Baffled and Bemused

As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn't measure up."

There was a big push to eliminate "degrading jobs" but the strategy was to eliminate the position, then create a new position outside of the bargaining unit to do the work. So like, we wouldn't have dishwashers, but we'd have people who washed dishes that weren't eligible to be in the union.

I was like A) what the actual fuck? Dish washing isn't "degrading", it's fucking vital. B) What the actual fuck? You want to create a union just to exploit different people?

The first time someone told me that busing tables was "degrading", I was like "Oh, uhh, yeah, like it's very necessary work but under compensated for how vital it is?" and they responded "No, touching plates that other people have eaten off of is disgusting."

In bargaining, someone on the Union side suggested that we eliminate all the cashiers and exclusively use self-checkouts (they were a cashier and didn't like it). The organizer told them that the union wasn't in the habit of eliminating bargaining unit positions. (This is the same person I've talked about how said that "as a prison abolitionist" we just needed to execute most criminals.)

It got me thinking, along with Ann Russell talking about how to treat cleaners (being a cleaner herself), about how we conceptualise domestic service as particularly degrading in all its forms, when, really, why is that? Why is paying someone to do something intrinsically bad?

Like, even in a moneyless, gift economy society, there would still be people whose primary contribution to their communities would be cleaning. Some people like to clean, and are really rather good at it.

I've talked ad nauseam in the past about how British attitudes towards cleaners and other service based positions today are the descendants of Victorian attitudes. That is, both the attitudes of conservatives and many progressives of that time. The trade union movement was particularly exclusionary towards service workers.

Typing this from Graphene now, in fact. But, both of those take the Android Open Source Project, without all the bloatware--and largely de-Google the whole thing. They give you much more control over privacy and what the apps you choose to install can do and access on your phone.

I know Graphene sandboxes everything, including the optionally installed Google Play Services which a lot of apps unfortunately require to run. (Lineage uses an alternative to Play Services instead.) So, you can install what would normally be unacceptably intrusive apps and just lock them away from pulling any funny shit with your data, or phoning home. Including the couple of Google things I do still keep around.

I also prefer running much more transparent, privacy-respecting open source apps where possible. Besides the transparency, I'd rather avoid the shitty tech corps entirely where I can. There are pretty good alternatives available for a lot of the usual suspects.

An alternative app store:

A thoroughly fullered Storta,

OaL: 29.8 in/75.7 cm

Weight: 3 lbs/1360 g

nature is healing

Last week we had a neighbor have a kitchen fire in her apartment. Had never met her before, but heard her crying "Fire!" in the hallway while trying to wrangle her dogs. Within 5 minutes we had her and her dogs safe in our apartment and were stationed at the entryways waiting for firefighters. 20 minutes after that we had her calmed down enough to be able to call the people she needed to call and talk to the firefighters, who had finished up in her apartment. About 5 minutes later we were feeding her dinner and talking hobbies and how she was welcome to come hang out in less chaotic circumstances.

A judge ordered the reinstatement of a video game developer after he was fired as part of a scheme cooked up by a CEO using ChatGPT. Facing the possibility of paying out a massive bonus to the developer of Subnautica2, the CEO of publisher Krafton used ChatGPT to create a plan to take over the development studio and force out its founder, according to court records.

The Monday ruling details the bizarre story. Unknown Worlds Entertainment is the studio behind the 2018 underwater survival game Subnautica. The company has since been working on the sequel, Subnautica 2. In 2021, South Korean publisher Krafton bought Unknown Worlds Entertainment for $500 million and promised to pay out another $250 million if Subnautica 2 sold well enough.

Krafton’s internal sales projections for Subnautica 2 looked great, and looked like it would be on the hook for the additional $250 million. In an attempt to avoid paying this, Krafton CEO Changhan Kim turned to ChatGPT for help avoiding paying the developers the $250 million bonus. “As Unknown Worlds prepared to release its hotly anticipated sequel, Subnautica 2, the parties’ relationship fractured,” the court decision said. “Fearing he had agreed to a ‘pushover’ contract, Krafton’s CEO consulted an artificial intelligence chatbot to contrive a corporate ‘takeover’ strategy.”

Kim partnered with Krafton Head of Corporate Development Maria Park and the company’s legal team to work out options. He toyed with finding a reason to fire the founders. According to court records, Park pinged Kim on Slack and told him that attempting to avoid paying the bonus would be legally risky. “Hi CEO . . . it seems to be highly likely that the earn-out will still be paid if the sales goal is achieved regardless of the dismissal with cause,” the Slack message said according to court records. “Therefore, there isn’t much that we can practically gain other than punishment with a simple dismissal alone, whereas I am worried that we may be exposed to lawsuit and reputation risk.”

But the CEO would not accept defeat. “And so Kim turned to ChatGPT for help,” court records said. “When the AI chatbot responded that the earnout would be ‘difficult to cancel,’ Kim complained to Park that the [payout] was a ‘contract under which we can only be dragged around.’”

Kim pressed the chatbot for an answer. “At ChatGPT’s suggestion, Kim formed an internal task force, dubbed ‘Project X.’ The task force’s mandate was to either negotiate a ‘deal’ on the earnout or execute a ‘Take Over’ of Unknown Worlds. They looked to buy time,” court records said. “Kim sought ChatGPT’s counsel on how to proceed if Krafton failed to reach a deal with Unknown Worlds on the earnout. The AI chatbot prepared a ‘Response Strategy’ to a ‘No-Deal’ Scenario.”

This was a piece of ChatGPT’s “Project X” for Krafton:

“a. Preemptive Framing - Repeat that protecting quality and fan trust is the highest priority, undermine the ‘Large Corporation VS. Indie’ framing b. Securing Control Points - * Lock down Steam/console publishing rights and access rights over code/build pipeline through both legal and technical aspects. * For the earn-out freeze, keep room for negotiations through provision stating ‘immediate removal if specific development results are achieved’ a. Systematic materials for legal defense - Prepare contract interpretation memorandums, log all communications, seek external consultation b. Team retention - Operation of retention packages for key personnel and rapid backfill pipelines in anticipation of resignation/departure scenarios c. Two handed strategy - Create a structure that allows for both hardball (Legal+ Finance) and softball (Support/Incentives) approaches so moderate factions within Unknown Worlds can push for compromise.”

Kim followed ChatGPT’s advice rather than his lawyers’ advice, according to the court records. The first step was posting a message on Subanutica’s website to get fans on his side. According to court documents, Kim said the goal of the message was to “secure public support from fans and legal validation of our legitimacy.” He then suggested that ChatGPT write it for him. It achieved the opposite of his intended goal. Fans found the message bizarre and worried about the future of the game. Those fears were compounded when Kim fired the game’s original creators and entered into a legal battle with them.

CONCEIVED IN SIN,

BORN IN INIQUITY,

NURTURED BY TYRANNY,

DIED OF ACHRONIC ATTACK OF PUNCH