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I want to fucking cry. Endlessly.
Sep. 13th, 2025 02:19 amThe last 5 years, holy fucking shit. All the covid lies, the Ukraine war, the Israel war, shooting someone who had a family, stabbing an innocent person in a train
I don't have enough empathy to deal with this. It's exhausting. I'm so sorry for the state of the world
I don't have enough empathy to deal with this. It's exhausting. I'm so sorry for the state of the world
Well god damn it
Sep. 12th, 2025 08:36 pmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBUimaBS86k
If a significant number of people got the thing (it's not an actual vaccine) then every industry is being run by various gradations of injured people (like, say, vaccinated pilots, with subclinical heart damage, or other things)
I hope all the censorship and gaslighting was worth it
If a significant number of people got the thing (it's not an actual vaccine) then every industry is being run by various gradations of injured people (like, say, vaccinated pilots, with subclinical heart damage, or other things)
I hope all the censorship and gaslighting was worth it
Expression
Sep. 12th, 2025 08:19 pmI'm really bad at expressing myself, writing things down can be painful, I have such respect for people who do it well enough so that it feels like it flows (novelists or non-fiction writers in general)
I've been told I'm a good writer. I hope so. It often doesn't feel like that
(Note to schools: your job may or may not be essential - becoming aware of people like John Taylor Gatto in which he discusses how education can be indoctrination, indeed may have been modeled off indoctrination models - but I would urge you to be careful about forcing people into things, you can make them hate learning or any kind of hard work, because the students feel so defeated by the system)
I've been told I'm a good writer. I hope so. It often doesn't feel like that
(Note to schools: your job may or may not be essential - becoming aware of people like John Taylor Gatto in which he discusses how education can be indoctrination, indeed may have been modeled off indoctrination models - but I would urge you to be careful about forcing people into things, you can make them hate learning or any kind of hard work, because the students feel so defeated by the system)
It bothers me
Sep. 12th, 2025 07:39 pmIt bothers me how some online "institutions" are (so easily?) captured. Youtube maybe less so (which grew to censor all covid "misinformation" and demonetize videos they don't like) because in the early days there was copyright overreach (which they weren't, as far as I know, forced to do, maybe they were in danger of losing safe harbor status, I don't know) and they even kowtowed to Scientology in their war against Anonymous (of course I believe the latter to have been clearly on the right side of history). But Reddit was a good idea. You could have subreddits on just about anything. And you might have argued about when censorship becomes ok, when clear instances of hate were demonstrated (I think the Ellen Pao controversy in part included subreddits like r/fatpeoplehate). Or if you don't want to call it censorship, then call it moderation
But Reddit I think most everyone recognizes now is completely captured and that's because it isn't organic. If the congregation of power among the mods wasn't enough, the site itself has become clearly malicious. You can literally just be banned for having the wrong opinion. And I don't mean "wRoNg oPiNiOn" like "I'm a white supremacist, let me have my views, it's censorship otherwise". I mean things like covid or for even being mildly a different part of the political spectrum. They'd ban the conservative subreddit if they thought they could get away with it. And more I could mention but you get the point
How does it happen? How does a takeover happen? I don't think we should be in the business of designing a bulletproof (packet proof?) system where absolutely no content should ever be removed ever (everyone can think of some clear examples of when it's ok to do that) but the basic conduit and process, how does that happen? What right does Youtube have to label something misinformation, a lot of which later turns out to not to be that, to be correct, to demonetize people and affect their livelihoods? John Perry Barlow was known to say that the internet detects censorship as damage and routes around it. Again I wouldn't be quite so extreme, I do think on the extreme margins there has to be some policing, but "too much" is clearly the line we've crossed even if it's not easy to define
Maybe the way you get to it is gradually convincing the younger generations who take over these platforms that actually, expressing an opinion really isn't ok, and that censorship is. Maybe it's that simple. I just do know that there's a certain amount of things you can get away with over the wires and packets in a way you wouldn't, telling people to their face "IRL" that they're not welcome and you're going to remove their content. I don't have to justify myself to you as a content hoster, your video will get removed or censored and you are going to like it. (Hey, when is the EFF going to buy up Youtube? I will pitch in the funds required, I swear)
