Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
Kind of a ramble: So, I’ve been out in the wild recently. I use discord and have noticed that in most of the servers I’m in, either they have an explicit no-genAI policy or quarantined sections where genAI content is allowed. On one podcast’s server, I posted a complaint about some genAI content that was posted to the podcast’s socials, and the embed was removed because it showed the genAI content- 10/10, love to see it. On another server, I figured out that the channel was created specifically because they had a sealion problem but didn’t want to ban their sealion (it appeared to be just one).
An interesting (read: stupid) thing about this sealion was that they are a self-styled leftist that was pro-AI. I won’t try to replicate any of their nonsense here, because A) it was nonsense stemming from a refusal to believe any anti-AI data and a lack of understanding of how LLMs work, and B) I don’t want to look like I’m posting about some kind of argument I had elsewhere here in order to score internet points, as I’m self aware/anxious enough to know that I sound exactly like that right now.
They posted this recent article written by Peter Coffin. There isn’t much about this guy on the internet. All I can gather is that they are some kind of breadtuber or in the breadtube orbit. It’s funny (read: farcical) to see a person posing as leftist say they are “pro-AI” but “anti-AI industry”. Either they don’t understand how the technology works (i.e. ignorant) or are accelerationist, wanting both the destruction of the environment and art (i.e. wilfully stupid)
Anyway, this exploration has shown me that some leftists don’t support copyright protections. I understand that from a couple different perspectives: 1. The main beneficiaries of copyright protections are large media corporations, and 2. it can be interpreted as trying to capitalistically extract fictional value, much like a landlord charging rent. I’m not trying to debunk this (I don’t think I’m representing this well enough). My thought is that I don’t give a shit about corporations losing money, what I care about is the work of individual artists being under/de-valued. Copyrights are an imperfect method that artists use to try seek justice, so it’s a grey area for me. Coffin in the article linked paints the situation as black and white: anyone who tries to stop someone “stealing” is actually rent seeking, whether or not they are a megacorp or a starving artist. (edit) I think this comes from Coffin's "extremely pro-AI" agenda, i.e., being anti-AI is enough to be reductively lumped together under some conspiratorial pro-capitalist agenda.
End of ramble, sorry that there wasn’t much of a point or structure here. Would love to hear any thoughts that come out from reading this.
E: note that this vid is posted as a common criticism of Coffin.
E2:
re: video above:
I really didn't know about this before writing that edit. I did some more reading. Coffin is something of a pick-me internet guy, his entire personality crystallised by that video. He's moved from internet trend to internet trend, one of note being gamergate, formerly anti, now pro (yes, as of 2024). He also did rap parodies? Anyway this isn't about him.I'm a leftist who doesn't support intellectual property. My solutions to intellectual property are 1) communism, or at least 2) basic income, in that order of preference.
Until one of the solutions to the problem of intellectual property is implemented, individuals should be allowed full sovereignity over their intellectual creations as they see fit. Personally all my intellectual creation is either public domain, or published under open, explicitly anti-capitalist licenses. But that's because I have a day job and a safe economic situation. If an artist decides people should pay to use their stuff, people should pay to use their stuff. The consent of the creator is non-negotiable.
Capitalists are the enemy and I don't give a flying fuck about capitalist intellectual property. My rule, grosso modo, is: if I pay to access this piece of art, does the money go to the creators, or does it go to some corporation's shareholders? If the first, I pay, gladly. If the second, I sail the high seas. Sometimes when it's hybrid (usually of the form "the artist gets peanuts and the capital owners get the lion's share") I will dig up the artist's patreon or ko-fi or whatever, donate the price of the thing there, and pirate it, under the assumption that the patreon/ko-fi/bandcamp/etc. cut is smaller than the typical entertainment industry's.
Peter Coffin is a fuck and his contrarian-ass pro-AI stuff deserves sneering to the full extent of sneerdom
Is it a single person or a worker co-op? Their copyright is sacred.
Is it a corporation? Lol, lmao, and also yarrr
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