domain:traditionsofconflict.com
In exchange, please tell me something useful about places to visit in London today.
Why not visit some lesser known historic sites like St. Bartholomew’s Church and St. Etheldreda’s Church? They’re both close to St. Paul’s and get overshadowed by it (I assume you have already visited that, otherwise what tf are you doing on here asking for places to go). There are also some Roman ruins nearby. Just west of that there’s the St Mary Le Strand church, so they can all easily be visited together for a church-oriented outing.
If you get bored of all the religious sites and are interested in music at all there’s the George Handel House and Jimi Hendrix House, these musicians’ Georgian townhouses are adjoining. I’m a big armchair traveller; I could post a list of places to visit in and around London if you wanted (after I get off work). Let me know if you wanna take me up on that.
KingOfTheBailey
2d ago
https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/12/18/why-have-danes-turned-against-immigration (archive) might reference the study GP is talking about? Certainly, the graph of "Denmark, average net contribution to public finances, by age" (broken down by ethnicity) gets posted a fair bit on RW twitter.
It's so bizarre. Many Golden Age web forums had a lifecycle involving the creation of an off-topic board, then the politics (containment thread/containment subforum/topic ban) to try and keep things from getting out of hand, then the drama built and built until it dominated the whole thing or it collapsed.
But here we've had the reverse. We were the containment thread, which was then jettisoned into its own /r/, then escaped onto its own site, which has made room for more good "off-topic" discussion to grow.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
Well yes, I'm not against the idea of generating counterfactuals! The specific example I raised was surrendering to the temptation of using them to vividly visualize the road not taken, and one that's likely impossible to take.
In this case, I nurse a great deal of regret over this past relationship. I still believe that the breakup was necessary and almost inevitable, so it brings nothing jut great pain to dwell on how things could have been otherwise. Everyone has their regrets, and seeing the alternatives fleshed out in such a realistic manner is likely painful. I suppose that, with time, it's possible to get used to it. If I did this again, it probably wouldn't hurt as much as the first time around.
Our brains just aren't built for this. It's one thing to wonder what life might be like if you'd chosen differently, it's another to be presented with imagery so true to life. That quantitative difference can become qualitative.
There are plenty of more general examples on the cards now. Setting up a chatbot with the personality and memories of an ex. Having your deceased mother's voice recordings used to train a model you can talk with. Generating plausible images of children you almost had.
Such techniques are not inherently bad, and in some cases, might bring real joy. I think technology is, in general, very good for us. Yet I do not deny the potential harms.
I think I am so thoroughly desensitized to my counterfactuals -- or I've never been in love -- that this kind of thing can't possibly make me more sad.
I don't know whether to be happy or sad for you, but I lean towards the latter. To love is to open yourself up to vulnerability, to the potential of being hurt. Being closed off to it might make things easier, but at the cost of never aspiring to more.
Pongalh
2d ago
Apparently "woke is more correct" means that they see terrible social consequences from very mundane things, unlike liberals who think a cigar is just a cigar.
phailyoor
2d ago
would had been funny if ChatGPT did the common AI thing of darkening all your skin tones
That's a Gemini thing not ChatGPT. But i think the AI race has gotten competitive enough that the SJWs are getting stonewalled when they try to kneecap the models.
ZanarkandAbesFan
2d ago
You can't tell me that making this pun while happening to also be white is a knowing dog whistle.
I didn't.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
2d ago
Rendering counterfactuals is how I make decisions. How else am I supposed to know if it is a good idea to marry a girl, if I do not imagine our future? Unless, by "render" you literally mean visually generate an image? I admit perhaps seeing AI-generated counterfactuals could move me in a way reading your post didn't.
I think I am so thoroughly desensitized to my counterfactuals -- or I've never been in love -- that this kind of thing can't possibly make me more sad.
I did realize years ago though that this kind of reasoning is why -- I think -- I listen to edgy divorced dad rock. People project their own personality onto me and ask "doesn't that make you sad? You should listen to [pop-slop about lust, love, and status]." No, on the contrary, listening to Taylor Swift would just depress me.
It's also implied that they didn't copy the data files from the DVR, but rather played them on their terminal and used a screen recorder app to create the video file that they ultimately used in what they distributed. Why? Probably they couldn't figure out how to access the raw data file.
So probably they began playing the first day, started recording, then it reached the end and they didn't notice for a few minutes so they just had black screen or desktop background at the end, which they had to trim off.
