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What if Trump’s campaign is cover for a slow-motion coup?
  • I hear you that it's tiring and intimidating dealing with fascists. That said I don't think it's factual to say they only need to win once, and believing so creates a strategic disadvantage.

    Factually, world war 2 is the classic example of fascists needing to win continually and being unable to do it. The Nazis had a good showing in an election, Hitler was made chancellor and then they used that foot in the door to take over the government and seize many countries. But they lost in the end, and that was a result of resistance, not just militarily but the sum of every individual act of opposition.

    There's a concept of anticipatory obedience. Corporations and local governments sometimes fell over themselves to do what they thought the fascist government would ask before the actual ask. Even if Trump seized power, that wouldn't be the end. They need us to cooperate. And by resisting in a concrete way (not just #resist posting of course) we will stop fascism.

    It's never over. Fascism is destined to lose. It's a question of how much suffering and injustice can we avoid by defeating it sooner.

    And believing like they want us to believe, that it's all over, is a strategic disadvantage. If we believe we're beaten or that victory is impossible we'll act that way. Believe that we can win, and spread that belief, and we'll act that way.

  • October surprise: Trump just blew a huge lead, and the Madison Square Garden rally started the drop, says top data scientist
  • The article spent a lot of time speculating about the reasons why one candidate or the other had a lead, without providing any data. Then it gets to this guy's model, and it's based off predictit??

    I think Harris pulls this off, but as problematic as some polls can be, betting markets are even less reliable. This article essentially means nothing.

  • Introducing ChatGPT search
  • I think it would have helped for the person who posted that to include context, but I would guess they were linking because it also talks about how Kagi isn't privacy focused.

  • Introducing ChatGPT search
  • The linked post goes into detail about why the author views Kagi as not privacy oriented, and that in the author's opinion Kagi is overly focused on AI. (And was originally started as an AI company)

  • Terminating a process
  • Is there some Linux equivalent to "ctrl + alt + del?" I get that killing a process from the terminal is preferred, but one of the few things I like about windows is if the GUI freezes up, I can pretty much always kill the process by pressing ctrl+alt+del and finding it in task manager. Using Linux if I don't already have the terminal open there are plenty of times I'm just force restarting the computer because I don't know what else to do.

  • Man survives monthlong ordeal in US park on a mushroom, berries and water
  • I didn't come up with the advice, just relating what I've read a few times. So maybe that's not representative of the current advice.

    That said, moving downhill isn't really random. Gravity is a universal rule, and water moves downhill. Humans for our entire existence have needed water for survival, and eventually for agriculture. So we tend to gather around it.

    I've also read if you're lost advice to stay where you are, but that's in a scenario where you expect people to know where you are and to come looking for you. Probably a tough call to make in this case, plus the guy had his dog with him.

    Specifics of this situation aside, I don't think 20 miles is that hard of a push. I'd expect to be able to do that in a day or two.

  • Man survives monthlong ordeal in US park on a mushroom, berries and water
  • I'm just a hiking enthusiast, no expert, but I've read that if you're lost in a remote area with no chance of rescue that you should move downhill. Eventually you'll find a stream or creek. If you continue downhill following it eventually you'll reach a human settlement. Better to focus on finding people in the first couple days than securing food/water.

  • How are we going to have evidence in trials when deep fakes and AI is getting so perfect at "being real"?
  • You're right, cameras can be tricked. As Descartes pointed out there's very little we can truly be sure of, besides that we ourselves exist. And I think deepfakes are going to be a pretty challenging development in being confident about lots of things.

    I could imagine something like photographers with a news agency using cameras that generate cryptographically signed photos, to ward off claims that newsworthy events are fake. It would place a higher burden on naysayers, and it would also become a story in itself if it could be shown that a signed photo had been faked. It would become a cause for further investigation, it would threaten a news agency's reputation.

    Going further I think one way we might trust people we aren't personally standing in front of would be a cryptographic circle of trust. I "sign" that I know and trust my close circle of friends and they all do the same. When someone posts something online, I could see "oh, this person is a second degree connection, that seems fairly likely to be true" vs "this is a really crazy story if true, but I have no second or third or fourth degree connections with them, needs further investigation."

    I'm not saying any of this will happen, just it's potentially a way to deal with uncertainty from AI content.

  • How are we going to have evidence in trials when deep fakes and AI is getting so perfect at "being real"?
  • Well as I said, I think there's a collection of things we already use for judging what's true, this would just be one more tool.

