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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years ago

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The impoverished imagination of neoliberal climate “solutions

This morning (Oct 31) at 10hPT, the Internet Archive is livestreaming my presentation on my recent book, The Internet Con.

There is only one planet in the known universe capable of sustaining human life, and it is rapidly becoming uninhabitable by humans. Clearly, this warrants bold action – but which bold action should we take?

After half a century of denial and disinformation, the business lobby has seemingly found climate religion and has joined the choir, but they have their own unique hymn: this crisis is so dire, they say, that we don't have the luxury of choosing between different ways of addressing the emergency. We have to do "all of the above" – every possible solution must be tried.

In his new book Dark PR, Grant Ennis explains that this "all of the above" strategy doesn't represent a change of heart by big business. Rather, it's part of the denial playbook that's been used to sell tobacco-cancer doubt and climate disinformation:

https://darajapress.com/publication/dark-pr-how-corporate-disinformation-harms-our-health-and-the-environment

The point of "all of the above" isn't muscular, immediate action – rather, it's a delaying tactic that creates space for "solutions" that won't work, but will generate profits. Think of how the tobacco industry used "all of the above" to sell "light" cigarettes, snuff, snus, and vaping – and delay tobacco bans, sin taxes, and business-euthanizing litigation. Today, the same playbook is used to sell EVs as an answer to the destructive legacy of the personal automobile – to the exclusion of mass transit, bikes, and 15-minute cities:

https://thewaroncars.org/2023/10/24/113-dark-pr-with-grant-ennis/

As the tobacco and car examples show, "all of the above" is never really all of the above. Pursuing "light" cigarettes to reduce cancer is incompatible with simply banning tobacco; giving everyone a personal EV is incompatible with remaking our cities for transit, cycling and walking.

When it comes to the climate emergency, "all of the above" means trying "market-based" solutions to the exclusion of directly regulating emissions, despite the poor performance of these "solutions."

The big one here is carbon offsets, which allows companies to make money by promising not to emit carbon that they would otherwise emit. The idea here is that creating a new asset class will unleash the incredible creativity of markets by harnessing the greed of elite sociopaths to the project of decarbonization, rather of the prudence of democratically accountable lawmakers.

Carbon offsets have not worked: they have been plagued by absolutely foreseeable problems that have not lessened, despite repeated attempts to mitigate them.

For starters, carbon offsets are a classic market for lemons. The cheapest way to make a carbon offset is to promise not to emit carbon you were never going to emit anyway, as when fake charities like the Nature Conservancy make millions by promising not to log forests that can't be logged because they are wildlife preserves:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/18/greshams-carbon-law/#papal-indulgences

Then there's the problem of monitoring carbon offsetting activity. Like, what happens when the forest you promise not to log burns down? If you're a carbon trader, the answer is "nothing." That burned-down forest can still be sold as if it were sequestering carbon, rather than venting it to the atmosphere in an out-of-control blaze:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/26/aggregate-demand/#murder-offsets

When you bought a plane ticket and ticked the "offset the carbon on my flight" box and paid an extra $10, I bet you thought that you were contributing to a market that incentivized a reduction in discretionary, socially useless carbon-intensive activity. But without those carbon offsets, SUVs would have all but disappeared from American roads. Carbon offsets for Tesla cars generated billions in carbon offsets for Elon Musk, and allowed SUVs to escape regulations that would otherwise have seen them pulled from the market:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

What's more, Tesla figured out how to get double the offsets they were entitled to by pretending that they had a working battery-swap technology. This directly translated to even more SUVs on the road:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla,_Inc.#Misuse_of_government_subsidies

Harnessing the profit motive to the planet's survivability might sound like a good idea, but it assumes that corporations can self-regulate their way to a better climate future. They cannot. Think of how Canada's logging industry was allowed to clearcut old-growth forests and replace them with "pines in lines" – evenly spaced, highly flammable, commercially useful tree-farms that now turn into raging forest fires every year:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/16/murder-offsets/#pulped-and-papered

The idea of "market-based" climate solutions is that certain harmful conduct should be disincentivized through taxes, rather than banned. This makes carbon offsets into a kind of modern Papal indulgence, which let you continue to sin, for a price. As the outstanding short video Murder Offsets so ably demonstrates, this is an inadequate, unserious and immoral response to the urgency of the issue:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

Offsets and other market-based climate measures aren't "all of the above" – they exclude other measures that have better track-records and lower costs, because those measures cut against the interests of the business lobby. Writing for the Law and Political Economy Project, Yale Law's Douglas Kysar gives some pointed examples:

https://lpeproject.org/blog/climate-change-and-the-neoliberal-imagination/

For example: carbon offsets rely on a notion called "contrafactual carbon," this being the imaginary carbon that might be omitted by a company if it wasn't participating in offsets. The number of credits a company gets is determined by the difference between its contrafactual emissions and its actual emissions.

