The Martians seem to think that Mars will be like a new colony, with all the “hope” that implies, but it seems to me that colonization was a wretched process for many of the colonists (to say nothing of the people being colonized). Musk is only cheerful about it because he thinks he’ll be whipping the slaves rather than working the arid red soil.
Forced to endure an episode of an Irish tv programme about the environment in which a guest sincerely listed carbon capture & storage and small nuclear reactor as potential energy solutions. As mentioned above, the earth is our coffin, hope is a mistake, etc
Update: I got an extension 😇
It’s always the child prodigies
I don’t know what these acronyms mean 🫡
I’m just going to have to send an email in and be like hi I’m out of my depth. Can I still pass this class if I fail this assignment
Saying they’re dumb and incurious offers almost too much respect. They believe in racial eugenics based on IQ - look at the kind of shit Elon Musk retweets. Scaremongering about fertility is just the way they get to the racial eugenics, while pretending it’s a necessity not a choice.
Edit: and now I see froztbyte said almost the same thing first. Oops
“socialism or barbarism you say? well maybe barbarism has its upsides”
Oh but you see it’s not regressive because it’s polygynous not polygamous. Those women totally want to be forced to have the ubermensch’s children
Got linked to this UFO sightings timeline in Popbitch today. Thought it looked quite interesting and quite fun. Then I realized the information about individual UFO sightings was being supplied by bloody Co-pilot, and therefore was probably even less accurate than the average UFOlogy treatise.
PS: Does anyone know anything about using Arc-GIS to make maps? I have an assignment due tomorrow and I’m bricking it.
Unfortunately it’s the small artists who are most open and vulnerable to criticism. Amazon can probably impose this kind of shit on everyone through sheer persistence
She’s entitled to a “default mode of victimhood”! She is your victim!
You’re right. I was thinking more of the lesswrong types than about Akon.
TESCREAL libertarians ignore the last 50 years of planning & urban studies because they think it’s all a conspiracy to destroy innovation. Celebrity cryptofans ignore it because they don’t even know the last 50 years of planning & urban studies exist.
My armchair analysis: The dream of “starting fresh” isn’t just that you end up with a new city, but that the kind of people who live there are new too, either because you believe that the quality of the urban environment affects people’s morality (as many people thought in the 19th century) or because you’ve hand-picked the kind of people who will live in your city (as crypto-fascists seem eager to do). So a city is more exciting than a new airport or a new railway because it’s about who people are, who people want to be.
E: & also a lot of TESCREAListas are convinced that San Francisco, New York etc. are “failing” cities, that urban life is falling apart
It’s part of their retrofetishism & sneaking admiration for dictators and autocrats. “Remember when we used to really build things? Build whole cities, even? When we used to displace 10,000 people at the drop of a hat so we could build a new freeway? We don’t do that anymore, because of woke bureaucracy”
Joe is complaining about TFI putting up the taxi fares in Dublin.
The ad is for a TFI competition.
Ciarán works in advertising and thought that the TFI ad must be a scam first because of the use of AI.
Ciarán points out that TFI has plenty of money and could afford to pay a graphic designer or an illustrator.
Joe is furious that TFI won’t say whether the ad was AI-generated or not. Ciarán points out that they didn’t even mark the image as AI-generated.
Gerry O’Brien from Actors Equity is on the line. He’s explaining the issues faced by background actors and voiceover actors who are being pressured into signing over their image/voice rights
Hannah Lockhead from Lucan is on the line. “I don’t disagree with what anyone is saying, but personally I think the most offensive thing about this ad is just that it’s ugly”.
Gerry O’Brien is talking about fair compensation and clear consent for actors whose images are being used.
Hannah says that “Frankenstein’s Wife is Margot Robbie”
Ciarán says that the AI art is “quite tacky” and compares poorly with the iconic London Underground logo.
Joe Duffy has seized the opportunity of having Gerry O’Brien on the line to complain that the Abbey Theatre has been closed for a year.
Joe Duffy has asked Hannah Lockhead (who is an actress) “are you working Hannah or are you resting”. She’s just finished filming a horror film in Wales called Esoteric.
That’s pretty much it.
TFI have now apologised.
More AI generated shite from Ireland: Transport for Ireland decided, for some reason, to use AI for its Hallowe’en themed ads. This was roundly complained about online. Then someone decided, for genius reasons, to ring Liveline and complain about it.
For those who are unfamiliar, Liveline is a national phone-in show presented by JOEEEE DUFFY, who could start a fight with a brick wall. Every episode is about either a petty grievance or a real horror story. It’s like a national whinge-in. I am going to listen to the episode (available here) and see if there are any highlights.
It doesn’t even make any sense 😭 surely “secular religion” and “childless hedonism” are not the same thing??
I actually read a Red Dwarf fanfic about this once where Rimmer’s parents had paid for embryo selection to make sure all their kids had high IQs and good genes because they wanted to make sure they all got into the Space Corps
All of these measures to “protect life” have the convenient side effect of forcing women back into the kitchen. IVF allows women to have children & careers, or choose to be solo parents. It allows lesbian couples to have kids.
🫡😔
You’ll hear no complaint from me.