Toots š from 01/23 to 01/27
As discussed previously, on Fridays, I present my weekly social media roundups. Note that toots of articles generally include header images from the articles, which I donāt include here unless their creators happen to have released them for use under a free license, and I notice. Most have not, or I donāt notice. But I now add my commentary here, where I donāt feel restricted by message length.
Also, I donāt generally attach pictures to posts with quotations.
9:03 ā Mon 23 January 2023
Mary Bishop and the surveillant gaze from the Wellcome Collection
Without necessarily considering herself an artist, Mary created hundreds of these paintings during her time at Netherne.
I donāt really have anything to say about this, but it seemed worth sharing.
12:02 ā Mon 23 January 2023
Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen.
9:05 ā Tue 24 January 2023
Saudi Arabia: Call for release of two Saudi Wikipedians from Global Voices
Osama Khalid is one of Saudi Arabiaās most public-facing and well-known internet freedom advocates.
This really seems to expose Saudi Arabia more than anything else, given how inoffensive the activism seems. However, it also exposes much of the media, particularly that styling itself as standing on the political left. They havenāt shown any interest in this story, even while obsessing about the far less credible Julian Assange.
12:01 ā Tue 24 January 2023
The surest pledge of a deathless name is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
9:02 ā Wed 25 January 2023
Americaās Inequality Problem in One Statistic from OtherWords
The typical CEO of a big U.S. corporationā¦had to work less than one hour more to make $36,460, the average annual pay for a pre-K teacher.
Imagine the sort of person who only needs to work a few hours total for a decent annual income, then has the nerve to publicly whine about the cost of laborā¦
12:06 ā Wed 25 January 2023
Let a man accept with confidence valuable knowledge even from a person of low degree, good instruction regarding duty even from a humble manā¦
9:01 ā Thu 26 January 2023
Asian Americans mark Lunar New Year in new ways from the Bureau of Global Public Affairs
For the first time in 2023, it will be an official holiday in California, home to the United Statesā largest Asian American population (6 million people).
I like seeing holidays gain some formal recognition. While I can see how they might feel stressful this year, coming immediately on the heels of the broad Christmas seasonārunning from early December to mid-January with the Eastern Orthodox Epiphanyāas Iāve said before, we really shouldnāt pass up a good opportunity to celebrate.
12:04 ā Thu 26 January 2023
Virtue beameth from a generous spirit as light from the moon, or as brilliancy from Jupiter.
9:06 ā Fri 27 January 2023
Unearthed Ajami script dispels colonial myth from Futurity
But the note wasnāt in French, it was in a script that looked like Arabic, but sounded like Wolof, a regional West Atlantic language.
In the toot-roundup post from two weeks ago, the ābonusā article talked about the Mayans shopping at someplace much like modern supermarkets. In response, I wrote:
Notice how we keep learning that what we know about ancient communitiesā¦mostly comes through a colonial lens that requires people to appear backward and/or dependent. When we look at the actual evidence, though, their world looks increasingly like ours.
This confirms that rather plainly, I think, with evidence of an entire writing system suppressed.
12:05 ā Fri 27 January 2023
Lost money is bewailed with deeper sighs / Than friends, or kindred, and with louder cries.
Bonus
Because it accidentally became a tradition early on in the life of the blog, I drop any additional articles that didnāt fit into the one-article-per-day week, but too weird or important to not mention, here.
OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers Making $2 an Hour to Filter Traumatic Content from ChatGPT from VICE Motherboard
OpenAI partnered with Sama, a data labeling partner based in San Francisco that claims to provide developing countries with āethicalā and ādignified digital work,ā to detect and label toxic content that could be fed as data into a filtering tool for ChatGPT.
While I donāt appreciate the exploitation, this does sound significantly more ethical than the treatment of people working for Facebook to moderate content. I believe that they get paid less and Iād argue that once can steel themselves against a block of text than a brutal video.
However, I also feel like all this work has made ChatGPT worse, in many ways. It now refuses to engage with certain topics, even satirically, on the basis that āsomeoneā might feel offended, but feels no hesitation in offending people who donāt draw the same lines. Weāve seen this get out of hand before, after all. For decades, Hollywood barely acknowledged the existence of racial, religious, gender, and sexual minorities, because it might offend āsomeone.ā Now, we donāt know what companies will tell us that we canāt see on that basis.
To predict anti-LGBTQ prejudice, look to personality? from Futurity
People high in these traits seem to adopt these beliefs because they downplay the importance of equality and are less interested in protecting others.
I have an ironic love for this story. Somebody spent untold hours to figure out that we can predict who will hate people of sexual and gender minorities by seeing whether theyā¦donāt care about minority groups in general. Brilliant!
Credits: Header image is Circular diagrams showing the division of the day and of the week from a manuscript drafted during the Carolingian Dynasty.
By commenting, you agree to follow the blog's Code of Conduct and that your comment is released under the same license as the rest of the blog.
Tags: linkdump mastodon socialmedia week