MemesNew research shows that US and European sanctions have killed 38 million people since 1970.
https://jasonhickel.substack.com/p/the-staggering-death-toll-of-western?r=5n37y
Hey OP here's a non AI alternative so that the Fuck AI crowd can care about the brown people.
so that the Fuck AI crowd can care about the brown people
How can you possibly make such a vile distortion of the general reaction? The comments have been very clear in explaining the problems of using AI slop. It's not even a particularly challenging meme given the community we're in. The British Empire being a plight upon the Global South and capitalism killing millions of people are largely agreed upon here.
Here is a meme from a year ago, that roughly makes the same point, from this same community, by Yogthos no less: https://lemmy.ml/post/36383656
Capitalism being bad, and especially so towards the Global South, is not a point of contention here, as both things have been extensively said and discussed. The reason why people are reacting like this now is because, this time, a corporate service with extremely serious societal and environmental consequences has been used to repeat this already well-established point, and OP is acting a bit weird and defensive when being called out about it.
I don't think it is bad to repeat already established points, especially as libs keep overflowing every thread slightly critical with the status quo with propaganda, but comments calling OP out for doing an extremely low-effort, problematic iteration of this point are completely legitimate.
I don't think it's a gross distortion of reality. Your reaction kinda proves my point.
There were so many people here who were like "Umm downvote cause AI" OP clearly said they reshared what they found, so they didn't use the AI either. So I figured id help and I even made the nice non AI version and took the time to not even pick that pedophile Drake, and who doesn't love Miku?
You still got upset that you got called out and lashed outward instead of checking yourself inward.
Also, literally told to my face that it was good Indians were colonized cause at least that brought capitalism there, as tho free trade never existed in the region before. 🙄
I think you are greatly overstating my reaction here. All my comments are relatively long because I suck at being concise and I don't want to be misunderstood, but I maybe should have been a bit wiser and notice that there are literally no good intentions or good faith in your attitude. It is after all required to act in bad faith to get this defensive about AI slop and get this far assuming other people's intentions.
Also, literally told to my face that it was good Indians were colonized cause at least that brought capitalism there, as tho free trade never existed in the region before. 🙄
I'm sorry about this, I guess? I quite literally did not mean this and it came to me as a surprise that you got this from my comment, and it's the reason why I am replying once again. I apologize if I said something that implies this or results from colonial bias implying this. I want to make it clear that this claim is very much not in line with my world view. It is also not clear to me what I said that led to this misunderstanding.
That said, this apology is certainly half-hearted. I have enough reasons to assume that you are acting in bad faith and pulling the most inflammatory accusations you possibly can.
The miku meme is cool, though. I wish it wasn't accompanied with such an incendiary caption.
You're literally sitting and complaining about the P's and Q's. There's a bunch of people in the comment section literally going slop slop and not caring about what's being said. So maybe it wasn't for you. Have you considered taht? Its like saying all men are suck, if you're the type to get upset by that then you're the problem.
I want to assume we got off on the wrong foot. If you like the meme, and OPs meme then the caption wasn't for you. Teh caption was literally for OP.
I'm sorry for any misunderstanding.
Its frustrating to be told no how you're saying what you're saying is incorrect, when what's being said is pretty important. If you can ignore what I'm saying then you're also justifying what happened, cause the medium is more important than the message. I hope that clarifies why I'm frustrated.
Its frustrating to be told no how you're saying what you're saying is incorrect, when what's being said is pretty important. If you can ignore what I'm saying then you're also justifying what happened, cause the medium is more important than the message. I hope that clarifies why I'm frustrated.
Fair, but you lashed out at me directly, you referred to my reaction specifically, and I have the responsibility to take seriously criticism that is a priori directed at me, lest I say "heh, they're not talking about me" when you do mean something I, specifically, said or did wrong.
I think your frustration over the "form over content" concern trolling is completely legitimate and justified, but I also think that you are wrong at underestimating the massive problem that generative AI entails, which other comments were concerned about. Is this post not the place to do so? Yogthos has been spamming this community lately with AI slop memes, and making fun of anyone displaying any concern at all. OP has also contributed a fair bit to the spam. The content of those memes themselves are pretty reasonable and they tackle issues that need to be talked about. They can all be talked about without contributing to AI companies burning the world faster than it ever has burned before.
Where is the place to talk about this? AI slop is not moderated against, so it needs to be discussed somewhere. I understand that your ideology is one such that imperialist damage on the Global South takes priority over generative AI, and I think that is reasonable, but you need to respect that the damage caused by generative AI is also a genuine concern (that also disproportionately affects the Global South!) and people have a right to be angry about that in the space they have available for it.
