what crazy new one AI could dream up but at a level that would require it to actually think and not regurgitate some LLM data it scraped.

A LLM wouldn’t be useful but I wonder how far this can be done without AI (machine learning) technology, just programmatically like with protein folding simulations.

Tell us more about their union.

Quick notes for those who only know of Lemmy after the reddit API fiasco: from what I understand, reddit’s banning of /r/chapotraphouse in mid-2020 is how Hexbear came to be (biggest instance prior to API drama, albeit unfederated at the time due to major software divergence) and the banning of /r/genzedong, /r/genzhao and /r/genzhukov in March 2022 brought a large exodus of users onto lemmygrad.ml, making it the most popular federated instance until the reddit API changes.

As in, why here and not reddit? I drifted away from posting on reddit about 5 - 8 years ago. I was icky over their ads and tracking and it was just a time sink I didn’t need back then, but I would still use alternate frontends (the current equivalent would be libreddit) to lurk while on the train trip to work and back.

I forget whether I found lemmy from /r/piracy exploring bunker options (raddle and lemmy) or if it was through FOSS, but I liked its potential and have been here posting here since 2022.

I’ve never been accused of being a bot for having an unpopular viewpoint before!

Ah, you get used to it pretty quickly.

I actually had seen one page from this site because it talks about how a niche religion is WITCHCRAFT and SATANIC, but that front page is a work of art.

You say this as if it’s some inevitable law of society, but I disagree. The profit extraction phase isn’t an inevitability, especially online where digital hosting is relatively cheap and services can be run with 0 income, and many larger sites have run off unconditional donations only (and therefore without having to compromise for investors). The domination of content by exploitative actors can be combatted, especially when you aren’t desperate for income from corporations.

It’s obviously an uphill battle, but it’s been done at smaller scales for social media sites and had been done at large scale for other sites like archive.org and Wikipedia.

It absolutely does. What happened to twitter could happen to a successor. The successor matters.

I disagree with saying there’s nothing wrong with it, just as I would disagree that there was nothing wrong with the original Twitter. It is creating conditions which lead it towards for-profit behaviour which will end up hurting users, unlike some other platforms which are not run for-profit.

This is a far-reaching difference with real societal impacts if the platform becomes dominant, not just some difference in taste that can be hand-waved away as nothing.

I disagree with saying there’s nothing wrong with it, just as I would disagree that there was nothing wrong with the original Twitter. It is creating conditions which lead it towards for-profit behaviour which will end up hurting users, unlike some other platforms which are not run for-profit.

This is a far-reaching difference with real societal impacts if the platform becomes dominant, not just some difference in taste that can be hand-waved away as nothing.

but hot take: federation doesn’t solve enshittification. It just devolves everything into little shitty internet fiefdoms.

Enshittification, by definition, is a result of profit seeking, especially from venture-capital funded projects.

Shitty internet fiefdoms are shitty, but it’s got nothing to do with enshittification.

made solely for their artistic merit

There’s a huge middle-ground between pure artistic pursuit and callous profit maximization.

Plenty of the bigger non-profit games (like FOSS games) have easy modes. I’m actually having a hard time trying to think of ones which don’t. And I’d call them all niche and indie, made primarily for enjoyment over market interests. In games like STK, it’s clear from the bug tracker and forum that the primary devs (passionate and experienced players) are trying to balance their intended experience against accessibility - if some of them just made the game how they think it should be played, it would be very different.

Yep. I don’t argue for things I don’t believe are the side I should be on. Sometimes I make tongue-in-cheek arguments (think A Modest Proposal) but that’s not in a discussion. I don’t get into arguments as a sport or to make people angry, so why ever be on a side I think is ‘wrong’?

Why wouldn’t the developer want as many people as possible to buy the game though?

I’ve never made art (incl. games) with the intention of having as many people view it as possible. Many developers make games as a hobby rather than for mere profit, and some try to draw a compromise in the middle.

I know this doesn’t apply as much to major well-known games created by professional game development companies, but there are other incentives guiding development beyond maximizing purchases.

I don’t think any games are obliged to offer an easy mode.

That’s a valid stance. It’s ok to make art which is not intended for everyone, or even the majority.

However, if you’re charging people money for it and they are surprised by the difficulty and can’t enjoy it as a result, I think that could be a potential ethical issue. But if you make it clear it’s a difficult, challenging game, then I see no problem.

I’m curious that you said if people were really smart, they would stop giving money to Amazon, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Google, etc., and then suggest that taking their stock without giving them money is bad. This seems contradictory to me. If stealing wouldn’t hurt the company, then why would not giving money be a smart thing? If not giving them money is good, stealing would just increase those loses further and also be smart.

They all claim that they’re doing it to hurt corporations.

Personally, I think hurting dominant anti-social corporations like Walmart is a smart thing for society to do, but that’s besides the point. There are plenty of far more accepted reasons to steal, such as preventing starvation (like stealing basic food from supermarkets). I assert that stealing essentials is more socially beneficial than allowing oneself and dependents to starve or die, and it’s far more ethical to steal from multi-billion dollar income megacorporations than other households or smaller businesses (the alternatives). I would go as far as to say they are socially obliged to steal, because they are more useful to society alive than dead and the cost to achieve that is trivial to the theft victim.

They steal enough, the store is closed, many jobs lost.

Honestly, if we’re talking about companies like Walmart, then I say good that the store is closed, those workers are now forced to enter (or even recreate!) jobs which benefit society rather than destroy other local businesses. This is clearly unfortunate to those who are temporarily unemployed as a result, that’s real pain and it’s valid, and it’s unfortunate, but the store closure is still an overall positive.

How the fuck is that hurting the corporation?

Losing sales isn’t profitable. Closing a store certainly isn’t profitable. If theft didn’t hurt the corporation, they wouldn’t spend significant money stopping it.

Furthermore, for a publicly traded company, reputation damage is real financial damage. Reporting high theft and closing stores has a real reputational impact to investors.

Why not?

Stealing isn’t right.

I conditionally disagree. In fact, there are many real situations where stealing is the right option. There are valid reasons why folk lore glorifies figures like Robin Hood. And when it comes to international conglomerates like Walmart, which hoard astronomical wealth while others who can’t afford bread starve nearby, theft of the hoard is justice in its most appropriate form (if one values human survival more than legal property rights).

As it is, it is just worth dismissing

If we dismiss dismissals, this will go on looping forever. The person they replied to did not elaborate on some very dubious claims, and as is, are just worth dismissing.

They would understand that socialism is not communism.

Socialism has so many definitions that this can be subjectively true or false. This isn’t even some trivial gotcha, the terms were used interchangeably even by significant writers of the 1800s. For another example, a socialist mode of production and a capitalist mode of production are contradictory.

If one wants to make these kind of broad claims without starting pointless arguments, they’ll need to use a more specific term than ‘socialism’.