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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 8th, 2023

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  • You should look a little deeper into the history of modern Israel and Zionism. It’s always been a colonial project that necessitates genocide of the local population. I’m not going to get further into it here as it’s not really the place for this and people have already done the work. If you haven’t seen shaun’s video id recommend at least giving it a watch. I’ll leave the iron wall as well. It’s a short essay from one of the founders of Zionism. His views were quite explicit and highly influential at the time and his legacy is obvious in modern Israel. And lastly The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. It’s a good book that plainly lays out the history of the Zionist colonial project from 1917-2017. I’m only halfway through it but it’s worth your time. Or just watch the video, it’s cites both the essay and book (among other things) and ties it all together very well.



  • Sure, for corporations and the wealthy. But it straight up yanks information from small authors, artists, etc. I couldn’t give less of a shit if Disney is impacted from AI, but there is real potential for harm to average people. Submitting your shit to AI should be opt-in, scraping the web for content that company didn’t create with no consent from the content creators for the means of profiting off their labor is wrong. Copyright is fucked, yes. It protects the wealthy more than it protects the non-wealthy, yes. These companies practices are still fucked too. Two things can be bad and there is plenty of room for nuance in this area



  • One is theft and an infringement of privacy for nefarious ends and the other is a painting. There’s a world of difference between agreeing to let someone paint you and a corporation using your data to train AI. Spinning this basic reality into sinophobia is mind boggling. There are people in this thread shitting on Google for the same thing. Would you call it amerophobic to criticize Google for the same shit? Of course you wouldn’t




  • Not entirely related but the bit about the Ukrainian farmer saying he’s “Greek Orthodox” in response to questions of his nationality reminded me of something. I just started reading nationalism and culture by Rudolf Rocker. In the second chapter, rocker says that religion is the first form of institutionalized power that humans created and that institutional political power is not only structured similarly to religion, that it stems directly from it. Hence the proclivity of these two power structures to resemble, overlap, share ideas and compete with one another throughout human history. Not to say faith in itself is necessarily a form of power (he does say that, and I mostly agree with it) but the clergy around any given religion utilize that power to further their own ends, much like politicians.

    I don’t have a fully formed point or thought to any of this at the moment, and it’s a very brief summary, but I figured some may find it interesting/thought provoking




  • Gimlets with homemade lime cordial if I’m trying to get hammered. Alternatively: death in the afternoon to black out

    Dark n stormy with lemon hart 151 and a couple dashes of ango if I’m feeling lazy

    Old fashioneds with a nice barrel proof bourbon to unwind

    Amaretto sour for something sweet

    Vieux carre if I want vermouth

    There’s a whole wide world of fancy booze out there, I couldn’t pick just one favorite lol