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Desalination is the process of generating freshwater from brackish or saltwater, usually through the process of reverse osmosis. While this can be a very useful tool in water shortages, it also has some pretty huge drawbacks--reverse osmosis requires a lot of energy, requires chemical treatment of the water, and produces concentrated brine as a waste product which can be harmful to aquatic ecosystems.

There is no way that collective action takes place without individuals making changes in their own lives. Yes, the rich are more responsible than the poor and yes, what we need is systematic change. However, there absolutely are things we can and should be doing to reduce our own impact and put pressure on polluting industries through direct action and boycott.

These include stopping or reducing flying, eliminating or drastically reducing our consumption of meat and dairy, buying second hand where possible, repairing, recycling and supporting environmental action and rewilding efforts. None of this in isolation will mend the world but its a hell of a lot better than passing the buck while refusing to make any changes in our own lives.

I know that the idea that climate change is caused by someone else; somewhere else, and that it’s up to them to change instead of us is seductive rhetoric, but it’s also extremely dangerous. It encourages the kind of apathy that plays directly into the hands of corporations who want us to feel powerless and to continue to consume as we do now.

“In the original press release accompanying the report, CDP said: “100 active fossil fuel producers including ExxonMobil, Shell, BHP Billiton and Gazprom are linked to 71% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.”

“This means that the total estimated cumulative greenhouse gas emissions released by human activity (excluding carbon dioxide from land use, land use change and forestry, and agricultural methane) between 1988 and 2015, 71% of those emissions originated from 100 fossil fuel producers. This includes the emissions from producing fossil fuels (like oil, coal and gas), and the subsequent use of the fossil fuels they sell to other companies. Therefore, it might not come as such a surprise that these 100 entities are linked to 71% of human activity-related greenhouse gas emissions, since all 100 are fossil fuel producers.”

State-of-the-art AI models tend to flatter users, and that praise makes people more convinced that they're right and less willing to resolve conflicts, recent research suggests. These models, in other words, potentially promote social and psychological harm. Computer scientists from Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon University have evaluated 11 current machine learning models and found that all of them tend to tell people what they want to hear. The authors – Myra Cheng, Cinoo Lee, Pranav Khadpe, Sunny Yu, Dyllan Han, and Dan Jurafsky – describe their findings in a preprint paper titled, "Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence." "Across 11 state-of-the-art AI models, we find that models are highly sycophantic: they affirm users’ actions 50 percent more than humans do, and do so even in cases where user queries mention manipulation, deception, or other relational harms," the authors state in their paper.

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The risk posed by sycophancy may appear to be innocuous flattery, the researchers say, but that's not necessarily the case. They point to research showing that LLMs encourage delusional thinking and to a recent lawsuit [PDF] against OpenAI alleging that ChatGPT actively helped a young man explore methods of suicide. "If the social media era offers a lesson, it is that we must look beyond optimizing solely for immediate user satisfaction to preserve long-term well-being," the authors conclude. "Addressing sycophancy is critical for developing AI models that yield durable individual and societal benefit."

So I can’t brush my teeth. Like, it’s the worst kind of hell. I went to the dentist for a cleaning today and I told the hygienist this, and she was wonderfully helpful.

There are some incredibly soft toothbrushes available- namely, post-surgical brushes. Running them under hot water makes them even softer.

She told me that you don’t really need to use toothpaste- it’s mostly marketing. The foam gets to me, so that is really reassuring.

She gave me two particularly soft brushes and some xylitol gum. Trident is a market brand of xylitol gum, which helps with your teeth and can make your breath smell better.

The whole purpose of brushing is to disrupt plaque buildup. You don’t need to brush twice a day, every day with toothpaste if you brush correctly- little circles, focusing on near the gums (where most plaque builds up). So if you’re having a bad sensory day and can’t brush at all, it’s not the end of the world.

Hell, you don’t even need a toothbrush if even the post-surgical ones are too harsh. Going over your teeth with the same motions using a washcloth is enough.

She wants to find a fluoride rinse that has a taste I can stand (peppermint is the only mint I can stand) but she’s not particularly worried about it.

I go to Dr. Barr in Chicago. If you can get to the State St. Macy’s, his office is nearby. He’s very kind and patient and really understanding of my needs as an autistic person. The hygienist, I don’t know her name, announced everything she was going to do before she did it, and stopped frequently to see how I was doing.

This is really the only positive dentist I’ve ever had- past dentists have been too rough and not bothered to help find ways I can actually brush.

It also has a lot of different kinds of stitches you can do that make different densities of fabric.

I was surprised that I’d never heard of it though. It’s older than knitting and crocheting and even though it’s been done all over the world it’s super relevant to Nordic culture and my grandmother and I are both into keeping in touch with our roots a bit so I’m surprised I’ve never heard of it.

It’s also a lot easier to freehand and adjust as you go than crochet or knitting and you mostly go by inches instead of rows and number of stitches so a large number of accessories like stitch markers or whatever isn’t really necessary.

That's bad enough!!!!!!!! But the entire idea of needing permission from state authorities to access anything labeled mature by our friendly AI overlords is some fucking Boll shit. Die Gedenken Sind Frie baby. This is all a reaction to people getting uppity about their lowly lowly rights and is being propped up by the same bad actors tht have made life unlivable. Fuck that shit.

"Well it's only being rolled out in Brazil and UK" Yeah, to start. "Well they're being forced to do this by laws." YOu know it's always really funny when these tech giants (Or whatever you call owning tumblr dot com) get really antsy about laws considering they pick and choose which ones they abide by.

Refuse Dystopia vol.01

Refuse Dystopia is a SolarPunk zine created to inform and inspire its readers into living more sustainably and harbor hope for the future. This volume focuses on the basics of SolarPunk, self-help guides, and has interviews with people who've done work to make their work environment more sustainable. A more extensive list of resources can be found here, created by @justalittlesolarpunk.