A few people here mentioning this has happened to someone they know. Does anyone have any successful transition to independence stories for older adults? There's someone in my family that I love, but that pretty much fits this description. Does anyone have advice on what helps?

Ah yes, clearly we are in dire need of an anastrophe as described by Marx and Engels in The Cenonite Chiroplect. Cephality is killing the planet, the ergate need to rise up.

I got too distracted by the bad math writing to even consider the rest of the point.

I raised this as a concern at the corporate role I work in when an AI tool that was being distributed and encouraged for usage showed two hallucinated data points that were cited in a large group setting. I happened to know my area well, the data was not just marginally wrong but way off, and I was able to quickly check the figures. I corrected it in the room after verifying on my laptop and the reaction in the room was sort of a harmless whoops. The rest of the presentation continued without a seeming acknowledgement that the rest of the figures should be checked.

When I approached the head of the team that constructed the tool after the meeting and shared the inaccuracies and my concerns, he told me that he'd rather have more data fluency through the ease of the tool and that inaccuracies were acceptable because of the convenience and widespread usage.

I suspect stories like this are happening across my industry. Meanwhile, the company put out a press release about our AI efforts (literally using Gemini's Gem tool and custom ChatGPTs seeded with Google Drive) as something investors should be very excited about.

This might be relevant for following ICE around or direct action, but at this point there's almost zero personal risk from attending something like a rally or a march.

My relatives and even friends my age are afraid to go to protests. They read stuff like this, and it acts as demobilization messaging. In my experience, once you get them to go once they're no longer afraid to engage, but there's an initial fear and anticipatory obedience that has to be overcome.

inb4 protests do nothing: getting people to stick their toe in the water helps build commitment that will one day be necessary to gain critical mass for more organized disobedience.

With the amount of energy put into GenAI and the sheer bulk of content generated, why don't advocates have at least one example of something artistically interesting, unique, or beautiful to showcase their claims? Has it yet made anything of cultural importance that will illicit more than a chuckle and a 'like'?

It seems to me I keep hearing non-artists assert that this will be a great thing for art, while real artists who disagree are labeled Luddites or not genuinely creative in some way. It's frustrating to watch them openly say easily disprovable things. This isn't speculative anymore these systems have been in production for years at this point. Let's look at the actual results.

What's more, job interviews are poor predictors of job performance, so even those who are experienced with judging people in higher context settings are not so great at judging people.

It's wild that you think strong democratic majorities will pass laws that help the working class when there are several states where this is the case and they don't pass significant redistributive social policies.

Why can't democratic trifecta states right now pass $25/hr minimum wage tethered to inflation? Or state run universal healthcare? Because their donor base is also composed of billionaires and cadres of business owners. What's more after a few cycles in office, they routinely leverage information asymmetries available as part of their supposed oversight roles to make money in stocks, become exceedingly wealthy and more detached from the needs of working people.

The Democrats have exclusively run pro-business national candidates for the past 35 years. It's naive to think without serious pressure from the Left (whether that's internal DSA pressure or something else) they'll put forward policies that actually help the working class. If someone doesn't want to be in your big tent with AIPAC, pro-business sycophants you portray them as ideological purists. Unreal.

I've been using Jellyfin for about 4 months as a home media server on an old laptop I installed Debian on and... I have nothing to add to the conversation, I just wanted to brag about that because it works really well and I was afraid I would fuck it up.

Anyway, Plex no good.

You could look at Renee Good and see that they need no pretext at all to shoot and kill without repercussions. "Don't feed the troll" isn't a great strategy when it's already gnawing on your leg.

I believe that "When they kick at your front door how you going to come? With your hands on your head or using proper trigger discipline with your gun?" doesn't fit the syllable count.

No, not voting for either genocide party.

No one is obligated to vote for Democrats based on lesser evilism. We're circling the drain with a neoliberal/reactionary crisis cycle in perpetual imperial war while wealth keeps consolidating upward and working people get crushed. The billionaire donor base they solicit money from is the same, their economic and foreign policies are quite similar. Even when Democrats have achieved majorities at the state level they serve their masters, not the economic interests of the people.

Workers party now.

What can I say: your analysis is just wrong based on recent history, and I fundamentally don’t agree with it.

It is not a winning electoral strategy to deny that there are inherent and accelerating economic issues, being experienced by the majority of working people in this country. It’s obvious that failing to made a compelling appeal to the working class and delivering policies that continue to exacerbate wealth inequality have led to string electoral losses for Democrats. “Now is not the time” has been the same message from the Clinton wing for decades at this point.

Continuing down this path is precisely what has allowed the Right to claim a Bonapartist coalition of disgruntled, alienated working people and is marching us right down the road to Fascism.

Working people can feel the pain of economic exploitation increasing over time while they receive a lower share of wages for increased productivity. A Democratic pitch, which is based in returning to normalcy that is not livable is not a winning pitch.

