barbex 🌈 🚫AI

If you care at all about freedom of information on the internet, you need to know there are age verification bills being considered in Canada, the US, and Germany

And you need to call your reps and give them hell about it

The UK is about to ban access to Wikipedia, just remember this bill was originally pitched as a means to protect kids from accessing porn.

hear me out here, what if none of it is a 'distraction' and they're just doing a lot of horrible shit simultaneously

If you think the people attempting to control young folks’ bodies until 25 aren’t abusive, I have a bridge to sell you.

I'm in this!!!!

It's far more important for a reader (and especially writers) to discover their own personal canons than the ones handed down from above. Anybody wanting to get into any genre should start by reading the books that sound cool to them. One weird trick, I know.

If you want to read some 50+ year old science fiction or fantasy for the hell of it, there are thousands of books by women and marginalized authors that didn't get their due from the publishing industry.

Start there instead.

Once again, I am begging you to get off of substack.

The problem that you're suggesting that AI solve is not a problem that should be solved with AI: it is a problem of culture and it needs a cultural solution.

To help students think through an idea without facing ridicule or bias, we don't need AI: we need to create a better educational environment.

It is true that the “your brain isn’t done cooking until 25” thing is a myth.

But so is sudden maturation at 18.

People will have to face the fact that kids should have autonomy, and yeah, that might lead to long lasting consequences. But the other option is nobody has autonomy.

Guys can it finally be time to have a conversation about what we call 2nd world fantasy stories located entirely in urban settings if not urban fantasy since that means Earth/ modern tech/ vampire or werewolf shit to most readers?

My favorite part of these discussions is when the Very Serious Readers start disparaging modern SFF for the exact same reasons people disparaged their classics when they were originally released.

Everything ages, folks, and not everything ages gracefully, and science fiction is no different in this respect. I mean, shit, I wrote Agent to the Stars nearly 30 years ago now and there are things in there that, shall we say, have aged less than spectacularly. Time comes for everything.

I’ve turned 35 today! The best present for an artist is their art reposted, and I’d be grateful for that too ) especially since I’m currently open for new opportunities :3

A happy book says: I'm so proud you chose me as your holiday read! I can't wait to start entertaining you! A smiling drink says: And I'm right here! Ready to keep you cool and refreshed while you read! A gleeful phone adds: Yay! So great! How about we kick things off with a load of the same old rubbish you always look at, plus some gloomy news and mavbe a few emails from work!! Hours later... The drink and book lie untouched. The phone is out of view but a bubble reads: Scroll Scroll Scroll Scroll Scroll The book says “I hate that guy.”

My cartoons for this week’s @theguardian.com books
#holiday #vacation #reading

Media authorities want to cut Pornhub off from payment transactions The German media watchdogs want to enforce the legal blocking of Pornhub and YouPorn. Payments from all users are to be blocked.

German authorities say they will try and ban payment processors from working with Pornhub and other adult sites —even for adults.

Ebook cover for ‘A Light for the Dead to Follow’ by Rebecca Crunden. Cover image is of a skull surrounded by red-pink flowers. There are vines at the top beside the title. The title font is black and maroon, the name font is white.

✨ NEW RELEASE ✨

🗡️ fantasy novella
⚰️ accidental reawakening of dead immortals
🏹 gallant knights
👑 evil kingdom 🤝 evil queendom
🪾 enchanted plants and forests
🥀 romance and friendship

🔖 link: mybook.to/mUVTmR
💌 itch.io: rebecca-crunden.itch.io/a-light-for-...
📖 gr: www.goodreads.com/book/show/23...

Let's be extremely clear that trans folks and immigrants are their banner scapegoats and that the rest of us have a daily-deepening moral obligation to fight back against what is absolutely a genocidal project targeting these populations

These are fabulously wealthy man-children who never had to grow up, who think they’re geniuses because we gave them a fuckton of money and if you have money you are good and smart and who the fuck needs a process anyway

A thing I’m trying to figure out how to write coherently about right now is that our culture has become saturated in a general obsession with product over process, often product at the *expense* of process, and one can’t really separate that from capitalism

AI being a huge symptom of that disease

But these AI fucks don't want to do any of that: they don't want to go through the process of learning, of developing skills, of cultivating the ability to see what is in light of what can be. They think this process is archaic, outmoded, something that can be replaced with a tool.

Something that I have been thinking about with attribution of "PhD level intelligence" or "PhD level expertise" to a machine is that it reflects an increasing trend among these AI bros and their sycophants to want the products of highly skilled training without actually doing any of the work.

Multiple times this year I’ve had coffee with fellow immigrants who grew up in corrupt third world countries and the shared sentiment has been that Americans don’t understand how bad things are going to get.

AI industry horrified to face largest copyright class action ever certified Copyright class actions could financially ruin AI industry, trade groups say.

"We committed the largest copyright violation crime ever and now we're being faced with the largest copyright class action ever?!? WHAT THE HELL?!?"

*weak groan*

This represents SO MUCH of my experience at the library last year... people coming in all "I WANT TO PUBLISH MY NOVEL!" but who don't read... published... novels...

This week, I had a long chat with yet another person who wants to be an author. Has "written a fanfic novel" and now wants to "write my own and sell it to publishers".

OK, name the last 5 novels you've read? Problem.

OK; what's the last non-fanfic thing you've written? Nothing.

from an LA Times article on AI: "Today, videos are made for 100 million people at a time -- they have to hit the lower common denominator. A video made just for you or me is better than one made from two unrelated people." - Amit Jain, CEO of Luma AI

Yes, please, strictly cater to me and my own tastes & worldview, & for the love of god don't expose me to new ideas, outside cultures, difficult emotions, challenging ideas, or anything that might accidentally make me a well-rounded human being, or at least not a completely fucking boring one.

"Vaccines are bad and evil and hurt people, except the one we're selling, which is great and super effective against everything and has zero side effects! Buy our vaccine instead!"

What in the Andrew Wakefield even is this nonsense.

You know that classic Edward Hopper painting evoking isolation and despair? We used AI to make it look terrible for no reason