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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 6th April 2025
  • My University Keeps Sending Me Stupid Emails About AI, a continuing series:

    A poster that reads "This house believes that AI is the future of climate resilient design". There is also a picture of a robot.

    From the email:

    The debate will be chaired by Michael Pike. Speaking for the motion are Prof. Gregory O'Hare (TCD), Maeve Hynes, Prof. Gary Boyd and Chatgpt assisted by Student Curator Ruan McCabe, all UCD. Speaking against the motion are David Capener (UU), Lucy O'Connell, Peter Cody and Meabh O'Leary, all UCD.

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 6th April 2025
  • There's a comment in there about how well it reflects on the British system that Bobby Sands was allowed to stand as an MP for Sinn Féin despite being an IRA member and a prisoner. This ignores that a) Sinn Féin policy was and is not to take seats in the British parliament, so he wouldn't have been voting or sitting on any committees, and b) Bobby Sands died in prison on hunger strike.

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 9th February 2025
  • I think the first Guardian article had some value, just because the reporter hung around the Collinses long enough that they indicted themselves through their own actions and words. Whether that outweighs giving two eugenicists a platform to tell people about their beliefs is difficult to judge.

    Iirc, whatshisface defended himself by claiming that black parents were more likely to hit their kids, therefore it was racist to criticise him for doing so

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 9th February 2025
  • Slate says: "For the Love of God, Stop Profiling This Couple!"

    The Collinses are ineffective, abusive industry plants from Peter Thiel’s extended circle. They know they’re entirely media creations. They play off that fact to ensure that journalists never follow up on how many initiatives they’ve started and abandoned, neglect to interrogate their contradictory stances on issues like abortion and “race science,” and even seem to accept that they’re openly being taken for a ride by these dorks. Yet in spite of it all, no one listens to their podcast, they don’t really have much of a following, and their specific appeal is concentrated to a few far-right circuits.

  • Data centre energy usage has outpaced growth of renewable energy in Ireland
    m.independent.ie Wind and solar energy produced more electricity last year, but data centre usage outpaced progress

    All the extra renewable electricity ­produced in Ireland last year was eaten up by the growth in data centres, new analysis shows.

    Wind and solar energy produced more electricity last year, but data centre usage outpaced progress

    "Total demand for electricity last year grew by 4.4pc, or 1.3 terawatts (TW), but 80pc of that increase, or 1.1TW, was from data centre growth."

    Training data for LLMs = higher energy prices and environmental degradation.

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    Reimagining AI | Planet Critical

    A video interview with the artist John Wild about AI, AGI, eugenics and Silicon Valley TESCREAL cultism. Posting without watching.

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    Interview with Dr Abeba Birhane on Irish radio

    "AI for dummies" interview from Irish radio with Dr Abeba Birhane, who's on a UN advisory board about AI.

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    Dan McQuillan on Resisting AI | Yeah Nah Pasaran! On 3CR
    www.3cr.org.au Dan McQuillan on Resisting AI

    This week we have a chat with Dr Dan McQuillan about his book Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence.

    Dan McQuillan on Resisting AI

    Interview on Australian anti-fascist radio show Yeah Nah Pasaran! with Dan McQuillan, computer lecturer and author of "Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist Approach To Artificial Intelligence". Interesting comments on AI as a tool of/for austerity politics, and an argument that AI is inherently anti-worker. Probably nothing new to people in here, but eloquently stated and put into a wider political context.

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    Building an entirely new city from scratch in Northern California: an environmentally friendly way of providing more housing, according to some silicon valley types
    www.theguardian.com Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled

    Flannery Associates, the California group behind the $800m effort, launched a website showcasing renderings

    Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled

    Sure, why attempt to improve the climate resilience or affordable housing in the cities where millions of people already live, when you can just buy land upstate and get a whole new toy to play with? And why tell local, state or national government anything - they'll only be supplying the land, water, sewerage, utilities & transport links. You pay your taxes, you deserve to get something back.

    This is going to be one hell of a planning application. What's the land use code for "feudal stronghold"?

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    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)MA
    maol @awful.systems
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