Or maybe it all comes down to safe harbor and section 230 and this and that
(Facebook isn't necessarily better. Zuckerberg plays all sides on all issues and he already doesn't have the best reputation from university)
But Reddit I think most everyone recognizes now is completely captured and that's because it isn't organic. If the congregation of power among the mods wasn't enough, the site itself has become clearly malicious. You can literally just be banned for having the wrong opinion. And I don't mean "wRoNg oPiNiOn" like "I'm a white supremacist, let me have my views, it's censorship otherwise". I mean things like covid or for even being mildly a different part of the political spectrum. They'd ban the conservative subreddit if they thought they could get away with it. And more I could mention but you get the point
How does it happen? How does a takeover happen? I don't think we should be in the business of designing a bulletproof (packet proof?) system where absolutely no content should ever be removed ever (everyone can think of some clear examples of when it's ok to do that) but the basic conduit and process, how does that happen? What right does Youtube have to label something misinformation, a lot of which later turns out to not to be that, to be correct, to demonetize people and affect their livelihoods? John Perry Barlow was known to say that the internet detects censorship as damage and routes around it. Again I wouldn't be quite so extreme, I do think on the extreme margins there has to be some policing, but "too much" is clearly the line we've crossed even if it's not easy to define
Maybe the way you get to it is gradually convincing the younger generations who take over these platforms that actually, expressing an opinion really isn't ok, and that censorship is. Maybe it's that simple. I just do know that there's a certain amount of things you can get away with over the wires and packets in a way you wouldn't, telling people to their face "IRL" that they're not welcome and you're going to remove their content. I don't have to justify myself to you as a content hoster, your video will get removed or censored and you are going to like it. (Hey, when is the EFF going to buy up Youtube? I will pitch in the funds required, I swear)
Or maybe it all comes down to safe harbor and section 230 and this and that
(Facebook isn't necessarily better. Zuckerberg plays all sides on all issues and he already doesn't have the best reputation from university)
You can see this post in Latest (after 5 minutes). Other than that (I don't know what else they filter by, presumably things to catch some obviously disallowed things), you can see this post. I don't control Dreamwidth, it's not my personal website, but if I did have one, that would hold true. You can see this post at roughly the time that I wrote it. It doesn't show up in your feed 2 weeks later, because the metrics-focused company has decided that it's "good for retention" or "engagement"
I can have many problems hypothetically with the social media platforms on a human level but it's when it gets down to outright fake content and fake representation that it becomes a real problem. A real - let me repeat - tangible, identifiably criminal, prosecutable problem
I can have many problems hypothetically with the social media platforms on a human level but it's when it gets down to outright fake content and fake representation that it becomes a real problem. A real - let me repeat - tangible, identifiably criminal, prosecutable problem
"Happy" 24th anniversary
I hope everyone enjoys their day (not because it's 9/11 and I don't mean that in a cheerful way in reference to it... I just mean in general) as much as they can and I want peace to reign and for wars and killings to stop
The day completely destroyed the relative optimism the world felt around 2000
It instilled paranoia and fear
Only relatively recently did I really become aware of movements like firefighters for 9/11 truth where they and others say it can't possibly be what they told us
As someone 'raised' on 9/11, it's... heartbreaking, I guess is the best word to use
There are so many other thoughts I could post about
I hope everyone enjoys their day (not because it's 9/11 and I don't mean that in a cheerful way in reference to it... I just mean in general) as much as they can and I want peace to reign and for wars and killings to stop
The day completely destroyed the relative optimism the world felt around 2000
It instilled paranoia and fear
Only relatively recently did I really become aware of movements like firefighters for 9/11 truth where they and others say it can't possibly be what they told us
As someone 'raised' on 9/11, it's... heartbreaking, I guess is the best word to use
There are so many other thoughts I could post about
Priv-uh-cee
