@cyrevolt@mastodon.socialQuite extensive writeup on the whole W/X situation, the title suggesting too political of a discussion - I do recommend reading through it, neglecting stances, and just seeing where the projects stand.
To be clear, I do not endorse or judge anything here. It helps getting an overview. In the end, there are too many aspects, and deciding for either solution requires you to consider your personal preferences and priorities.
@karlauerbach@sfba.socialWhat a rubbish idea:
Large corporations already hide too much information from their shareholders and the public.
This would make that hiding easier and make company performance more opaque.
It doubles the time that corporate ill deeds and management failures can be hidden.
It is a dumb idea - but coming from one of the great scammers in our corporate world, we should be glad that he did not suggest yearly, or longer, reporting.
"Trump renews push to end co…
@david@boles.xyzThis Is Not the World I Wanted to Leave for You: Reflections on Legacy, Loss, and the Future We Shape
I have been thinking a great deal lately about living and dying, and about the strange, stubborn human hunger to leave something meaningful behind. The faces of those I have known who have already passed return to me in quiet moments, and I find myself watching those who are, even now, nearing the end of their own stories. I also include my final braided prairie knot…
@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialSubtooting since people in the original thread wanted it to be over, but selfishly tagging @… and @… whose opinions I value...
I think that saying "we are not a supply chain" is exactly what open-source maintainers should be doing right now in response to "open source supply chain security" threads.
I can't claim to be an expert and don't maintain any important FOSS stuff, but I do release almost all of my code under open licenses, and I do use many open source libraries, and I have felt the pain of needing to replace an unmaintained library.
There's a certain small-to-mid-scale class of program, including many open-source libraries, which can be built/maintained by a single person, and which to my mind best operate on a "snake growth" model: incremental changes/fixes, punctuated by periodic "skin-shedding" phases where make rewrites or version updates happen. These projects aren't immortal either: as the whole tech landscape around them changes, they become unnecessary and/or people lose interest, so they go unmaintained and eventually break. Each time one of their dependencies breaks (or has a skin-shedding moment) there's a higher probability that they break or shed too, as maintenance needs shoot up at these junctures. Unless you're a company trying to make money from a single long-lived app, it's actually okay that software churns like this, and if you're a company trying to make money, your priorities absolutely should not factor into any decisions people making FOSS software make: we're trying (and to a huge extent succeeding) to make a better world (and/or just have fun with our own hobbies share that fun with others) that leaves behind the corrosive & planet-destroying plague which is capitalism, and you're trying to personally enrich yourself by embracing that plague. The fact that capitalism is *evil* is not an incidental thing in this discussion.
To make an imperfect analogy, imagine that the peasants of some domain have set up a really-free-market, where they provide each other with free stuff to help each other survive, sometimes doing some barter perhaps but mostly just everyone bringing their surplus. Now imagine the lord of the domain, who is the source of these peasants' immiseration, goes to this market secretly & takes some berries, which he uses as one ingredient in delicious tarts that he then sells for profit. But then the berry-bringer stops showing up to the free market, or starts bringing a different kind of fruit, or even ends up bringing rotten berries by accident. And the lord complains "I have a supply chain problem!" Like, fuck off dude! Your problem is that you *didn't* want to build a supply chain and instead thought you would build your profit-focused business in other people's free stuff. If you were paying the berry-picker, you'd have a supply chain problem, but you weren't, so you really have an "I want more free stuff" problem when you can't be arsed to give away your own stuff for free.
There can be all sorts of problems in the really-free-market, like maybe not enough people bring socks, so the peasants who can't afford socks are going barefoot, and having foot problems, and the peasants put their heads together and see if they can convince someone to start bringing socks, and maybe they can't and things are a bit sad, but the really-free-market was never supposed to solve everyone's problems 100% when they're all still being squeezed dry by their taxes: until they are able to get free of the lord & start building a lovely anarchist society, the really-free-market is a best-effort kind of deal that aims to make things better, and sometimes will fall short. When it becomes the main way goods in society are distributed, and when the people who contribute aren't constantly drained by the feudal yoke, at that point the availability of particular goods is a real problem that needs to be solved, but at that point, it's also much easier to solve. And at *no* point does someone coming into the market to take stuff only to turn around and sell it deserve anything from the market or those contributing to it. They are not a supply chain. They're trying to help each other out, but even then they're doing so freely and without obligation. They might discuss amongst themselves how to better coordinate their mutual aid, but they're not going to end up forcing anyone to bring anything or even expecting that a certain person contribute a certain amount, since the whole point is that the thing is voluntary & free, and they've all got changing life circumstances that affect their contributions. Celebrate whatever shows up at the market, express your desire for things that would be useful, but don't impose a burden on anyone else to bring a specific thing, because otherwise it's fair for them to oppose such a burden on you, and now you two are doing your own barter thing that's outside the parameters of the really-free-market.
