Posts by XauriEL@mastodon.nz
 (DIR) Post #ASjvs7hZL5DTOKvg8m by XauriEL@mastodon.nz
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       Let's take another stab at that #introduction! #queer #goth #satanist #socialist #scifi #author - That's me! #Canadian and #NewZealand dual citizen. Employed in legal #cannabis retail. #TabletopRPG and #boardgame maven, #MTGArena f2p grinder, advocate of the #humanities, #autodidacticism, and #OpenEducation. Lover of #metal and #Industrial music. I mostly post rants about #politics, so if you don't like that, feel free to ignore me
       
 (DIR) Post #B7ohojuBUVXVq1yz8i by XauriEL@mastodon.nz
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       @mullvadnet @astro @lostgen "we don't personally donate to nazis, but we're totally ok with our co-owner doing so" is a hell of a way to try and defend yourselves
       
 (DIR) Post #B7ohouOKVHawMQACW0 by XauriEL@mastodon.nz
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       Fresh newsletter incoming in one week! What new territory is Xauri'EL Zwaan forging into? Sign up to receive a free ebook, and if you're not convinced, sample a bit of the archive and take a look at what you're missing!https://www.books.xaurielzwaan.ca/NewsletterArchive#SciFi #ScienceFiction #AmWriting
       
 (DIR) Post #B7ohouQSNNIQT19tpY by XauriEL@mastodon.nz
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       Trans/Port, an anthology of queer speculative fiction featuring my trans cyberpunk story "Conversion", is now available for preorder! It's releasing July 1st, and is on sale for $1.99 until July 8th, so reserve your copy now!https://draft2digital.com/book/4305329#SciFi #ScienceFiction #Queer #Trans
       
 (DIR) Post #B7ohouRsI6QkXPp22a by XauriEL@mastodon.nz
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       There was such a good response to d66 Weed Strains, I dressed it up a bit and put it on itch. When the wizard hits that fat blunt, what strain are they smoking? Use this system-agnostic table to find out. Happy Free RPG Day!https://xauriel.itch.io/d66-weed-strains#TTRPG #Cannabis #FreeRPGDay
       
 (DIR) Post #B7qxdA0bFDZOhljwh6 by XauriEL@mastodon.nz
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       I am getting sick of this conflating of every case of "computer use algorithm" into the single gelid blob of "AI" making it impossible to have a productive conversation on the subjectWhen people say they're "against AI", they usually mean certain specific things. "Image generators displacing human-made art" and "LLM summarizers and chatbots being shoved into every software and website we use regardless of our preferences", maybe with a side of "black box deep learning algorithms being used for predictive policing and determining court sentences" and the like if they're particularly woke.We don't like AI books being sold alongside real ones. We don't like ChatGPT being used to write scientific papers or legal briefs. We don't want AI slop code used in the programs we depend on every day. We especially don't like the next generation of children and youth being taught that this is the normal and accepted way of doing things.We do not mean spellcheck, or machine translation, or optical character recognition. We do not mean procedural generation or enemy pathfinding in video games. And whatever genuinely beneficial use case you are bundling into "AI" when you tell us that we shouldn't be blanket against it, if it doesn't fall under the above rubric, we don't mean that either.We are against the de-skilling of the human species and the wholesale replacement of the output of our brains with low-quality machine-generated trash. If we can keep whatever your brilliant "AI" hack is while eliminating all the rest of this crap, I'm all for it. But using those edge cases and overdefinitions to delegitimaze criticism of AI in the broad strokes is at best repeating bad-faith propaganda. Stop it.
       
 (DIR) Post #B7qxdChDFkqR2Vh0OO by XauriEL@mastodon.nz
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       As a clarification: if you don't want your super useful "AI" tool caught up in "anti-AI hysteria", the quickest and easiest solution is to STOP CALLING IT AISorry but I didn't set the terms of the debate. The whole point here is that techbro propagandists are deliberately conflating all kinds of disparate technologies with their plagiarism machines so they can go "see, AI is super useful, everyone uses it and everyone likes it, so you have no grounds for objecting in any way to what we are doing (and if you do you're ableist)"Will you please for the love of Lord Satan stop carrying their water
       
 (DIR) Post #B8mJfU5Cq5DnSzXhLs by XauriEL@mastodon.nz
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       Serious Finance People: A green transition would require way too much investment and cause way too much economic dislocation, it's completely unrealistic, we have no choice but to keep drilling for more oilAlso Serious Finance People: We're throwing trillions of dollars at AI nobody wants because we can't tell the difference between a business prospectus and a science fiction novel
       
 (DIR) Post #B8mJfeGYyiFR36vuRU by XauriEL@mastodon.nz
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       Fresh newsletter incoming in one week! This one's a bit heavy, but never fear, there will be giveaways and book and game recs as usual. Dip your toe into the archives, and if you like what you read, sign up to receive a free ebook!https://www.books.xaurielzwaan.ca/NewsletterArchive#SciFi #ScienceFiction #AmWriting
       
 (DIR) Post #B8mJffq38GEBvSXlOS by XauriEL@mastodon.nz
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       I've got new bonus content up on Patreon! Follow my profile for a free sneak peek at the opening chapter of my cyberpunk novel Hashing Function. More to come, locked to followers and patrons only!https://www.patreon.com/xauriel/posts/sneak-peek-ch-1-164400830#ScienceFiction #SciFi