Ademonera
4d ago
Please read pre ai draft above - I wanted to start a conversation on a topic, most of which was mine. I don’t love that some hallmarks of ai came out, but it really was mostly editing.
Ademonera
4d ago
This was my draft prior to AI review. It sucks getting this kind of flack from mods and posters but do realize that the post is probably 85% my thinking with minor edits. I think you might realize the assessment is a bit harsh:
Review this post for the Motte given widespread EU/US dynamic on twitter in last 2 days:
Europeans are effortposting on X and it centers around a 150 million dollar fine apparently for how they changed the blue checkmark and not allowing api access for researchers. But it comes at a time when Europeans are bearing down on Musk for not curating feeds based on the opinions of paid misinformation deciders, a position invented in 2016.
I think it’s a real bad look for Europe to be falling behind China and the US economically and also acting as major regulators of companies they can’t build themselves. Their posture has become so unfriendly to business that Apple just doesn’t release some features for Europeans anymore. Jamie Dixon just sounded the alarm on their economic policies dragging down their ability to innovate.
My impressions online of European bureaucrats in the last 24 hours have been of a hulking regulatory body with a bunch of snooty has-beens. This European economic, Robin Brooks, has been noting too that their actions don’t match the rhetoric on things like Ukraine, buying endless amounts of Russian oil etc.
The free speech thing is really annoying too. I was surprised to see Trump hold back on this when meeting PM Starmer in Scotland when asked about it. There is a real difference in free speech that means as an American I can feel comfortable expressing myself without fear that some busybody will come knock on my door.
It’s upsetting because while things may have been much less turbulent under Harris, I’m truly glad that the attempts to codify a global regime of acceptable online speech over last X years has met resistance. It’s odd to think that there would have been a unification of efforts on this front under her.
Europe is and always will be our friend but they’re not on their game right now and the snooty reactions are distasteful.
Ademonera
4d ago
Also Gemini 3 still does the em dash thing, obviously. I removed two of them but hey I’m only human (?)
Ademonera
4d ago
Hey it’s not slop right? Mods I openly admit having Gemini check my rough drafts and rewrite them (with light touches after to remove most of the ai hallmarks). I provide it a ChatGPT report on sources and current events to ensure the references are clear. I feel that this is a good way to clear up my thoughts, make them more organized and coherent, and provide higher quality than I would otherwise. I try to have it maintain my original tone where possible.
I don’t think I am outsourcing my thinking or perspective to AI but using it to improve my thinking. If I’m reprimanded for it, that’s fair. I feel I’m contributing good faith, honest arguments and will stop if told to do so.
Ademonera
5d ago
Europeans are effortposting on X right now, centering around a reported $140 million fine apparently for how X changed the blue checkmark and restricted API access to researchers. But this comes at a time when Europeans are bearing down on Musk for not curating feeds based on the opinions of paid 'misinformation experts', an industry effectively invented post-2016 election.
It is a terrible look for Europe. They are falling behind China and the US economically while acting as the global regulators for industries they are no longer capable of building themselves. Their posture has become so hostile to business that Apple is now withholding major features from the European market. Jamie Dimon just sounded the alarm on how their hulking regulatory regime is dragging down their ability to innovate, warning that they’ve effectively driven investment out.
My impression of European bureaucrats in the last 24 hours is of a body staffed by a bunch of snooty has-beens. The economist Robin Brooks has been noting the deep hypocrisy here too: their moralizing doesn't match their actions on things like Ukraine, given they are still buying endless amounts of Russian oil via backchannels and refineries in places like India.
The free speech thing is really annoying too. I was actually surprised to see Trump hold back on this when meeting PM Starmer in Scotland. There is a real and serious difference in free speech between our nations. As an American, I can express myself without fear that some busybody will knock on my door.
It’s upsetting because while things might have been less turbulent under Harris, I’m truly glad that the attempt to codify a global regime of 'acceptable' online speech has met resistance. It’s odd to think that we nearly saw a unification of US/EU efforts on this front, importing their safetyism to our shores.
Europe is and always will be our friend, but they’re not on their game right now. The reactions aren't principled—they’re distasteful.
Ademonera
6d ago
I found it distasteful to see edgy left wing people embrace that. I’m really hoping this has come to a close, between the United Healthcare thing, the Trump attempted assasination, and Charlie Kirk. There was a LOT of wink wink nudge nudge, subtle endorsements of these tactics I saw online when they happened.