I hope we have reached a common understanding.
Also, literally told to my face that it was good Indians were colonized cause at least that brought capitalism there, as tho free trade never existed in the region before. 🙄
Damn, and you’re being shit on for lightly spelling out the subtext when your intuition was right all along.
Perks of being me ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Imagine coming on here as a South Asian, with your entire ethnicity becoming target for vile bigotry across the entirety of social media and your history under British colonial rule largely forgotten to make way for dubious accounts of communism brutality, finally seeing a meme acknowledging the gross injustices committed by the British, whose consequences are rearing their ugly heads to this day…only for you people to change the discussion to the meme being AI.
You wrote an entire paragraph about AI when one comment in the thread and mod action would have sufficed. Nobody knows who you are or your own biases, so people are going to be skeptical of your random crusade about something entirely unrelated to the genocide of South Asians. Why is anyone going to assume you have no ulterior motives? Because you have a .ml at the end of your name? You likely give no fucks about South Asia, rarely comment on it, but the one time you do it’s to scold a poster for making a meme.
If it’s not that it’s AI it’s going to be that it’s something else. You people will never see South Asians as worthy of discussion and humanity.
As I replied to the other person, I suck at being concise, that is the only reason why I wrote a paragraph. But I think you are taking these assumptions way, way, way too far.
You won't find mentions of South Asia in my comment history just like you won't find mentions of most of the Global South, most of the relevant political issues, or most of anything really. I'm a lurker and I only comment when either I feel like it (almost never) or something is really bothering me (like this situation). In fact, this is my first time commenting on the AI slop invasion that is taking over this community, despite the fact that it has been bothering for some time now, because I feel it's becoming really toxic now.
Why is anyone going to assume you have no ulterior motives? Because you have a .ml at the end of your name?
Literally WHY would anybody have any reason to assume that I DO have ulterior motives? I most often abstain from commenting on issues that I'm not very knowledgeable and would rather just learn what other smarter people have to say. I don't know South Asia, I'm only vaguely aware of the atrocities that the British commited there, I think the British should pay reparations and dissolve the UK while they're at it, what else am I supposed to say?
You likely give no fucks about South Asia, rarely comment on it, but the one time you do it’s to scold a poster for making a meme. If it’s not that it’s AI it’s going to be that it’s something else
This is an excessive amount of assumption and I'm honestly borderline offended by this. This is what I mean by toxicity. I already felt that Lemmy was exhausting when I couldn't talk my mind to the .world hivemind because, guess what, they assumed I was a 'tankie' because of being on .ml, and my opinion was invalid for commiting the sin of talking positively about Hexbear. Only for a hexbear to also come and assume the worst of me just because I called out someone not for using AI slop, but for contorting other people's intentions on such a toxic way? wtf, dude, seriously, not cool
I’m sorry if my comment was pointed directly and solely on you. I hope you don’t take my comment as a direct attack on you, has nothing to do with you. I might not have done a great job in communicating that.
Thank you.
Is there any template sharing the idea shown in the meme, on how much propaganda is spread against Communism, but not even a fraction is provided to the results of Capitalist exploitation of colonies that resulted in much greater harm?
The point is not that I think the latter is more important, but the duplicity or ignorance and lack of attention compared to when the people who complain about Communism, while ignoring all the deaths due to Capitalism
I doubt there are similar memes out there.
I tend to treat AI stuff as bad jokes, there better be a good point and it better be punching up.
I think the beauty of capitalist propaganda is that it says any fault of capitalism is the fault of the individual cause personal responsibility.
Also I've heard from people (western) that it was good India was colonised cause it at least brought capitalism there.
I'd go as far as argue memes may be the most legitimate use of all for imageGen AI. A meme is literally a quick throw away idea that's meant to agitate. It doesn't need to be a beautiful piece of art, or have any sophistication. It's just a quick way to get the message across. And you often want to make it quick in response to some world event. What Iran did with Lego videos also perfectly illustrates just how effective this can be. While western left keeps doing hand wringing over AI use, people living in countries being attacked by western regimes are using this tech to get their message out.
Exactly punching up is a big factor. And fr never seem more legitimate use of it
Libs just love doing performative outrage in general. They really see leaving 'it's slop' comments on every thread as they sacred duty, it really makes them feel like they're making a difference in the world. It's basically a form of voting which is the only way they know how to participate in a society.
Always the aesthetics of civility but never civil.
indeed
Ewww AI slop :((( you could have just used any meme template, its barely any effort
Not created by me.