@pre@boing.worldBeing stuck with a broken wrist so unable to really do much of the things, I have spend a lot of this month watching TV.
I'm not all that up on Star Wars, so when I watched Season One of Andor I didn't know it was about a man called Andor, I had that name confused with Endor, and so I was distracted by the lack of Ewoks.
No such distraction for season two though, now I know it's about a rebel mercenary and his adventures leading up to him being in Rogue One delivering details about how to blow up a death star.
They all live in the Empire, which is relentless and authoritarian and evil just like the real life empire taking over western civilization now. They persecute and harass poor Andor and his buddies so much that they cause the rebellion against their authority that they intend to suppress.
Great show.
Wonder if all the people arrested wrongfully for doing no real crime in the US and UK and around the west will end up fighting the empire here too?
Still wish there was a series about ewoks though.
#watching #tv #andor
@mgorny@social.treehouse.systems"""
The barbarian role of cultural demolition crew is especially important when you consider how often cultural reconstruction is needed. Many of Rome’s glaring defects — exploitation, authoritarianism, corrupt self-aggrandizement — flow from deeply human tendencies. Time and again they’ve transformed promising civilizations into decaying, oppressive monstrosities. Time and again, history seems to cry out: Bring on the demolition crew! And time and again barbarians cheerfully respond to the call. Their previous massive wreaking of destruction, near the end of the second millennium B.C., had come after civilization went through centuries of apparent ossification.
In a way, barbarians are just a special case of that general and potent zero-sum dynamic in cultural evolution: brutal competition among neighboring societies. This rivalry renders ossified cultures vulnerable to a makeover, minor or major. They may be taken over by a vast neighboring civilization, which will revamp them in its image. Or they may be infiltrated and perhaps even disassembled by barbarians, paving the way for future reassembly. Or they may revive and prevail — an example of the “challenge and response” dynamic stressed by Arnold Toynbee. In any event, the point remains the same: however deeply human the tendencies of exploitation, authoritarianism, and self-aggrandizement, cultures that surrender to them may not be long for this world.
"""
(Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny)
Is it time for the barbarians now? Or perhaps we — here on Fedi — are the barbarians.
@mapto@qoto.org“They (the government) are fanatic. They are doing things against the interests of the country,” said Rami Dar, 69-year-old retiree, who travelled from a nearby suburb outside Tel Aviv, echoing calls for Trump to force a deal for the hostages.
“Frankly, I’m not an expert or anything, but I feel that after two years of fighting there has been no success,” said Yana, 45, who attended the rally with her husband and two children. “I wonder whether additional lives for both sides, not just …
@cdarwin@c.imTrump said on Thursday that a phone call earlier in the day with Vladimir Putin
resulted in "no progress at all"
on efforts to end the war in Ukraine,
while a Kremlin aide said the Russian president reiterated that Moscow would keep pushing to solve the conflict’s “root causes.”
– Russian shorthand for the issue of Nato enlargement and western support for Ukraine.
The two leaders did not discuss a recent pause in some US weapons shipments to K…
@toxi@mastodon.thi.ngHaving just finished a 1-year consulting contract myself, my own list of restrictions for future jobs/consulting is very similar:
- will not work on adtech/surveillance/weapons
- will not knowingly make world worse and/or abet genocides
- will not be forced to use vibe coding (or will explain cost implications)
- prefer to work in the open
- prefer remote only
- flexible with time zones (last role was for a company in LA, -9h)
@StephenRees@mas.toFrom David Suzuki
This economic story doesn’t end well. Let’s change it!
The natural world is foundational to every aspect of our lives. We all need food, air and water. But nature is not our sole underpinning; stories are also foundational. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to make sense of the world or create meaning within it.
@inthehands@hachyderm.ioAnd when all these mechanisms — the “more just, more human systems” I’m talking about — fail to do their job, what can we do? Go to war, I guess? But I’m not happy about that. I don’t like war.
I am quite willing to celebrate a world without Kirk if in fact that’s what we get. (Last I heard was “critical condition.”) But I can’t get •that• happy about it. Whether we celebrate his death or denounce gun violence — both are important, both are appropriate! — we must above all notice the failure of everything that should have prevented us from even getting here. •That• is the real crisis.
/end
@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialOverly 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.
@compfu@mograph.socialI've been listening to a podcast by the German public broadcaster ARD about the end of the world. Every episode had a different topic and one was about AI. It was mostly sourced from an interview with a youtuber but one idea is now stuck in my head: what if AI doesn't launch nukes but develops into an all-powerful actor whose aims are not aligned with those of human survival? Do we have a precedent?
