"But AI can't do your job. It can help you do your job, but that doesn't mean it's going to save anyone money. Take radiology: there's some evidence that AIs can sometimes identify solid-mass tumors that some radiologists miss, and look, I've got cancer. Thankfully, it's very treatable, but I've got an interest in radiology being as reliable and accurate as possible.
If my Kaiser hospital bought some AI radiology tools and told its radiologists: "Hey folks, here's the deal. Today, you're processing about 100 x-rays per day. From now on, we're going to get an instantaneous second opinion from the AI, and if the AI thinks you've missed a tumor, we want you to go back and have another look, even if that means you're only processing 98 x-rays per day. That's fine, we just care about finding all those tumors."
If that's what they said, I'd be delighted. But no one is investing hundreds of billions in AI companies because they think AI will make radiology more expensive, not even if that also makes radiology more accurate. The market's bet on AI is that an AI salesman will visit the CEO of Kaiser and make this pitch: "Look, you fire 9/10s of your radiologists, saving $20m/year, you give us $10m/year, and you net $10m/year, and the remaining radiologists' job will be to oversee the diagnoses the AI makes at superhuman speed, and somehow remain vigilant as they do so, despite the fact that the AI is usually right, except when it's catastrophically wrong.
"And if the AI misses a tumor, this will be the human radiologist's fault, because they are the 'human in the loop.' It's their signature on the diagnosis."
This is a reverse centaur, and it's a specific kind of reverse-centaur: it's what Dan Davies calls an "accountability sink." The radiologist's job isn't really to oversee the AI's work, it's to take the blame for the AI's mistakes.
This is another key to understanding – and thus deflating – the AI bubble. The AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job. This is key because it helps us build the kinds of coalitions that will be successful in the fight against the AI bubble."
- Cory Doctorow, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI
europeans be like “omg north americans are so racist it’s horrible” and then elect fascists
I would like to emphasize that I agree with all of these tags by the way. My post wasn't aiming to pin all of Europe's grotesque racism on the new elections.
A few weeks ago I was at a board game night with some of my old classmates from various mainland European countries. They started talking about how horrible Trump's treatment of immigrants is and how they're so glad to be in Europe where nothing like that is happening right now. I asked them what they thought about the fact that their own governments were complicit in turning the Mediterranean into a mass grave of asylum seekers, and some of them legitimately didn't even know and were surprised to hear that their own governments had enacted policies that caused the deaths of thousands of asylum seekers.
Even here in Iceland, almost nobody has been talking about the fact that some of the far right populist parties have legitimately been talking about wanting to establish detainment camps to keep asylum seekers in.
Additional readings:
- Greece suspends asylum applications for migrants from North Africa by Laura Gozzi (BBC).
- Greece passes draconian legislation with prison terms for rejected asylum seekers by Helena Smith (The Guardian).
- Greek coastguard threw migrants overboard to their deaths, witnesses say by Lucile Smith and Ben Steele (BBC).
- Bill on Detention Centres for Asylum Seekers Published by Jelena Ćirić (Iceland Review).
- Italy sends 40 rejected asylum seekers to Albania by Karl Sexton (DW).
- Record number of migrants, refugees reached Canary Islands by sea in 2024 (Al Jazeera).
- Portuguese government announces major migrant expulsion plan by ANSA (InfoMigrants).
This post is a few months old now, and the bit about Iceland is now outdated, because Alþingi (the Icelandic parliament) passed the bill approving the detention center for asylum seekers. It will be legal to handcuff and detain children there.
Never let anyone from Europe feed you the lie that racism and fascism are unique to North America in the 21st century.
This post made racists angry enough to harass me over it, which all that's going to do is make me bring this post back and reblog it more.
I don't ever want to hear the disgusting and vile genocide libel again. It's infuriatingly fucking pathetic at this point.
If you, after seeing this, still continue to claim that Israel commited genocide, you just hate jews. Die mad about it, I don't care.
Like don't act like you can hide, you fucking genocide supporter.