    A cryptographic signature (in the original sense, not just the Bitcoin sense) means that only someone who possesses a certain digital key is able to sign something. In the case of a digitally signed photo, it verifies "hey I, key holder, am signing this file". And if the file is edited, the signed document won't match the tampered version.

    Is it possible someone could hack and steal such a key? Yes. We see this with certificates for websites, where some bad actor is able to impersonate a trusted website. (And of course when NFT holders get their apes stolen)

    But if something like that happened it's a cause for investigation, and it leaves a trail which authorities could look into. Not perfect, but right now there's not even a starting point for "did this image come from somewhere real?"

  • How are we going to have evidence in trials when deep fakes and AI is getting so perfect at "being real"?
  • In this case, digitally signing an image verifies that the image was generated by a specific camera (not just any camera of that brand) and that the image generated by that camera looks such and such a way. If anyone further edits the image the hash won't match the one from the signature, so it will be apparent it was tampered with.

    What it can't do is tell you if someone pasted a printout of some false image over the lens, or in some other sophisticated way presented a doctored scene to the camera. But there's nothing preventing us from doing that today.

    The question was about deepfakes right? So this is one tool to address that, but certainly not the only one the legal system would want to use.

  • How are we going to have evidence in trials when deep fakes and AI is getting so perfect at "being real"?
  • I think other answers here are more essential - chain of custody, corroborating evidence, etc.

    That said, Leica has released a camera that digitally signs its images, and other manufacturers are working on similar things. That will allow people to verify whether the image is original or has been edited. From what I understand Leica has some scheme where you can sign images when you update them too, so there's a whole chain of documentation. Here's a brief article

  • Anon gives up dating apps
  • Yeah, I wouldn't recommend a bar either. Try taking a class, joining some sort of athletic thing (jogging, cycling, yoga) volunteering somewhere. Go to a place where you're doing an activity with a group, and the focus isn't dating. Takes the pressure off and allows for getting to know people naturally.

  • What would you replace the "pledge of allegiance" with?

    In the US most students recite "the pledge of allegiance" every morning before school, which is kind of crazy. If you were in charge, what if anything would you replace it with?

    114
    What are the most important holidays for each major religion?

    I just saw a discussion among corporate event planners where one person was upset that event organizers don't give proper consideration to scheduling over top of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

    I can appreciate the annoyance, when I was still a practicing Christian I would never think to schedule a work thing over Easter or Christmas. We should treat others with consideration, and should be mindful of what others view as important days. But I also don't know what each religion considers to be major, non negotiable holidays. Do you?

    Another question, does it matter where the event is? (for example, in the US should less consideration be given to holidays of religions that have fewer adherents?)

    44
    Does anyone make a wearable mic set that can do audio POV field recordings?

    I know people can wear two video cameras to recreate a first person experience in virtual reality. I also know they make those mannequin head stereo mic sets that create interesting spacial audio, supposedly because they mimic the head's shape and position of our ears.

    Instead of the dummy head, does anyone make a mic set that you can wear, with the mics in approximately the position of our ears / ear shaped?

    I was thinking you could do some interesting things with that, like recording a band in their practice space from the perspective of the band members. Or tracking lead vocals where the singer is singing to a person wearing the mic set.

    5
    What other animals "make music" together? (Specifically harmony or rhythmic coordination)

    Some animals sing (birds, whales) and plenty of animals make sounds together at roughly the same time (wolves howling, prairie dogs yelling at threats). Are there animals that harmonize? Or animals that make sound that's rhythmically coordinated, like has a time signature?

    Guess I'm asking about more finely coordinated sounds. It's something that's pretty neat about human music.

    12
    How I got a truly anonymous Signal account
    theintercept.com How I Got a Truly Anonymous Signal Account

    Yes, you can use Signal without sharing your personal phone number. Here’s how I did it.

    How I Got a Truly Anonymous Signal Account

    Doesn't seem especially practical, but I thought folks here might be interested in this method. With the increasing scarcity of pay phones I suspect it might be equally as "easy" to get a burner cell phone with cash and register a signal account that way.

    8
    Are there foods that dogs can safely eat but humans can't?

    No, not talking about their own shit or vomit, har de har. I mean how dogs can't have chocolate, can't eat grapes. Are there things it's no big deal for them but would be toxic for us.

    48
    Anyone here heard of Wikifunctions, and if so what do you think?

    Just learned that Wikimedia has a project called Wikifunctions. I'm a big fan of Wikipedia and associated projects, and on its face sounds like a cool site. I do wonder how this would work in practical terms though, like how could it actually be used?

    6
    In what scenario is conscription acceptable? (if any)

    Prompted by another thread about conscription in Ukraine.