Lots of people talking about revolution and fighting the government, but this is largely irrelevant at this moment.

What is a source of oppression to which this is immediately relevant? Personal defense from white supremacist stochastic terrorists and individuals wanting to commit violent hate crimes. In the near term flare ups of right-wing paramilitary and lynch mobs are possible as well, location and circumstances dependent.

If you live in America, I would wager that you're aware of armed would-be fascists in your neighborhood. I would wager you can check social media for your local area and find a presence of right-wing paramilitary. I would wager that depending on the color of your skin or gender presentation, a call to the police could mean a roll of the dice on becoming a statistic of state violence.

Yes, it would be preferable if all of those groups did not have weapons, however this is America. Until disarmament is universal, unilateral imposition of gun access limitations means access will be affordable only to those with wealth.

Others cryptically calling for Luigi: First, I would also ask you what changed about the behavior of United Healthcare and the US for-profit health abuses as a result of his actions? If you are going to encourage others to throw away their life in the same way, what are you doing behind the keyboard? With these critiques that others don't have any guts, aren't you just externalizing your hypocrisy?

Second, I would ask you to look at the many decades history of assassinations in Russia in the pre-revolutionary period in which this became a very common and very ineffective tool. In fact it was so ineffective, it resulted in the Tsarists infiltrating Left groups and encouraging assassinations due to the public alienation and sense of helplessness it fostered.

Compare these failed actions to the successes of the Russian Revolution.

As Trotsky wrote in 1911:

If we oppose terrorist acts, it is only because individual revenge does not satisfy us. The account we have to settle with the capitalist system is too great to be presented to some functionary called a minister. To learn to see all the crimes against humanity, all the indignities to which the human body and spirit are subjected, as the twisted outgrowths and expressions of the existing social system, in order to direct all our energies into a collective struggle against this system—that is the direction in which the burning desire for revenge can find its highest moral satisfaction.

Well friend, in the case of civil rights it depends on which layer of government you're talking about. In the case of Southern states the state governments were absolutely involved in violent action against black people through discrimination, incarceration, police abuses, and turning a blind eye to groups like the KKK or those committing violence against black communities. At the federal level, the security apparatus was definitely working in direct antagonism against Black liberation.

Please see this first hand account of why that sort of organization was needed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HnDONDvJVE

You and the other responder talking about civil war are fixating on a different question than self defense and community defense. Something like that is unfortunately entirely conceivable, but were not there. I'd look at Minnesota as a great example of the current level of conflict and how to push back on violent targeted state violence. Community organization and building connections with labor to stop the economic engine forced the government to retract the enforcement efforts of Operation Metro Surge. The people won that battle.

What you can see of what I do is on a Lemmy forum, so I would not be so quick to judge. As others have encouraged in this thread, I'm pursuing the tactics of organizing community resistance, organizing labor, and political education.

Actually, I am like you in that I don't want violence. We should use nonviolent methods of political change to their fullest extent until those avenues become fully blocked. Of course, we live in violence perpetrated by the state every day, it is just legalized.

Studying the history of Leftist movements internationally, there is a repeated pattern of persecution though violence as well as outright purges. Those that were not prepared to defend themselves and their community were killed. Even those that were, were unfortunately often killed.

If we oppose terrorist acts, it is only because individual revenge does not satisfy us. The account we have to settle with the capitalist system is too great to be presented to some functionary called a minister. To learn to see all the crimes against humanity, all the indignities to which the human body and spirit are subjected, as the twisted outgrowths and expressions of the existing social system, in order to direct all our energies into a collective struggle against this system—that is the direction in which the burning desire for revenge can find its highest moral satisfaction.

'Hiring' in what sense? You can 'hire' yourself and start if you're sympathetic and not already engaged. You don't even have to like or agree with the 'gun part' if you don't find yourself so inclined.

Knowing your neighbors and disaster prep is a good square one.

If you'd like to get involved in in your area, I'd suggest mutual aid networks, rapid response, and harm reduction groups. If you're looking for relevant skill building SRA, Stop the Bleed/First Aid trainings, and Meshtastic communities are also useful.

You'll find many of the same people are engaged in political actions, counter-protests, ICE watch, and labor organization. Helping organize responses, protests, and labor activity is a natural extension of building a broader community structure and helps connect the dots. When something like the Minnesota resistance to Metro Surge flares up, these sorts of networks are there to funnel the people's energies into productive activity.

I'm not advocating for that, but as the prior poster said, "Sooner or later someone is going to defend their home against these goons, using lethal force" and they'll use that as pretext to increase the boldness and spread of their violence. At that point with a totalitarian state, what recourse to the law remains?

Perfect fit unfortunately as MCU Spider-man mentor was an Elon Musk adjacent weapons manufacturer and he uncritically uses surveillance state tech.

-J Jonah Jacobin