The right (or far right) will probably win the next Spanish elections, which might rekindle independentist sentiment (both left and right have traditionally fucked with Catalonia, but the right has worse excuses), but personally I think we lost our best opportunity when we didn’t follow up on the 2017 declaration of independence.

The far righ would straight try to genocide us, so there might be an opportunity there. We need to be uncomfortable enough to get off our fat arses and work for our freedom, like back in the 2010s.

It’s supposed to be kind of sort of federal(ish) (federalish enough, in theory, to keep Catalonia and Euskadi happy enough that we won’t want to leave). “States” are called autonomías (autonomies) and have their own government, laws, and institutions, though they still have to obey the Spanish government and most of its laws. It isn’t really working.

The article is still wrong when it uses “feds”, though, because the cops doing this are the mossos d’esquadra, the Catalan autonomic police, not the “federal(ish)” policía nacional (the Spanish police proper) or guardia civil (despite the name, the military Spanish police, a relic from Franco’s dictatorship, like most of the country and its institutions).

It’s supposed to be kind of sort of federal(ish) (federalish enough, in theory, to keep Catalonia and Euskadi happy enough that we won’t want to leave). “States” are called autonomías (autonomies) and have their own government, laws, and institutions, though they still have to obey the Spanish government and most of its laws. It isn’t really working.

The article is still wrong when it uses “feds”, though, because the cops doing this are the mossos d’esquadra, the Catalan autonomic police, not the “federal(ish)” policía nacional (the Spanish police proper) or guardia civil (despite the name, the military Spanish police, a relic from Franco’s dictatorship, like most of the country and its institutions).

Anything else would be in flagrant violation of the GDPR (and this too, probably, though not as flagrantly).

Pagers. Kids under 21 can only get pagers.

They get within two meters of a smartphone, both kid, parents, and whoever owns the smartphone go straight to jail.

Vultures like Broadcom pecking at it isn’t exactly a sign of good health, though.

Good, good.

The faster it enshittifies the faster the bubble will pop.

Frankly, with the garbage Microsoft is producing these days, and the rate at which the quality, for lack of a better word, is degenerating, I’m starting to consider if LLM slop might actually be less worse…

in the unable-to-reason-effectively sense

That’s all LLMs by definition.

They’re probabilistic text generators, not AI. They’re fundamentally incapable of reasoning in any way, shape or form.

They just take a text and produce the most probable word to follow it according to their training model, that’s all.

What Musk’s plan (using an LLM to regurgitate as much of its model as it can, expunging all references to Musk being a pedophile and whatnot from the resulting garbage, adding some racism and disinformation for good measure, and training a new model exclusively on that slop) will produce is a significantly more limited and prone to hallucinations model that occasionally spews racism and disinformation.

I’d never heard of it, but after reading about it it looks like basic depressive Hollywood drama slop with some anti-cochlear implants¹ and anti-metal music² propaganda and the usual “learn to be happy with the cards you’re dealt” conformist bullshit³ mixed in, so no thanks, I think I’ll pass, I’m already angry enough without having to suffer through this sort of shit.

1.– Sure, cochlear implants kind of suck when compared to working ears (though maybe not so much when compared to somewhat working ears with tinnitus), but someone born deaf won’t be able to tell the difference, having nothing to compare, and at least they’ll warn you when a car is honking for you to get out of its way (and, frankly, quite often at work I wish I could just unplug my ears and plug in some music, so they’ve got their good sides too).

But we weren’t talking about cochlear implants; we were talking about CRISPR. We were talking about giving deaf people proper working ears. Nah, fuck that. If we can do that we can do better. Give everyone who wants it the ability to hear as well as, say, a dog. I, and lots of people, would pay good money for that.

2.– Seriously, what the fuck. Have we learnt nothing since the eighties satanic panic? American religiosity and so-called morals are a fucking cancer on global culture. Keep that fucking shit to yourselves, if you enjoy wallowing in each other’s misery that much.

3.– Fuck. That. Fuck the cards I’m dealt. I’ll make my own fucking cards. Play them how I want. And if I have to, I’ll make my own fucking game (creative commons licence, of course, in case anyone else is into it).

Limits are meant to be broken, not embraced.

a child getting cochlear implants

Well, deaf people at least have the argument that they do have their own languages and cultures.

Of course they lose that argument when they ignore the fact that they can still teach their children their language and culture even if said children can hear, though, so it isn’t a very good argument, but it is an argument, I guess. 🤷‍♂️

Make an air transmitted virus, extremely contagious but with a long dormancy period, that causes a rabies-like incurable and 100% deadly neurological disease on individuals with a certain genetic marker, and is asymptomatic in everyone else.

I wish for a future in which genetic diseases do not exist. 👐

That’s nice, but unambitious. Be bolder, think where we’ll be able to take this after that.

Me, I’m thinking catgirls.

Nah, man, forget blue eyes. Think neon purple. With natural blue hair. Fucking anime shit.

And just imagine what furries will do to themselves once they get their paws on this tech…

Sounds like a typical enlightened centrist.

Curiously, once you Scooby Doo their mask off they’re always quite far to the right of the centre they claim to value so much.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Not everyone hates life like you do

Work isn’t life.

It’s the opposite of life (no, death is just its absence).

hang out with co-workers all the time

Bonding over shared trauma and Stockholm syndrome is not a good basis for a relationship (though there’s probably no relationship other than you pestering them while they try to work).

Unions aren’t community.

They’re a necessary defence mechanism against capitalism.

So they ruin it for everyone else.

Sounds horrible, glad I have no intention of bringing a child into this torturous world.