I don’t think most of Europeans are particularly afraid of being in missile range of anyone but the US, right now.

And the only country that doesn’t really fit in with the EU in terms of overall values at all is Turkey, so not a lot of crazy neighbours around overall.

And, to be honest, if the US had a modern public transport system you could probably visit anywhere worth going in a couple of weeks too.

Yes

I think what’s happening is one of those situations, where you can put more or less into a meme due to their simplification.

I think you’re being very literal with it, and trying to cross-equate more of their narrative to the meme than the majority of people.

The ICE being labelled as an actual nazi, being a pretty big sign that it isn’t supporting their narrative.

Most people read it as a satirical take on ICE’s narrative, that obviously does not match reality. The satire is evident enough to everyone else that the meme does not enforce the fascist narrative.

If the meme was flipped as you suggest, it would just seem tasteless and unfunny (with humour being the main point of memes), and seem to glorify ICE by making them appear to be actually powerful, and not the scared little, emotionally stunted boys they actually are.

I think it’s fine if you don’t get on a comedic level, and if you think it’s a bad meme, then that’s fine too. Memes are simplified by their nature, and we won’t all enjoy the same ones.

I’m going to exit this discussion, as I don’t expect us to find any real middle ground, or for there to be anything further for me to learn. Besides, it’s a discussion about a meme, so it’s not exactly important. I hope you have a great day though.

I think you’re just not catching it, which is perfectly fine.

Memes are simplified and therefore you can put more into them than the creator intended, so there’s always multiple ways to interpret them.

My interpretation is this: If a perfectly regular, unarmed woman is that dangerous to them, then that makes them absolute cowards, and completely worthless at their supposed jobs. It also shatters any narrative about them being tough in any way, which I do believe is how they perceive themselves.

The meme is making fun of ICE agents for apparently being such cowards that they are afraid of an unarmed woman, seeing her as a threat on the level of Darth Vader.

It’s emasculating them.

Reading the article I don’t see any support for your argument. It just seems like a arsenal strawman.

The article talks about getting more young people into political positions, and about having politicians generally stay in office until they die of old age is causing political stagnation.

It’s not like it argues you can’t serve past a certain age, just that it shouldn’t be an exclusive old-people’s club.

We have a Kinetic scale at home. Have had it for a few years now. It’s my favourite one we’ve had so far.

On a full wind-up it lasts a couple of minutes, and it tells us before it runs out so you can wind it up again if you need.

We’ve had zero issues with it turning off mid-weighing past the first couple of times it happened, after which we got used to it.

For us, they’ve been the superior option.

I think the lack of distinctive features is inherent to how AI training works. From my knowledge you feed them data and it looks for the averages across those data. So if you feed it 100 images of people it will take note of the features that are shared. For example let’s say 60% of the images you feed it for reference happen to feature a beauty mark by the mouth. The algorithm makes notes of that and when it produces an image of it’s own it will likely feature a beauty mark by the mouth. Now apply the same logic to all other visual features and you might start to see why AI produces very samey-visuals: it’s presenting the averages of the inputs it is fed. Better training materials will probably help, and I’m sure it can be tweaked, but “bland” really seems to be baked in to the formula.

I mean, the hostility is entirely understandable. The current form of generative art is meant to replace artists. It is part of what is currently devastating peoples livelihoods, although I think some companies and clients are already learning that it currently leads to lower overall quality, due to how much harder it is to implement changes based on feedback. It lowers the overall quality bar, although it does have the potential to raise the floor a little. The larger models that are causing this hype are quite literally trained on the work of unwilling artists.

It is the most disrespectful and clearly ethically wrong basis to build it on, and it really begs the question of whether the ends justify the means. Beyond that, art is just not an area where we need AI. It largely hurts artists, is super energy demanding so it actively hurts the environment for no real benefit.

The energy would be so much better used solving actual problems, so more people could spend time doing things they enjoy. If some people enjoy AI generation, then that’s fine but I think it shouldn’t replace a passionate, skill-based workforce.

That’s a cool visualisation of what kind of visual input you can feed into the process with ControlNet.

And it really makes it clear that what AI images is good for if communicating a general idea. I think comparing AI generated or Assisted images or videos to photography is probably the closest analogous medium we have, but I think AI images are stort if in-between that and more classical art. You have more control over the more technical aspects of the image, as you can alter those things with big strokes, but you’ve given up too much control to really infused it with artistic intent. Even when photography, where you are generally limited by reality, you can better infused artistic intent into the picture, because you carefully examine what makes that object of the picture unique. Even if you try to direct AI models, it limit their scope they will always add whether the most average expression of what they’re adding, because that what it looks for in the training; the commonalities/averages of whatever it was trained on.

Even ControlNet is just a way to claw back a little more control over the process. I wouldn’t actually call the examples I’ve seen of ControlNet to be examples of fine control. I’m struggling to find a way to clearly communicate it, but it’s like the difference between 3D art that is trying to look like 2D, and actual 2D. There’s always something lost in the translation.

Most artistic disciplines are their own language, and I just don’t think we have a way to communicate that language without actually doing the art, and art requires artistic intent, which I don’t think is possible with the current AI tools. Maybe it will be at some point, but artistic intent and control over the process are so interconnected that the balance becomes very difficult.