Tootfinder

Overly academic/distanced ethical discussions
Had a weird interaction with @/brainwane@social.coop just now. I misinterpreted one of their posts quoting someone else and I think the combination of that plus an interaction pattern where I'd assume their stance on something and respond critically to that ended up with me getting blocked. I don't have hard feelings exactly, and this post is only partly about this particular person, but I noticed something interesting by the end of the conversation that had been bothering me. They repeatedly criticized me for assuming what their position was, but never actually stated their position. They didn't say: "I'm bothered you assumed my position was X, it's actually Y." They just said "I'm bothered you assumed my position was X, please don't assume my position!" I get that it's annoying to have people respond to a straw man version of your argument, but when I in response asked some direct questions about what their position was, they gave some non-answers and then blocked me. It's entirely possible it's a coincidence, and they just happened to run out of patience on that iteration, but it makes me take their critique of my interactions a bit less seriously. I suspect that they just didn't want to hear what I was saying, while at the same time they wanted to feel as if they were someone who values public critique and open discussion of tricky issues (if anyone reading this post also followed our interaction and has a different opinion of my behavior, I'd be glad to hear it; it's possible In effectively being an asshole here and it would be useful to hear that if so).
In any case, the fact that at the end of the entire discussion, I'm realizing I still don't actually know their position on whether they think the AI use case in question is worthwhile feels odd. They praised the system on several occasions, albeit noting some drawbacks while doing so. They said that the system was possibly changing their anti-AI stance, but then got mad at me for assuming this meant that they thought this use-case was justified. Maybe they just haven't made up their mind yet but didn't want to say that?
Interestingly, in one of their own blog posts that got linked in the discussion, they discuss a different AI system, and despite listing a bunch of concrete harms, conclude that it's okay to use it. That's fine; I don't think *every* use of AI is wrong on balance, but what bothered me was that their post dismissed a number of real ethical issues by saying essentially "I haven't seen calls for a boycott over this issue, so it's not a reason to stop use." That's an extremely socially conformist version of ethics that doesn't sit well with me. The discussion also ended up linking this post: https://chelseatroy.com/2024/08/28/does-ai-benefit-the-world/ which bothered me in a related way. In it, Troy describes classroom teaching techniques for introducing and helping students explore the ethics of AI, and they seem mostly great. They avoid prescribing any particular correct stance, which is important when teaching given the power relationship, and they help students understand the limitations of their perspectives regarding global impacts, which is great. But the overall conclusion of the post is that "nobody is qualified to really judge global impacts, so we should focus on ways to improve outcomes instead of trying to judge them." This bothers me because we actually do have a responsibility to make decisive ethical judgments despite limitations of our perspectives. If we never commit to any ethical judgment against a technology because we think our perspective is too limited to know the true impacts (which I'll concede it invariably is) then we'll have to accept every technology without objection, limiting ourselves to trying to improve their impacts without opposing them. Given who currently controls most of the resources that go into exploration for new technologies, this stance is too permissive. Perhaps if our objection to a technology was absolute and instantly effective, I'd buy the argument that objecting without a deep global view of the long-term risks is dangerous. As things stand, I think that objecting to the development/use of certain technologies in certain contexts is necessary, and although there's a lot of uncertainly, I expect strongly enough that the overall outcomes of objection will be positive that I think it's a good thing to do.
The deeper point here I guess is that this kind of "things are too complicated, let's have a nuanced discussion where we don't come to any conclusions because we see a lot of unknowns along with definite harms" really bothers me.

Cowboys Star Left With ‘Hurt Feelings’ After Jerry Jones Move https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/dallas-cowboys/cowboys-star-left-with-hurt-feelings-after-jerry-jones-move/?adt_ei=[email]

BREAKTHROUGH: Belgian Authorities Arrest and Interrogate Israeli War Crimes Suspects Following Complaint by Hind Rajab Foundation and GLAN - THE HIND RAJAB FOUNDATION
https://www.hindr…

Just had a video call with @… from Gaza. Like every family there, they need your help to survive.
Our governments have failed us, we are the only ones who can help. Your donations go directly to keeping families like Aseel’s alive as they struggle to survive Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.
Please help Aseel and her family if you can.

Help Sehwel family with their medical treatment
I'm Joe in the UK, I've been in touch with Aseel from the Sehwel family for over a year now and have been following their difficult struggle to afford medication, shelter and food in Gaza. I'm creating this Chuffed campaign for the family to help afford these things and hopefully help them get out of Gaza when the opportunity arises. Here's Aseel's writing:

Weekends are never slow for cyber news, particularly this past weekend. Check out today's Metacurity for the top infosec developments you might have missed, including
--DHS warns of likely Iranian cyberattacks after Trump's missile strikes
--Authorities warn of Salt Typhoon threats in Canada,
--Aflac struck by likely Scattered Spider attack,
--DPRK likely behind BitoPro $11m theft,
--CoinMarketCap hit by wallet-draining attack,
--Hacker stole $250K …

DHS warns of likely Iranian cyberattacks following Trump's missile strikes
Authorities warn of Salt Typhoon threats in Canada, Aflac struck by likely Scattered Spider attack, DPRK likely behind BitoPro $11m theft, CoinMarketCap hit by wallet-draining attack, Hacker stole $250K from Hacken using leaked key, Garden Finance accused of laundering stolen crypto, much more

So, my Valve Index arrived. As you may know, it officially supports Linux.
It works, sort of, but dear god what a mess that was to get working.
Within the span of one evening, I have seen it all: GPU freezing, failing to aquire a DRM lease, firmware updates crashing, latency, and some weird swap chain flickering issue.
It works, though. On Linux. And I have a plethora of paths to get it perfect. This weekend will be awesome.

In the spring, I gave the participants of the fine arts pedagogy course at INN a glimpse into what I’ll be researching this fall. While the connections have developed since then, I still like the map and refer to it regularly.
A brief overview – fredsnotes https://filmschoolteacher.info…

We’re on a terrible path that we aren’t even aware exists: collapsing the marine food chain.
The End Permian event did that. It was ugly. Lots of fungal spores in the fossil record, not a lot of bones. Barely anything survived.
We’re having issues with phytoplankton in the #GreatLakes too. Invasive mussels have done huge damage to how the food chain (Esp. in

Phytoplankton, key to ocean life, falling 2% per year in North Atlantic
Two main types of phytoplankton have been decreasing in biomass in the North Atlantic by two per cent each year for the past 60 years, a new study …