Also, according to the Columbia Journalism Review, "Middle East 24, also known as ME24, is, according to its website, “a bold digital media platform” aimed at cutting through the noise of “extremist platforms that glorify radicalism” to deliver “fact-based content and authentic analysis that champions peace, democracy, and moderation.” Coverage touches on Israel-Gaza diplomacy, the perils of Hamas, and the energy sector. The site debuted the first week of September, the product of a team of contributors led by Dan Feferman—an author and cohost of a podcast called Jewanced, who also serves as the chairman of Sharaka, a nongovernmental organization that promotes trade relations between Israel and Gulf states. But you won’t find his name, or anyone else’s, on the stories published by ME24. Where a byline would be, it reads “327099pwpadmin.” Articles, around ten of which are published per day, feature grainy images and anonymous analysis that sometimes reveals itself to be AI...
...
"As Middle East 24 notes on X, where it already has more than nineteen thousand followers, the venture is a partner of Visegrád 24—a social-media-first news channel that identifies as “the Most Influential Anti-Hamas Account,” with 1.4 million followers on X and a self-reported seven billion yearly impressions. Visegrád 24, founded in 2020 with a focus on Central Europe, achieved sudden reach and influence when Russia invaded Ukraine. The site pushed newswire summaries alongside sensationalist stories—Leonardo DiCaprio donating ten million dollars to Ukraine, Pornhub blocking access to its page from Russia—that turned out to be false. Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter benefited Visegrád 24: a few times, when the account was banned for violating community guidelines, Musk saw to its reinstatement; he also reposted Visegrád 24 content. “ME24 will use the same proven strategy,” Middle East 24’s donation page states.
“'Middle East 24 basically happened because of a very simple reason: a bunch of people who are concerned about where the region is going and see an opportunity to do something about it came together,' Ahmed Quraishi, a Pakistani journalist and policy expert who is a member of ME24’s advisory board, told me. Under Feferman’s direction, Quraishi said, he and a group of several other Middle East policy wonks set the site’s agenda. (Feferman declined to speak with me.) 'We volunteer our own sort of help in framing in a way that would serve our interest and would be clear and accurate,' Quraishi said.
"There is no newsroom. Per Quraishi, articles are produced and posted on social media by a rotating team of copy editors shared with Visegrád 24. “Initially we began with their team, and now we’re expanding with our own indigenous domestic Middle East–based team, mostly based in Dubai, but also in other countries in the region,” he said. When I asked why articles are anonymous, he replied, 'We are volunteering our time and resources; many of us are involved in other work. And of course we need to also be on the right side of the ethical concerns.'”
END
ME24 has bylines now, but they don't help make its case for being a useful media source. For instance, Lebanese "political activist and journalist" Tony Boulos said in an interview that "Peace with Israel is the optimal solution."
While Syrian-Kurdish Hayvi Bouzo "co-founded Yalla Productions with Trump administration political appointee Len Khodorkovsky[4] where she hosts the Yalla Show," and since 2018 "has participated in several private round-tables with President Donald Trump, where they discussed the conflict in Syria, U.S. policy in the Middle East, and other pressing issues."
If you want the truth about anything -- anything at all -- you are going to have to hunt it down yourself. That's where we are.
You might know what happened. But if you don't know where the story's come from, you can't begin to understand why it happened and what the happening means.
forget age gaps or differences in rank or whatever the most potently dangerous power dynamic in any relationship is "people like you more than me"
genuinely nothing is more corrosive to love, respect, or trust than the insecurity of forever being second and last in line. of always being the plus one but never invited; always tolerated on their behalf but never wanted on your own. of knowing that nobody's jealousy or admiration is about you at all, only your place at their side. you tell them that you feel like you only exist when you're with them, and they laugh, charmed, but it isn't a figure of speech. it's not enough that they love you best if everyone else loves them better.
okay some people are misinterpreting this as talking about people who treat you like a pity project and like they're doing you a favour by choosing you. this isn't necessarily about relationships made toxic by people who don't value you enough. this is about knowing that you're socially disposable and being unable to accept the love that you're offered because you resent how much your life depends on it.