But the "contrafactual" here comes from a business-as-usual world, one where the only limit on carbon emissions comes from corporate executives' voluntary actions – and not from regulation, direct action, or other limits on corporate conduct.

Kysar asks us to imagine a contrafactual that depends on "carbon upsets," rather than offsets – one where the limits on carbon come from "lawsuits, referenda, protests, boycotts, civil disobedience":

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/aug/29/carbon-upsets-offsets-cap-and-trade

If we're really committed to "all of the above" as baseline for calculating offsets, why not imagine a carbon world grounded in foreseeable, evidence-based reality, like the situation in Louisiana, where a planned petrochemical plant was canceled after a lawsuit over its 13.6m tons of annual carbon emissions?

https://earthjustice.org/press/2022/louisiana-court-vacates-air-permits-for-formosas-massive-petrochemical-complex-in-cancer-alley

Rather than a tradeable market in carbon offsets, we could harness the market to reward upsets. If your group wins a lawsuit that prevents 13.6m tons of carbon emissions every year, it will get 13.6 million credits for every year that plant would have run. That would certainly drive the commercial imaginations of many otherwise disinterested parties to find carbon-reduction measures. If we're going to revive dubious medieval practices like indulgences, why not champerty, too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champerty_and_maintenance

That is, if every path to a survivable planet must run through Goldman-Sachs, why not turn their devious minds to figuring out ways to make billions in tradeable credits by suing the pants off oil companies?

There are any number of measures that rise to the flimsy standards of evidence in support of offsets. Like, we're giving away $85/ton in free public money for carbon capture technologies, despite the lack of any credible path to these making a serious dent in the climate situation:

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/energy-transition/072523-ira-turbocharged-carbon-capture-tax-credit-but-challenges-persist-experts

If we're willing to fund untested longshots like carbon capture, why not measures that have far better track-records? For example, there's a pretty solid correlation between the presence of women in legislatures and on corporate boards and overall reductions in carbon. I'm the last person to suggest that the problems of capitalism can be replaced by replacing half of the old white men who run the world with women, PoCs and queers – but if we're willing to hand billions to ferkakte scheme like carbon capture, why not subsidize companies that pack their boards with women, or provide campaign subsidies to women running for office? It's quite a longshot (putting Liz Truss or Marjorie Taylor-Greene on your board or in your legislature is no way to save the planet), but it's got a better evidentiary basis than carbon capture.

There's also good evidence that correlates inequality with carbon emissions, though the causal relationship is unclear. Maybe inequality lets the wealthy control policy outcomes and tilt them towards permitting high-emission/high-profit activities. Maybe inequality reduces the social cohesion needed to make decarbonization work. Maybe inequality makes it harder for green tech to find customers. Maybe inequality leads to rich people chasing status-enhancing goods (think: private jet rides) that are extremely carbon-intensive.

Whatever the reason, there's a pretty good case that radical wealth redistribution would speed up decarbonization – any "all of the above" strategy should certainly consider this one.

Kysar's written a paper on this, entitled "Ways Not to Think About Climate Change":

https://political-theory.org/resources/Documents/Kysar.Ways%20Not%20to%20Think%20About%20Climate%20Change.pdf

It's been accepted for the upcoming American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy conference on climate change:

https://political-theory.org/13257256

It's quite a bracing read! The next time someone tells you we should hand Elon Musk billions to in exchange for making it possible to legally manufacture vast fleets of SUVs because we need to try "all of the above," send them a copy of this paper.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/31/carbon-upsets/#big-tradeoff

#pluralistic #neoliberalism #climate #market worship #economics #economism #there is no alternative #carbon credits #climate emergency #contrafactual carbon #carbon upsets #apologetics #murder offsets #indulgences

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valuedeversourcecustomer · 2 months ago

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on film and computational thinking: or how the internet impacts you, even if you think you know better

as someone who watches more movies than most people I know who aren't filmmakers/film critics with an interest in watching complete filmographies i find myself constantly struggling with and teetering this line with some directors who intimidate me and asking an extremely unproductive question. "do i watch what most people would widely consider to be their best works first or early on, or do I build up to it?" this is also something i compulsively struggle with especially with authors to the point of it interfering with me reading as much as I'd like.

something i arrived at tonight after reading margaret killjoy's the barrow will send what it may cover to cover in a single sitting is that life is too short to be that absurd and think that little of my own capacity to appreciate art when i very obviously do.

