Walter Ostanek
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Posts posted by Walter Ostanek
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22 minutes ago, ignatius said:
will Ai scrub everything from the internet some day?
No, but real information will be so utterly drowned in a tsunami of deepfakes that the internet will become impossible to use
Hard-hitting Owen Jones vid. Thing is, he argues from the perspective that what is happening in Gaza is unusually horrific, but really it isn't. Even just in my lifetime, all of this stuff already happened in Bosnia, and most of the outside world only gave a shit if it impacted their strategic interests - and if it didn't, well: "it didn't happen, and if it did, they deserved it". Ditto Palestine half a dozen other times, Chechnya, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine (not least Mariupol). Etc etc etc.
This utterly horrific dehumanisation, apathy and hypocrisy is actually the norm, right across the geopolitical chessboard.
My wife is of Palestinian background, and consequently so are lots of my family, and one of my in-laws is an activist who's prominent enough to have been the target of shit stirring articles in the rightwing blogosphere. Obviously we were out at protests a bunch over the last few months. But even they, in a moment like this, where some of their (my!) extended family have been killed and they appreciate every scrap of support - they're still seriously weirded out by a fair number of the others who they march alongside at protests. Because they know that these people are campists, supporting Palestine not for innate humanitarianism but because it tickles their geopolitical fancy, and if the geopolitical winds were blowing a different way, they'd be totally fine with this.
There has never been a time when any world power, or "the international community" at large, has cared about the value of human life. Only the life of those humans whose suffering impacts their power
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All this time I've never managed to get into it, I find it staggeringly depressing, which isn't surprising based on the (inferred) subject matter
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16 hours ago, auxien said:
all said with that 'ha ha we are definitely just joking ha ha, this is not the actual goal of course ha ha' tone that somehow counts as a dogwhistle these days
You never know whether it's irony-poisoning or whether the irony is always a facade (fascade?) from the beginning.
Either way, when fascists tell you that they want to do fascist stuff, believe them. Because if they can, they will. That goes for the Trumpeteers, the Putin-lovers, Modi, Orban & dozens of others.
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1 hour ago, ignatius said:
interesting. he's probably aware of Nate Hagens' youtube channel. his podcast gets into some territory that is around that neck of the world but often quite rooted in problem solving and the science of things.. lot's of big picture things too though.. and philosophical at times.
I never really know what to think when it comes to systems science approaches. Limits to Growth was the first big one, and it was a lot cleverer than most people make it out to be (most of the common criticisms don't actually reflect what they actually did, if you read it - e.g. unlike Ehrlich they do take into account that the resource base could increase considerably). The focus on trends and flows rather than things means it meshes nicely with ecology and dialectical approaches, but the downside that comes with that is that its complexity and methodology offers a great excuse to not bother to codify/quantify it properly, and you can easily wish away the need to seriously think about social/political/economic consequences because you can just say that everything will be magically fixed in the inevitable Hegelian quantum leap, god-of-the-gaps-style - thereby letting you indulge in terminally vague, arm-waving lunacy. Plus, the moment you get anywhere near degrowth or depopulation it's very easily co-opted by far-right bash-the-poor and/or racist shit
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unironically watching old Robot Wars with the missus and getting wrecked on what passes for cider round these parts
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did i do it right
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On 2/18/2024 at 7:45 PM, prdctvsm said:
Reminds me of the DNR propaganda vids that show Donetsk city as a happenin' place where you can stock up on groceries and get your car detailed (and yet, incredibly, this is the very same city that they claimed Ukraine govt forces were genociding the locals at the exact same time. But who ever said propaganda needs to be logically consistent?)
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The day musk bought twatter was the day i stopped ironyposting about fascism making a comeback and realised that it is genuinely happening
I regret having a kid. I mean, I already did because of climate change. But more now.
Not sure what is worse, losing sleep thinking about my kid dying in near-future fash wars/violence, or thinking about her boiling to death in her own sweat in the coming superhumid heatwaves. I guess the former is theoretically a faster death?
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almost forgotten album but what a beast of dadtronica
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On 2/12/2024 at 7:30 PM, Walter Ostanek said:
what i meant was
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28 minutes ago, exitonly said:
I didn't know Frank Skinner was in Orbital?
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On 2/10/2024 at 7:32 PM, YEK said:
Another problem with these goggles is it’s hard to tell if a woman is that attractive with them on.
So, it’s like end of the night she comes to your place, and she takes off her goggles and she’s fugly, what do you do?
didn't we just go through that with masks for covid
unless medical play is what gets you going, in which case...
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On 2/9/2024 at 7:58 AM, auxien said:
curious to read/hear some takes on the interview this weekend, doubt i'll be watching anything but clips but props on that one posted for starters.
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Chocolate
14 hours ago, usagi said:play it cool and reveal your inner self gradually
yeah you gotta spread butthole slowly
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part of me hoped that this would be Clark remixes of the Total Annihilation game score tbh
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How long before people watch a deepfake version on their shitty goggles of an actual event that's happening in front of them, and believe the goggles over their own eyes?
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One of my rellies is convinced that israel pursues a 20x death toll whenever anything kicks off, e.g. if 50 israelis get killed, the IDF will go schizo until 1,000 palestinians are lying in the rubble, then get bored of the brutality and go home. The 2021 strikes on Gaza backed it up quite creepily. So if true, they're nearing that milestone this time round.
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On 2/8/2024 at 7:34 AM, WurstPLUS said:
OMG where is the love
OMD / black eyed peas collab when
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acid rifle
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27 cycle, Super Capacity Plus
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Meat Beat Manifesto thread
in Music Discussion
Posted
Ol' Jack when he was young on vocals there - and produced by Andy Partridge of XTC fame. Fascinating track, you can hear influences from both of them