Signtist

Hmm... That's a good point. I've been focused on whether or not the final product is art, and it's definitely not, because again, it's created by a machine that can't express itself, but it's true that the prompt itself may be considered art. The thing that can make a shovel into art isn't the shovel itself, but the self-expression coming out in the artist's idea to look at it in a way that elevates it to become art. But there's a difference between elevating something mundane into art, and randomly declaring things to be "art." Marcel Duchamp's work is art, but I think most would agree that people who ridicule it by saying things like "Okay, then this pencil's called 'Mr. Writey' now - it's art!" are not creating art. Maybe the only real difference is intent? I'll have to think on this one, but I appreciate your insight!

The self-expression of art is in its creation, not in its final product. Yes, the self-expression usually results in differences in the final product - if you hired 2 people to make a painting off of the same detailed description, they would be different paintings, largely because of differences in self-expression. However, if you were to, for example, hire 2 different artists to make perfect copies of the same painting, to the point where they're indistinguishable from each other, the self-expression would still come in when one artist uses a different tool than the other, or starts with a different base color. The methods both still result in an identical final product, and so the product doesn't showcase their unique self-expression, but the creation is separate, and unique to the artist.

Notably, you, the person who asked them to make the art, contributed nothing but a prompt. Yes, that prompt resulted in nice pictures that you wanted, but the self-expression - the thing that makes it art - was entirely someone else's. It's their art, they just made it for you. AI "art" is the same thing, except it's made by a lifeless computer devoid of self expression. So, it's still your nice picture, but there's no self-expression at all, and so it's not art.

You're worried that if we collect money from the wealthy through taxation, it might not be used to reduce homelessness. However, if we don't tax the wealthy, they'll spend the money on their own goals, which definitely won't be to reduce homelessness. While you're right that taxes are largely wasted, they do still fund important things such as fire departments, medical research, and yes, government housing. It's true that we need to implement better tax management systems, but we also need a wealth tax.

My mom died last year because she thought she could treat her cancer by "resonating with the world's vibration." Fuck this woman, and fuck the people who decided to put her in charge of healthcare.

Correct

That's the thing about human-made art: even when it's just cranked out for a job, there's still an element of self-expression to it just from it having been made using skills honed through self-expression.

Corruption already makes most millionaires' and billionaires' money go to that anyway. At least if it's taxed some of it will actually go to toward necessary housing, maybe even frequently enough that it's not newsworthy when it does, the way it is now.

Yeah, the whole system is meant to work by assuming the president has the country's best interests in mind and is willing to do what it takes to uphold them. Even when corruption inevitably wormed its way into every level of government, they still like they should pretend to have the country's best interests in mind just to appease the population, so a lot of good happened even while a lot of bad was going on beneath the surface.

Now we've got a president who openly commits crimes and exploits the fact that the people meant to stop him are his subordinates now, and people still support him. It's essentially proved to all corrupt politicians that they don't need to hide it anymore, and no longer need to even halfheartedly care about the country's best interests.

Our whole system that assumes the guy on top will at least feel compelled to "do the right thing" is instead being led by someone who ruins everything seemingly for fun, and he's setting that example for a bunch of people who are eagerly waiting to be next in line when he finally dies.

Artists understand that art is primarily about self-expression. Non-artists often instead think art is about producing nice pictures. When all nice pictures come with self-expression baked in, the two groups seem to be on the same page, but when a computer makes nice pictures that are completely devoid of self-expression, we find out they're not on the same page at all.

Basically, people do what the law enforcement - like police and judges - say because they go to jail for a long time if they don't. There are plenty of other punishments that aren't jail, but those are really only enforced with the threat of jail time if you don't comply, so it all comes back to jail in the end. Nobody's going to come after Trump to put him in jail because he's the president, and even before then, he had enough money to make sure nobody came after him anyway.

Nobody but the wealthy know exactly how they get away with their crimes, but I'd imagine some high-ranking members of the police force and probably several other people from other government agencies are willing to look the other way for a bit of cash, which allows the people who have that cash to essentially treat every crime like nothing more than a fine.

Unfortunately, in the twitter comments that someone linked, you can see that he still staunchly believes that Trump was the best pick, and that a vote for democrats is a vote to "trans the kids."

Republicans have been primed to treat their own suffering as a trial they need to overcome, and that was done specifically so they wouldn't vote in everyone's best interests even if it's clearly also in their own best interests.

I almost missed the scale on the left. Almost.