For the second day they could start and hit record it at the same time and could stop recording when they felt they had enough boring part after the commotion of finding his dead body was over.
This is consistent with my beliefs about how normies working in government would struggle with computers.
gattsuru
2d ago
The UK's Office of Communications has become an international problem.
I've mentioned the UK's 'oi, bruv, can I see your porn loiscence'. Recently, I also admitted that the US beat them to it, and pondered if perhaps this was one place where the UK might not end up the embarrassingly backassward one.
We have an answer. Politico reports:
The UK’s Online Safety Act took effect Friday to shield minors from “harmful” content — not just pornography, but also material that is hateful, promotes substance abuse or depicts “serious violence.” The rules apply to any site accessible in the UK, even those based in the U.S. This means sites like Reddit, Bluesky and even Grindr now have to abide by the OSA’s speech regulations to stay online in the country.
Over the weekend, major U.S.-based platforms implemented measures to comply with the law, and promptly became harder to access. By using a VPN to simulate UK web browsing, DFD was able to confirm reports that content relating to Gaza on X and cigars on Reddit was more restricted in the UK than in the U.S. Some required verification checks necessitating a photo ID or a selfie to verify age. Other content was blocked entirely, though some X posts on Gaza were later restored. The UK law may not strictly apply to such content, but social media companies apparently aren’t chancing it. Gab, a U.S.-based platform that hosts Nazi and other extremist content, has gone completely dark in the UK to avoid financial and criminal penalties under the safety act.
Ostensibly, the law has a relatively constrained set of content service providers must block, and a larger-but-still-defined section that providers must keep away from minors. In practice, the paperwork and overhead costs are significant even if the UK never enforces the law other than to demand reports and just circular-bins them, and the banned content ranges from the steelman (CSAM) to the marginal (choking porn?) to the are we the baddies (sales of knives), and very little is well-defined ('foreign disinformation'). Media coverage of several police actions by the UK have already been restricted.
In turn, Gab (and some other targets) have provided those notices to reporters:
I attach a formal request (‘Notice’) for information under Section 100 of the Act addressed to Gab AI Inc. The Notice includes further details on the background to this information request, and Annex 1 to the Notice sets out the information we require from you. The deadline for providing the information is 11:00 GMT on 29 April 2025[...]
We acknowledge your legal representatives’ email of 26 March 2025 setting out your view that your service is not subject to the Act as you have no presence outside of the United States. We also note your intention not to respond to future correspondence from Ofcom. We would like to bring it to your attention that wherever in the world a service is based, if it has ‘links to the UK’, it now has duties to protect UK users. This includes if a service has a significant number of UK users, or UK users are a target market. These rules will also apply to services that are capable of being used by individuals in the UK and which pose a material risk of significant harm to them. As noted above, the Act only requires that services take action to protect users based in the UK – it does not require them to take action in relation to users based anywhere else in the world.
What are the penalties?
Failure to comply with this Notice may result in Ofcom taking enforcement action against you, such as requiring you to take certain steps to comply and/or imposing a financial penalty. The financial penalty could be up to whichever is greater of £18 million or, in certain circumstances, 10% of the person’s qualifying worldwide revenue. A daily rate penalty may also be applied in addition to a fixed rate penalty[...]
Other offences in relation to the Notices include: knowingly providing information that is false in a material respect; providing the information in an encrypted form so that Ofcom cannot understand it, with the intention of preventing Ofcom from understanding the information; or suppressing, destroying or altering information that is required under the Notice, to prevent Ofcom from obtaining the information or obtaining the information in the unaltered form. A person who is convicted of any of these offences may face imprisonment for a term of up to two years, or a fine (or both).
The British defense has revolved around saying that this isn't a free speech matter. Which, in turns, tells you about as much as you need to know about that 'foreign disinformation'.
This probably isn't the only reason that YouTube, Spotify, and a wide variety of other sites are spinning out age verification approaches of varying levels of credibility. But that's only because Australia's gone nuts, too.
07mk
2d ago
The aesthetics by themselves are an existential enemy to the woke? Could you expand on this? Is the idea that these aeathetics are so obviously superior to the aesthetics of the woke, as shown by revealed preference, that people will just reject their demands to subvert and deconstruct everything that past generations considered good or beautiful?
07mk
2d ago
She mentions hair & eye colors and also personality as things passed down via genes. Out of those, I think the vast majority of even the extreme of the blank slate camp would agree that hair & eye colors are accurate. Personality is the one where I could imagine a significant chunk of that camp pushing back, but even there, I think you'd have to get pretty extreme in the blank slate camp to deny genetic effects.
