I just watched the video in question, and this is an entirely backwards take. Miyazaki is saying the animation is an insult to the pain of those with disablities like his friend, not disparaging people with disabilities.

https://youtu.be/ngZ0K3lWKRc

It isn’t specifically about generative ai, but he is talking about art (animations) made through machine-learning being a cold mimicry of real human efforts. I think the comparison is pretty fair and it applies in both instances.

Good point. It’s all to easy to fall into doomerism, but that itself is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m doing what I can in my life (getting involved in local organizating, living car free, reducing my consumption to a minimum, etc.) but it’s still difficult to watch the world seem to spiral towards the brink.

The flip side of looking at history for guidance is the fact that the future isn’t written. As much as we are the same kind of people as those in history it doesn’t mean we have to make the same choices. There are some pretty major factors at play that are different this time around, and we can choose to learn from our past. That said, whether those factors—like the revolutions in communication and the advent of the uber-wealthy—will have a positive or negative impact remains to be seen I guess.

Looks like cautious optimism shadowed by doubt is the best you’ll get out of me haha.

Seriously good job on this.

I think you captured the mundanity of it all really well, and the mindset that “it can’t happen here”.

Whats happening seems bad, but it’s just a little out of the ordinary. Nothing crazy is going to happen. Not like those stories of bad people doing evil things. We’re not like that, were good people. I don’t need to do anything in particular to address things. In a year there will be a new iPhone, in two a new Olympics, and in four years there’ll be a new President. Everything is normal, everything is fine.

Unfortunately, a normalcy bias seems to be pretty baked into the pattern-recognition part of our brains. It’s all to easy to disregard the warning signs and take for granted that things will continue as they “always” have—that is, within our exceedingly short memories. When it comes to current geopolitics, as for climate change, I’m struggling to hold on to any belief in our collective willingness to do something, anything about what’s coming.

I’ve been noticing their comments on tons of posts recently too. it’s scornful and evocative, and sometimes even poetic, but ultimately it’s all meaningless nonsense.

I know it’s not a real option for many, but for those who can afford to I’d also recommend shopping local for groceries as much as possible. We need to stand together in the face of these tariffs, but I don’t love the idea of Loblaws and co. standing to gain so much from the struggles of the public yet again.

Check out local grocery stores and smaller chains like Co-Op if they operate in your area for Canadian made goods. Look and see if there’s a local farmers market you can buy staples like eggs and produce from. It’s the little guys that are likely to face an existential threat from all this international non-diplomacy.

not being sarcastic, what news companies have switched their messaging to be pro-trump? I must not have been paying enough attention to american outlets because I haven’t seen this shift in the stuff I read.

I don’t think you’re entirely wrong considering the trope of “a religion of peace” and all, but the person you’re replying to isn’t entirely wrong either.

Claiming any religion to be uniformly the same across every member is a gross generalization, especially so for the major Abrahamic ones. ‘Islam’ isn’t a monolith, any more than ‘christianity’ is—they’re huge umbrella terms covering wide varieties of belief and practices.

And secondly, it’s really important to be specific when talking about and criticizing religion, which is often tied to culture and nationality. Honor killings and other practices are obviously fucked up, but be specific about what culture accepts/expects that, and what legal/religious doctrine is used to justify it. Don’t generalize it to each and every person on the planet who is even tangentially related through the umbrella of ‘islam’.