Working as a nurse in acute psychiatric care, I can tell you the comparative normality of non-psychiatric-patients is easily overestimated. No need to stigmatize those in need of little help now and then. We all do.

I am all in favor of hating Musk and all his products, but I think you’re right. It seems rather unlikely that they would instruct their LLM to go out of its way to give fascist replies. That’s not to say that it shouldn’t be instructed to not give fascist output, which apparently it hasn’t been. Sadly, increasingly people form their view of the world based on the output of LLMs, so it would be helpful if these LLMs would help create worldviews that are beneficial to humanity at large, or at the very least prevent ones that are evidently harmfull. Which begs the question, who is to decide what is helpful and what is harmful. Musks answer is probably ‘freedom of speech, who is to say that we can’t spoonfeed hate to little children’. Which seems to me to be an example of when ideas of freedom turn into nihilism. But where they’re right is that government should also not be the one who tells people how to view the world. It’s people who should tell government, and the reverse, though perhaps well intended, is itself rather dangerous. I think the solution, as per usual, is to free it all up, make FOSS LLMs, and let people choose the limitations which they deem proper. I would certainly not want my kids on ‘freedom of speech’-style unrestricted AI, just like I don’t want some amoral nihilist as my kids’ school teacher. I want someone who teaches them love, kindness, forgiveness, harmony, honesty, sincerity, etc.

Breaking News: Donald Trump said something!

one advantage - if someone bigger than you steals your idea you can take them to court

I’m against the notion that ideas can be stolen. I mean, you can keep an idea to yourself, choose not to share it, but if you share your ideas in whatever shape or form, it’s there for others to do with as they please. Or atleast, despite that not being the case, in my opinion, that’s how it should be. You can of course disagree, but in my view the idea that the first one to come up with an idea, can plant a flag on it and then own this idea, is not helpful. Rather it is limiting, it is holding us back. I think humanity as a whole functions better if we can use eachothers ideas as we please. Humanity functions by copying eachothers behavior and ideas and occasionally improving on them. Like with FOSS, if an idea is improperly executed or can be improved upon, even if just according to some, it is helpful, that the idea can be forked.

Like I said, I prefer to focus on patent law first, rather than copyright law. But fundamentally I think there is no difference.

Yes, Intellectual Property must go down. People often think positively of copyright, thinking that no one would support artists if they weren’t forced to, and that artists couldn’t possibly make a living if it weren’t for copyright. I think we are rich enough that if we were to share it properly we could give everyone, not just the talented, time and resources to create art. And I think the talented would still gain advantages by being talented, people want to support artists that mean a lot to them. But to be fair, limiting or removing copyright is not only not that popular of an idea, it’s also the least of our worries, cause it mostly concerns entertainment purposes.

Patent laws is where we need to act. To give a clear example: patent laws mean that excessive amounts of money goes to pharmaceutical companies, This is always defended by saying that they in turn will invest this money into research. The problem is

• They spend far more money on marketing than on R&D, which effectively means that you’re often not getting the best medicine, it means your getting the best marketed medicine.

• When money does go to R&D, the research that’s being done, is limited to that which benefits the pharmaceutical company. This is an unacceptable limitation. For example it is not in the interest of pharmaceutical companies to to cure disease, it’s far more commercially attractive to make it a manageable chronic disease, where you rely on medication for the rest of your life.

• Companies will not share their knowledge. For a company these are trade-secrets that could benefit their competition and if you have to compete obviously sharing knowledge is not in your best interest. But if you want to help humanity forward, obviously you should.

• Drug prices are often excessively high, in part because of the previously mentioned marketing costs that you pay for.

Neither of these problems would exist if R&D was funded by governments and charity. And the pharmaceutical is just one industry that’s taken as an example. The way that intellectual property is holding humanity back can not be overstated. Basically we need to go free and open source on IP,

I feel like there is momentum in Europe to switch to FOSS. Europe knows that the US cannot be trusted any longer. And this cannot be undone. Europe is striving for independence. Huge amounts of money are being spent on military sovereignty right now. All of us here on Lemmy know digital sovereignty is equally important. Recently an ICC prosecutor was cut off from his MS account because the US doesn’t like the Netanyahu arrest-warrant. These things don’t go unnoticed. It shows that technological dependance is not innocent, it can and will be used against us.

We need to use this momentum. Get involved, mail your representatives (municipal, provincial, national, federal), get petitions running, mail newspapers, go to political party conventions and get this on the agenda. It won’t fix itself. This problem is somewhat abstract and the solutions are just slightly too complicated for the general public. Most people don’t know what FOSS means. If we want this to change, those who see it and understand what needs to be done, need to get in to action.

The US & UK supported the 1953 coup d’état to secure their oil interest. “Economically, American firms gained considerable control over Iranian oil production, with US companies taking around 40 percent of the profits” The Islamic Revolution is a response to this. If the west wasn’t as imperalist, who knows what could’ve become of Iran.

But to be honest, there’s no way western forces will take over control in Iran. Though it’s at a technological disadvantage, their military is huge, as well as their population of more than 90 million. Then there’s Pakistan that has threatened to get involved if the US does. Then there’s Irans proxies, though they’re in a relatively weakened state for the moment. But Iran has allied millitias all across the region. Then there’s China depending on the Iranian oil. I mean, if you want to force your way into World War 3 this seems like a brilliant idea.

How many apps did you ask them to download?

Personally, I only asked for this one, and everyone who is of importance to me chose to do it.

