Mastodawn

Javier Heredia Feb 9

We 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

Nina Kalinina Feb 8

Look, there are lots of skeptics out there, but the shit mountains are becoming really useful these days. With just a shit mountain or two you could reach places that previously required a ladder or a bridge or a vehicle. The vehicle part is still out of reach, but in the future we can make shit mountains placed in such a way that, when we pour some shit between them, would allow us to reach the destination almost as fast as cars and boats. And it runs on shit, and as you know, shit is virtually free, you can literally go to a number of websites and get the shit for free. You can even get open-sourced shit these days, and pour it locally. Open source shit mountains are not as good as the commercial ones yet, but we're getting there.

Anyway, the bottom line, shit mountains are here to stay. Learn how to live with them.

Jimmy Jim Feb 8

@nina_kali_nina it's inevitable! we can't put the genie back in the bottle so I will keep wishmaxxing! We have no agency in this matter at all, so I will continue to boost it

copharynx (was qoph@octodon)Feb 8

@starchturrets @nina_kali_nina People told me yesterday "I hear people saying they won't upgrade their phones cuz the upgrades come with AI. I wanna tell them, 'That horse has left the barn. All we can do is push for the data centers to be renewable energy.' "

As if renewable energy doesn't have its own foundations in Green Colonialism. ... I keep thinking about other shit systems that powerful people forced down the throats of people who were just minding their own business (colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, racism etc). They are not inevitable or eternal. People built them in the first place. People can unmake them.

@nina_kali_nina people worry that frontier models have hit a fecal maxima but oh buddy there's so much more shit where this all came from, infini-

Nina Kalinina Feb 8

@nach I need a "vomiting rainbow" emoji, why there's no such emoji on my home server, lool

@nina_kali_nina but but but... You're doing the shit dirty with your posts comparing it to genai 😢
Shit is actually useful when I tend the fields in my farm...

Nina Kalinina Feb 8

@hkz shit is pretty great; many AI applications are great too! Computer vision was done in ethical and safe ways for decades. :3 shit should be where it belongs.

Incidentally, shit can be and is a construction material. My parents' place used a mixture of clay and horse manure for its building blocks, iirc. But it isn't the same as dumping a mountain of shit in a house-shaped way, or asking an agent of chaos to keep dumping mountains of shit on top of each other until they start to shape into a house

@nina_kali_nina me and my local neighborhood agree with you, I just walked on the street past an ad for what's probably AI shit (haven't looked at what it is and the ad doesn't explain it either but it sure has that distinct visual fragrance of arrogance) and it was defaced to hell with countless tags saying "IA = caca" meaning "AI = shit" but in beautiful French it rhymes

Ghadeer Abou-Saleh Feb 8

@nina_kali_nina

I feel at times that AI advocates have the kind of attitude that says that innovation and creativity has been saturated and that there is nothing else left to innovate or create. That we just have to train models on the current heritage for the sake of maximum "perceived" efficiency.

Thanks to your post, now every time someone says "AI is the future" I will hear "shit mountains are the future" 😅

Nina Kalinina Feb 8

@gee8sh which is frankly an absurd position, considering how much innovation is happening around, and how much we need more of diverse thinking...

You know, I'm really dreading that the future is indeed going to be full of shit mountains. That'd be really bleak.

Ghadeer Abou-Saleh Feb 8

@nina_kali_nina

Agree. I am afraid the real impact will be realized in a couple of generations, and by then it would be rather late.

fredy cosmoline

@nina_kali_nina we just have to brand the shit mountains as Teleportation and use the word Teleportation so much that people believe the shit mountains can instantly beam them anywhere

Ben Ramsey Feb 8

@nina_kali_nina We got here because software engineering has never required licenses or guardrails like other engineering professions.

Wolf480pl Feb 8

@ramsey
is software industry at the stage where chemical industry was in Alfred Nobel's era?
@nina_kali_nina

Matt Palmer Feb 8

@ramsey I don't think licensure would have saved us, given the number of lawyers who have been caught pulling their motions out of the shit mountain.

Ben Ramsey Feb 8

@womble I meant if our industry had a history of licensure and safety regulations like other engineering professions do.

Matt Palmer Feb 8

@ramsey having done a Real Engineering degree, I have significant exposure to the "professional engineering" mindset, and have Complicated Thoughts about this. I don't think that licences and regulations drive the safety and efficacy of professional engineering as much as industry culture and societal norms. Again, lawyers are licensed and regulated to heck and back, yet they're neck deep in the shit mountain.