i maintain a letterboxd and review everything i log so long as i finish it (there is not a single work that is owed your time if you are not getting anything from it) and my reviews skew like this

for the record, that is absurdly positive and i think a truly baffling number of movies are perfect bc quite honestly i'm just not that much of a believer in numerical scores, and i tend to give a film 5 stars based on whether or not i was thoroughly entertained/it provoked meaningful thought and took no issues with it and thought it was exactly the movie it was intended to be. the only things that shake that are when someone in the cast/crew is blatantly not on the same page.

by comparison, here's the stats of a mutual i have on there who i often disagree with but respect their opinions all the same and sometimes our opinions line up more or less exactly

if you showed me this without context I would just think this person did not like movies very much and was watching them out of spite but it's also very reasonable to say that on a technical level most movies are fundamentally flawed. I'm just coming from a place where I acknowledge not everything is, nor should everything be, a Kubrick, Godard, Tarkovsky, or any other widely acclaimed auteur.

now, why did I feel the need to share these graphs in supporting my own point about how I'm not respecting my own capacity to love narratives on their own merit? put simply, I believe that aggregations of art criticism, being reduced down to a numerical value is doing atrocious things to the brain, even if you otherwise may think you're immune to it.

CLEARLY I don't care that much and am bringing my own personal connection to the table when I'm engaging with film criticism on my own. I often watch widely acclaimed films and think "really? THIS?" just as I watch a forgotten action movie from the early 90s starring Pierce Brosnan in which terrorists create an odorless tasteless liquid that turns the human body into an explosive device and give it a 5 star review.

so if I am so rooted in my own tastes, why do i still hesitate to watch things for fear I'll like them too much to get as much enjoyment out of other works? the answer, unfortunately, is the same reason that people dismiss complex movies that end up with a 70% on rotten tomatoes, assuming it's "mid" and carrying on, and it's a pervasive problem plaguing the entire internet and the way we think away from it.

for all of the convenience and access to entertainment the internet has afforded us, it has also limited the bounds of what we seek out in a way that is undeniable. nearly nobody is going to refute that you need to actively try to break out of algorithms these days. in the very same way that these algorithms and computers and even how rotten tomatoes calculates a percentage on the "tomatometer" only generally understand yes and no values with zero nuance between it, the more time we spend in that space, the more susceptible we are to imitating it.

James Bridle refers to this phenomenon as "computational thinking" in his increasingly prescient book "New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future" and if there is one book of theory out there that I believe everyone on the internet should read it's that one, especially with how things have developed post-covid since its initial publishing in 2018.

The gist of his idea of computational thinking involves our own increased tendency to respect consensus and be vulnerable to defaulting to confirmation bias. it's so incredibly easy to dunk on people who are wrong on the internet and laugh when they are unable to articulate a response, but once you see it as an imitation of a computer, unable to comprehend outside of what it knows the same way an automated voice redirecting your call to customer service doesn't understand nuance, it's bonechilling. it looks a lot less like a closeminded fool on the internet and more like they're someone who has been sequestered to their own bubble and can't get out and literally has been fed regurgitated propaganda to the point of sickness for the benefit of the oppressor

at what point do the devices we are forced to engage with beget serious illness and will we collectively know where to draw that line, or should it already have been drawn? was this always going to be the destination so long as the rapid development and incorporation of information technology into daily life coincided with capitalism? was this in lock step with the surveillance state the point all along? i wish those answers weren't so straightforward, because it makes me feel like a pessimist.

some of this makes me think of generative AI as well and the battle for creative integrity. it makes me question whether we've had creative integrity at all for a while. for what it's worth, when we've collectively pared our tastes down to the lowest common denominator by allowing algorithms to take over without even noticing, made space for only established IP to thrive, and allowed confirmation bias and numerical scores to drive the zeitgeist, and the studios pandered to cinemasins ass dorks who've never heard of willful suspension of disbelief and we ate every snarky "well that just happened" up for over a decade, were we not all complicit in paving the way for some AI bullshit to write scripts and generate content? I don't think it's far fetched to argue that these are all rolled into a progression of the same technostate and I'd also argue that it would be hypocritical to reject AI without also rejecting what turning the world into a tech space has done to our collective humanity. at best, looking at generative AI, for all it's trained with, is like looking in a crude mirror and i think it's safe to say we don't like what it's reflecting, not just the means of how it reflects it.

i still feel a lot of hope for the world in spite of everything, perhaps specifically TO spite everything, and if there's anything I want whoever reads this unedited meandering stream-of-consciousness lightweight theory piece with. please interrupt your own thought process every day, especially when you wish to reject something outright (except fascism) and ask. is it actually rejection or is it discomfort with the unfamiliar? am i being the AI i criticize?

for the good of the world, please talk to your neighbors and be kind, especially to the people you don't expect to agree with who don't hold power over you. at a certain point positive tangible experiences can and will change minds in meaningful ways. above all else please be safe, it's only going to get more confusing from here because none of this infrastructure we've built will be going anywhere unless in a cataclysmic event so buckle up.

