Nina KalininaWe have reached a new era of civil engineering; now we can build bridges by simply dumping truckloads of shit into the river until the shit mountains are tall enough that some people and maybe cars can cross the river. Truly, it is a revolutionary technology that democraticizes access to bridges; now everyone can dump a truckload of shit over small rivers here and there and cross the rivers instead of asking an engineer to build the bridge for them. This approach completely removes all the bottlenecks in engineering, too: no need to navigate difficult legal or ethical frameworks. The biggest players on the market are staring to replace their bridges with shit mountains, you'd better be catching up and learning how to use this new groundbreaking technology. Some of you have ethical concerns, but this is beyond of the scope of my post. I also recognise that some might notice fish in the rivers dying, or simply slip on the shit; just you wait, I bet it'll be fixed in ~6 months
Cosmo@nina_kali_nina Oh wow – this analogy is pretty strong. Will test this against unsuspecting AI prophets next possibility.
@ChrSt I feel like I'm making way too many strawmans here. But as you can tell, I'm very bitter about the loss of engineering practices across the industry, or, rather, industries
@nina_kali_nina As am I. But before right now, I could not put it into words. Drawing an analogy to other engineering fields somehow did not yet occur to me.
Silly me – I always thought that the argument about destroying the planet might suffice …
Silly me – I always thought that the argument about destroying the planet might suffice …
@ChrSt I stopped arguing with LLM users, mostly. I feel like the divide is mostly ideological by now.
I also think that if we magically had a technology to make bridges out of shit that were safe, durable, and ethical, that'd be pretty awesome. But this ain't it; I think we're still shown shit mountains that are barely holding up together and told "that's the future of bridge building, look, it's cheap and solves today's business needs"
@nina_kali_nina "It will be fine" … meanwhile
HP van Braam@nina_kali_nina @ChrSt I think the main missing thing is how the stench of the shit somehow is only a problem for people who live far away from the shit mountains. Yet they advocate for more shit mountains the most.
@nina_kali_nina @ChrSt Oh! And somehow the fact that other people are pouring shit in the rivers is making your home toilet more expensive to use.
I think I'm done now...
@nina_kali_nina Additionally realization I had today:
Why do we (as in ppl) need to democratize art? There is so much beautiful art out there. Why do I need to be able to create "art"? What do we gain from emotionless slop art?
Why do we (as in ppl) need to democratize art? There is so much beautiful art out there. Why do I need to be able to create "art"? What do we gain from emotionless slop art?
@ChrSt this is especially morbidly funny in the context of the history of art...
wyatt@ChrSt @nina_kali_nina because democratising art = giving people more time to do art and practice and learn
not sucking artists' bodies of work into a grinder and extruding a slurry
not sucking artists' bodies of work into a grinder and extruding a slurry
DaveyYeah it really feels like we could divide up workloads and everyone gets a day a week to be as good as they can at playing the banjo, even if they're never going to blow anyone's socks off.
@davey_cakes @wyatt @ChrSt idk about you but whenever I see my friends playing an instrument or doodling _for me_ I almost cry from happiness
I need to crack the whip at my friends so, they're shirking! 😀
Amy 🐱🏳️⚧️@nina_kali_nina @davey_cakes @wyatt @ChrSt in my case, i like to make food like cakes or cappuccino for the ones i love, my parents love it, especially my grandma :3
bitzero@nina_kali_nina @ChrSt
My unsolicited twocents: in modern techbro language “democratize” means “open new fake markets” which means “get VC money” which means “we get more money fuck the rest”.
Democratize money systems -> digital currency frauds
Democratize art market -> NFTs
Now is “democratize software creation” which we already know it doesn’t work because we’ve been talking about “citizen developers” for at least ten years.
But VCs are already blabbing about the “YouTube moment” of software (we all can be creators) and there’s a lot of potential money involved.
My unsolicited twocents: in modern techbro language “democratize” means “open new fake markets” which means “get VC money” which means “we get more money fuck the rest”.
Democratize money systems -> digital currency frauds
Democratize art market -> NFTs
Now is “democratize software creation” which we already know it doesn’t work because we’ve been talking about “citizen developers” for at least ten years.
But VCs are already blabbing about the “YouTube moment” of software (we all can be creators) and there’s a lot of potential money involved.
fuzzyfuzzyfungus@ChrSt @nina_kali_nina There's an ugly extra gotcha: democratizing the circumstances under which people would have the opportunity to develop their ability to create art would be a good thing; but we are being told that 'anyone can churn out a slop meme' is what 'democratizing art' means.