And as an Indian, I do not have an issue with the AI image, as long as it improves awareness.
GenAI is a product of the capitalists you're criticizing. You're being hypocritical by using it.
So are iPhones, this is just a retread of the "you critique capitalism but use an iPhone, curious" conservative joke.
IPhones aren't boiling the planet or violating copyright when you use them to make a meme.
They actually are, cobalt mining is devastating for production of iPhones produced on an annual basis for the profit motive. Copyright is a liberal value IMO, I don't really care for respecting it anyways.
I'd agree if the tool wasn't an existential threat to humanity. Making memes doesn't really justify its use
way to fall for tech bro marketing hype https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=claxN4oxDuY
No, I'm not, unless data centers doing things like illegally running dozens of natural gas generators is just tech bro marketing hype.
No, you literally are. Also, not sure what data centres have to do with anything since the models we're talking about can be run locally. I love how you trolls just memorize a handful of talking points that you regurgitate without even trying to fit them into the context.
"Cannot criticise capitalism while existing in capitalism", "Should not criticise the British colonisation, because they built some trains in colonised India. Indians who used it cannot criticise the colonisation" logic?
I do not subscribe to that logic.
GenAI is built by capitalists, but the data n info is mostly not theirs. Ending up reliant on their tool would be the bad thing.
And tactical boycotts can be good, lime how we Indians had a period where we boycotted British products. But it had an aim. Is there a current formal aim?
Cannot criticise capitalism while existing in capitalism
Not what they're saying. Critiquing your specific use of a specific tool is not the same as critiquing participation in capitalist society or consumption of capitalist goods.
Critiquing your specific use of a specific tool is not the same as critiquing participation in capitalist society or consumption of capitalist goods.
a specific tool like "trains in india"?
Seeing as how the comment we're both referring to is still there for you to read and it mentions the use of AI to generate an image macro, and not any travel for any purpose on board a train in India, I'm going to give you just one guess as to what tool you think Im referring to.
You said "Critiquing your specific use of a specific tool is not the same as critiquing participation in capitalist society or consumption of capitalist goods."
"AIGen" is a specific tool, just like "trains in india". Your counterpoint was already addressed in the comment you replied to (the one with the trains), if you count "trains in india" as a specific tool like "AI Gen". Hence my question.
That's not what the guy is saying. He's saying AI is the product of capitalism and you're trying to criticize capitalism by using one of its product, which is ironic. Just make the meme yourself (no matter how it turns out) instead of using AI.
The content of the meme is not the issue here but how it is made.
It isn't at all ironic to use tools created within the boundaries of capitalism to critique it. This is just a retread of conservatives doing the "socialism is when no iPhone" meme. Marxism is not a moral philosophy. We will not throw out all of the tools built up by capitalism when we establish socialism, we will own them collectively and run them in the interests of the working classes.
when we establish socialism
But are we there yet? Or if not then does it help when AI is being used by common people when corpos are the one controlling it? Doesn't this justify their point that people need their AI? It's wonderful to think AI as a tool collectively owned by the people but unfortunately that's not the case currently.
We aren't there, sure. That doesn't mean any LLM generated image is inherently morally wrong or upholding capitalism, just like any hammer isn't upholding capitalism.
Windows is owned by corpos and so is the phone you are using currently, ergo everything you do online is pro capitalist. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Hundreds of companies have AI products, a lot of them are completely free to run on your computer. But obviously, I can't make any kind of distinction, especially when the media is telling me all AI is bad, so I aggressively inquire and demand that all my memes are made on Linux without AI, using a computer built by a commune which cannot be connected to the Internet (all ISPs are a product of capitalism). I then send these memes by pigeon mail.
MS paint is a product of capitalism
A big share of AI is made in china under the five-year plan, which makes it a product of the communists.
Lol, China isn't communist. It's a mix of socialism and capitalism.
No, its just socialist. Socialism is a transitory state towards communism. Presence of capitalist elements does not make a state less socialist, as long as it is run by a dictatorship of the proletariat, which it is.
The intensity of the criticism being leveled against you is because of racism. You shouldn’t have admitted to being Indian. I dislike any use of AI but I’ve seen AI slop being posted inadvertently without the entire discussion, especially one as serious as genocide, being derailed with such anger.
Could be racism, but could be misdirected anger at AI too.
I think people should direct it at the corps which own and direct the AI, developing it by taking content without remuneration, especially when AI content can create copies and reduce chances of work for the people whose content is taken. Ultimately it seems to be an issue of capitalist ownership. Specific attention to it is good.