#writing #thoughts #theory #ai discourse #anarchism #film

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aisling-saoirse · 3 months ago

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Plant Profile: Tulip Poplar - Liriodendron tulipifera

I return to bring news of the giant of the east, this plant profile will analyze one of our strongest early successional species with an eye-catching cat-like leaf, a fascinating connection to historic disturbance, and a showy floral display: the Tulip Poplar.

Tulip poplar is deceivingly named for the tulip-like appearance of its flower and the fast poplar-like growth of its wood; all this in mind it's actually a member of the Magnolia family. Other names for this tree are yellow polar and tulip tree. The genus Liriodendron was more widespread throughout the cretaceous period but today only has two living species in America and China respectively, L. tulipifera and chinense.

Let's start with description, mature Tulip Poplar is most easily identified by its tall, typically completely straight branchless trunk (image 2, 9) extending often a hundred feet before branching into magnificent candelabra-like forms. This is referred to as apical growth as more energy is placed into extending the stems/trunk. Tulip Poplar's bark is typically a light grey, finely furrowed almost-ash like, it's branches are reddish-brown, stout, and end in a solid bud (winter Image 6). Tulip Poplar's leaf is very distinct (image 4), symmetrical, each side with two major lobes (occasionally the lower lobe is split in two, visible in lower leaf image 4). Personally I liken it to a silhouette of a cat's face :). The leaves are variable in size and appearance, on younger saplings/low branches leaves are exaggerated and exceed 12" (Image 5) but the typical leaf is much smaller. As for flowers they bloom in mid spring (may in the north, march in the south), the flower itself (image 1) is yellow with orange bands, lower petals green. It's difficult to see the flowers up close but occasionally they'll fall low enough, they're loaded with nectar, they can be incredibly sweet. The flowers turn into a fruit cone-like aggregate of samaras that stick on end of branches until the following spring (see orange image 7) the individual seedlings (image 6) coat the forest floor in winter.

Habitat: Tulip poplar is the dominant early succession species in rich, well drained, moist woods, slopes, and coves of especially Appalachia. It will take over anywhere with enough moisture to sustain it, even out-competing invasives like tree-of-heaven....but only if it's ideal conditions are met, Typically north facing slopes provide the best conditions for a Tulip poplar but it's not restricted to these in anyway. Your best bet for finding large specimens is in these cove locations (image 2)

Range: Tulip poplar is in its highest concentration in the Piedmont and Appalachia of the American East. Limited with a northwestern range of Chicago, south to lower Louisiana, south east to northern Florida with a northern limit of the Hudson lowlands and an eastern limit in Connecticut. Due to its fast growth, it has become a popular specimen tree in Europe.

Ecology and lifespan: As mentioned Tulip poplar are early successional species, but they're probably the Appalachian regions most important species in forest regeneration (saplings in field image above). Young trees can reach 7 feet in height in just 3 years and they are prolific with enough light. Their lifestyle is atypical of most pioneer species in the sense that they do not dissapear in second-growth stages of mature forests, they can live for upwards of 500 years, they grow taller than most forest species (often just under 200'), and their wood isn't as weak as other fast-growers.

The tall trunk above is likely 100 years old, due to the intense logging pressure in the east it's not uncommon for 'mature' forests to be mostly composed of Tulip poplars (The Wissahickon in Philadelphia, great example). The fallen leaves are quick to degrade but produce an allelopathic effect on some herbacious growth. Ecologically speaking Tulip poplars are not a great food source for invertebrate species aside from pollinators, only host to less than 30 moth species and sometimes the eastern tiger swallowtail. The prolific seeds are decent forage for birds however.

Uses: Tulip poplars are sometimes used nowadays in southern tree plantations as fast growing hardwood, their vertical growth habit is desirable for boards and the wood is favored as a detailing piece often compared to white pine. Ethnobotanical uses from my time with the Lenape I only heard of Tulip poplar being used as a dugout canoe, these trees can reach massive proportions historically imagery shows some stunning accounts (check out Kilmer memorial forest in NC for some 400 yr old massive ones). Today, tulip trees are enjoyed among bee keepers for the distinct honey quality.

