Version without the paywall

One bright spot in U.S.-Southeast Asia policy remains the U.S,-Philippines alliance, which appears stronger now than at any point in the previous decade. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has made a sustained effort to court the Trump administration and was the first Southeast Asian leader to secure a meeting with Trump during his second term.

And ofc my country remains a US Puppet… Pro-US political commentators here justify US involvement by citing our territorial conflict in the South China Sea, even though the article shows that Vietnam is warming up to China even despite their own territorial conflicts there as well.

Vietnam, which had seen its relationship with the United States expand significantly under the Biden administration as both sides had a common interest in deterring China’s expansion in the South China Sea, was dismayed when Trump announced a 46 percent tariff rate on Vietnamese exports in April.

[…]

Given the uncertainty stemming from current U.S. policy, Hanoi has warmed ties with Beijing in recent months, with Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting Hanoi twice in 18 months and Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary To Lam traveling to Beijing in August 2024.

Hasan allegedly used a shock collar on his dog on stream, and chuds are clinging onto this to discredit his views.

I don’t know if he really did/does or not, but in the video clip of the supposed shocking, it looks to me like Kaya (his dog) stubbed her foot on her platform during the moment she yelped.

That’s true… If there was a FOSS-based alternative (like how Lemmy and its instances are alternatives to Reddit, or how Bluesky/Mastodon are alternatives to Xitter) I can see myself jumping ship and using that instead of Facebook/Messenger, with the only obstacle being that I kinda need Messenger for checking college announcements and communicating with professors and classmates, since that’s what everybody uses.

I watched the video, and it is mainly talking about Vavilov’s genetic studies and his rivalry with Lysenko who rejected evolution and genetics in favor of the pseudoscientific Lamarckian/Inheritance model, on top of the liberal tradition of having Stalin live rent-free in their heads. Also at around the 6 minute mark they massively misinterpret communism as “believing the right conditions make tougher men”

My guess is that they shoehorned Stalin into the conversation because that’s what generates clicks.

This

Personally I use Xiaomi. (Before that, I used Vivo. Both are Chinese companies btw) Their phones are pretty high quality despite their cheap price compared to other phones of similar quality, but they put ads in their system apps (But this can be mitigated through various means) and have a few analytics-related settings, but you can turn those off after snooping around in settings if you’re concerned about privacy.

Sorry guys I ate it with a comically large spoon (I was hungry after Stalin devoured all the world’s grain leaving nothing left)

i think it’s more of a tell that we are literally educated to serve the USian market, not necessarily means that our countries are americanized or westernized.

Here in the Philippines, it’s both😭

When I was in Elementary, our schools had an English-Only Policy where speaking our national language (Tagalog) outside of Filipino classes was penalized. We also have an entire market for overseas work (OFWs or Overseas Filipino Workers)

I believe AI (whether for images or other things) is first and foremost a tool. I remember shortly after the GenZedong exodus here we even played a bit with AI image generation. (There was even a thread for generating images, but idk if it’s still around anymore or if the bot dedicated to it still works.) Although this was when AI was just getting popular. I would much rather write stuff with my own words and do my own research instead of rely on something like ChatGPT or Grok to do the same though.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the commodified AI slop nowadays, (although you can blame capitalism for that, and AI, with its pattern detection, only accentuates the soulless nature of capitalism) but it is clearly here to stay. Although if used well, AI can be actually entertaining. (Neuro-Sama for example)

My main concern with AI is privacy and transparency. Services like Google have recently been pushing for AI in places that involve your personal information such as your phone, and they make the excuse that collecting your data is needed for training their AI. If AI was fully open-source and trained exclusively on voluntarily given data instead of scraping it without permission, it probably wouldn’t have the bad rep it has currently.

Edit: Deepfakes are also potentially problematic IMO. As AI image and video generation gets better, it may become harder to discern if something is real or if it is AI generated in the near future, so I believe that an AI use disclosure should be absolutely necessary.

I’ve also heard that sites like YouTube will implement AI systems to estimate users’ ages based on the content they view, and apply restrictions accordingly, such as blocking the viewing of videos deemed problematic, and an ID will be needed to prevent these restrictions. But considering that the majority of YouTube’s “kid’s content” is either brainrot or ElsaGate content, this will more likely be used to silence opposition, such as coverage on Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.

I have just watched Takopi’s Original Sin and it’s some really heavy stuff. It sheds light on some very real issues in today’s society such as bullying, domestic abuse, suicide, etc., and how unfair conditions can lead to such behaviors. However, the ending feels a bit… Libby, for lack of a better term? (Spoilers ahead)

I think you may be interested in Engels’ The Decline of Feudalism and the Rise of the Bourgeoisie. This link is the Web Archive version, as the one in the original site seems to have been taken down due to copyright. Hope this helps!

I believe the main issue with AI currently is its lack of transparency. I do not see any disclosure on how the AI gathers its data (Though I’d assume they just scrape it from Google or other image sources) and I believe that this is why many of us believe that AI is stealing people’s art. (even though the art can just as easily be stolen with a simple screenshot even without AI, and stolen art being put on t-shirts has been a thing even before the rise of AI, not that it makes AI art theft any less problematic or demoralizing for aspiring artists) Also, the way companies like Google and Meta use AI raises tons of privacy concerns IMO, especially given their track record of stealing user data even before the rise of AI.

Another issue I find with AI art/images is just how spammy they are. Sometimes I search for references to use for drawing (oftentimes various historical armors because I’m a massive nerd) as a hobby, only to be flooded with AI slop, which doesn’t even get the details right pretty much all the time.

I believe that if AI models were primarily open-source (like DeepSeek) and with data voluntarily given by real volunteers, AND are transparent enough to tell us what data they collect and how, then much of the hate AI is currently receiving will probably dissipate. Also, AI art as it currently exists is soulless as fuck IMO. One of the only successful implementations of AI in creative works I have seen so far is probably Neuro-Sama.

Elon: Does Nazi salutes, bullies his transgender daughter, promotes antisemitic conspiracy theories, etc.

Also Elon: How could the left do this???!!!

Even the comments are slamming Kurzgesagt lmao

Though tbf, Political power kinda is what dictates the rule of law

Which is why the Proletariat must (and will) seize political power from the Bourgeoisie to create better laws than the ones that the Bourgeoisie makes.

“The CIA is more left-wing than the Marxists” is an incredibly wild take holy shit 💀

Considering China’s history regarding drugs, this is a reasonable rule for this community. Also, I believe there should be a separate community for those who still wish to discuss recreational drugs, so that discussions about said topics may be directed there.

I believe pointing out the scummy practices by major game companies (i.e., EA, Nintendo, etc.) and how Capitalism allows and encourages such practices is probably a good start. Although we should also prepare for the inevitable pushback from the Right, which has long established itself in most gaming circles already.

“Political violence is bad actually”

Last words of the SPD before getting overrun by the Nazis, circa 1933 (they could’ve prevented this by allying with the KPD)