Soup

Paper towel will also help. You’re gunna be ok.

I remember reading that, in at least one case, collecting them is difficult to the point where ports aren’t bothering. And that’s difficult on the admin side, they’re just so insane about it that the relevant authorities aren’t even really sure what’s going on or how to deal with it.

Someone can do other things with the energy from a hamburger is all I’m saying, and even if they do nothing but stay alive that’s already a better use of that energy. I also had thought about that and, to be fair, a hamburger is only a very small portion of the cow.

What? No, I consider the cost of actually doing the work to be insane. If you want to talk training we can get into all kinds of other wonderful ethical, legal, and climate related shit, and I said that the cost of training for something like drawn art is exceedingly low as pencils and paper are cheap and all you need after that is a flat surface and time. I’m glad you enjoyed the comic but the cost to make it was far too great and you need to understand that sometimes that’s a dealbreaker.

Have you ever built anything with your own two hands, or made a piece of art, or played a fun or beautiful piece of music purely for the enjoyment of it? And, separate from that, if you have, you’ve really never wanted to share it with the world? I go to the bar because I enjoy it, I make friends there, and we can all participate in a shared passion. The patrons of the bar also do appreciate that we are real people. We aren’t perfect, we forget the words sometimes, and our instrument balance can be wonky at times but they enjoy the fact that we are up there. Live music is objectively “worse” quality than something made in a studio but we love it because of the distinctly human connection with the performers and the audience. When my friend tears up a sick Irish fiddle solo I turn to who I’m sitting with and we all talk about how skilled she is and how much effort she’s put into honing her craft. When musicians talk about other musicians so much of it is about appreciating how much time and effort they put in to get to where they are.

And yes, sometimes an artist does something that they don’t love. Artists, both the casual amateur and career professional, have accepted that fact as part of the greater process.

I cannot stress how important it is that you go make something, and that you bring people into your life who appreciate the work you put in instead of just judging the end product. There’s a bright, colourful world out there and I’m genuinely worried that you’re letting it pass you by or, worse still, that the people around you are keeping you from it.

It’s not double speak, it’s nuance(or just entirely different things). The hamburger is the energy required to create a quick comic of this level after gaining the skills, the practice is something else you do, and which you do for personal enjoyment so it comes double.

I get free beer at the bluegrass jam because we play for the bar. My instrument cost over a thousand dollars and I was playing for a little under a year when I first went. If your goal was to save money on beer then yea, bad investment, but my goal was to learn an instrument that I enjoy and play with other people. I don’t consider the cost of the instrument and my time when considering the money I save on the drink. Keeping someone alive does a whole lot more for the world and themselves. It’s not free, but they also do more than create one generic comic before throwing off their mortal coil.

For fuck’s sake, I make very good Heroforge minis and, while appreciate the creativity I put into it, I understand that I’m still behind people making custom 3D models or putting pen to paper. At least I can still be proud of my work, unlike this “AI” garbage.

Your entire argument stems from the idea that this comic is somehow adding value to the world. Not only is it stolen and using all these resources but the “artist” doesn’t even get to have any personal satisfaction because it’s just an algorithm and the other “artist” didn’t actually put any effort into it when they just wrote “write a funny comic” into a text field. Nothing of value was created, not even genuine personal satisfaction in a job well done, but so much was lost.

Also to your last sentence, I pity you for not being able to understand the difference.

He bas been, which is the wild part. He’s not saying “oh this was a bad idea, whoops” but he is adding all kinds of exceptions all the time as major corporations tell him how awful they are. Terrified of being seen as weak, so many tariffs will remain but it is really funny watching them scramble to pretend like they aren’t the absolute worst at their jobs.

As an adjacent observer(Canada, and we have our own idiots) it’s kinda funny. The US has had so much time and so many resources to not being the shithole it is today and they just couldn’t bring themselves, as a country, to get there. Other countries have done way better with less so we know it’s possible.

So, as much as it is also scary, awful, and just plain garbage, it is a little funny as well.

Combining some other comments:

Not only is this an old joke and not even particularly interesting, it also took a shit load of resources for the machine to produce it. A human being eats a hamburger and makes a few nice things + remains alive but one of these algorithms will consume ludicrous amounts of energy just to copy a mediocre joke and only so many people will even see it.

Not every joke needs to be pushed to the world and not every amateur musician deserves a main stage(certainly not if they’re just playing covers). Art is wonderful in that there are certainly barriers but at the same time it is relatively cheap to get the materials to practice. I literally know of a homeless woman who people give paper and pencils to and she spends her time drawing to pass the time.

So, yes, the world is a worse place for having this “art”.

We very likely conditioned ourselves to hate ourselves, and it so clearly works, so absolutely we can use those same tools to teach ourselves to be kinder as well.

I spent a whole year writing a journal and that basically put it in writing that things weren’t quite as bad as I had thought. Even without doing it now my mind will go to better places automatically because I built up that reaction and understanding.

I’m very much a “direct communication” kinda person but even I know that timing is important. True it took learning it and that was certainly an experience but it happened.

If the person is feeling vulnerable and a little worried you’re manipulating them and you dive straight in with a scientific, emotionless reduction of “choco make boyo happy” then you’ll probably scare them. You’re excited about this thing and have had a lot of time to explore it but they haven’t had such time to be more comfortable with that kind of wording. You don’t want to derail their argument, that really only protects you and actually puts you back in hiding a negative aspect and that person now feels possibly even more confused and angry. They were probably hoping that it was just a mistake or that you were being nice, which you probably were, and now you’ve taken their “best case scenario” and told them straight-faced that you were consciously manipulating them.

After they feel better, after they’ve had some time to sit with it, sure maybe, but in the moment it’s good to soften it a little.

Obi Wan was a master baiter, Anakin never stood a chance.

Well put. And oh the suburbs, where the greatest argument always seems to be centered around how much they hate their neighbours and believe that a cut lawn in a development is closer to nature than a full, grown back alley with maybe even a small community garden(fairly common in the major city where I live).