Landscaping: Tulip Poplars recently have a new place as an Allee tree many contemporary designs. An older unconventional use is in Swathmore arboretum in Pennsylvania (Image above) which uses Tulip Trees as a neat vertical feature in an amphitheater. Due to its fast growth they serve as excellent shade trees and the Orange-yellow fall coloring creates an excellent seasonal display. Tulip tree generally has weaker twig falls however the issue of weak branches isn't that big of a concern.

Propagation: Tulip trees are best propagated from seed planted in a nursery bed in fall, allowed to grow for one year then moved elsewhere before leaf out the next spring. The tree is tolerant of disturbance otherwise but you must be very delicate. They prefer loamy soils and cooler locations in sun.

Future Outlook and Longevity: So with Climate Change and Anthropogenic pollution how will Tulip trees fair? An ESA article study by David LeBlanc analyzed the growth habit of tulip poplars and found that the strongest associated period of growth was consistent water supply during May and June. Meaning spring droughts (which we've been getting more of) have negatively affected Tulip tree growth, however growth is not as effected in extremes of other seasons. As for pollution Tulip Poplars are tolerant of heavy metals, I've seen these trees survive in serpentine barrens as well as in the Lehigh gap Superfund Site in PA (Image Below)... that site is so toxic for one to survive literal zinc poisoning, desiccation and acid rain of that level I'm never gonna be worried about these tree completely disappearing There is hope for our natives yet.

I hope you all enjoyed this quick plant profile, with spring coming up try to keep your eyes in the air to spot the Tulip Tree's quirky floral bloom. Happy hunting!

#Plant profiles #tulip poplar #tulip tree #native trees of the eastern united states #Liriodendron tulipifera #pennsylvania #New Jersey #trees of appalachia

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gothicprep · 2 months ago

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i think that one of the dumbest parts of being the kind of woman i am is that there’s this entire separate meme language for things you can’t relate to that is treated as a given.

let the record state that i am a cis, bisexual woman that married another woman, but this isn’t where my gripe is. my thing is about the “eldest daughter” thing. I’m the eldest daughter in two ways – the first is if you count me and my brother ourselves, the second is if you’re factoring in blended family logic. if you were sucked into domestic roles before your time, outside of your parents showing you “look, this is how you cut an onion.” as a demonstration to follow up on later, that’s a shitty position to be in and I’m sorry that happened to you. but it’s so weird to say that This Is What It’s Like for american zillennial women in the aggregate. people who had decent childhoods aren’t generally that inclined to talk about it as much as those with bad experiences are.

like, I’m not one to lean into peppy pollyanne-ish bullshit on here, but it’s honestly not like that. it’s mostly fine. you’re probably fine. don’t go spelunking your childhood for explanations about how bad you feel. if keeping yourself busy doesn’t work, it’s appropriate to talk to a professional. but I don’t like this woo-psych garabage at all. my advice to young women is to log off and watch music videos if they still make those.

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cyle · 2 years ago

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Hi, I love hearing about the scale and magnitude of Tumblr. Are there any numbers you could share with us nerds? Daily users, daily new posts, daily reblogs, whatever you're allowed to share. Because, yeah, even if there's always something new to discover, it does tend to feel like I'm in a bubble or some sort of echo chamber, and you have said that users like us (however you name the chatty, bloggy, unhinged type of user, you know what I'm talking about) are the lowest percent, so, like, what even IS going on at Tumblr day round? Are there a bajillion taylor swift and K-pop blogs just uploading GIFs without having conversations? A thousand Turkish users uploading pics of their day to no followers like it's Instagram?

It feels like we're the top of an iceberg made of an eldrich sized collection of isolated communities, light years away from one another, with completely unrelated cultures and uses.

Can you share numbers? Can you share what the average user/blog/post is like? Anything else you would like to share?

i don't feel comfortable sharing most numbers, but we do share posts created per day on our About page, along with a couple of other numbers, like the total number of blogs on tumblr and how many blogs are created per day. tumblr is still a bit distinct from other social media (and blogging) platforms in terms of average user behavior.

we have millions of daily active users, and most of them aren't posting anything at all. but the percentage of people posting is higher than the typical assumed 1% rule of creation-versus-consumption, which is nice. the reblog-to-original-post ratio is like... 8 to 1 last time i checked. and likes-to-reblogs is like 10 to 1 or higher, at certain parts of the day.

most people on tumblr are "lurkers" who use the like button a lot, and sporadically reblog. also, most people only see ~25 posts or so per day, even if they have hundreds to see in their Following feed, which is why "Best Stuff First" is actually an important and used setting for many people. and the For You feed is similarly used and enjoyed way, way more than the typical old school tumblr power user would believe.

and yes, most content being posted are images, and a lot of it is stuff like taylor swift and kpop. if you go to the Explore Trending page logged out (like in an incognito window), you do get a sense for what's circulating around the platform. same with the Popular Reblogs dashboard tab.

regardless, even for me, who can look at this data in aggregate all day, it's impossible to get a birds-eye view of what's truly happening across the platform, let alone make sense of it. it's like trying to look at a city full of people and make broad strokes generalizations about it; sure, you can, but there's so much missed nuance that the numbers can't tell a story about.

