#pro-worker

— Catholic journalist Catherine Pepinster writing at The Guardian.

Going back 250 years, of the (now) 18 popes since the start of the American Revolution, the three most what we would now call "progressive" would be...

John XXIII (1958-1963)

Francis (2013-2025)

Leo XIII (1878-1903)

Leo XIII issued an encyclical called Rerum Novarum which in modern terms called for collective bargaining and fair working conditions for workers – with emphasis on the working poor. Though the encyclical also rejected violence and forced confiscation of property as advocated by militant socialists of that era, Rerum Novarum was regarded as radical by powerful conservative elements inside the church hierarchy. So when Leo XIII died, the cardinals elected Pius X who was a blatant reactionary.

Earlier this year I was promoted to the program director of a new department. It sounds very fancy and I did get a raise, but as it's for a non-profit, and as it was a sudden promotion so I wasn't prepared to negotiate my pay, the raise wasn't as much as one would hope. But anyway.

I'm currently in charge of five employees. I'm officially in a "boss" situation. Let me tell ya, it's very weird having a strong pro-worker philosophy and being in a boss position. So far, I have not had to do anything which goes against my pro-worker philosophy. I'm doing everything I can to ensure that day doesn't come, either.

I have encountered some very frustrating things, though. If nothing else, I sincerely hope that my employees know how much I'm advocating for them.

I work for a Catholic non-profit, so obviously, we are pretty good when it comes to getting Christian holidays off. Unfortunately, not all of my employees are Christian. I have a good success rate so far at advocating for my non-Christian employees to have paid time off to enjoy their important non-Christian holidays without needing to use any of their PTO days. One of my big goals is to find out how to incorporate it into our actual program instead of me needing to fight for every holiday. I believe that should be built into programs, dammit, especially non-profits which focus on immigration and human rights.

Also... for fuck's sake, if you are doing something for work, it needs to be on the clock. Apparently, there were multiple instances of someone asking one of my employees to do something off the clock because they didn't consider it work and it was on my employee's way home. Are you kidding me? Hell no. I've successfully ensured that would never happen again and my employees never feel compelled to work off the clock. If you are doing a work activity, you are getting paid for it. Period.

It remains an ongoing concern of mine, though. I've never been in this particular position where I'm the boss and in charge of hiring/firing people in my department. We'll see how all of this plays out, especially as I have plans to eventually continue advancing in the organization.

So if you've seen my username anywhere else, it's likely been in the Clone Hero/Rock Band communities. I make custom note charts, and have been charting since 2011, when I worked on the Rock Band Network. So I know the in's and out's of what goes into a note chart. There's a lot of nuance that goes into these things, and when making a chart I always notice new details, even with songs I've heard hundreds of times. I don't trust an algorithm to notice such things.

I'm also left thinking about CAT, a program used at C3 (a big ol' hub for Rock Band customs that I've pretty much cut ties with at this point) to generate lower difficulties and such. And let me tell you, the results there are subpar at best. You can instantly tell how mechanical it all feels, as if there was no thought put into the note orders, or even the actual rules to how these lower difficulties work. And that's an algorithm that uses existing Expert charts as a basis!

AI-generated Expert charts would be a fucking nightmare. Instead of charts that flow well with the music, and account for all the little details in actual instrument lines, you'll get some clunky thing that technically works, but doesn't feel "right" with the music. Like, imagine playing a song, and while the notes are technically on-beat, it feels like the chords are charted in a way that feels unnatural, and there's a lack of polish when it comes to little licks and such. That's how I imagine an AI chart feeling, and it'd be downright dreadful.

There's also the thought of "What if they use existing charts to train the AI," which leaves two possible outcomes, neither of which are great. The lesser-bad one would be them using old Guitar Hero charts to train the AI. The GH series in general is pretty all over the place with chart quality, leaning oftentimes towards "overcharted" due to charting power chords as three-note chords, and sometimes just charting notes that aren't there for the sake of challenge. That's also the style of the series post-Harmonix, is to be really challenging. But also, I don't see that as being a good basis to train an AI to make charts by today's standards.

Which leads to my biggest fear: using custom charts (mostly Clone Hero charts most likely) to train this AI. And let me tell you right now, I don't consent to this. No way in Hell do I think it's an ethical thing to do to train an AI using potentially hundreds of other peoples' charts. Charting itself is an artform, and I think it'd be horrendous to just steal other peoples' styles so that you can save time on your cash-in revival.

"[W]hat have I done to find myself so #censored?...I’ve been...anti-war & #pro_peace. I’ve been...anti-capitalist & #pro_worker. I’ve been furiously anti-manipulation & #pro_honesty. I’ve been radically anti-imperial exploitation & #pro_equality"

"When it comes down to the culture within your company, you really have to ask yourself a few things.

Would you work for you?

Would you buy from you?

Would you refer you?"