What’s the limit? This needs to be absolutely explicit and easy to understand because this is what LLMs are doing. They take hundreds of thousands of similar algorithms and they create an amalgamation of it.
When is it copying and when it is “inspiration”? What’s the line between learning and copying?
I have no problem copying code either. The question is at what point does it go from
To
How abstracted does it have to be before it’s OK? If you write a merge sort, it might be similar to the one you learned when you were studying data structures.
Should you make sure you attribute your data structure textbook every time you write a merge sort?
Are you understanding the point I’m trying to get at?
Well let’s say there’s an algorithm to find length of longest palindrome with a set of letters. I look at 20 different implementations. Some people use hashmaps, some don’t. Some do it recursively, some don’t. Etc
I consider all of them and create my own. I decide to implement myself both recursive and hash map but also add certain novel elements.
Am I copying code? Am I breaking copyright? Can I claim I wrote it? Or do I have to give credit to all 20 people?
As for forbidding patents on software, I agree entirely. Would be a net positive for the world. You should be able to inspect all software that runs on your computer. Of course that’s a bit idealistic and pipe-dreamy.
If I look at a few implementations of an algorithm and then implement my own using those as inspiration, am I breaking copyright law and circumventing licenses?
It depends how you define effective. Of course the consumer would prefer a free market with competition and low barriers to entry. This is the most egalitarian system, where money (and therefore power) gets distributed almost democratically.
It’s a liberal democratic version of capitalism. It’s the version of capitalism that works. Not perfectly, but it rises people out of poverty and is more or less egalitarian, relative to the alternatives.
Authoritarian capitalism is where you still have the large private sector except you don’t have the political freedoms. Think China post 1970s, modern Russia, Singapore.
The government essentially rewards companies that support the power structure. They get privileges and a say at the table. It creates a sort of incestuous relationship between the government and large corporate entities.
The US is moving towards this system as wealth inequality and corporate influence rises (more strongly under Biden than Trump, might I add. Probably to do with pandemic). More $$$ = more power. More power, more influence within the government. Creates a cycle where it’s a “buy your policy” type of democracy.
Slowly our political freedoms are being eroded. Mass surveillance, the CIA and Pentagon are now allowed to spread propaganda on US soil (they were not allowed to before early 2000s), erosion of democratic institutions through populism. For example “fake elections” and events like Jan 6th. We are starting to censor and ban outside views (“misinformation” bans from Covid, the banning of TikTok, Google & Facebook & reddit & Twitter regularly manipulate the information people receive and cooperate with the government)
Only some crazy number like 20% of people approve of Congress in this country. The democracy is falling apart and some new system is forming.
As China is opening up their private market to become more like us in terms of finance, big capital, corporate rights, etc. We are closing down our political system to become more like them in terms of the loss of political freedoms, censorship, etc.
You know how China has a strong centralized government and cooperates with their big companies? Government says jump, Huawei says how high?
We have a similar system. A strong centralized government that cooperates with the big companies. The primarily difference is that on the spectrum of
Government power <-----------> corporate power
The US leans more to the right.
Really what’s interesting is both the US and China are slowly converging onto a point in the middle. Zizek said something like this some years back… authoritarian capitalism is unfortunately the most effective form of capitalism.
Ideally I’d have a 10 inch cock but unfortunately I gotta settle
Well couple of things.
First, I said it gives more incentive. Not explicitly mandates it. So I’m not saying all subscription services are great to the consumer. I’m saying as a whole, it’s probably better than the alternative.
Second, Netflix is a bit of a unique case I think. They essentially created the streaming industry back during blockbuster days. Nobody thought streaming rights had any value so they licensed them to Netflix for cheap. Netflix blew up because it had access to a very large catalog of media.
After companies realized they could make more money streaming things themselves, they stopped renewing the licenses to Netflix.
Netflix was very large because of their access to these licenses. If they lose the license, they over the long term lose their customers. So they took a gamble and invested heavily in self-made media in many different languages. Some were a success, like Stranger Things, but most were flops.