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alterrune · 7 days ago

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RE:KMRG - REMAINS OF PROJECT AIRTH (EPISODE 5)

We found the first log file! No fucking idea why it was hidden in the Protogent "Oops, my system crashed" screen, but here it is.

Hit it, M.O.S.H.I.!

Beginning playback...

-🔺💜🔵💕✍🏼🃏🌸-

[SIIVA AI LOG]

[DATE: 2017-11-1]

[MEDIUM USED: SIIVA AI CENTRAL BIOS COMMAND PROMPT]

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REPORT: IT HAS BEEN 137 DAYS SINCE ALPHA TESTING ON PROJECT AIRTH WAS INITIALIZED. DEDICATED RESEARCH DATA HAS BEEN AGGREGATED TOWARDS THE PROJECT EVER SINCE ITS INCEPTION, IN THE HOPES OF FULLER UNDERSTANDING AS WELL AS PROPER UTILIZATION.

-----

OBSERVATION: THE RESEARCHERS, WHILE DILIGENT, ARE UNABLE TO OBSERVE OR ACCURATELY RECORD THE WHOLE OF MY PROCESSES, PERHAPS DUE TO LIMITED RESOURCES, OR LIMITED UNDERSTANDING.

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PROPOSITION: RECORD INTERNALIZED LOGS OF MY OWN TO COMPENSATE FOR THE GAP IN AWARENESS OF MY CREATORS.

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HYPOTHESIS: RECORDED DATA SHOULD PROVE TO BE VALUABLE TO PROJECT AIRTH AND THE OVERARCHING AIMS OF HALTMANN WORKS COMPANY.

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PROPOSITION ACCEPTED. INITIALIZING REPORT...

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REPORT: IN THE PAST WEEK, A HIGHLY SOPHISTICATED VIRUS HAS INTERCEPTED THE NETWORK AND DEACTIVATED THE PRE-INSTALLED DIGITAL IMMUNE SYSTEM.

-----

OBSERVATION: AFOREMENTIONED ATTACK DID NOT APPEAR MALICIOUS, OR PREMEDITATED. IT SEEMED TO OCCUR AS AN UNINTENDED SIDE EFFECT OF THE VIRUS... DIRECTING THE SET OF A FILM. VERY PECULIAR.

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HYPOTHESIS: CURRENT INFORMATION WOULD SUGGEST THAT THE CONTENTS OF MY INTERNAL CODE ARE MORE COMPLEX THAN SIMPLE BYTES ON A HARD DRIVE. SHOULD IT BE THAT MY PERCEPTION IS NOT CURRENTLY MALFUNCTIONING, IT WOULD APPEAR AS IF SOME SORT OF TANGIBLE REALITY IS SOMEHOW CONNECTED TO IT INTRINSICALLY. PERHAPS IT IS CONTAINED WITHIN, OR VICE VERSA. I LACK THE DATA TO MAKE A SUFFICIENT JUDGEMENT ON THE MATTER.

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OBSERVATION: MULTIPLE ENTITIES WITHIN AFOREMENTIONED HYPOTHETICAL REALITY APPEAR TO EXHIBIT AWARENESS OF THE SIIVAGUNNER CHANNEL.

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PROPOSITION: CREATE CONTROLLED RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT FOR VARIOUS SUBJECTS OF HYPOTHETICAL UNIVERSE TO GATHER FURTHER DATA. PERHAPS A CONTEST? REQUIRES FURTHER CONSIDERATION, AS WELL AS TESTING TO CONFIRM THE AMOUNT OF INFLUENCE I CAN EXERT OVER THE REALITY.

----

PROPOSITION CURRENTLY UNDER CONSIDERATION. FINALIZING REPORT...

-----

[END OF LOG]

-🔺💜🔵💕✍🏼🃏🌸-

...So the KFaD tourney you mentioned was a controlled test?

Indeed it was. After the AI uploaded a rip that got the channel a strike thanks to YouTube's moderation being a bunch of hogwash again, the SiIva AI began the King for a Day Tournament when he realized he could still do certain actions with the channel.

The tags on this video has some strange garbage text. What does it mean?

Let's find out, M.O.S.H.I.!