Sep. 9th, 2025 02:30 amI have a few extensions I installed for privacy stuff and I recently went through and cleared out the ublock origin filters I had enabled because I feel like the defaults do a lot of it (except for the fucking never ending cookie popups)
One assumes it breaks less websites that way (I also use privacybadger)
Of course one problem with this is that it's possible for companies to profile your browser and recognize/track you that way
I hope GDPR starts getting enforced, hard, across the board
One assumes it breaks less websites that way (I also use privacybadger)
Of course one problem with this is that it's possible for companies to profile your browser and recognize/track you that way
I hope GDPR starts getting enforced, hard, across the board
This isn't even about Reddit specifically but it's the 20th anniversary of Katrina and I'm browsing through the threads and the hate for Bush and how Trump is worse and yadda yadda
I have a serious problem in our age with the broadly defined concepts of what misinformation is and isn't. Covid ought to put a hard stop to any of it, this certainty with which we believe certain narratives. About how masks work and how the vaccines are safe and stop the spread (all false and if you didn't ban doctors from online platforms, you would know that). That's just one example, but you can almost tell exactly where someone is on the political spectrum by some of the positions they hold
But people are entitled to their opinions, right? The problem is censorship. If Reddit has bias because it has younger users, ok. But you will get banned if you dissent, either by the site itself (tell me how r/nonewnormal was a serious problem, Reddit. You should be able to defend these decisions, or be subject to lawsuits, and we'll see you in court) or by dedicated mods of subreddits who tend to be the same across the mainstream subs
It's propaganda. I've seen things promulgated that I know are false. The decentralized nature of it falls apart. Youtube spends quite a lot of time removing videos and demonetizing, as well. Completely unaccountable nature of bureaucracy
I'm not inclined to like Trump, I don't come into this liking Trump. But I've heard the other side of this by now to know what we get told and reality as represented by some people just isn't how things are, at all. It's always been true but the sheer concentrated nature of power is awful
I have a serious problem in our age with the broadly defined concepts of what misinformation is and isn't. Covid ought to put a hard stop to any of it, this certainty with which we believe certain narratives. About how masks work and how the vaccines are safe and stop the spread (all false and if you didn't ban doctors from online platforms, you would know that). That's just one example, but you can almost tell exactly where someone is on the political spectrum by some of the positions they hold
But people are entitled to their opinions, right? The problem is censorship. If Reddit has bias because it has younger users, ok. But you will get banned if you dissent, either by the site itself (tell me how r/nonewnormal was a serious problem, Reddit. You should be able to defend these decisions, or be subject to lawsuits, and we'll see you in court) or by dedicated mods of subreddits who tend to be the same across the mainstream subs
It's propaganda. I've seen things promulgated that I know are false. The decentralized nature of it falls apart. Youtube spends quite a lot of time removing videos and demonetizing, as well. Completely unaccountable nature of bureaucracy
I'm not inclined to like Trump, I don't come into this liking Trump. But I've heard the other side of this by now to know what we get told and reality as represented by some people just isn't how things are, at all. It's always been true but the sheer concentrated nature of power is awful
Google's Gemini
Aug. 30th, 2025 06:44 pmI really think they do spectacularly well in exploring technical concepts, people have said it also tends to hallucinate less
The problem? The censorship culture of Google. If they could get rid of that I would be much more inclined to use it, maybe exclusively
This isn't hard. Just drop the culture. I understand liability when it comes to LLMs so it can't answer certain things but Google goes above and beyond in being useless
The problem? The censorship culture of Google. If they could get rid of that I would be much more inclined to use it, maybe exclusively
This isn't hard. Just drop the culture. I understand liability when it comes to LLMs so it can't answer certain things but Google goes above and beyond in being useless
Life on the net
Aug. 29th, 2025 11:24 pmI have no idea what to do with this account, really. I barely remember what I posted here or commented on other people's stuff. I feel like (as probably so many people do) erasing it and starting over because I feel like I've probably been dumb and posted the "wrong" things (no specific meaning behind it but I'm not a great blog writer)
I wonder if things had been different if I'd picked a set (never just one) of more or less consistent names on the internet over the last few years, if I'd tried to be "me" more, not just a succession of (bad) screennames
