The Female of the Magician Arcana

all from @plural-userboxes

Revita Kid: They/Them, 💙/💙's (Revita Fictive)

Tora: They/Them, handles online stuff and witring

Terra: She/Her, Earth/Earth's, Although from Terraira, handles all gaming stuff

did you know that. uh. Persona.

HOLY SHIT???

It wasn't as simple as being told not to read during other activities- one of the first times it happened, I remember being six years old, watching my stepfather pull fistfuls of books off my bookshelf and throw them to the floor in a heaping mess while I cried and asked him to stop.

It was weird. Every other adult I knew described me as exceptionally well-behaved, but at home, it was the opposite, and it was blamed on "learning bad habits from that shit you're reading".

Because I couldn't read at home, I spent all my free time at school in the library, reading with my friends.

When I grew up and moved away, I realized that my family life was toxic and abusive, and the "attitudes" I was being punished for were standing up for myself, standing up for my younger siblings, and resisting actual, real-life psychological abuse. Because I'd learned from what I'd read that my family wasn't normal, not like my parents said it was, and in my stories, the heroes were the people who spoke out when it was hard to.

It is insane to me that there are students right now who can't access books. It is insane that books are being outlawed. It is perverse that we are stealing away an entire generation's ability to contextualize their lives, to learn about the world around them, to develop critical thinking skills and express themselves and feel connected to the world or escape from it, whatever and whenever and however they need.

That is not how you raise a compassionate, thoughtful, powerful society.

That's how you process cattle.

I would agree regarding things like making audio and video of real actors who have not consented to their likenesses being used by anyone. We should be working together to protect people from their image being used in harmful ways. If this tech progresses in any healthier or more ethical ways, I hope people in fandom will not support works that are presumptuously using actual likenesses without considering the real humans it can impact. If you are going to use it for creative purposes like this, change likenesses. Use fake voices or work with voice actors who consent to public domain usage of voice AIs they create.

Respectfully, I am not convinced that RP or many other ways individuals are or are going to use RP is going to make much of a difference when it comes to the rest of it.

First of all, one thing that doesn't check out for me is where OP thinks RP is taking place. My impression is that most RPrs are using CharacterAI, which is a chatbot that exists and is trained pretty much only for fictionalized chatting. Now, there are ethical issues absolutely going on with C.AI that it's own community have already been discussing, and there of course are possible ways it can be utilized for text based impersonation online (but any random human can do that more effectively). I think more needs to be done to hold these devs accountable for shady practices, frankly.

But my understanding is that ChatGPT, which is touted as a multi tool and is one of the worst chatbot AI culprits, is mostly not used at all for RP, because it's very very bad at it. So most RP folks probably aren't even training that particular chatbot.

So maybe OP knows something I don't, but that aspect doesn't seem like the correct information. But I digress.

The problems and dangers of AI are going to persist whether people try their hardest to avoid it or not, because the cat is already out of the bag and made its way down the block. There are many people outside of fandom and artistic spaces who are absolutely going to be using this tech for shady shit regardless of what anyone else does. Yes, training data will help it get a little more sophisticated (and potentially also more broken). But saying much can be affected by fandom en masse refusing to use it is kind of like saying "if we all just stopped buying things containing plastic, the earth would be saved!" It's not...really realistic at all. It puts the onus and spotlight on regular people doing the least direct harm, when again, the majority of harm is going to be the things OP already knows they are. Shady corporations, shady governments, propagandists. They are going to shovel the largest chunks of data into it and the most money. They will direct the tech in the directions they want it to go, not in any directions we want it to go (even if we just want it to go straight to hell).

Training data that is made up of people making their OTPs kiss...will feed OTP kissing data into the tech. the tech will learn from that data how we use romantic language. (In fact, its arguable that the more RP is choking a system, the less data focused on other material is going to be in the output. C.AI. literally already has that "problem," the characters often lean a little bit more towards romantic RP because thats the majority of the training data. But I digress again.)

Right now, I am more concerned about the people RPing/chatting with it using it as a replacement for therapy they cannot afford, a replacement for healthy socialization they no longer have time for, or feeding too much sensitive personal information into it. I think the most direct harm with AI RP is going to be young folks who do not have the access to care they need using it as the only tool available to them, and make no mistake, these companies want to exploit that and replace real therapists too.

Now, that said, one thing that I am observing is that a lot of very (reasonably) frightened and distressed folks are looking for ways to resolve their distress. People feel like if they can just point the finger at their neighbor, or instruct others in their communities on how to behave, or shun/ostracize certain folks doing the "wrong" behaviors, or construct a perfect, squeaky clean ethical philosophy around the whole topic, or catastrophize enough about the potential dangers so we cover all our bases before bad things happen, that maybe this can all just be resolved. If AI is hated eternally and we all just collectively reject it out of disgust and/or terror, maybe we can shove it under the rug and that will just fix everything.

Have you guys all rejected plastic completly from your lives? I mean, none of us but a small few really need it, right? There are ways around using it, right? We all collectively know plastic is harmful, as well as useful. Many of us try our best to navigate a world full of plastic, we try our best to be kind to our environment. We are still working to make the world healthier. But we know nothing will actually change until the people in positions of power are held truly accountable. And getting angry or distressed at the actions of your neighbor isn't really the best investment of that passion and energy.

