Tootfinder

US political contradictions; knowledge systems
As Trump at least partially succeeds in constructing an alternate reality for his most ardent followers, it's tempting to think of his dogma as false, in contrast to some imagined "truth" which his non-followers are smart enough to believe in. But a more nuanced view of knowledge would admit that different groups of people have different shared truths, constituting different knowledge systems which each deviate from what's objectively measurable in different ways, and in fact they each accept different standards of what is objective, so there's not really a single "ground truth" we can even compare to to determine which of these knowledge systems is "more correct" (similar problems arise even if we only care about "more useful").
To make this more concrete, we can see that e.g., competing quantum physics theories, or likewise competing religious beliefs, have no reasonable basis on which to judge between them, either in terms of "truth" or "utility." So the Trump-dogma knowledge system, although bad, morally repugnant, etc., can't so easily be dismissed as "false" in my view. "Distorted" or "malignant" or "evil" or "contradictory" are better monikers, in my opinion.
But what I'm even more interested in thinking about is: in what ways does the current American liberal "common sense" knowledge system already bear the scars of past fascist lies & contradictions? I can think of a few:
"Columbus was an explorer."
This is "factually accurate" in the same way some of Trump's propaganda is, but it's also a cruel distortion of "Columbus was a child murderer," and it's a misrepresentation that serves an evil purpose, yet which is widely taught in elementary schools today.
Another: "dropping atomic bombs on civilians in Japan was necessary to end WWII."
Perhaps in the future we'll have "family separation & the 2025 ICE crackdowns were necessary to end the immigration crisis," although I dearly hope not.
"Reparations for slavery aren't reasonable," is yet another...
I'll close this rambling with a question: what other fascist lies have you noticed that are normalized in America right now from past Trump-like leaders (or even from less overtly fascist institutions)?

Ah. Just when I thought I could travel home through the Baltics for a change. #Interrail

AFC Foe Listed as Fit For Raiders' Michael Mayer https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/michael-mayer-las-vegas-brock-bowers-jacksonville-jaguars

Well, now it's going out of hands: Remember how the flag emojis disappeared from my website and I tried to find an explanation?
Now they're gone from #Bluesky on the web for me. Anyone else seeing this? 👇🏼

Sources: Steelers unlikely to trade for TE Smith https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/45441995/steelers-unlikely-trade-te-smith-host-wr-davis

This reminds me of the old toy Mr Peanut peanut butter maker…
It came with a little booklet that discussed Booker T. Washington, champion of the peanut. https://infosec.exchange/@tinker/114636660897868574

#Google #PixelBuds 2
Für den stark rabattierten Kauf eine gute Gelegenheit. Klingen voll und satt und sitzen - obwohl ich kein InEar-Fan bin - gut und angenehm.

Google Pixel Buds 2
Die Frau hat neulich ein Google Pixel 9a bekommen, weil wir einen Gutscheincode von Google hatten und inkl. dem Trade-In vom alten Google Pixel 4a 5G war es ein wohlfeiler Preis. Zudem gab es obendrauf noch die Google Pixel Buds …

Google Pixel Buds 2 Weiterlesen »

This is one of the better articles I’ve seen on where AI might lead, trying to find a middle ground between “it’s a load of hype” and “it’s going to solve world hunger/kill us all”.
A choice quote:
Which is it: business as usual or the end of the world? “The test of a first-rate intelligence,” F. Scott Fitzgerald famously claimed, “is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” Reading these reports back-to-back,…

Two Paths for A.I.
Joshua Rothman on two papers about the future of A.I., by deeply knowledgeable experts, which arrive at absurdly divergent conclusions about the threat the tech poses.

I've been asked to run an AI text summariser over a bunch of survey responses. I'm skeptical anyway, so probably approaching the task with a bad attitude, but none of the open source AI text summarisers I've tried so far actually run at all, due to the usual Python bit-rot and lack of stable libraries.
Tried AI-News-Summariser, sumeval, ParaSum, SummerTime... currently trying Transformers, but it's taking an age to install.
Can anyone suggest one which at least ru…

"For a couple o' pins," says Troll, and grins,
"I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins.
A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet!
I'll try my teeth on thee now.
Hee now! See now!
I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins;
I've a mind to dine on thee now."
But just as he thought his dinner was caught,
He found his hands had hold of naught.
Before he could mind, Tom slipped behing
And gave him the …