Meanwhile I log into Threads and every single post is like this. Is this more welcoming and tolerant?
Been on quite the hiatus, slowly dipping my toes back in.
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Meanwhile I log into Threads and every single post is like this. Is this more welcoming and tolerant?
Love it! đ„°
Fascinating that the last true unifying moment was a mutual disdain towards George W. Bush
I agree, but also this didnât happen in a vacuum. One problem is the bad actors actively exploiting our vulnerabilities to sow divisions have largely gone unchallenged, and thereâs a lack of significant, organised, well funded defence mechanisms against these well-oiled disinformation machines.
Now this I would watch.
I was going to post my own and wanted to check that my ideas hadnât already been used (most were). But honestly the sheer unlikelihood of the OP also being a Peanuts reference makes Gregâs even more inspired.
Funny how the moment the Supreme Court rules that Affirmative Action is not constitutional because racial segregation is a relic of the past, they fire all the Black women (claiming they were all DEI hires of course). Itâs so blatant and insidious, the bigots who lost in â64 never went anywhere.
What I love about Dalton is heâs the Bond actor who clearly started off as a stage actor, and he brings that theatre energy to the role, playing Bond as he would a Shakespearean lead. He brings the edge and the humour and the humanity, but thereâs a theatricality to it which I adore.
Not sure if intentional or not, but you basically brought the chain full-circle. This is the one which started it.
Oh that felt absolutely intentional, down to it mirroring the actual plot points. It was delightful đ
Two types of people in this world. When someone comes up to them asking for help, the first says âhow can I help?â and the second says âdo you really need/deserve my help?â
I wonder if we can get the QAnon folk to believe the real Trump is dead and has been replaced with an imposter?
Have you seen Creggerâs previous film Barbarian? If you have itâs very much of a piece with it structurally and tonally. I enjoyed it a lot, but definitely one Iâd only recommend to someone if I know their tastes because I can easily manage someone disposing it.
Also love the casting, peppered with terrific character actors rounding out minor roles. Wasnât familiar with Julia Garner, but she has a striking presence, and Amy Madigan deserves all the accolades for making Gladys an instantly iconic character. Truly the highlight.
But what I love about both is that underneath the stylistic flourishes, theyâre both kind of quite traditional horror stories, more akin to classic monster/occult films than subverting genre conventions as seen in the âelevated horrorâ trend. Sometimes witches can just be scary and evil.
The movie definitely benefits from having seen Creggerâs prior film Barbarian, as Weapons replicates much of the tone and structure, at a much larger scale, and it does struggle somewhat under the weight where the former was a much tighter experience, with more thematic clarity.
Just finished watching, I liked it a lot, but definitely agree the structure, while clever on paper in how it deliberately rolled out its reveals through different perspectives, came at the expense of leaving certain plot threads hanging longer than necessary. But each had some wonderful moments.
Letâs go!
âcould a dead man be blasting les miz???â is objectively funny, props to the WH for that one
Iron infusion?
Almost certainly not, but Iâve yet to see a spark of hope bring people together like this for a long time.
Man the rumoured death of a despot really brings a community together đ„°
It will be deeply funny if Biden outlives Trump
Oh god, I had the horrible thought that this is probably going to be the new pathway to citizenship.
How rude for prod to break on a Friday
Vincent D'Onofrio should change his name to Vincent Mitochondria since he's the powerhouse of The Cell (2000)
Microsoft Copilot
âIt seems youâre trying to fly a plane, would you like help with this?â
Not the least bit surprising. And it makes perfect sense that if someone believes something is âmagicâ theyâll never stop buying into the illusion. I genuinely believe this is much more dangerous than social media, which at least is in the open and has opportunities for intervention.
I imagine thereâll be a deluge of class-action lawsuits, and unlike social media companies, itâs unlikely theyâll be protected from the liability exemptions for content hosting companies, since they are fully responsible for the content the LLMs are capable of producing.
The fact that the product has no clear warning labels, doesnât educate the user-base that the anthropomorphic traits are an illusion and that theyâre simply operating a statistical probability machine that isnât capable of empathy, ethics or duty of care makes these things unfathomably dangerous.
Didnât get my ADHD diagnoses until my 30s, when I was promoted to a role that required a high degree of organisation and keeping to schedule, and I was literally unable to function at even simple tasks. And I got that promotion by performing well at complex work in chaotic and stressful situations.
Will do!
Awww man now youâre really making me want to watch it. Really enjoyed Barbarian, might make time this weekend.
4 Degrees of AI ~Anthropocentrism~ toxic masculinity edition - Passive Aggression - Gaslighting - Negging - Mansplaining
So like Scoobert Doobert?
I donât think youâre gonna see any âBlueMAGAâ storm the Capital.