I wonder if things had been different if I'd picked a set (never just one) of more or less consistent names on the internet over the last few years, if I'd tried to be "me" more, not just a succession of (bad) screennames
Been a while since I've posted
Actually I found this place ONLY through Facebook. After this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23956640
It's one thing for left-leaners to hate the site because of x and right-leaners to hate the site because of y - although Facebook does a great job of algorithmically trapping people inside filter bubbles - but I have a simpler explanation: Zuckerberg is a terrible person, all of his products are broken, he's purely out to fuck everyone else, and he does not deserve to be in the same conversation as people who invent the protocols and backbone of the internet
(While we're at it, yeah, Google/Youtube can stop it with the corruption and censorship too, but they tend to be a bit better with user data)
We can debate over Cambridge Analytica and Russia and whether Trump really was helped by this or that social platform, that's left as "an exercise for the reader"
I just think Zuck got into computing with IMs (later leaked) like "they trust me, dumb fucks" and "I'm going to fuck them [the Winklevoss twins] in the ear"
There's a reason why the feed is such a mess and people miss posts all the time and people constantly miss messages by people trying to contact them (because they inserted their own facebook.com email via the API and subverted people's email addresses so you couldn't have email forwarding)
Actually I found this place ONLY through Facebook. After this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23956640
It's one thing for left-leaners to hate the site because of x and right-leaners to hate the site because of y - although Facebook does a great job of algorithmically trapping people inside filter bubbles - but I have a simpler explanation: Zuckerberg is a terrible person, all of his products are broken, he's purely out to fuck everyone else, and he does not deserve to be in the same conversation as people who invent the protocols and backbone of the internet
(While we're at it, yeah, Google/Youtube can stop it with the corruption and censorship too, but they tend to be a bit better with user data)
We can debate over Cambridge Analytica and Russia and whether Trump really was helped by this or that social platform, that's left as "an exercise for the reader"
I just think Zuck got into computing with IMs (later leaked) like "they trust me, dumb fucks" and "I'm going to fuck them [the Winklevoss twins] in the ear"
There's a reason why the feed is such a mess and people miss posts all the time and people constantly miss messages by people trying to contact them (because they inserted their own facebook.com email via the API and subverted people's email addresses so you couldn't have email forwarding)
Fill spaces
Sep. 30th, 2023 10:57 amSpaces are important to me. The inside of some building feels radically different when it's empty vs when it's full of people despite being the same place. An empty room feels kind of lonely, just the character of it. A room full of people takes on a completely different character.
And so I like the process of a room filling up with people. When I was younger, it was my fireplace room, which is a small space, so it probably means more. Just that sense of people being there. (And then having the fire warm up the room from the state it was in which itself is a kind of filling up process)
I wonder if other people feel the same way or if I'm just weird
And so I like the process of a room filling up with people. When I was younger, it was my fireplace room, which is a small space, so it probably means more. Just that sense of people being there. (And then having the fire warm up the room from the state it was in which itself is a kind of filling up process)
I wonder if other people feel the same way or if I'm just weird
Fast forward to when
Sep. 8th, 2023 07:58 pm...fast forward to when Dreamwidth is dead in 5 years, subject to linkrot (unless we use IPFS for everything now), subject to some new platform emerging, as "it's just like Dreamwidth" (Livejournal was once pretty hot...)
Nothing lasts
We'll just go on cycling through the same pattern forever and ever
(And no, I don't mean that philosophically or existentially. It's just a general comment on the internet and how much has been lost and how many of the services of today will be the services of 'once was' tomorrow. It's sad but I'm hoping the cycle more or less can actually be broken)
Nothing lasts
We'll just go on cycling through the same pattern forever and ever
(And no, I don't mean that philosophically or existentially. It's just a general comment on the internet and how much has been lost and how many of the services of today will be the services of 'once was' tomorrow. It's sad but I'm hoping the cycle more or less can actually be broken)