It’s especially concerning when things like this spread like a social contagion but I’m hopeful that this period of historical political violence has come to a close. I really don’t want to see the troubles pt 2 and a justified militarization of society.
Ademonera
6d ago
I’ve thought about this a lot. I still think the left has not come to terms with their rhetoric inspiring violence against the current president and a major supporter of his.
Unlike hand wavy ‘Bush is stupid’ stuff, the rhetoric became ‘save our democracy’ and ‘defeat fascism’. Wrt to the Charlie Kirk event, it’s just undeniable that highly online trans groups perpetuate rhetoric that is about genocide (not to mention there’s another intersection where the idea is supporting trans politics stop people from killing themselves). I think it’s fair to say that, along the lines in this conversation where violence becomes acceptable given a certain level of ‘evil’, persuading people that a political faction is evil will result in violence.
I really don’t think there’s an equivalent on the right. The idea is preserving order through continuity, in principle. There’s no appetite for revolution through targeted violence - while people like Hasan and Taylor Lorenz look lovingly at gruesome events meant to send a message. In no sense do I want someone to do anything to Hasan Piker - if he wants to be a sinoboo and praise violence / terrorist groups, that’s a choice he’ll probably regret in time. But at most I’d like to see him face career or legal repercussions, as detestable as I find him.
Ademonera
18d ago
I dunno I think there’s a real difference between republican staffers knowing who he is and subscribing to his ideology. There’s been a lot of talk here about how people grew up on 4chan etc seeing very racist stuff - I tend to think exposure to the guy who says ‘your body my choice’ makes you moderate your opinions, in most cases.
Truly I think the right is probably just getting used to time in the sunlight after all these years of being confined to edgy humor in forums. A lot of people have seen really radical stuff online and most people are still pretty normal, all things considered.
Ademonera
18d ago
It is funny to me that for a lot of people in their 20s and 30s, it’s much more about vibes than policy. It’s about the aesthetics and what’s popular and chic vs what’s not. Terminally online people just want to feel smart and or different than the masses because of their views. Being a Bernie bro was a good way to signal you were different 10 (ten!) years ago but that’s died off. Reddit like 20 years ago was all libertarians. All the rose and watermelon emoji people on twitter trying to outdo each other retweeting mutual aid sob stories.
It became unchic to be woke and frankly more counterculture to be kinda right wing in the early 2020s. Dasha from red scare used to be known for being the vocal fry sailor socialist and now she’s full bore right wing. After Obama the left really lost its legs for getting people excited about normie politics.
I don’t know where I’m going with this but I think there’s a pretty big group of people that just go with what makes them feel smart, in a community, and sometimes against some greater force (peak woke etc). I think people in this group are really malleable depending on the current moment, myself included.
Dunno if the parties have fully adapted to that yet but republicans are sure onboard with trying to capitalize on the aesthetic wins with DHS vaporwave halo ads.
Ademonera
25d ago
I think one thing that could prove true is that, after some soul-searching, liberals will realize the legal pursuits against Trump emboldened his movement and gave it the life it needed for his re-election.
For the longest time, Trump claimed that everyone was out to get him and that he was being persecuted. Even after the impeachments and January 6, I never really bought it. Mitch McConnell said that “former Presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one” (criminal justice system or civil litigation). Biden’s DOJ had the only legitimate path for ‘lawfare’ and totally blew it. They had their big chance for like a year. He was dead in the water in 2022, paying something like $100 million a month in legal bills.
Then the civil suits and various trials all popped up within a year of the election and felt pretty hand-wavy. Even his felony conviction was unprecedented in legal theory, breaking federal election law at the state level by paying Stormy Daniels. Then his company gets put under conservatorship and every other day you’d hear about a 500 million dollar judgement. If not for winning the election, he’d have serious legal troubles to this day.
I was upset enough on the day of his indictment that I—along with a lot of others—contributed to his campaign. I believe Kamala has said something to the effect that some of this was counterproductive.
While there will never be another president quite like Trump, I have to believe they now understand how it all looked. For all the talk about Trump breaking norms, it’s got to be cognitive dissonance to (1) think “lock her up” in 2016 was a dangerous remark, and then (2) nine years later, campaign on throwing the former president in jail for whatever you can get him on.
