erin

Shocking absolutely no one, Microsoft wants a bunch of perfectly good computers thrown in the trash.

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/microsoft-openly-promotes-tossing-your-lapto...

Honestly, I think we've hit a point where a computer made a decade ago is performant enough for most people and how they use computers. The high requirements for windows 11 are another example of the industry trying to force everyone to replace every device they own regularly, so that sales can keep up, consequences be damned.

In some ways, the "AI" hype is a tool to sell new hardware as well. Surely you want all the best in your new "AI PC" which is just a normal computer but newer, with some software that will claim to be helpful but will actually be spewing bullshit.

This is an example of AI generated images as "religious" language. It does not matter if the image is real or shows something that is really happening, so long as the posting, liking, and sharing of the image signify membership in a group.

In 2016 I was shocked to hear my uncle describe Hillary Clinton as a "radical marxist." He is educated and surely knows the difference between a liberal and a marxist. So how could he say this with a straight face?

He wasn't speaking literally, he was saying the words necessary to communicate to other members of a group that he is one of them. Language like this can be untrue, hypocritical, or even nonsensical. It matters not. It communicates group membership.

This is the same kind of language that Donald Trump uses in his speeches. He word salads certain buzzwords to let everyone he is trying to appeal to know he's one of them. Its how someone can call them self "pro-life" while paying for an abortion for their mistress.

Everyone does this. Fascists just do it more freely, as they aren't concerned with truth at all, only that you believe or feel what you want them to.

I'm reminded of this quote from Sarte on antisemites:

"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."

https://www.404media.co/hurricane-helene-and-the-fuck-it-era-of-ai-generated-slop