Essentially they became this large corporate behemoth and they are desperately trying to remain in their top hegemon spot. Once a company reaches that size, they are an entirely different animal. And unfortunately because of the way streaming rights works, you’ll probably only see large corporate streaming sites in the foreseeable future
I prefer subscription models. That way I’m paying with my money and not my content. Of course with Google you’re doing both… but in principle I support it. I pay for a family plan and have some friends/ family on it.
It hate ads and to me it’s easily worth the monthly fee. I looked up a YouTube video on a TV that wasn’t signed in and there was like 60 seconds of ads! I’ve had YouTube premium / red for years I didn’t realize it was getting so bad.
But yeah, I support subscription model. More sustainable and honest way for a website to make a profit. In a subscription you are the buyer and the website is the product. In a free model ad companies are the buyer and you are the product.
They have more incentive under the subscription model to create a better experience for the user. In a free they have incentive to squeeze user as much as possible. I think it’s one of the main drivers of enshittification
But I’d be willing to bet 90% of the people who, in a pique of ire, replace their current windows with a linux distro, won’t bother to do the same when they purchase a new laptop down the road.
Linux is superior to Windows. Not only do I get more done and faster, I enjoy the process much more. For example, you know AHK? That useful application on Windows where you can make macros?
Well, on base Fedora you have an AHK built right into the system without any modification and you can use shell scripts- aka a real language instead of the wonky AHK language.
That’s one example. I can list them off rapid fire but I’d just write a wall of text unnecessarily.
My point is just that Linux is better. I don’t use Linux because it’s cool or interesting or I’m a hobbyist or anything like that. I use it because it’s the better option for the things I do on my computer.
That may be different for you. If you are a graphic designer or a music producer that may be different. But I’m usually in a terminal and Unix is the superior terminal. Windows terminal is such a joke they literally had to port in the Linux terminal through WSL
It all depends on what you use it for. There are many valid criticisms of GIMP but the name is such a silly one. It stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program.
If you’re a professional, then you use Photoshop. But for the vast majority of people GIMP is perfectly adequate. I’ve done so much on there over the last 2 decades. I’ve done construction drawings, forged documents, removed people from pictures, used it to make it seem like pictures of receipts were scanned, etc
If you don’t enjoy having driver issues, just install regular old Fedora with Gnome. The fancier you get with Linux, the more maintenance you have to put into the system. Fedora works out of the box.
Daily use of Linux & MacOS is virtually identical. Same terminal commands. Similar file system standards. You have homebrew as a package manager on MacOS. You use whatever comes with your distro on Linux (dnf, apt-get, I forget the arch Linux one. Yaort? Yum?)
Really I see no reason for anyone to stay on Windows. You can play 99% of games on Linux these days. I’m not exaggerating, it’s very specific multi-player games that don’t work.
Maybe if you use specific software for a niche industry or purpose then it’s worth having Linux. But even in those cases, you can just use a VM.
That’s what I do on my MacBook pro. I have a VM with windows just to run a specific program a couple times a week.
On my desktop at home I just use Linux and have for the last 10 years or so
Twitter is way better for certain topics. I haven’t been able to find the quantity or quality of OSINT stuff almost anywhere else at the level that Twitter has it.
If you want to know what’s happening on the ground day to day in Ukraine or Middle East, there’s no better place (edit: I lied. Telegram is pretty good, I forgot when I was writing this)
Like there are people who geolocate pictures to determine GPS coordinates and then get satellite scans to determine the effects of missile strikes or what have you
Foe example remember the Iran missile/drone salvo? There was an Israeli response to it? Claimed they blew up some Iranian radar for an air defense system with a missile?
Satellite images showed that was a lie. The damage on the ground implied only a small explosion that looks like other drone explosions. I only knew about it because I was on Twitter following specific people.
There’s a lot of shit you have to tread through, lots of bots and spam and crazies and propaganda accounts and what have you
But if you look around there’s a lot of gems
Nice writeup but there’s one key piece of information here that’s wrong in the context of reddit.
