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Let it be like this again.....
04 October 2023
Truths and inspirations for 4 October 2023
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(For the previous post, click here. For the link round-up, click here.)
Whine, whine, whine.....
Think about it. Authoritarian religions, and authoritarian political movements like fascism and communism, are almost always
sexually puritanical, prudish, and repressive. This is not a matter of
chance. It's because of something very fundamental that the enemy
intuitively understands.
Let it be like this again.....
(For the previous post, click here. For the link round-up, click here.)
Let it be like this again.....
16 comments:
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I have mentioned before I'm quite into AI art. As a web-designer I kinda thought I had to check it out. And I rather like it but as your image shows the one very specific area it fils on is limbs or indeed anything sticking out (behave!). I mean swords and stuff. I tried to do an image of Debbie Harry wielding a katana (kinda "Kill Bill" fashion) and it came out badly. I also have images of five legged tigers and tigers with tails where their legs ought to be and vice-versa. I have absolutely no idea why AI has a problem with protrusions because it's otherwise quite on the money. I have tried the free versions of Hotpot, Runway and Picsart and they all have this exact same specific problem. Weird. OK. Some images are rescuable but that means quite a bit of time in Corel Photopaint. What is good about AI is it's excellent at removing backgrounds if you just want the subject of the picture. Even then it needs tweaking. It's not going to replace me. It will take some of the drudgery out of what I do. I like that. I'm no Luddite in that I believe that actually removing tedious jobs is a good thing. It improves productivity and means people can do more interesting things. It means I can earn my way as a web-designer and not a gong farmer. My wife is a translator. She achieves about five times the words per hour of translators 30 years ago. That's because of technology.
ReplyDeleteI have a good book by Bart D. Ehrman called "Misquoting Jesus". I will send it to you if you like.
ReplyDeleteNickM: I think the programs have improved now so that they can do hands more realistically, but it always looks subtly wrong somehow, even if one can't immediately put a finger on why. Remember that "AI" programs can't actually create anything -- they just combine elements from thousands upon thousands of pieces of real art which have been fed into them. It's a form of high-tech plagiarism.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing images of eyeless pigs, a horse with eight legs, and things like that. However, this was in 1986 and they were from Chernobyl, not "AI".
Lady M: Thanks for the offer, but I'm pretty sure I already have that one -- I've got mountains of religion/atheism-related books here.
Three months ago I was very anti-AI art stuff but then I tried it. Is it plagarism? Maybe but only in the sort of way every artist, to an extent, borrows (or steals as Picasso would put it) from what came before. I guess, as well, I've just been flat-out fascinated by the concepts of consciousness and sentience and the extent to which non-humans possess such things. I can watch my two cats for hours and wonder what they're thinking. I guess I'm just exactly the right age to have Gibson's "Neuromancer" as a core text that shaped my worldview profoundly. "Can a machine think?" is a question that never leaves me. Except I tend to look at it rather differently. It's more like, "If a 'machine' can think is it still a 'machine'?"
ReplyDeleteI'm going to make a prediction. Within the next ten years there will be a computer/robot/whatever "human rights" style court case somewhere. A "machine" will claim rights. How that will pan out is something I can't even begin to speculate upon.
Now, forget about AI and art or acting or movie scripts. Here's the biggy for me... I have asked people about this and got very conflicting opinions. This is the question, "Can an AI write computer code?" Because if it can... we may have to call on Sarah Connor.
Anyway, that's all a bit philosophical. "Jesus comes quickly"? Mary Magdalene must be annoyed...
I have already got my coat...
Also Fentanyl is pretty expensive. Considering you can get a bag of snickers for $4.00, I doubt anyone is gonna give it away for Halloween.
ReplyDeleteYour supply of great memes is seemingly endless. Always, a pleasure!
ReplyDeleteI agree with CAS.
ReplyDeleteNickM: I don't accept the idea that "AI" art, which consists entirely of mindless, automated plagiarism, is comparable to real artists being influenced by the work of others. I've read too many discussions by actual artists who are infuriated by the situation, and by the comparison.
ReplyDeleteWhether machines can eventually develop intelligence and consciousness is an interesting question, but the programs now being referred to as "AI" do not represent a step in that direction, which is why I always put the term in quotation marks.
Lady M: That's logical, and I hope it's true that there is nothing to worry about. However, the warning text on that item came from a police department, so I'm inclined to think it's worth passing along.
CAS & Ricko: Thanks! I always seem to have plenty on the computer.....
Gaiman is right, the good guys support libraries, the bad guys want to ban or burn books. The library service in Northern Ireland is currently making drastic cuts that include an end to evening opening and no new books being ordered till the end of the year. The total NI budget is £16 billion in this financial year. The libraries are underfunded by £1.6 million. Surely that paltry amount can be rustled up from somewhere?
ReplyDeleteCertainly they should be able to come up with that! I wonder if it's the religious nuts there (I know NI has more of them than the rest of the UK) objecting to books that the libraries make available?
ReplyDeleteMy daughter found 2 of the fentanyl laced pain pills in a plastic baggie a little while ago. That's scary.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter and I were just talking about that first picture. Friday the 13th was the day my husband was born and the day he passed away. My daughter is thinking of getting a Friday the 13th tattoo on her arm this month in honor of her father.
I don't know of any books that have been banned for religious reasons, but maybe I just haven't heard about them.
ReplyDeleteMary K: That is scary. Druggies seem to be very careless about leaving things lying around.
ReplyDeleteNick: Well, they don't need to ban things if they can just starve the libraries of money so they can't buy anything.
It's Chornobyl now, since it's part of Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteThe Church remains the largest global pedophile network, and you'd be surprised how much more organized religion seems to want to mimic that. Hence, e.g., proud thirtysomething grandmothers.
The only answer is, of course, to educate the kids, to provide ways they can tell others. (Sex education at those ages is just "If someone tries to touch you 'there' tell an adult.") An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Since I'm writing in English, I generally use whatever spelling is most normative in English. While "Kyiv" has actually displaced "Kiev" as the normal spelling in English, I still mostly see "Chernobyl" in English, so that's what I'm going with.
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic Church is certainly the world's most prominent child-molestation network, but yes, many other religious groups are finding their own niches in various forms of abuse. Generally they try to create norms that discourage victims from speaking up, though I've also heard of Catholic priests using various grooming techniques on children they have enough access to.
I don't think the Catholic Church has a monopoly on rape. Islam has it in the corner on that one. From Muhammed marrying a six-year old (though he waited till she was nine to shag her - because he was such a gent) to Hamas abducting women and children from a music festival. You know they've been raped. They're war-booty.
ReplyDeleteAlso ˹forbidden are˺ married women—except ˹female˺ captives in your possession. This is Allah’s commandment to you. Lawful to you are all beyond these—as long as you seek them with your wealth in a legal marriage, not in fornication. Give those you have consummated marriage with their due dowries. It is permissible to be mutually gracious regarding the set dowry. Surely Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise.
- Qu'ran 4:24.
Now here is the question. How does Israel respond without descending to the moral abyss that Hamas have clearly embraced? What do men do against such wreckless hate?
I don't know. Part of me wants to see the IDF raze Gaza from arsehole to breakfast-time. But, that's wrong? Isn't it? I don't know anymore. I know how I felt after 9/11. I had very dark thoughts. But JRRT brought me back from the brink (not that I could do much anyway). You don't defeat evil by becoming it plus-ultra. But... I guess knowing that primal urge and not acting is the moral difference.