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NSFW AI-art project Unstable Diffusion has been axed by Kickstarter, despite already hitting their funding goal. This one isn't too suprising, as KS doesnt allow NSFW and a DIY pornomaker probably was never gonna slip by that filter even if it didn't ship with visible nipples.
Kickstarter took it a step further, however, formally amending their ToS and affirming that "Kickstarter must, and will always be, on the side of creative work and the humans behind that work."
It now appears that Unstable Diffusion is being driven off Patreon too, who dont have a no-NSFW excuse. Almost certain to follow the same pattern, at this point; there are too many established artists on that platform who are willing to boycott.
The twitterati taking responsibility for the bannings are targetting payment processor Stripe next. Seems like a textbook swarm governance action.
Ks:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/unstablediffusion/unstable-diffusion-unrestricted-ai-art-powered-by-the-crowd/community
Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/unstablediffusion
Current fallback:
https://equilibriumai.com/index.html
Seeing all of these progressives turn into luddites in this instance, and free speech advocates after the Musk journalist bans in another, I think it's fair to say that there are no principles. There is no political theory of friend/enemy anymore. It's a law. And anyone who pretends to, in any instance, be above that law or exist outside its scope is just, through the act, a self described moron.
I get that abstract principles are having a tough time right now, I'm curious what goes into identifying friend vs. enemy. It's certainly not as simple as demographics, so it's not like we've gone directly from principles to its crudest opposite.
I want to say something like egregore-fueled "essences" or something. Resistance to AI art can be tied to a tech bro "essence" of some kind, which actually does make it somewhat demographically-informed. But at any time a good tech bro may be identified, because it's short-term politically useful. That time-dependent aspect is linked to the egregore dimension.
My two theories:
-the fine arts are extremely Blue Tribe-coded, and as such any assault on their priviliges or status is presumptively a Red-Tribe action.(even when it's pretty clearly a Grey tribe thing)
-the fine arts are (more weakly) female-coded, and as such any assault on their priviliges or status is inherently anti-feminist.
Either way, 'this means war'.
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My priors are that porn artists are a mostly progressive crowd that is disproportionately involved in doing the grunt work of prog activism, thus they’re paying back the favor.
You would be surprised about that. The ones who actually produce and get popular are more likely to be apolitical or moderately conservative. There's zero tolerance for prog crap in any artist chat I've been in, because they've all faced the "how dare you, attention all mutuals, yikes!" thing.
The fakers and hangers-on in public discords are all progs, of course, because they're the kind of people who hang out on discord as a lifestyle.
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How do you mean by "disproportionately involved in doing the grunt work of progressive activism"? Hentai Foundry users don't strike me as the type to organize phone-call campaigns or canvass neighborhoods. The most they do is put pronouns in their Twitter bios, draw futa dragons, and as of recently, rail against AI art. I'd be an idiot to not recognize the general power that art can have over people, but I'm not seeing how Morrigan Aensland fanart actually gets you to "Drag Time Story Hour" or whatever, outside of "shifting the Overton Window by way of re-coloring the semi-conscious social noosphere through art."
But they do strike me as the sort of people who would join a twitter mob, and show up to "drag queen story hour" or a black bloc protest.
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Seems like lots of the people organizing no-platforming campaigns, doxxing, and running DOS attacks support themselves by drawing porn.
To try and address both you and Hlynka in one go, I'll say that I'm not aware of evidence/don't have the perception that there is significant overlap between activists and porn artists. I would assume maybe 20% of porn artists moonlight as activists (or, inversely, are activists who moonlight in NSFW art). I'd put the threshold for a strong overlap at at least 60%.
That’s fair, and I will register that if what @Bernd is saying is true, then it is simply that I don’t know how to tell the fakers and hangers on from the producers.
It could be there's very different cliques, and I have a very narrow view of the scene; I only know one furry artist, and he's a dissident.
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Wow, is hentai foundry still a thing? I haven't heard of anyone using it in years.
It's maybe not as active as it might have once been, but ever since Tumblr banned porn, well...
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