Surely this will work wonders, they’ll never recover from this. Also they won’t have any incentive, because why would you even consider building a bomb in such a friendly environment? Why would there need to be an axis of resistance, let them surrender unconditionally like Trump suggested, because clearly Israel and the US are to be trusted. If only these damned Iranians remained at the negotiating table while we bombed the shit out of them unprovoked. I guess they don’t want peace. /s

And religion. Quite some Christians love Israel, no matter what, because the Bible. Yes, it’s a fantastic argument. And as long as the victims are muslims, there are a lot of Christians who will support Israel. If you’re not disgusted by the wars in the old testament, why would you in present day?

Quite happy with my fairphone running /e/OS. So far I’ve not needed to replace anything, except for the battery which was getting weak. So I bought another battery, and I’m keeping the other one as a spare battery.

If the EU liberates itself from US tech dependence through FOSS, we don’t only liberate ourselves, we liberate the world.

If the EU invests massively in free and open source software, pretty soon all across the world countries will hop on the FOSS-train.

If FOSS catches on, it shows to the world the power of collaboration. A power we have mostly forgotten, thinking that competition is a better idea. But competition alone is shit. To give an example. Here in the Netherlands we’re very proud of ASML, a company that makes the machines needed to produce microchips. They’re famous because they’re unique, in that no other company is able to produce these machines. It’s a competitive success, but obviously it’s holding us all back. If they’d share their knowledge companies across the world could try to improve on these machines, speeding up innovation. I’m supposed to think China’s corporate espionage is a crime, but to be honest I feel like not sharing such crucial information with the world is the actual crime. The power of collaboration is easily underestimated, let’s give it a try.

Kidnaps are and were never common. It’s one of the most overrated risks that parents worry about. And also one of the most disastrous especially in the US, where people, riled up by media, seems to find it irresponisble to let your child roam around the world unwatched. Whereas experts have shown again and again that this is important for the childs development.

I suppose living in the Netherlands, a pretty crowded place, assures you that you’re rarely ever alone in the middle of nowhere for very long. But yes that is handy and I can totally understand parents feeling comfortable with their kids being able to call for help if anything ever happens to them.

Ye, I think it’s fine either way, nokia or no phone at all. I cycled 17km to school from age 12 to 17 and only got my first phone when I was 18 and moved out. Of course I did get a flat tire a couple of times, but then I’d just walk or sat at the back of the bicycke of a friend.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I’d just like to mention that it was perfectly normal for kids to go on 12km without a phone not so long ago, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it now. Parents worry too much. I mean, it’s a biological impulse that makes a lot of sense, but it’s often over done.

I don’t have a car

I don’t care to respond

I don’t mind sounding poor.

Wealth beyond what is good for you is no better than theft I’d say. Buying expensive watches while little children grow up in poverty is nothing to be proud of. If anyone should feel shame it should be that guy. Don’t be humiliated by such shameless assholes. And don’t try to counter attack, It won’t work, they don’t share your values, they feel no shame for the things that they do. Instead let’s organize and fight them where it hurts. Taxes, taxes, taxes.

Sadly I do so every week when going to the cinema

Worldview: governments bad, companies good. Why?

Because goverments don’t have skin in the game. Business people play with their own money, so don’t want to waste anything. Besides, if they do a bad job they’ll go bankrupt, whereas government agencies just get new funding no matter how bad a job they do.

I mean, there’s some logic to this line of reasoning, no doubt. But you could plead the reverse and there’s logic to that as well.

People working for government actually care about what they do, they have the public interest at heart, not just their own bankaccount. Government employees know that they’re using taxpayer money, and that they’ll be held accountable if they waste it. Business employees don’t give a shit about about their companies, particulary the very big multinational conglomerates, that we have so many of these days. Any money made only goes to the boss anyway, and he’s an asshole, or the shareholders, and so are they. Aslong as we get away with it, who gives a fuck what gets done with all the money.

But this worldview ‘governments bad, companies good’, is certainly dominant among DOGE folks and rarely questioned. The west had to have this worldview, or else the ideas of “communism can only ever fail no matter what exact shape or form it takes” and “capitalism is the only thing that works” crumble. Let’s be real here, the inefficiencies of capitalism are never ever questioned. Surely ads and marketing are for the benefit of all right. Spending tons to get everyone to smoke and drink sugarwater and alcohol, not by free choice but by clever manipulation. That shit is not inefficient in any way is it? Big pharma spending more money on marketing than on research is not inefficient in any way is it? No, quite the reverse, scientist getting government funds to do fundamental research, with no business agenda in mind, surely that would be inefficient. Companies just need to be companies and everything will be fine. Don’t think about it, just go with it. It’s our religion.

“You can’t remember their favourite song, so you try to login to their Spotify account. Then you realise the account login is inaccessible, and with it has gone their personal history of Spotify playlists, annual “wrapped” analytics, and liked songs curated to reflect their taste, memories, and identity”

Instead you could track your listening habits on ListenBrainz. In doing so you safeguard yourself from Spotify ever restricting access to your data, data which they consider theirs. For ListenBrainz of course you must be willing to share your data freely, but it will be for the benefit of all, whilst if you don’t it will only be used for the benefit of Spotify corporates. You’ll help facilitate a healthy online music ecosystem, because people can built apps on top of the ListenBrainz dataset. You can get recommendations from algorithms of your choice instead of having to rely on Spotifys algorithms.

Not working for Listenbrainz in any way, just an enthousiastic user that plugs it when he sees fit :)