it's such bs that the whole guilt-ridden stoic self-sacrificing martyr thing doesn't work outside of fiction. repressing all your emotions and neglecting your physical wellbeing should make you god's most tragically beautiful morally unassailable little soldier of righteousness but all it does is give you bad skin and gastrointestinal problems
like what do you MEAN the number 1 sexiest character trait of all time is just kind of offputting and bad for you in real life. next you'll tell me smoking has consequences other than looking like a mysterious badass
correct
From "How to Respond to Criticism" by Daniel Laverty:
Run into a cave and break your ankle so that people have to come find you and they see you lying at the bottom of this beautiful cave and maybe there’s a waterfall and the light from the crystals makes you look really beautiful and they say “Are you okay?” and you say “I think so” and they say “oh my God have you been here alone this whole time with a broken ankle” and you say “it’s okay” and they say “you’re so brave” and you are brave and you look so beautiful surrounded by cave crystals and everyone stands over you and says “oh wow” and “you poor beautiful thing” and “I’m so sorry we let you run into the cave but I’m so glad we found you” and let them carry you home and promise to be your best friends forever and that everything’s their fault and also they named the cave after you and you’re prettier than all of your enemies and your enemies all died of jealousy while you were in the cave.
In case the link doesn't work: https://the-toast.net/2014/06/12/respond-criticism/#4tckqs4Z1hykkHR8.99
tips for managing cleaning/tidying in a way that gives you a sense of control instead of dread and shame:
dishes
- wash at least one dish every day. could be a single fork. just do one. at absolute worst this means you're regularly running clean hot soapy water through the heap of backed up dishes in the sink.
- any time you have to wash a plate or utensil because you're out of clean ones, wash two of them. need a knife? wash two knives. need your only baking sheet? wash a cup too.
clutter
- overwhelmed by clutter? take out the bins and do laundry. it's very difficult to organise a space when it's full, and trash and dirty clothes take up a lot of space both physically and mentally. emptying bins makes room for the whole cycle to move.
- those little boxes and containers advertised for ADHD really do work, even if you don't have ADHD. they let you move surface clutter around even if you don't have time to sort and clear it. you can quickly box up the craft project that's been taking up your desk for two weeks, clean the surface, and put everything back.
- on that note @3liza clued me in to the power of a simple wicker basket a decade ago and it changed my life. this isn't a desk tidy, this is a medium to large box or basket without a lid that you can comfortably carry in two hands (doesn't have to be wicker). personally I like a collapsible one so I'm not tempted to fill it with stuff when it's not in use. the point of it is collecting and carrying.
- instead of taking on individual sidequests for every item in an overcluttered room, walk through with your simple wicker basket and collect everything that has to go in the kitchen. take it to the kitchen, put it away. then collect everything for the bedroom. take it to the bedroom, put it away. it's your sifter, your filter, your best friend. this is but one use of the simple wicker basket.
trash
- differentiate in your head between dry trash and wet trash. dry trash is paper, plastic wrappers, packing foam, scrap fabric, dried up pens. 'shelf stable' trash, if you like. nothing likely to leak or rot. this can be collected in small lined wastepaper size bins around the house – one in every room honestly isn't overkill. you only have to empty these when they reach the top of the container.
- wet trash is food waste, soiled or greasy food wrappers, empty bottles, sanitary products, used medication ampoules, anything contaminated by mould or pest damage, etc. the yucky stuff. this goes in a single, large, lined bin with a lid, in a central part of the house (probably the kitchen). Empty this every 3-4 days or as soon as it reaches the top of the container. it won't fill up as fast without dry trash bulking it up, and disposing of it in small amounts regularly keeps the place feeling fresh. importantly it also means the gross stuff is contained in one place, not wearing on your peripheral attention day after day making you feel bad.
generally
- everything I said about clutter and surfaces above also works for floors. you can take stuff off the floor, vacuum, and then dump that shit right back where it was. you don't have to wait for one glorious day when you have the energy to do everything.
- the longer something goes untouched, the worse it gets psychologically. if a particular area of mess is especially upsetting or daunting to you, agitate it. pick up just one thing. dust around it. divide it in two. do anything you can bear that gets you to engage with it and handle it. it's manageable. you'll get there.
- never ever ever ever feel bad about spending money on trash bags, gloves, disinfectant wipes, sponges, or whatever you need to comfortably stay on top of things. you're allowed to use cleaning products and you're allowed to just throw shit out.
cptsd should make me wake up every morning with black eyeliner and a macabre yet sharp sense of humor but instead it just makes me feel like less of a person than anybody i interact with and makes me have a hard time concentrating