    35
    If you're thinking about something and reach a conclusion that's super outside the mainstream, you could be right, but also could mean you should reinspect your assumptions.

    I saw a post on lemmy about how we could prevent 133 holocausts by promoting animal rights and veganism. The article opened by doing some math about how many dogs you could torture and kill in order to be equivalent to taking a human life, and then how many animals humans kill, and concluded that we're committing holocaust equivalents many times over.

    I have respect for people who question the status quo and think seriously about morality. Thinking about slavery, it used to be argued "this is the natural order," "this is actually the moral thing to do" and so on. It wasn't easy then to stand up for what we now see as the obvious moral position. So I have some receptivity to this type of argument.

    That said, I think back to when I was a Christian (atheist now), and was fully bought into the anti abortion movement. They argued that fetuses were human, that we were committing fetus holocausts all the time. Taking that view to its logical conclusion, one could justify things like killing a few (abortion doctors, judges) to save many (fetuses).

    The author of the vegan piece was not advocating for such things. But one could ask why not. I think the fact the conclusion (133 holocausts) is so far outside accepted views should prompt some examination of the starting premises. (Is any killing of an animal for food the same as torturous factory farming, should we do something about animals that eat other animals etc)

    I'm glad I read the piece because there's value in hearing other perspectives. We can't see ourselves and our own blind spots. I would have responded in-thread but that community description said "not a place for debate", so tossing out this thought here.

    13
    Q: “Are we doomed?” A: “We would be, if not for the amazing developments in renewable energy.”
    powering-the-planet.ghost.io Clean Power and Storage Wars

    When people find out what I do for work, it’s not unusual for them to ask, “Are we doomed?” My usual response is, “We would be, if not for the amazing developments in renewable energy.” We know the people willing to destroy the planet for personal gain are still

    Clean Power and Storage Wars

    I wasn't aware just how good the news is on the green energy front until reading this. We still have a tough road in the short/medium term, but we are more or less irreversibly headed in the right direction.

    45
    Idea: government funded parties with attendees selected by sortition: "Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Party" "Lincoln County Party"

    Every week or every month each level of government throws a party funded with taxpayer dollars, and attendees are selected at random from the residents and given advance notice of the party schedule.

    4
    What should I know about buying / replacing a garage door opener?

    My default buying process is research + spreadsheet creation, this time thought I'd ask the community here if you have any experience / wisdom with garage door openers. Thanks for any help!

    Additional info: Single car garage built in the 1950s in the U.S. The current opener is a lift master, just eyeballing it probably from the 90s. The door could be original? I don't know. It's wood, seems fairly substantial.

    Yesterday and this morning started having issues with the door just stopping in the middle of opening or closing. When it stops, the remote button becomes unresponsive for a few seconds. When it starts moving again it goes the other direction so you have to keep pressing and try to get it to close/open before it stops again. This morning I ended up pulling it down part of the way because I'd gone through several rounds of up, down, up, down. It doesn't seem to want to move manually which isn't surprising. Worried my car is going to get stuck in there before work so I figure should probably be proactive here.

    17
    What are legitimate arguments for legalization of gambling?

    Question inspired by the news that Dave and Busters is supposed to be adding gambling to their games. And of course there are the sports betting apps.

    I get that all things being equal we should let people do what they want to do. But I don't see much of a benefit, and a lot of downside to allowing the spread of gambling.

    25
    Some disaster has befallen society: you have to secure a month of food for you and three other people. How do you do it?

    Let's assume no zombies or other supernatural occurrences, but could be plenty of people being shitty, consequences thereof, or natural disasters

    Edit: to expand on this, presumably if society has temporarily or permanently collapsed there would be issues with things like deliveries, security, digital transactions, utility service etc. Feel free to use whichever scenario seems most likely to you, I'm asking more because I was thinking how screwed I'd be if I was just out of food after say, seven days.

    39
    What does it take to get a constitutional amendment ratified in the U.S.?

    I don't mean the actual rules of passing it, I mean what organization, activities and funding are necessary to do so.

    The last one passed was in 1992 and it was just about congressional pay. Last one before that was 1971. Is there some kind of play book? It seems to happen so infrequently that it would be hard to study and conditions would vary enough that the last effort wouldn't be useful as a model.

    ("The amendment process is very difficult and time consuming: A proposed amendment must be passed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, then ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states." Link)

    16
    If you could guarantee that one action you undertake would be successful, what would it be?

    We're talking actions limited to something one human could achieve - so not wishes, but could be something amazing or rare like "become president"

    58
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)LE
    LesserAbe @lemmy.world
    Posts 75
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