The “bot overlord” can easily tell if an account is shadowbanned. I use my trusty puppeteer or selenium script to spam my comments. After every comment (or every x interval of comments), I load up the page under a control account (or even just a fresh page with no cookies/cache, maybe even through VPN if I’m feeling fancy, different useragent, different window size… go wild with it) and check if my comment is there.
Comment is not there after a certain threshold of checks? Guess I’m shadowbanned, take the account off the list and add another one of the hundreds I have to the active list
The fact is that no matter what you do, there will be bots and spammers. No matter what you do, there will be cheaters in online games and people trying to exploit.
It’s a constant battle and it’s an impossible one. But you have to try and come up with solutions but you always have to balance the costs of those solutions with the benefits.
Shadowbanning on reddit doesn’t solve the problem it aims to fix. It does however have the potential for harm to individuals, especially naive ones who don’t fully understand how websites work.
I don’t think the ends justify the means. Just like stop and frisk may stop a certain type of crime or may not, but it definitely does damage to specific communities
I’ve been on reddit for 15 years and I’ve been banned from dozens of subs. I got banned from /r/libertarian for quoting Wikipedia page of Libetarianism. I got banned from /r/geopolitics for linking a report on the effects of 2019 sanctions on Venezuela. I got banned from /r/socialism for bringing up Henry Ford and his influence on the 40 hour work week. I got banned from /r/kratom for mentioning it’s an addictive substance that bindes to opioid receptors. Got banned from /r/the_donald back when it was a thing, don’t even remember why.
If you’ve been talking regularly on reddit and you haven’t been banned from at least a handful of places, then in my opinion you haven’t actually been saying much.
I believe we need to democratize the banning process and make it more transparent. Sort of like criminal justice system. Jury of your peers. Make a case in your defense and let everyone see it.
The way it’s handled right now is authoritarian and allows any mod to arbritarily silence views they personally don’t like, even if the community at large would have no issue with.
I think private platforms that do this are acting in an unethical manner. Lots of things that are perfectly legal but of dubious morality. Like fucking a 16 year old as a 40 year old man in Georgia or used car dealerships.
There’s a sub to test if you are shadowbanned. The mods set it up so automod automatically approves any post there, so that way even if you’re shadowbanned you can post.
Then a bot goes through and scans to check your comments and sees if they show up.
When shadowbanned, people can still see your comments if they go onto your profile. They just won’t see it in the thread.
You ever seen a thread that says something like “3 comments” and you click and only see 1? 2 people commented that were shadowbanned.
I’ve gone through the sub and browsed through profiles of people who were shadowbanned. Some of them posted nothing controversial to warrant a shadowban.
I’ve seen reddit accounts who regularly posted comments for months all at +1 vote and never received any response or reply at all because nobody had ever seen their comments. They got hit with some automod shadowban they were yelling into the void, likely wondering why nobody ever felt they deserved to be heard.
I find this unsettling and unethical. I think people have a right to be heard and deceiving people like this feels wrong.
There are other methods to deal with spam that aren’t potentially harmful.
There’s also an entirely different discussion about shadowbans being a way to silence specific forms of speech. Today it may be crazies or hateful speech, but it can easily be any subversive speech should the administration change.
I agree with other commenter, it probably shouldn’t be allowed.
First, this conversation has little to do with fair use. Fair use is when there is an acceptable reason to break copyright. For example when you are making a parody or critique or for education purposes.
What we are talking about is the act of reading and/or learning and then using that information in order to synthesize new material. This is essentially the entire point of education. When someone goes to art school, they study many different artists and their techniques. They learn from these techniques as they merge them together in different ways to create novel art.
Everybody recognizes this is perfectly OK and to assume otherwise is absurd. So what we are talking about is not fair use, but extracting data from copyrighted material and using it to create novel material.
The distinction here is you claim when this process is automated, it should become illegal. Why?
My opinion is if it’s legal for a human to do, it should be legal for a human to automate.