Dang, it sucks seeing people from my favorite country fall prey to small-minded views like this. I know Japan is not perfect but like how a parent dotes over their child, I can’t help but see the good in Japan and its potential.

When I lived in Japan I definitely encountered my fair share of racism and people who did not like foreigners. But on the other hand, there were also a lot of Japanese people that liked learning about other cultures and even ones that didn’t hold their arms open to welcome foreigners were usually at least tolerant of foreigners (never saw or heard of anyone actually committing crimes against foreigners).

I do think Japan has a long way to go in terms of accepting other cultures and creating a more equal and open society within their own culture. While I used to admire their steadfastness, in how they have stuck with their historical traditions, I now see it as something that’s holding them back. The ideal outcome I think would be Japan keeping the parts of its culture that makes it unique but that’s not harmful to people and then accepting or inviting in ideas and qualities of other cultures that will advance social equality for all. But we don’t live in such a perfect world and even if things go in that direction, that kind of societal change probably won’t happen in our lifetimes.

Somewhat counter to this though, there’s also the point other users have brought up that a shrinking population isn’t necessarily the worst problem for a country to face, especially one on a chain of islands. So in a way one could understand where some Japanese people are coming from when they say things like they don’t want more people to settle there. Of course it’s a different point if a population is being forcibly restricted, but in Japan’s case it doesn’t feel/seem that way. There are a number of reasons why their population is in decline, but to me they aren’t all bad reasons. I think instinctually Japanese people feel that they’re nearing the limit of what their resources can support and generally speaking they are a well educated population, and educated people/couples generally have less children than those who spend less time in education. So, while it would be great if they could change/update their culture to be less xenophobic, I also think they have a right to pursue a population sustainable future if that means limiting the amount of foreigners that can immigrate.

USA is not a civilized country

As a full time working US citizen this made me chuckle. It’s like a fairytale hearing about the kinds of protections and guarantees people in other countries get.

Idk if it’s in stock but maybe a violin the size of an electron?

But we might want to save that particular violin for the day the orange turd dies.

1_femtometre_long_violin.jpg

Growing up, I was of the mindset that I would have got married and started a family by this point in my life. But as of the last few years, my thoughts have done just about a 180.

Even if I was currently with someone/married, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to raise kids in this day and age in the US (the bullet dodged me when my ex-girlfriend used plan b after we got intimate without protection). I think best case scenario for me now would be DINK, but gotta find someone that can put up with my dumpster fires first.

Me_irl 😂

But yeah, foreplay helps and sex doesn’t have to be *just* intercourse, and communicating your wants and needs with your partner (& vice versa) is key.

Now it will be PCs spread out in addition to large data centers in combo that will be consuming energy.

And I do remember that phase of game/device streaming! I was a bit skeptical of it all and ended up never using those technologies but that did allow me to learn about alternatives like Moonlight/Sunshine.

Ahh was wondering where the factor of 1000 came from.

Without turning into a complete shootout, I can kind of see the point with comparing energy usage, but as others have said with these massive data centers it’s like comparing two similar but ultimately different kinds of beasts.

Beyond just the energy used in training of generative AI models in data centers, there’s also the energy it needs to fulfill requests once implemented (24/7, thousands of prompts per second).

Semi non sequitur argument aside, your math seems to be off.

I double checked my quick phone calculations and using figures provided, Rockstar games with their office space energy use is roughly 18,000,000 (18 million) kWh, not 18,000,000,000 (18 billion).

What? Elon Musk’s xAI data center in Tennessee (when fully expanded & operational) will need 2 GW of energy. That’s as much as some entire cities use in a year.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I have been to local protests (and the use of the word rioting suggests you might be of a different persuasion than me, and that’s ok). And for the record, I didn’t disagree with you. I grew up under capitalism and knew a brief period where capitalism wasn’t completely fucking over the lower and middle classes but that was before the US came out of the fascist closet.

It was definitely in agreement. There are way better uses for our resources, people, and talent than on things like AI. That’s not to say that no one should have a tech job in AI, but the overwhelming push to expand and adopt it is insane.

Yes, it’s totally okay starve millions of homes of water and jack up their utility bills to be able to summarize articles and write emails. (/s)

when combined with strong regulation and good social safety nets

🤣 I’m not disagreeing with the sentiment but to think we’ll see those anytime soon is a bit of a sad joke. I think too many people in power have made too much money for anything but a sundering to change their minds and allow themselves to be regulated and work for the good of all, instead of themselves.

In a slightly different vein of thought, I think there is truth to the sentiment that fascists don’t cede power willingly. I get that we should focus on things we can change that aren’t unimportant, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a fascist government being voted out.

Yeah I don’t get how he was taken so seriously for so long by so many. I get that not every rapper needs to come from a broken and messed up background, but his verses don’t hit that hard due to all the inauthenticity, as if he did grow up on hard streets lol.

It’s a small thing but I appreciate how you didn’t use the image of the rapper of the original meme who seems like an overall terrible person.

I’m waiting for the conniption when all these people find out that the cars and trucks they drive have transmissions.

“ All dem queer books are hurtin our kids, makin em all gay and shit! “

Says the man standing in front of his trailer with a deep five o’clock shadow spanning his double chin, a permanently stained wife-beating tank top and a prominent beer gut, who has five scrawny & bruised kids, and a wife that bears an eerie resemblance to himself but can’t quite look anyone in the eye.

There was an obviously fraudulent charge on my PayPal account and I submitted a request for a refund that got rejected by their automated system. I had to email back and forth PayPal support directly as well as the business involved, showing evidence of multiple address info change requests in quick succession and other strange things about the purchase. When things stalled I threatened to bring the issue to the FTC consumer protection bureau and finally that put the fire under their asses. Eventually I got my money back but it took considerable effort to get them to do the right thing.

Needless to say after all that I deleted my PayPal account.

Sweet. I have heard of some of those but never looked into them. I’ll add this to a list to check out further 👍