I think it’ll be a live and let live thing. They tried this gambit and it did NOT work. It did not poll well for Kamala to say over and over how dangerous he was and laud her time as a prosecutor.
Ademonera
28d ago
Yeah imo it’s great. Recommendations are solid and community playlists are really good. There’s a lot of edits that you can only find on YouTube, which is a nice bonus. Never used it for podcasts but I’m sure you can use it for ones that aren’t platform exclusive (and you can probably find a reup on YouTube anyways)
Ademonera
28d ago
If you believe your time is worth money, it might be worth the tradeoff to not have to bother. My main thing is I use iOS where you can’t get vanced YouTube apk or whatever. Until recently, my whole family was under a premium plan until they started gating location of family organizer.
I use YouTube 100x more than HBO Max or anything else. I feel the current price point is worth not hassling with VPNs / ad blockers and knowing I’ll never see an ad on any device.
Ademonera
28d ago
They’re getting progressively more aggressive on this front, though. It’s a cat and mouse game, so you may be right. Lately it sounds like they’ve been doing backend delays that force the duration of the ad to complete before you can view the video.
For those that just want to use the iOS app or use their TV’s built in app, it’s easier to stomach the $25 dollars a month. But I know a lot of people that won’t out of principle.
Ademonera
28d ago
That’s a fair assessment. It used to be their bread and butter, but they smartly repositioned. I still contend it doesn’t look good for them to have lost this generation’s console war, the smartphone OS war, and seem to be resting on their laurels with Windows. It shows a lack of vision and inability to execute. There are still a billion some odd Windows users.
Personally I was hopeful that the TPM gating for Windows 11 was the start of more forceful control over hardware so they could do a massive change for Windows 12 that would move on from legacy components. But I understand that’s not what their customers want. It’s just too bad that Windows is in such a bad state.
I still really feel like the lack of developer interest in windows is a major problem. Apple may not have the sway to enforce a 30% commission on apps like they do on iOS, but their guidance for making macOS apps is generally followed. Their developer community cares enough to follow their design guidelines and put polish into their apps. I don’t see the same for windows apps - there’s no vision or optimism about where the platform is going. Compatibility with old hardware means you’re going to see a lot of apps with windows XP/vista UI if developers aren’t passionate about the platform.
Ademonera
28d ago
So because YouTube is an essential subscription on the internet if you want to avoid being bombarded by nonstop ads, I use YouTube Music as my primary streaming app to avoid paying for another service. I’ve been beta testing their YouTube Labs ‘AI Hosts’ feature. I’ve been noticing a distinct lean towards the kinds of things.
It is comfortable summarizing a musician or a song. It will go on about an artist’s queer journey or struggles with mental health or how a song is meant to represent the Iraq War. It will also go into a Latino accent when playing songs or artists whose names sound like they’re from Central America, though the host is a milquetoast man.
I’ve been trying an experiment where I play traditional conservative, usually country, songs to see what it says about them. I’ve been trying old Johnny Cash, that Rich Men North of Richmond song, and old Dixie songs. Haven’t been able to get the host to comment on any of these. I was just thinking about how this should work if released out of beta.
It’s pretty hard to provoke the host to talk about certain songs. Sometimes it will describe the last track or the upcoming track - or the song / artist from either in general. Not easy to predict when it will jump in between songs.
I could be wrong, but it seems odd to let an AI talk about music with left leaning undertones but (possibly..) not do the same for right wing music because it’s not as ‘safe’. But then again, there is some left leaning extremist music à la ‘Punch a Nazi’ - should YouTube not allow their host to talk about real underground punk band origins or Dixie songs?
Seems contentious and risky to let your AI potentially talk about music or musicians with extremist undertones. But what about like Kanye? What should it say about his antisemitism? Should his name just blacklisted from mention by an AI host?
Music is the one place where there is little to no appetite for outright censorship - it is very bad PR to gatekeep music, in most cases. In Kanye’s case, you might get removed from official playlists, but they’re not going to prevent people from listening to your music.
My reply won’t be culture war focused BUT it is truly insane how poorly Microsoft has handled windows.
