FarraigePlaisteaċ (sé/é)

Good question OP. I never thought of this and I’m enjoying the answers.

Briefly, my own answer would be: I would hope and expect that we can still communicate when essential using technology.

Food textures are a problem for me. I’d expect a solar punk society to prioritise not being ableist (and minorities should be elevated too).So just as I can go to my local market now and get diced food marinated in a sauce I like, I’d expect that to continue as a service.

The solar punk part might be how it’s done (emissions etc) and who gets paid. But I expect niceties such as our food prefs to still be available.

I actually forgot that this machine isn’t M-series. Thanks for the reminder!

I was thinking of getting one in the future for similar reasons. My current laptop is an Intel Mac from 2011 running Ubuntu (Windowmaker session). It runs macOS and Ubuntu well enough, but it does run hot and the fans are loud.

My only fear is that unlike previous MacBooks, when macOS expires the device could become e-waste rather than something I can install linux on.

Well have you seen the price of groceries lately?

AI companies do not release any numbers themselves for carbon emissions.

I think the EU is even helping them keep that “operationally sensitive information” private, which is a shame.

not adding AI does not stifle environmental goals.

I can’t agree or disagree here. I know the demand for AI is huge: hundreds of millions of users per day and at least a billion per week. If Ecosia is seen not to have this feature, I would consider it possible that it hurts their adoption and therefore their goals.

which shows how incredibly dirty AI can be, even if no one releases any sensible metrics.

Yes. I’m not sure how much solace the “world greenest AI” slogan can really offer in that context. https://blog.ecosia.org/ecosia-ai/ - but when I’m recommending search to someone, I recommend Ecosia over Google, Bing, DDG, Qwant, Mojeek, etc. simply because I think they are more of a net positive than the other options.

Who knows, maybe in a year or twos time I’ll look back and regret it when more information surfaces. But they’ve been sensible enough until now with their operational choices to reach tree-planting goals.

It’s not me downvoting you, by the way. Anyway, AI is the antithesis of eco-friendly so I share the criticism. But given their success to date I defer to their sense for pragmatism and results.

Isn’t that hyperbole rather than truth? They’re still carbon negative.

They don’t provide AI by default (at least, I don’t get it). So people like us can continue to not use AI and the hundreds of million who use it every day can still support tree planting.

I don’t like AI, but if they don’t add it they could risk limiting their reach and environmental goals.

Ecosia have planted 250,000+ trees so far and publish their accounts every month. I can’t think of a better option, unless there is a niche requirement.

My question is: for who will they fight back? Meta employees have shown us they only fight for themselves as employees, not the victims of their work. And then there’s what Microsoft did to those who opposed involvement with genocide and colonialism. Many more examples too.

I have mixed feelings on this. Tech workers are often the henchmen of borderline evil organisations. They’re looking for a place at the table, rather than to hold the companies accountable.

Of course, if it’s not as easy to lay them off maybe they can afford to risk holding them to account. I’m sceptical though.

I wish I switched to these guys when I left google. I chose a large provider in India because I just wanted to support them.

But I did not realise that the Indian government has gone so fascist that they are even ahead of USA, and far more authoritarian than Britain.

It took over a year to get everyone to switch to my new email address so I can’t really ask this of people again. But I’ll suggest it to others who are looking for recommendations.

It should be called Shake to Slop, since summarisers have been shown to be wrong 51% of the time.

I don’t want to live in a world where humans—employees or otherwise—are exploited for their training data.

Does anybody read the job description anymore?

That’s data, not evidence. To treat it as evidence you’d have to understand the causes (poverty, segregation, policing patterns, etc.).

And you’re mixing two things: using group averages to judge individuals vs managing risk under uncertainty. The first is prejudice, the second is safety behaviour.

Men on average are simply a higher physical risk to women than women are and so cost of being wrong is higher.

The post literally says not “all men”. I don’t know why yourself and so many other commenters are inserting a straw man to argue with. If it’s intentional, it’s a bad-faith practise. If it’s unintentional it’s a literacy issue (common problem is USA).

The epidemic of male violence on women is evidence based, therefore not prejudice.

Bad analogy. Skin colour was not a factor in the criminality here. Being a man absolutely is when it comes to violence against women.

Came here to say this. They facilitate so much violence and bloodshed, and this is what they take issue with.

I hope it will not involve fascist-friendly platforms like substack.

As long as billionaires are campaigning to destroy it, there is no place for that comment you made.