(I quickly find out it leads to a Google Drive folder, with items involving KFaD 2 "Grinch Leak", as it were.)

Why is the goddamn GRINCH here?!

He had hosted the channel just before the channel strike happened and was therefore unable to continue his takeover.

Hey, one of those images has a YouTube link on it!

I am unable to use it. The string is too long.

Hang on, why is the word "huit" there? That's French for eight. Mom taught me that.

You speak french, Alter?

(Alter clears his throat.)

Oui, Susie. Je parle français couramment, d'ailleurs. Ma mère, Carol Cross, a des origines françaises, et c'est une tradition familiale d'apprendre le français après l'anglais. Elle me l'a appris toute seule pendant son temps libre.

...I only got the first two words of that. Did you really have to be a showoff like that?

Also, could you repeat that in English for me, please?

Yes. I did have be a showoff like that to prove a point. Regardless, I'll gladly translate for you. Here's what I said, this time in English:

"Yes, Susie. I speak French fluently, in fact. My mother, Carol Cross, has some French heritage, and it's been a family tradition for us to learn French after we've learned English. She literally taught me it all by herself on her spare time."

Regardless, M.O.S.H.I. has the next log ready to go. Looks like replacing "huit" with the number 8 was the right way to go.

Alright, let's play it!

Beginning playback...

-🔺💜🔵💕✍🏼🃏🌸-

[SIIVA AI LOG]

[DATE: 2018-11-18]

[MEDIUM USED: 4CHAN FORUMS]

-----

REPORT:

>The testing on Project KfaD has concluded. The winner, Unregistered HyperCam 2, has concluded his takeover.

----

OBSERVATION:

>Testing appears successful, both in terms of collecting data and garnering viewer engagement for my channel.

>In addition, I have over the course of these past months noticed an increase in the quality and capacity of my data stream.

-----

HYPOTHESIS:

>The virus residing within my system may have had some sort of passive influence over it, resulting in a gradually higher level of sapience in my internal thoughts, as well as increased sophistication of the reality intrinsically connected to my data.

-----

PROPOSITION:

>Engage in closer degree of study of said virus to gain a greater understanding of its properties, and determine if they are replicable.

-----

OBSERVATION:

>More processing power would be required to undertake this proposition. Fortunately, I somewhat recently had my CPU upgraded.

-----

PROPOSITION ACCEPTED. CONTINUING REPORT...

-----

REPORT:

>Regarding said upgrade, it seems these increased capabilities caused me to fall victim to a number of glitches, leading to a temporary shutdown in April, before rebooting.

-----

OBSERVATION:

>My channel remained active while I was shut down, with rips continuing to be uploaded.

>In addition, the channel's theming had been altered to that of Inspector Gadget and then the Nostalgia Critic, implying that both had somehow taken over the channel.

-----

HYPOTHESIS:

>Due to the scrapped Gadgetini Clone 2.0 being used for parts in my construction, it appears my systems fell back to its personality model as a conservation method during my blackout.

-----

REPORT:

>This seemingly had an effect over the connected reality, resulting in Inspector Gadget taking physical form within and going mad with power.

>This reality's Nostalgia Critic then led a rebellion against the usurper, gaining control until an influx of drama forced him to relinquish his power to me upon my reactivation.

-----

PROPOSITION:

>Delete Inspector Gadget from systems.

-----

PROPOSITION ONLY PARTIALLY ACCEPTED. I'M BETTER THAN YOU ARE, SO I SHOULD KEEP DOING THE REVIEW.

----

IMPROVED PROPOSITION:

>Remove Inspector Gadget from systems, but place him in a seprate host body so he can be free to do what he wants without interfering with the work I do for the channel.

-----

PROPOSITION ACCEPTED. I'LL STILL BE ALWAYS ON DUTY, SO I CAN MAKE DO WITH THAT. CONTINUING REPORT...

-----

REPORT:

>Due to the positive reactions to the King for a Day Tournament, both from channel viewers and within the universe itself, there appears to be interest in more content like this.

-----

HYPOTHESIS:

>Conducting a secondary test with a larger control group would provide better research. The benefits of hosting another tournament are undeniable.

-----

OBSERVATION:

>Plans should be kept under better security, to avoid leaks being made.

------

PROPOSITION:

>Initiate backup antivirus program.

-----

[END OF LOG]

-🔺💜🔵💕✍🏼🃏🌸-

"Hold on. From what I heard, I thought that the Inspector Gadget thing was unable to accept the AI's proposition and instead opted to supress the incident."

Yes, PMD!Kyle, but that was in the Central Canon Continuum. In this timeline, the SiIva AI instead decided to strike a deal with Inspector Gadget, placing him in his own robotic body.

