I’m kinda agreeing with this, but not as much for the reasons others are stating here.

Lemmy reminds me of reddit moreso in the fact that there is a lot of conversation here that just… isn’t really conversation. People read a headline, immediately form conclusions, and slam one-line comments down that state the bare-bones of that without any thought, without even checking if someone else has said the exact same thing.

And I don’t think most of that’s bots, either. I think it’s the structure of the software. Lemmy seems to be trying to be “reddit, but federated” with absolutely nothing more changed, and I think that’s a massive mistake. I’ve seen what thread-based social media can be like if an attempt is made to actually improve on reddit, and there’s several methods of doing so that work. Methods that encourage healthy interaction and behavior instead of whatever drives numbers the most. Beehaw even already implements many of them in the form of its core principles and moderation strategy!

But that still leaves the software. And the software doesn’t seem to give a damn about the problems inherent to downvoting, upvoting, having visible votes on posts at all, having the easiest thing to interact with be the comment box, etc. Lemmy copies an engagement-oriented site without stripping the toxicity of that. And it shows.

I’m not planning to leave or anything right now – I came here for Beehaw and I still like Beehaw, and I don’t browse outside of it – but man if I don’t have my frustrations.

Your reasoning here appears to be “this solution isn’t thorough enough” with a later-added mix-in of “therefore it is all a lie to trick you.” Which immediately breaks down, as perfect is not the enemy of good, and even if it was a lie (which is a non-sequitur, by the way) then banning some AI is still better than banning none.

I’m not gonna debate it, though. I’ve rewritten this comment three times now because I need to say my piece in a civil manner and that’s hard to do when I’ve just watched someone shit on one of the few pieces of good news I’ve seen in weeks. I’ve done that now, so I’m out.

which OpenAI designed to feel like a user’s closest confidant.

“AI safety,” they cry, as they design some of the most preposterous and dangerously stupid things imaginable. I swear, Silicon Valley only uses creativity when they want to invent a new kind of Torment Nexus to use as a goal for Q4.

Making something like this should be a crime. LLMs are not a replacement for therapy and should never be treated like one.

Hard disagree. This is overdone tripe, which is what AI is best at. Hell, it’s definitionally overdone — need a large dataset to regurgitate this stuff, after all.

At any rate, this text got a man killed, so probably best not to praise it.

or Brave

Uuhhh, yeah, no. Don’t do this. Librewolf – or really any Firefox browser, even with how Mozilla is right now – is going to be a lot better choice than the homophobia-and-crypto Chromium browser.

I agree that calling these low-poly multiplayer games “slop” is terrible, because there is clearly a ton of love and effort poured into them.

Depends on the game. Lethal Company? I wouldn’t call that slop at all. Content Warning? Yeah, no, that’s slop. It was a fun little jaunt to try it out for free, but that game felt so shallow and burned out on me so incredibly fast that if I had paid anything for it I’d probably have felt ripped off.

To me, “friendslop” doesn’t necessarily mean the game isn’t fun or has “bad graphics,” it instead means that it 1) relies heavily on friends to be fun and 2) has some element of feeling like either a cash-in or a low-effort project. I don’t count Lethal Company because it doesn’t have either issue for me. Content Warning, meanwhile, was worthless to me in singleplayer and relied so thoroughly on the camera as a gimmick that it feels like the epitome of the term. Hell, it was literally made as a break from a larger project, so I think it cinches the “low-effort” part, at least relative to other games.

R.E.P.O., however – which you didn’t mention but which I still have thoughts on – I’m torn on. On one hand, the gameplay is a more detailed and engaging form of what Lethal Company has, and it can easily be fun alone. On the other, the way semiwork interacts with their community in their news videos feels like Youtube engagement rot so strongly that it taints the game for me by extension; it (and their emoji abuse) makes me feel like the game has the “love and passion” of a dorm room dildo prank, even though it’s well-put-together enough that there’s no way that’s the case.

Edit: I should probably also add that it is absolutely possible for me to feel that a game does have love & passion behind its development, and yet still qualify to me as friendslop. I think the best way to explain this would be to liken it to a Youtuber who makes engaging and deep videos, but who also uses a lot of clickbait and algorithm-hacks to drive engagement too. It’s not that so much that the developer is being a bad or careless person so much as it is that the game itself has an ick about it, which is unfortunately always going to be extremely subjective and ill-defined. As another example: I called PEAK friendslop when I first played, softened up on that feeling over time (especially when the very excellent Mesa update hit), and then the feeling came right back when they announced some concert or other occurring in the game like they were Fortnite.

So, from the way you talk about it, it seems you’re describing your feelings about the game moreso than an attempt at an objective take. Which is good, because there is no such thing as an objective take, and I definitely understand the perspective of not liking something that you feel is inexplicably ultra-popular. Especially if you feel that there was something you liked more that you’d rather see get the award.

