trained on other artists' work without their knowledge, consent, or compensation. and even when AI generated images are being used to critique AI, it still does not negate this particular ethical concern
the use of AI to critique also does not negate the fact that this is work that could have been done by an actual artist. i have seen some people argue that it's okay in this context because it's a critique specifically about AI, and it is content that never would have been done by a real artist anyway because it doesn't make sense for the story they're trying to tell. but i disagree. i think you can still tell the exact same story without using AI
and in fact, i would argue that it would make the anti-AI message stronger if they HAD paid an artist to draw/animate the scenes that are supposed to represent AI generated images. wouldn't it just be proof that humans can create images that are just as bad and nonsensical and soulless as AI, but that AI can't replicate the creativity and beauty and basic fucking anatomy that's in human-made art?
it feels very obvious this was not just a way to cut corners and costs like a lot of scummy people are using AI for. ultimately it was a very intentional creative decision, i just personally think it was a very poor one. and even if some ethical considerations were taken into account before this decision, i certainly don't think all of them were. at the very least i feel like the decision undermines the message they want to convey
i would also like to recognize that i myself am not an artist, and i have seen some artists that are totally on board with the use of AI in this specific context, so clearly this is not a topic that is cut and dry. but generative AI is still new, and i think it's important to keep having these conversations
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