To me, the jean/gene pun being seen as invoking eugenics or white supremacy or racism or whatever due to Sweeney being a (conventionally attractive) white person appears similar to the phenomenon of "I can tell that you're being racist because I can hear the dogwhistle" or "whenever you depict orcs as barbaric, my mind immediately goes to stereotypes about black people, so you're being racist in doing that."
hydroacetylene
2d ago
In America, yes, she is considered black- and so are all those people.
wayfarer
2d ago
very plain looking woman
maybe I am weirdo with low standards, but for me "very plain looking woman" qualifies as attractive
hydroacetylene
2d ago
I mean, Candace Owen’s fights with management were about her jumping thé shark, so it seems reasonable to say she got fired for being crazy.
You do have a point- NYT writers don’t start schizo-writing, and TikTok crazy leftists and breadtubers don't have anyone to fire them because they’re unemployable.
aqouta
2d ago
The ad you linked is from the same campaign but not the one that really best shows why people are outraged. The first segment of this one is where the heat is. I do think the outrage is a little overblown but eh, I kind of understand this one from the perspective of anyone who is thoroughly steeped in the blank slate camp.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
2d ago
I think its more so a matter of charity. The idea is not that youre literally saying this, but that a motivation is shining through. Of course we here, who have reading comprehension or media literacy or whatever it is, know that youre right about everything and only interpret you in that light.
After I confronted her with the emails and transactions she agreed to go to a crisis counseling service. She now agreed to engage with a therapist / psychiatrist. She goes back tomorrow. She says she knew it was a scam but sent the money anyway because they were nice to her. I don't understand.
Forgive me for using a crude term but "pig butchering" is what this class of scam is called in the industry, if that helps you with your research. It's based on a Chinese term.
The scammers invest a lot of effort into making the victim feel good. They're often romantic in nature. For a lot of the victims the story that they're talking to a celebrity is just a foil for having an online friend. They know, on some level, that it's not really that celebrity they're talking to.
A lot of victims have some degree of mental illness but sometimes the victims are just lonely and engaging in some twisted variant of OnlyFans, paying for some kind of friendship.
The scammers can still be pretty ruthless though, switching to blackmail once the victim tries to end things. So she may be desperate not to lose contact with them.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
2d ago
Sorry, it wasn't Hitler. When I went digging I found that my memory got that mixed up, but they did rename various birds which were named after humans: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3182394/american-birds-to-be-renamed
In that thread, the president of the game's publisher says "I wouldn't call this... a matter of erasing the past--the past isn't changing. Rather, it's using the information we have in the present to not celebrate or honor those who committed atrocious acts in the past and to simply not be derogatory to certain cultures". So, pretty explicitly letting politics drive game design, even with the fig leaf of "we're just keeping pace with the names used by official ornithological groups".
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
Do we PREFER the world where women unknowingly become debt slaves
For Western and majoritarian values of "we," the answer clearly appears to be yes.
Armin
2d ago
As always,Woke more correct. They rightly see aesthetics like this as an existential enemy and they rally against it.
Ah I'm too old - I can't really type one handed on the phone either. Oh God I borrowed my nephew's phone the other day to call his dad, I just thought he had sweaty hands like his dad.
I've only used one card that worked in that text style format, for a girl in a fantasy world who finds your cousin's phone after it gets isekai'd, but it was bitter-sweet not erotic. But that brings up a related issue - yeah I'll bet you have downtime! As I'm sure you know, the reason the text style conversations don't work that well is because they don't give the AI enough context - but when you are typing out a hundred words about how you would pleasure your waifu, how do you uh maintain momentum?
I'm glad you mentioned regenerating responses and OOC replies and impersonation though, because I find it interesting how that works with my brain - I have used those with romantic and adventure role-playing, and because they were stipulated as necessary by whatever rentry guide I read to get into this nonsense they don't trigger the puppeteer feeling in me, even though they absolutely should. But that was something I noticed about @No_one's original response - it is the context of an obvious business transaction that precludes the possibility of love specifically - there could be a situation where he could fall in love with a prostitute - they meet outside of work for instance.
I guess my point, if I have one, is that it's all about perspective, which means you can deceive yourself into a fictional relationship if you try hard enough. Which is bad news for society, but good news for anyone looking to get off! Personal gratification or society is always in tension. I would be more worried about it if I hadn't already given up.
More correct than who?
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