Iâm sure sheâll write a passive aggressive song about it
Similarly, people are very good at adapting to changing circumstances, readjusting to the ânew normalâ. If fascism is rolled out gradually enough, most wonât even recognise how bad things have become.
Honk if youâre Holy.
w/o downloading anything new, where are you mentally?
Humanâs arenât ready for âintelligent likeâ behaviour from something without intelligence. Our brains arenât wired for it, and so if you donât have the necessary cognitive dissonance in place, you can get sucked into a very scary space.
I swear I can picture a near future where AIâs going to more rights than trans people, and by that point fuck it Iâm crowdfunding a rocket trip into the sun.
Pitch perfect alt text btw!
Itâs a real shame Trump has claimed and weaponised the word âradicalâ to the point itâs used almost exclusively to describe the left. Because what weâre seeing now is pure radicalism, as far removed from classical conservatism as you could get. And yet to many Kamala was the radical đ
Should you have to debase yourself to get access to a right youâre entitled to? Feels like a perfect summation of the billionaire class.
Should you have to debase yourself to get access to a right youâre entitled to?
(To the tune of Scatman Johnâs Scatman) See Ba-ba-ba-ba-dook, Ba-ba-ba-ba-dook See Ba-ba-ba-ba-dook, Fancy Hat Man!
I think the primary issue is that the AI misgendered Mamdani and assumed he was a woman.
Snoopâs grandson is too confused by a kid with two mothers, but not light-speed time dilation? My did asked me once about same sex couples, I explained that people love who they love and he never brought it up again. But he wonât fucking stop talking about black holes and red giants and the like.
Never thought Iâd long for Nancy Pelosi. How can the opposition be this flaccid?
Donât Look Now (wow I was a weird kid)
Get up Forget to take meds
I feel weâve lost something as a society that people no longer assert dominance by commissioning wildly exaggerated paintings of their oversized livestock. It was a simpler, more innocent time, and far sexier than luxury space flights and mega yachts.
And everyone else just has a real beating heart. Itâs earnest, corny and more than a little silly, but as the movie says, that emotional honesty feels like punk rock in the world weâre living in. Sometimes in a world of greys, good is good, wrong is wrong, and pretending otherwise is complicity.
Eisenbergâs characterisation was an embarrassment, and it seemed nobody knew what to do with the character. But Hoult is brilliant here. Heâs cruel and petty, but I also *get* his motivations, itâs like an incarnation of the most toxic version of myself. Itâs not quite empathy, but recognition.
What fascinating is that thereâs a lot of overlap with what the Snyder films were trying and failing miserably to do, but Gunn actually understands people, and pulls it off so effortlessly it makes itâs predecessors flaws even more apparent. No more apparent than with Lex Luthor.
Genuinely surprised how much I adored the new Superman film. Really what I needed right now. Not an enough of a comics guy to say if Gunn truly gets the material, but I can say for sure the gets *me*. Rare a big budget blockbuster speaks directly to my views and feelings but I really vibed with this
Your hairâs looking great Alice!
And whoâs doing the work to construct these wind farms? Private industries. Many doing the exact kind of work Trump wants to bring back to the US. Weâve had to do major layoffs due to these policies, I imagine many job losses for other parts of the sector, which only adds more strain on the economy.
I mean even then youâre supposed to run agains âtheâ *opposition* party, not your own democratically selected candidate.
The real reason the right fears childless cat ladies
The guy who started this joke deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.
Feels like laying the groundwork for a justification to âliberateâ the state, just like theyâre liberating DC.
Itâs telling that a lot of the Fox News and MAGA social media have resorted to moving the goal posts to âthe majority of Republicans support Trump on this issueâ.
For at least the first year of Bidenâs Presidency, there was almost no major five alarm fire news stories, just boring day-to-day normalcy. It was bliss, and for that brief bittersweet moment it felt like things were going to be alright.
Youâre going to see a huge disadvantage for kids educated with AI vs traditional teachings, so naturally theyâll just end up rolling it out to poorer, disadvantaged schools.
Annoyed that Iâm being pressured to go to the Harry Potter Forbidden Forest Experience, despite saying that Iâd prefer not raise kid on the franchise or send money Rowlingâs way. But I also donât want to look like a dick by making a big thing out of it đ
Think about how much money they could have saved and embarrassment avoided by hiring a diverse enough workforce such that *someone* would have made the bleeding obvious judgment call of âyuck, donât do thisâ.
For real, you just know the kids are going to face abuse & threats, probably from bad-actors looking to exploit divisions. What parent would allow their child to be part of such a volatile environment filled with so much pain and anguish? I hope it flops so hard it doesnât get renewed for their sake
*not me, blushing* đ
I definitely agree on the latter part, and while thereâs indeed journalistic malpractice, part of the problem is the inherent asymmetry between Trump and a normal candidate. Itâs impossible to discuss the merits of an economic policy with a monkey tossing turds around the room.