Yes. There are such super-human and quasi-immortal beings here on earth today…
@deabigt@universeodon.comWatching The Atomic Cafe to remind myself of the 1950s we seem to be heading back to. If you are not old enough to remember the 1950s, you might want to watch this collection of shorts from the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. Includes the classic “Duck and Cover”. https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-atomic-cafe
@muz4now@mastodon.worldI was really angry last night about the fireworks being set off in our neighborhood. Our dog is severely traumatized by them. She hides under a chair and pants until about an hour after they stop going off.
However, my posts were much more generalized and that was not called for.
*** If I offended you with my posts, I apologize. ***
I do not apologize for wanting to end the use of fireworks.
@portaloffreedom@social.linux.pizzaSome shots of Kare Kano are so Evangelion that it's almost painful to watch.
@pre@boing.worldDear Emily Thornberry,
I don't usually bother to write to you on most issues because I figure there is pretty much no point communicating with a whipped MP in a safe seat under first past the post. Such an MP has no reason to listen to their constituents at all, and is entirely a tool of the party leadership.
I make an exception today since I hear your government is about to classify Palestine Action as a terrorist group. Despite them being peaceful, non-violent, and dedicated entirely to preventing the greater crime of the ongoing genocide of Gazan Palestinians.
This is obviously a gross overreaction and a completely unjustifiable act designed not to prevent domestic terrorism but to cover up British forces and UK government involvement and collaboration with the genocide in Gaza.
If we are taking suggestions for groups to ban as terrorists even though they aren't terrorists, I would like to suggest the Labour Party! The party has helped facilitate a genocide abroad, and continues to supply the perpetrators with arms and intelligence to aid their actions.
I don't expect you to take that suggestion seriously, but maybe Reform will take it seriously when they get elected in a few years and I suggest it again to them. After all, a precedent will have been set that groups which aren't terrorists can be banned under anti-terror legislation anyway. Democracy will have already been eroded.
I was ready to be disappointed by this Labour government, but I confess that the level of gut-wrenching visceral disgust I am experiencing at them surpassed all my wildest expectations. Taking money from the disabled to buy new war-planes from a fascist US president while abetting a genocide in Gaza makes me wonder if Reform wouldn't be better in the end anyway. At least they might do electoral reform and nationalize the water companies.
Labour's only hope, the country's only hope, is to remove Starmer. I wish you had won that leadership election instead of him.
Anyway, as I say, I don't expect it to make any difference at all because under this election system even MPs in safe seats are nothing but tools of the party leadership and the party leadership seems determined. But I thought I'd let you know that I see you. I see what you are doing.
I support Palestine Action more than I support this government. Let me know where I should hand myself in for my "crime".
Yours sincerely,
Adam
@Mediagazer@mstdn.socialCulture Minister Chris Bryant says UK's high-end TV tax credits are very competitive with the rest of the world, after calls to increase them from 25% to 40% (Max Goldbart/Deadline)
https://deadline.com/2025/06/chris-bryant-down…
@cdarwin@c.imI’m going to be very honest and clear.
I am fully preparing myself to die under this new American regime.
That’s not to say that it’s the end of the world. It isn’t.
But I am almost 50 years old. It will take so long to do anything with this mess that this is the new normal for *me*.
I do hope a lot of you run. I hope you vote, sure.
Maybe do a general strike or rent strike.
All great!
But I spent the last week reading things and this is not, for ME…
@arXiv_csCL_bot@mastoxiv.pagePRIM: Towards Practical In-Image Multilingual Machine Translation
Yanzhi Tian, Zeming Liu, Zhengyang Liu, Chong Feng, Xin Li, Heyan Huang, Yuhang Guo
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.05146
@arXiv_csDS_bot@mastoxiv.pageAddressing Bias in Algorithmic Solutions: Exploring Vertex Cover and Feedback Vertex Set
Sheikh Shakil Akhtar, Jayakrishnan Madathil, Pranabendu Misra, Geevarghese Philip
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14509
@paulbusch@mstdn.caGood Morning #Canada
Today is World Population Day, established by United Nations as a result of the massive interest people had in Five Billion Day in 1987. It's a good day to get an update on Canada’s population growth, which was aggressive in 2023 when we hit 40M, and then hit 41M just a few months into 2024. The #StatsCan Real Time Tracker is not working for some reason, but we still have their Quarterly Estimates data. At the end of June, there were 41,548,787 of us strolling around Canada, with every province and territory showing growth.
#CanadaIsAwesome #INeedMySpace
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000901
@cdarwin@c.imSheltering in a Bunker, Iran’s Supreme Leader Names Potential Successors
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not only picked replacements in his chain of military command in case they are killed in Israeli strikes,
he has also named three senior clerics to replace him should he, too, be slain.
Ayatollah Khamenei, 86, is aware that either Israel or the United States could try to assassinate him,
an end he would view as martyrdom, the officials said.
Given the possibility…
