• PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    It’s wild that OP would think these two things are equivalent.

    Pronouns are a thing that harms nobody, and the people frothing at the mouth are going out of their way to hurt people who did nothing wrong.

    AI (in its most common meaning at this time in pop culture) at the minimum is wasting electricity (and it’s associated climate impact), and has the potential to totally decimate the job market and usher in an era of inequality that we haven’t seen for hundreds of years, while simultaneously stealing from artists. The people frothing at the mouth aren’t hurting anyone.

    To use a bit of hyperbole, it’s kinda like if you said:

    Some of y’all see “white power” and freak out without processing anything that’s being said, like a conservative who sees a mixed race couple.

    Like pretty clearly people have a good reason for freaking out when they see that, and the other side of the equation are just bad people.

    • Luvs2Spuj@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      I don’t think OP thinks they are actually equivalent though, it’s just a satirical comparison.

      Another comparison could be vegans. Environmental impact of meat consumption is huge and it also has the more obvious harm and ethical issues.

      Vegans get a lot of shit anyway, but imagine if every comment or post about meat, regardless of where it was or in what context got a barrage of abrasive comments from vegans?

      You will never convince someone of your cause if you’re a dick to them. It’s a huge internet trait to just go full meltdown at everything rather than talk with some you don’t agree with to aim for a better outcome.

      https://piefed.social/post/1067555

      • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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        13 hours ago

        I get that, and the vegan comparison is good. But I get why vegans act like that, even if I don’t share their opinion.
        In both of these cases you’re arguably pushing for a better world.

        But the difference is that veganism is changing the status quo and isn’t popular, while opposing AI is maintaining the status quo and is popular.

        You’re never going to convince a true believer even if you’re kind to them, so there is no point being kind. A mean message to an AI supporter isn’t actually to the AI supporter, it’s to their audience, establishing a zeitgeist.

        AI is bad, and if we let up the vocal opposition, that’ll make its way into more popular forums and we’ll lose the zeitgeist, and policymakers will notice it, and then we’ll start losing shit like workers rights.

    • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
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      22 hours ago

      […] Pronouns are a thing that harms nobody […]

      This feels like a hasty generalization. For example, if one is experiencing gender dysphoria, we could assume that misgendering them with their undesired pronouns would cause them psychological distress [1] — ie harm.

      References
      1. Type: Article. Title: “Gender dysphoria”. Publisher: “Wikipedia”. Published: 2025-08-05T16:25Z. Accessed: 2025-08-06T04:23Z. URI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria.
        • Type: Text. Location: ¶1.

          Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to inconsistency between their gender identity—their personal sense of their own gender—and their sex assigned at birth.

        • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
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          21 hours ago

          How so? It wasn’t my intent to misrepresent your words. That being said, I do apologize if I’ve accidentally (and potentially carelessly) misinterpreted what you said. I’ll gladly fix my comment if you help me understand where my interpretation went wrong 😊

          • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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            13 hours ago

            The other reply has it right, but I wanted to reply to confirm.

            “Pronouns” in this context almost always means “preferred pronouns” especially wrt people who have preferred pronouns that differ from those assigned at birth.

            It’s a bit hard to believe that someone would be aware of the study you mentioned, but not the common usage of the terms.

          • medgremlin@midwest.social
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            19 hours ago

            The comment was referring to preferred pronouns as just “pronouns” because the cultural zeitgeist has conflated the two. There are tons of right wing assholes that say that they “refuse to use pronouns at all” without processing the difference between “preferred pronouns” and the grammatical construct of pronouns as a whole.

    • jimjam5@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      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)

      • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        I can’t tell if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me
        Because you wrote your reply like a criticism, but the content seem to agree with what I wrote

        • jimjam5@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          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.

    • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 days ago

      Ah, that false quote is beautiful. It’s like watching an effortless right hook delivered squarely onto the jaw of whoever Rocky Balboa is fighting.