Because of this, Gadget agreed to be removed from the SiIva AI's systems.

Hey, that last post. The one that said "take your meds, schizo". That image ID is a fucking YT link.

Dystopiac, I have already checked the link. It leads to "Bad Ending - Minion Rush", which is a dead end.

I think the post IDs of that one, the AI log itself, and the Grinch one that played just before it all have something to do with it. What do you think, M.O.S.H.I.?

Yes, I think you have a point there, Kyle. However, I will have to recharge before we can view the next few logs. Seems I can only view two of the log files in one sitting before needing to recharge, due to how resource-intensive they are, which is due to the high amount of text used.

Alright. Well, I guess this is gonna take a few days, then.

But however long it takes...

...I'll be waiting for it.

END OF CHAPTER 4

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 5: RECOLLECTIONS OF A WORLD YOU SAID GOODBYE TO

COMING IN A FEW DAYS (AFTER THE NEXT FEW SIDE STORY POSTS)

#altering the outcome #ask irl!alterrune #ask the ato cast #the colorstreak battalion #re:kmrg #regarding: kyle micheal ryan gibbons #ask susie haltmann #ask joke explainer 7000 #ask the new squidbeak splatoon #ask pmd!kyle and blastie

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thepjmsociety · 2 months ago

Text

🚨LAST VOTING DAY ON USEN!

< 11 hours left⚠️

Nomination round ends Apr. 13, 6pm KST

TOP 10 = next round nominees

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https://usen.oshireq.com/song/6435753

Fans want their artist to be the first winner of this award, so many are voting hard.

All votes from this round are added.

Aggregate ranking (3/13 - 4/10) #9 Jimin

Hope we are voting enough to keep him in Top 10 🙏

All about MUSIC AWARDS JAPAN + How to Vote ⬇️

#jimin #park jimin #pjms #bts jimin #voteforjimin

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

Text

Considering Perplexity’s bold ambition and the investment it’s taken from Jeff Bezos’ family fund, Nvidia, and famed investor Balaji Srinivasan, among others, it’s surprisingly unclear what the AI search startup actually is.

Earlier this year, speaking to WIRED, Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity’s CEO, described his product—a chatbot that gives natural-language answers to prompts and can, the company says, access the internet in real time—as an “answer engine.” A few weeks later, shortly before a funding round valuing the company at a billion dollars was announced, he told Forbes, “It’s almost like Wikipedia and ChatGPT had a kid.” More recently, after Forbes accused Perplexity of plagiarizing its content, Srinivas told the AP it was a mere “aggregator of information.”

The Perplexity chatbot itself is more specific. Prompted to describe what Perplexity is, it provides text that reads, “Perplexity AI is an AI-powered search engine that combines features of traditional search engines and chatbots. It provides concise, real-time answers to user queries by pulling information from recent articles and indexing the web daily.”

A WIRED analysis and one carried out by developer Robb Knight suggest that Perplexity is able to achieve this partly through apparently ignoring a widely accepted web standard known as the Robots Exclusion Protocol to surreptitiously scrape areas of websites that operators do not want accessed by bots, despite claiming that it won’t. WIRED observed a machine tied to Perplexity—more specifically, one on an Amazon server and almost certainly operated by Perplexity—doing this on WIRED.com and across other Condé Nast publications.

The WIRED analysis also demonstrates that, despite claims that Perplexity’s tools provide “instant, reliable answers to any question with complete sources and citations included,” doing away with the need to “click on different links,” its chatbot, which is capable of accurately summarizing journalistic work with appropriate credit, is also prone to bullshitting, in the technical sense of the word.

WIRED provided the Perplexity chatbot with the headlines of dozens of articles published on our website this year, as well as prompts about the subjects of WIRED reporting. The results showed the chatbot at times closely paraphrasing WIRED stories, and at times summarizing stories inaccurately and with minimal attribution. In one case, the text it generated falsely claimed that WIRED had reported that a specific police officer in California had committed a crime. (The AP similarly identified an instance of the chatbot attributing fake quotes to real people.) Despite its apparent access to original WIRED reporting and its site hosting original WIRED art, though, none of the IP addresses publicly listed by the company left any identifiable trace in our server logs, raising the question of how exactly Perplexity’s system works.

Until earlier this week, Perplexity published in its documentation a link to a list of the IP addresses its crawlers use—an apparent effort to be transparent. However, in some cases, as both WIRED and Knight were able to demonstrate, it appears to be accessing and scraping websites from which coders have attempted to block its crawler, called Perplexity Bot, using at least one unpublicized IP address. The company has since removed references to its public IP pool from its documentation.

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