I also understand the issue of using AI for important things, creating reports, etc. with how AI can hallucinate and people being more aware there.
But I don't see the issue with an AI meme? Are they afraid that it is not human? But AI is trained on human data, developed by humans and used by humans too. Like, if their issue is AI 'stealing' stuff in the case of a meme, then are not most memes using the screenshots from movies, series', YouTube videos etc. are used without prior permission or remuneration?
So, the aspect is indeed the issue of job security for regular people vs corpos who do not care about public wellbeing, broadly the issue of capitalist ownership, right?
Okay? Its still AI slop and I still find it bad to use it when you could have made your own meme in no time at all, no matter your nationality.
Okay? I said that I do not see it like you, because of how it talked about an aspect that is not generally mentioned.
Anyway, any meme template recommendations?
And I explained that wether or not you see it differently than me does not affect my opinion on it being slop.
"Yes / No" templates are the most common style of meme out there. Have your pick or make a new one. Theres thousands. Or draw stick figures like the old days.
Okay. Thank you for your opinion then
And a yes or no template is not what would be good for this.
Also, would it not be better to use this template than popular templates like the drake onez since he has some problematic accusations on him?
Youre using a slopified yes/no meme. And there's hundreds, just use another than the Drake one.
edit: Edited to be less antagonistic.
Comrade, this is a reactionary viewpoint. Marxism is not a moral philosophy. Arguments against capitalism are not based on the idea that private property or certain tools are "morally impure."
Kindly stop being needlessly aggressive.
If not, please block me and direct your comments towards some other place.
I can think of a reason why you are so angry at this meme. But, not going to ask about your nationality or POV on such things, to not escalate.
I'll block you to avoid that escalation
What are you doing? Why are you acting like this? I don't care if you're right, you're acting like shit.
I don't disagree but downvoting for slop
The irony of them using the apex of capitalist greed 😂
Socialism is when no iPhone type of comment.
Can't even exploit my workers without these leftists purity-checking me these days! /s
Can we even calculate the total death toll of captalism? We will never fully understand the unnecessary misery that this economic system has caused.
Get this AI generated garbage out of here
get your braying out of here, nobody cares
Your bad, wordy meme is made all the worse by the slop filth you used as images. If you don't want to create something with actual effort, use a template rather than giving corpos more power for no reason.
Can you please explain how using AI to generate this image gives corporations power? I'd argue it does the opposite due to the memes anti capitalist nature.
It proves that people are using it and they use that engagement to drive investments and growth
But then we are using the internet, social media and devices controlled by corporations.
Lemmy is technically better, without corp control and by having pro-socialist instances. But is the hosting free of corpos too?
It normalizes using corporate-owned, corporate-trained, tools that inherently favor corporate perspectives and propaganda. Even an attempt to subvert capitalist messaging can get screwed up by letting the corpo clanker choose what to draw. The images are just inherently biased and weird.
Here, somehow both panels have a white-supremacist and colonialist undertone: we get a white-savior businessman explaining things to a crowd of grateful Asian people; then he's standing alone in his formal suit, framed as the only rational thinker in an exotic desert.
I understand that both of these interpretations are perhaps a bit of a stretch, but I truly believe that if OP had taken the effort to design and draw their own imagery for these panels, the imagery would not have had these weird colonialist implications that undermine their intended message.
please explain how running an open model like Z-Image on my machine normalizes corporate-owned tools, I'll wait https://huggingface.co/Tongyi-MAI/Z-Image-Turbo
Z-Image is literally made by Alibaba, c'mon now. While you do get access to the weights, and you can tweak it to your liking, you don't get access to the bulk of the training data that was used to train it, and the corporations are still making the foundation model.
I'll concede that your workflow is definitely way better than booting up a closed-weight model running remotely via API though.
Ok it's made by Alibaba, you don't get access to original training data and how does any of that actually matter?
Just scribble out your vision, it will be better than AI.
Most of you need to get a grip. It's a tool, OpenAI might serve it as part of their offer but they don't own it.
This doesn't even look like what their models output, it's probably Qwen.
And before you go on a diatribe about the environment, datacenters would be being built next to windfarms if it wasn't for the oil industry and it's bribes. AI isn't the cause of global warming, it's just a scape goat.
You can literally run Z-Image Turbo on a laptop, the whole data centre argument is very stale at this point https://huggingface.co/Tongyi-MAI/Z-Image-Turbo
slopping "sloppunism slopped 100 sloppillion"
stfu, communism bad, freedom good
This is a joke right?
Freedumb to buy corporate products
Freedom to consume
Freedom to work
Freedom to hate