Sofia ☭🇧🇷☭@ChrSt @nina_kali_nina like other people are saying, actually democratizing art would be a wonderful thing, but that would mean giving everyone time and resources and access to teachers and inspiration to produce good art themselves. But I think a lot of people are just embarrassed by the idea of being a beginner and putting real effort into something that doesn't turn out very well, so they make AI slop instead, which is honestly really sad
Bill@ChrSt @nina_kali_nina I thought art was already ready pretty democratic. Or are we talking about art in the sense of commodity objects that have "value" due to their requisite aspirational skill-level to reproduce. Anyone with a mouth can rap. Why do we need to "democratize" that one Wu-Tang record (except to seize power from that douchebag Martin Shikreli)
@FloppySalmon @nina_kali_nina I mean art more in a drawing kind of region.
It is not democratized for me, as I do not have the means (mostly as in time) to hone skills required to produce something „drawn“, that makes me happy looking at it.
It is not democratized for me, as I do not have the means (mostly as in time) to hone skills required to produce something „drawn“, that makes me happy looking at it.
@ChrSt @FloppySalmon you know, I've been typing and erasing my reply to this message a few times. Do you need help? There really are options available for uhhh art
@nina_kali_nina @ChrSt moi? I try to art by playing TTRPGs with my friends. I do wish I had more time and resources (and attention/motivation) to make stuff in other directions as well and develop skills. but the tabletop thing really keeps the focus of success based on what brings my friends and I joy. My sketches and drawings and maps and story hooks aren't good enough to sell but they're enough for an evening of good company at least.
@nina_kali_nina @ChrSt I'd love it if time and focus and practice were more widely available and I suppose "democratized". I think a piece of art that is aspirational in its execution gains its value through the time and consideration it took to bring it into being. Not valued by its effort and struggle per say, but by the time it spent rattling around a person's (or people's) brain noodle. And by extension holds it's creator in itself.
@nina_kali_nina @ChrSt it's fine to aspire to drawings of a certain quality. But I think something is missing if we just get to "have" the art. And I think maybe something is missed if we measure the success of art or the happiness it can produce against an aspiration of skill or quality.
@nina_kali_nina @ChrSt That said I think it's fine to not like an artistic practice or not like a piece of art for whatever reason. But I don't know that the world is better if everyone (or anyone) is entitled to the media of their whims without having to support human endeavors to produce it.
@nina_kali_nina @FloppySalmon as in wanting to make a point this might have gotten a grimmer tone, than what reality really reflects – so no worries :D
But what you write is the perfect embodiment of what I meant, just for text (and what has been said by @FloppySalmon in extension): putting the effort, rewriting, rethinking – instead of mindlessly letting the slop machine inflate a feeble thought. This puts soul into things – text, drawings, music and likes.
This is what I am afraid to loose. Either because it is outright slop, or because ppl that try avoiding burning a planet for a shitty mail text feel so under pressure to follow the trend of „a lot of text fast“ that they also will stop having this soul in their works.
But what you write is the perfect embodiment of what I meant, just for text (and what has been said by @FloppySalmon in extension): putting the effort, rewriting, rethinking – instead of mindlessly letting the slop machine inflate a feeble thought. This puts soul into things – text, drawings, music and likes.
This is what I am afraid to loose. Either because it is outright slop, or because ppl that try avoiding burning a planet for a shitty mail text feel so under pressure to follow the trend of „a lot of text fast“ that they also will stop having this soul in their works.
@nina_kali_nina @FloppySalmon (somehow sorry for bringing yet another stream of thoughts to this :D)
@ChrSt @FloppySalmon no worries! I actually made a blog post in the spirit of this half a year ago. Long story short: I was working on a little video game, I needed art for a character who is a revolutionary, and I built a character sheet based on it. I am sure that a talented artist could have made a great illustration based on this character sheet. I think GenAI wouldn't have any difficulty in generating an illustration that, with a bit of extra polish, would have looked professional, and reflected the character sheet. And I think if I used either of these two options I'd be pressured to accept it if it looked good.
But I was drawing the illustration myself. Drawing it myself made me realise that my character sheet is straight out bad and doesn't reflect who the character is. And I think getting polished art based on poor design choices would only solidify mediocrity of the design; it'd be absolutely unmemorable, which is a grave sin for the poster character.
@nina_kali_nina @FloppySalmon Taking part in this thread somehow restores a lot of trust for me in humanity :)