I waddled onto the beach and stole found a computer to use.

🍁⚕️ 💽

Note: I’m moderating a handful of communities in more of a caretaker role. If you want to take one on, send me a message and I’ll share more info :)

  • 261 Posts
  • 912 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 5th, 2023

help-circle

  • At the same time, space is a growing industry that will likely change the way we do things on the surface. I’d rather that we have some control over that than leave everything up to the americans. We could also benefit economically and use those funds for projects in other sectors.

    There are also some direct practical applications, like satellite Internet in remote regions, and Earth observation / climate research.

    I don’t know how it will all play out, but this seems like a good thing. Why pay musk for starlink and spacex launches when we can set up something for ourselves.














  • I went through some of the links from the article, and there was an update pinned in one of them:

    https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/what-is-this-inaturalist-and-generative-ai/66140/431

    @procyonloiter and I just had a 3-hour in-person talk with @loarie and I am delighted to say that it has completely alleviated my concerns around this entire issue. I went into it seriously contemplating deleting my entire account and many years of work, and I have come out of it feeling like a massive weight has been lifted.

    This whole thing has just been very poor messaging and some serious miscommunication, and DOES NOT indicate any actual shift in how iNat is planning to operate.

    • The lack of communication updates has been because everyone on staff is freaked out and overwhelmed by the amount of backlash, and in a bit of paralysis about how to appropriately respond. There is no nefarious reason for it.
    • The grant from google is indeed a grant, and they are not receiving any data or anything else in exchange for it (I’m sure they’re scraping and stealing stuff anyway but that’s true for anything posted online)
    • The “generative AI” mention in the grant is badly worded corporate buzzspeak, and doesn’t accurately reflect anything that will be used here - disregard any association to what you normally expect from those words
    • The vast majority of the funds will be used to cover normal operating costs of what iNat does every day. A small amount will be going to some specific grant-related projects, which, again, are not actually genAI. There is no guarantee these things will even be implemented on iNat in the end - if they suck, they’ll be tossed out.
    • The staff are very receptive to user concerns, and there will be a chance for people to speak to them and ask specific questions - since it’s a friday and everyone is in different time zones, the details haven’t been fully organized yet - I suggested maybe a drop-in zoom call, or something, where people can join and leave throughout a set time period, so it’s not overwhelmed by a ton of people all competing for talking space at once.

    That doesn’t completely cover everything we spoke about, but I’m going to post this now to get it up in the thread- please feel free to ask any questions I might be able to answer!


  • But in this context you’re referring to the prevention of fascism as “unproductive”.

    I’m saying that if the candidate listened to the protests and addressed the issues that were brought up, they may have gotten more votes. Arguably, having MORE protests may have helped them win if it could convince the leadership to make changes.

    Outcry from supporters is what convinced Biden to step down, which I think helped the Democrats come closer. Protest is important if it can help a party make the right adjustments in their campaign.

    Telling people to stay silent is unproductive.


  • I find this unproductive. People SHOULD ask their elected representatives (and candidates) to improve. I want people to point it out when my preferred candidate does something wrong, because then they’re more likely to address it before the election.

    That is exactly how it works. Criticizing the better option of the two will reduce turnout for that candidate. That’s the whole purpose of political campaigns.

    I’m not saying this doesn’t happen, but I don’t think a significant number of people changed their mind about voting for her because of the protests.

    • Option 1: Politically engaged people don’t point out a problem -> The candidate doesn’t address the problem -> The average voter doesn’t vote for the candidate because of the problem

    • Option 2: Politically engaged people DO point out a problem -> The candidate addresses the problem -> The average voter is more likely to vote for the candidate