Minnesota Dems enacted a raft of laws to make the state a trans refuge, and ensure people receiving trans care here can't be reached by far-right governments in places like Florida and Texas. (link)

Minnesota Dems ensured that everyone, including undocumented immigrants, can get drivers' licenses. (link)

They made public college free for the majority of Minnesota families. (link)

Minnesota Dems dropped a billion dollars into a bevy of affordable housing programs, including by creating a new state housing voucher program. (link)

Minnesota Dems massively increased funding for the state's perpetually-underfunded public defenders, which lets more public defenders be hired and existing public defenders get a salary increase. (link)

Dems raised Minnesota education spending by 10%, or about 2.3 billion. (link)

Minnesota Dems created an energy standard for 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040. (link)

Minnesota already has some of the strongest election infrastructure (and highest voter participation) in the country, but the legislature just made it stronger, with automatic registration, preregistration for minors, and easier access to absentee ballots. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded the publicly subsidized health insurance program to undocumented immigrants. This one's interesting because it's the sort of things Dems often balk at. The governor opposed it! The legislature rolled over him and passed it anyway. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded background checks and enacted red-flag laws, passing gun safety measures that the GOP has thwarted for years. (link)

Minnesota Dems gave the state AG the power to block the huge healthcare mergers that have slowly gobbled up the state's medical system. (link)

Minnesota Dems restored voting rights to convicted felons as soon as they leave prison. (link)

Minnesota Dems made prison phone calls free. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed new wage protection rules for the construction industry, against industry resistance. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a new sales tax to fund bus and train lines, an enormous victory for the sustainability and quality of public transit. Transit be more pleasant to ride, more frequent, and have better shelters, along more lines. (link)

They passed strict new regulations on PFAS ("forever chemicals"). (link)

Minnesota Dems passed the largest bonding bill in state history! Funding improvements to parks, colleges, water infrastructure, bridges, etc. etc. etc. (link)

They're going to build a passenger train from the Twin Cities to Duluth. (link)

I can't even find a news story about it but there's tens of millions in funding for new BRT lines, too. (link)

A wonky-but-important change: Minnesota Dems indexed the state gas tax to inflation, effectively increasing the gas tax. (link)

They actually indexed a bunch of stuff to inflation, including the state's education funding formula, which helps ensure that school spending doesn't decline over time. (link)

Minnesota Dems made hourly school workers (e.g., bus drivers and paraprofessionals) eligible for unemployment during summer break, when they're not working or getting paid. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed a bunch of labor protections for teachers, including requiring school districts to negotiate class sizes as part of union contracts. (Yet another @SydneyJordanMN special here. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a state board to govern labor standards at nursing homes. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a Prescription Drug Affordability Board, which would set price caps for high-cost pharmaceuticals. (link)

Minnesota Dems created new worker protections for Amazon warehouse workers and refinery workers. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed a digital fair repair law, which requires electronics manufacturers to make tools and parts available so that consumers can repair their electronics rather than purchase new items. (link)

Minnesota Dems made Juneteenth a state holiday. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned conversion therapy. (link)

They spent nearly a billion dollars on a variety of environmental programs, from heat pumps to reforestation. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded protections for pregnant and nursing workers - already in place for larger employers - to almost everyone in the state. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a new child tax credit that will cut child poverty by about a quarter. (link)

Minnesota Democrats dropped a quick $50 million into homelessness prevention programs. (link)

And because the small stuff didn't get lost in the big stuff, they passed a law to prevent catalytic converter thefts. (link)

Minnesota Dems increased child care assistance. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned "captive audience meetings," where employers force employees to watch anti-union presentations. (link)

No news story yet, but Minnesota Dems forced signal priority changes to Twin Cities transit. Right now the trains have to wait at intersections for cars, which, I can say from experience, is terrible. Soon that will change.

Minnesota Dems provided the largest increase to nursing home funding in state history. (link)

They also bumped up salaries for home health workers, to help address the shortage of in-home nurses. (link)

Minnesota Dems legalized drug paraphernalia, which allows social service providers to conduct needle exchanges and address substance abuse with reduced fear of incurring legal action. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned white supremacists and extremists from police forces, capped probation at 5 years for most crimes, improved clemency, and mostly banned no-knock warrants. (link)

Minnesota Dems also laid the groundwork for a public health insurance option. (link)

I’m happy for the people of Minnesota, but as a Floridian living under Ron DeSantis & hateful Republicans, I’m also very envious tbh. We know that democracy can work, and this is a shining example of what government could be like in the hands of legislators who actually care about helping people in need, and not pursuing the GOP’s “culture wars” and suppressing the votes of BIPOC, and inflicting maximum harm on those who aren’t cis/het, white, wealthy, Christian males. BRAVO MINNESOTA. This is how you do it! And the Minnesota Dems did it with a one seat majority, so no excuses. Forget about the next election and focus on doing as much good as you can, while you still can. 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

Surely this won't lead to more issues with accounts getting hijacked, or impersonations, or username hoarding, or getting messages from randos, or etc etc etc . . .

After you do so, you will most likely receive something similar to this

Any measure taken against homeless people WILL harm disabled people, because fundamentally, they are about removing accessibility.

Anti homeless attitudes rely on the same underlying logic as ableism. That they “deserve” their misfortune, that they just aren’t trying hard enough, that they are inherently immoral, etc.

It’s

WHAT????