And unlike other news sources like Fox or CNN, NYT basically abandoned the age story once Biden dropped out. Again I have a lot of issues with NYT reporting, but I donât find many of the examples raised particularly insidious, especially compared to the conservative voices they choose to platform.
A lot of people, including Democrats of all political stripes worried that Biden remaining on the ballot would result in a political wipeout. And there was a fear following the debate that every day that went by without changing candidates would make it harder to have any shot at victory.
Why did they endorse Harris and have the entire editorial board make the case that Trump was unfit for office? Donât get me wrong, NYT is filled with plenty of garbage and platforms a lot of bad-faith opinion writers, but the paper was pretty clear on their preferred candidate, unlike WaPo.
I think sheâs showing her ass that she donât follow many normal, everyday women on social media, because I see posts talking about bras, the importance of a good fit, the shittyness of a bad bra etc. all the fucking time. Itâs wild to assume itâs only fetishistic or sex work adjacent, itâs clothing!
Except China nearly cratered the entire stock market when they revealed that they could produce similar quality results at a fraction of the computational cost. Efficiencies within computing and algorithms will make the resource requirements a fraction of what they are currently, it always does.
On that I completely agree. But I fear the conversation is increasingly turning things into a âluddites vs visionariesâ framing, when in reality we need sensible, level-headed people who can advocate appropriate uses of AI and push back against the ethically bankrupt tech-bro misanthropy.
As a software engineer, GitHub has an AI service that does automated code reviews, allowing a first pass at identifying simple errors so that human reviewers can prioritise more important issues. But all these are AI being used as a tool for efficiency, not a replacement for human beings.
But there are many narrower use cases where AI solutions can significantly boost productivity. One AI product called Heidi used by GPs automatically transcribes recorded consultations into formal doctor notes. Writing detailed notes is a time-consuming (unpaid) process that can be reduced to minutes
I think itâs a lot more complex than broad generalisations. AI, or at least the current fad of LLM general-purpose solutions like ChatGPT are terribly overhyped and are being recklessly pushed with little ethical concerns for both intellectual property or society harms of âperceived intelligenceâ.
The caveat being that only applies if the rules are enforced equally.
Biden trying to outdo the Obamaâs Netflix deal.
I could just as easily gone through life without having a child, not due to any regrets, but because being a parent isnât about *me*, itâs about *them*. Iâm just there to help them along the way. Itâs wild how those who complain about childless folks have the most self-centred views of parenthood.
Iâve struggled with how a lot of parents view their children as something they own or invest in, where as Iâve felt that itâs the opposite. Itâs the honour of being entrusted as the guide/teacher/mentor/friend of a new life, where your role is to show love and hopefully guide them well through life.
I think more importantly âno one should worship the Presidentâ. All politicians should be treated extremely sceptically; they work for you, we entrust them a huge amount of power and authority, which they could easily abuse. Hating is far less harmful than the cult-like blind devotion.
They suffocated because they were canaries, thereâs no evidence or reason to fear the coal miners will suffer the same fate.
I can already picture Trump calling the head of the FCC at 3:00am, demanding what heâs going to do about it and why canât they can just do another Colbert.
The added subtext of them selling a cage makes it extra creepy. âOh yeah Iâm selling this cage because I need a bigger one. For, uh, large birds. What are you doing this Friday?â
Itâs one of the worst directed parts of the movie because Jackson got his 2nd unit guy to shoot to scene, but the 2nd unit guy was unavailable so the job fell to this super inexperienced guy. And yet thereâs something goofy and lame and kinda charming about the scene that itâs now iconic & I love it
It really ties the whole unhinged diatribes together.
Many people donât realise theyâre in an abusive relationship for years, sometimes not until itâs over. People are naturally adept at adjusting to hardship, often not realising that theyâre tolerating things that not long ago would be unimaginable. People very are adaptable, but it can be exploited.
Itâs like a toxic form of empathy. Iâll put myself in someone elseâs shoes, but all I can think of is all the evil things I would do in their position, and assume thatâs their true intent.
I think they also hold a cynical view that everyone is just as selfish and power-hungry as they are, and in the end theyâre not worse, theyâre just more honest about it. Itâs often said with MAGA that every accusation is actually a confession, and I think itâs because they assume everyoneâs the same
Honestly Iâm beginning to think one of the worst, one-the-nose lines from the prequel trilogy may actually be the most salient.
Itâs also just astounding the tantrum from the establishment over Mamdani. Imagine if instead of conceding Bernie Sanders ran as a third party. Heâd be crucified, maligned as putting himself before the interests of the country and yet barely a word against Cuomo. I thought âvote Blue no matter whoâ?