Ben Aveling Feb 9

Look, OK, it doesn't work now, but if can just add enough shit, it will surely become sentient, and that's why we're scraping everyone's toilet 24*7.
@nina_kali_nina

Bakunin Boys Feb 11

@nina_kali_nina legit question: how did civil engineers do it? Capital wise they have the same incentives, why do buildings not fall over all the time?

Nina Kalinina Feb 11

@bakuninboys civil engineering is a profession with thousands of years of history. The first known regulations for it were introduced about 3700 years ago, apparently, and since then it evolved into a highly regulated area that requires practicioners to have mandatory certifications and follow the laws. It seems the laws were added or improved due to large-scale disasters caused by engineers (building or bridges collapsing, fires spreading faster than they could be put off). Software engineering could have leveraged existing engineering practices, but lack of regulation and rapid development of the profession mean that finding creative ways to bypass law is still more profitable than doing things the right way. Civil engineers still do that every now and then; in this aspect, comparison to asbestos usage might be relevant.

Bakunin Boys Feb 11

@nina_kali_nina so I guess pushing for better regulation and actual responsibility for harm would improve things? Like most software limits liability as much as possible right?

Nina Kalinina Feb 11

@bakuninboys probably, but that doesn't come naturally, unfortunately

matthewcroughan Feb 11

I think it makes anything with a high quality density stand out even more. Anything properly made now stands out amongst the pile of shit.

@nina_kali_nina Oh wow – this analogy is pretty strong. Will test this against unsuspecting AI prophets next possibility.

Nina Kalinina Feb 8

@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 …

Nina Kalinina Feb 8

@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

Hello world does not compile · Issue #1 · anthropics/claudes-c-compiler

Tested inside fedora 43 container, ubuntu 26.04 container and on regular fedora 42 installation, same error Took example directly from README.md GCC is present and can compile code just fine: root:...

GitHub

HP van Braam Feb 8

@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.

HP van Braam Feb 8

@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?

Nina Kalinina Feb 8

@ChrSt this is especially morbidly funny in the context of the history of art...

@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

@wyatt @ChrSt @nina_kali_nina

Yeah 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.

Nina Kalinina Feb 8

@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

@nina_kali_nina @wyatt @ChrSt

I need to crack the whip at my friends so, they're shirking! 😀

Amy 🐱🏳️‍⚧️Feb 9

@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

@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.

fuzzyfuzzyfungus Feb 9

@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 ☭🇧🇷☭Feb 9

@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

@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.

Nina Kalinina Feb 12

@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.

@nina_kali_nina @FloppySalmon (somehow sorry for bringing yet another stream of thoughts to this :D)

Nina Kalinina Feb 13

@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 :)

@nina_kali_nina great analogy! The closing is so spot on 😂

(🖬🖫). ₍^. .^₎⟆Feb 8

@nina_kali_nina mixed with the attention economy people clamor to say proudly 'i made this pile of shit' for some updooks

(language pun: dookie)

@nina_kali_nina Of course, when you dump a truckload of shit somewhere you can’t expect it to flow predictably in the direction you want to go, but if you dump dozens of truckloads flowing in different directions and piling on top of each other one of them will eventually touch the other side. You just need to keep dumping.

zuggamasta Feb 8

@nina_kali_nina corporate also likes to inform you that the shit mountain is now available in three trendy colors. Please buy our product.

dotmavriq Feb 8

@nina_kali_nina I keep making this point: https://social.dotmavriq.life/notice/B370pZf7gvQD6Qqlma . As an individual, ensure that you leverage it for emancipation, for you AND for others, and not as a TEMU-version of Rokos Basilisk.

dotmavriq (@[email protected])

@akareilly I would suggest a "Haitian revolution approach" to this, if you will. So more people than ever are capable of salvaging vast amounts of information, granted that it's not "forbidden" or...

Quinn Norton Feb 8

@nina_kali_nina I mean, this but literally for natural gas (and even coal) plants being built to power data centers.

@nina_kali_nina my fav are the blog posts that are like "in only one day i was able to build a shit bridge that 63% of users were able to cross successfully. i take no joy in saying this but civil engineering is cooked"

Nina Kalinina Feb 8

@aparrish "deploying a bridge isn't a bottleneck anymore" checks: we are in the business of building public transit systems end to end, from building vehicles to running them

James Widman Feb 8

@nina_kali_nina as an engineering firm, what would you rather deal with:

- *years* of meetings with crusty old engineers with their "math" and "simulations" and "safety protocols", and endless staffing meetings?

~ OR ~

- *days* to see a fully-functional mountain of shit?

just in terms of time-to-market, the mountain of shit is the clear winner, and the way of the future.