That said, I do wonder how much you’ve seen of the game? Because I haven’t played it either, but everything I’ve seen strongly suggests that it is a genuine work of art that people put effort and passion into. Which – since you brought it up – is not a description I’d apply to Battlefield 6. So I’m kinda left wondering what specifically about it might put you off enough to want to slag it off like this.

If you’re upset at it for winning a billion awards, that’s fair. Most awards shows are always very silly and this one game getting practically showered honestly highlights that a lot — even a really good game like this probably didn’t deserve quite this many accolades. Still though, it looks to have a clear message, purpose, with good art and gameplay to go along. I think that deserves some awards.

Expedition 33 is definitely a good game. I’m sure the Indie Game Awards judges would still heartily agree with you on that, too. None of that has anything to do with lying about GenAI use on a disclosure form for an awards show that specifically forbids GenAI use.

I get that you love the game and by extension the studio, but this was still a mistake on their part. They broke the rules, they lose the award. Letting them cheat this would’ve seriously undermined the integrity of the IGA, not to mention further enabling the use of AI in game dev.

This is most of it, but it is worth remembering that using GenAI/LLMs for placeholders is still bad. It’s strictly unnecessary, has dubious efficiency gains at best, and you’re still using tech that is provably hurting people and the environment en masse.

I’m not going to hate Sandfall forever for this – it’s not original sin – but it’s still a very real error they should not repeat.

It is a blogging site, but it’s also notable for being in favor of free-speech absolutism, to the point of allowing Nazis on the platform. From Wikipedia:

In January 2022, the Center for Countering Digital Hate accused Substack of allowing content that could be dangerous to public health. The Center estimated that the company earned $2.5 million per year from the top five anti-vaccine authors alone. The three founders responded via blog post affirming their commitment to minimal censorship.

Substack faced further criticism in November 2023 for allowing its platform to be used by white nationalists, Nazis, and antisemites. In an open letter, more than 100 Substack creators threatened to leave the platform and implored Substack’s leadership to stop giving bigotry a platform. In response, Substack CEO Hamish McKenzie said the company would continue to allow the publication of extremist views because attempting to censor them would make the problem worse. Creators like Casey Newton, Molly White, and Ryan Broderick left the platform as a result.

Doesn’t really matter if they say it’s praise or not. The reality is that it’s free press, and hardly could be said to be negative. It benefits them.

If I’m being honest, I don’t think Grok posts deserve attention here. This isn’t news; we already know Grok is shit because LLMs are shit and Elon is extremely shit. We really don’t need reminders.

All this does is draw people’s attention to more slop and hate, same as they’ve been seeing all year. That’s not just unimportant, it’s unhealthy.

FUD

What is this, a crypto forum? You make it sound like they’re trying to single-handedly tear down GrapheneOS or something.

As time goes ever onward, I find myself increasingly in the position of using Firefox solely because it isn’t Chromium, rather than because of any inherent good quality.

Which is not to say that Firefox isn’t still at least fine as a browser. But this is what Mozilla is now, and if there’s anything the leaders of that organization are doing, it is that they are committing corporate suicide because none of those idiots know their foot from their mouth. Firefox can’t stay decent with money-men at the helm.

I swear, getting a business major should be considered self-harm.

Well that’s a non-sequitur if I’ve ever seen one.

The fundamental issue is and has always been that automation is being used to replace people, when it should be used to free up their time. Productivity increases could’ve meant shorter work weeks. But that didn’t generate as much money for the shareholders, so it didn’t get pursued. And now we’ve got LLMs and generative AI, which could’ve been a (admittedly rather shitty and niche) tool, but for the same reasons as before, companies would rather throw people under the bus instead.

Artists aren’t telling you that people washing dishes don’t matter. They’re telling you they might be getting fired just like those dishwashers were. If you care about either, I suggest standing up for the artists here. And once that’s done, they can stand up for everyone else right back. I think you’ll find they’d be happy to return the favor.

You were the only one here suggesting this required an explanation.

Alright, I think you’re being deliberately antagonistic now. Bye!

I was suggesting that no one else needs it explained to them either.

You’d hope so! But alas, some idiots exist. And when a title like this appears, it becomes difficult to tell if such an idiot wrote it at first glance, and more to point, a title like that tends to create more idiots (and it’s also just kinda offensive). That’s why it’s important not to write headlines like this.

Sidenote: If you want people to not take things personally, avoid personal pronouns. “Is that something that you need explained?” → “Is that something that people need explained?” It makes a world of difference and I’m confident I’ve avoided several arguments that could’ve spawned from my own posts thanks to making that kind of change. Not foolproof, sure – we are on the internet – but it helps.

You didn’t stop reading? Then it’s a bit weird that you’d think I don’t know autistic people have empathy, unless you decided to arbitrarily take the most bad faith reading you could’ve done. If that’s the case, I recommend taking breathers before posting so that you don’t do that.

Did you stop reading the rest of the post when you saw that? Because it really looks like you did.