too much is never enough

Cold Day in Katmandu.

don't do this. don't use genAI. even if your professors give you permission. even if they ask for it or suggest it. if they do anything short of directly requiring it (and I weep, because I've already seen assignments that require it) don't touch that crap. if they do require it, stick it to them. be as maliciously compliant as possible. be a nightmare.

I know it might sound easier right now -- just plug in your assignment and get the answers. you don't care about this class anyway, it's not for your major, you don't see the value of the assignment.

but for your own sake, for the sake of your education and mind, and for the sake of the future world we want to have: learn the stuff. you are not as stupid as the corporate bizzaro kings who want to rule the world think you are, so don't give them reasons to believe it.

and odds are good genAI is gonna give you corrupted info anyway -- more and moreso as the machines cannibalize themselves.

Anecdotally, my fellow cohort of gen-x'ers were convinced this was going to be the solution, the ticket, the fucking way. Inevitably, all we had to do was outlive these old mayonnaise white devils, because that's where the racism was societally stored - like a big racism appendix that would get removed someday.

We thought we knew what was up because we were cool white kids who listened to Public Enemy. And because we thought we were largely inoculated against racism, it was just a long cool slide into the Clinton years and we'd be set.

So we didn't question shit like South Park. We didn't question shitheads like 'ironic' (at the time) racists like Weev in our IRC channel. We had zero fucking awareness of how racism shifted, because the only examples of racism we were ever taught either wore a white robe & burned crosses, or sig-heil'd and lived in misery. We shamefully thought racism = southern*, and since we were alt-goth kids living on the west coast, we were fucking sorted out and safe.

It wasn't on our radar. We weren't ready. We hadn't listened to anyone, because we thought we'd learned enough to not be a problem, and wasn't that enough?

We didn't clock or understand the way racist language shifted into a new economic handwringing. We fell into stupid rhetorical traps that snuck racism into concerns about unhoused people and substance abuse. We refused to recognize and realize our own inherent racist attitudes because of the sunk cost fallacy of wanting to believe we really didn't have to do anything other than be cool and wait it out.

I watched some people absolutely lose their shit when called out on this and flounce directly into the arms of right wing philosophy (always some variation on "left wing politics has gone too far!" when it's pointed out how they're upholding inequality with a cherished attitude or anecdote they've leaned on for years to prop up the mythology of their self-worth).

No one was ready to realize they weren't good just by being alternative. And some of them cracked apart.

Racism has a full time advertising budget ready to repackage and rebadge it minute to minute, and you always have to do the work. It never ever fucking stops. And making sure you're always doing the work has the very valuable side-benefit of keeping you in touch with yourself and what you're about.

You gotta do the work. It never stops.

Glasgow Pride has banned all politicians from attending due to lack of action after Supreme Court ruling.