Consider that Apple has undergone a major architecture change and is a year out from fully phasing out Intel processors. This came with HUGE performance enhancements that make everything feel much snappier, not to mention battery life on mobile. One of the major notes on M1 was that it is ready the moment your MacBook lid opens. I’m sure a ton of work went into rearchitecting and rethinking core components to get there.
It’s shocking how performant and smooth macOS is. The beach ball is rarely, if ever, seen. They’ve had 2 major redesigns, which never feel half baked. They had enough sway over their developer community to get most of them to make Rosetta versions of apps that run better on ARM. But even fully emulated software runs better than it did on intel.
Meanwhile Windows 11 is like lipstick on a pig. They keep painting over the cruft that’s built up since windows vista, but have never actually rethought how the system works. They literally can’t because so many customers rely on old components they maintain compatibility for. Control panel is still kicking around, window scaling is still broken, etc etc etc. They have no pull over their developer community at all, so they can’t make hard choices that better the OS. Sure, they’re doing cool stuff like WSL and the terminal app. But everything is fundamentally just reskinned aero from 2007 and there’s no sense of vision.
It’s also janky as hell. Windows flash and resize when you click edit mode in Excel, a Microsoft first party app. If you have a filetype you want to open in a program that’s not in the default list, you get sent to file explorer to find the right exe file in program files (still have to see if it’s in x86). Every application install has a wizard and uninstalling an app probably needs a wizard too. No wonder Satya Nadella hates windows.
That’s why these ai features feel so dumb. They’re stuck maintaining support for old enterprise apps and everything is frozen in time as a result. I loath using my windows 11 ai enabled laptop with solid specs. It dies in like 2 hours and can never keep up with me. I wish they’d have made the right choices 10 years ago so I might instead be working with a modern and fluid OS.
Ademonera
1mo ago
What if we had a ‘hear the other side’ cwr every few weeks? I want more neoliberals policy wonks in here. Tariffs are on pretty bad footing and nobody’s taken a crack at it. Economic arguments for high immigration etc. Theres been a lot of bad faith posting lately and we’ve been taking the bait.
Ademonera
1mo ago
All things considered, I’m not too upset. I think it’s good to have an opposition that’s getting its footing back. It means that all these losers saying Trump is the end of democracy are wrong - Trump’s election motivated a bunch of Canadians to vote in the left and likely here too. It reins him in a bit to know he’s still got to play his cards right to win in 26.
Still feel like the momentum will slow - Momdommy definitely is different and built some enthusiasm for other races. People on twitter right now are like ‘woke is back!!1!’. Still think Trump is going to buck historical trends for midterm elections and keep congress maybe. He’s just so persuasive.
Ademonera
1mo ago
I do agree in a certain sense. It seems that young people in general people dislike Israel. And yes there has always been an edgy undercurrent of antisemitism in a lot of radical online right wing spaces like 4chan. The examples you mentioned probably originate from there. For better or worse, people feel more comfortable saying ugly stuff online now (black fatigue, recently saw the phrase ‘crying Lupe’ etc). Not a great time for racial unity. Pretty glad what happened to Kanye - losing your mainstream credibility - is still what you’ll face if you unironically act this way though. I think it’s pretty contained and that leaders will not stand for it becoming anything more than edgy jokes in private group chats. I think your post would have been better received if you argued that it’s a growing issue on both sides.
What concerns me is that it’s outright fashionable to dislike Israel on the left. You have semi mainstream people saying it’s fine to commit violence against ‘the colonizer’, which is pretty easy for nutjobs to generalize to regular Jewish people (as was the case in the examples I mentioned). I see it as pretty insidious to characterize a group that’s historically faced a lot of backlash as a ‘colonizer/oppressor’ some 70 years after millions of them were killed for beliefs about those peoples’ motivations.
And again I’ve seen this grow on the left in the way it just hasn’t on the right. It’s dangerous and real, serious antisemitism is not dead / just stupid jokes elsewhere in the world.
I sound like a stout Israel defender because I am. I had a film teacher in high school show us a movie about a Palestinian getting convinced to bomb a public bus, the underlying message being (much like lefty views on misadventures in the Middle East) that horrific things ultimately result from the colonizer’s actions. A lot of parallels to Oct 7th (which, don’t forget, was truly celebrated in a way that right wing people pretended 9/11 was).
Ademonera
1mo ago
This is really bad faith. You just can’t pretend like this is a massive problem on the right when in the last six months, there have been multiple left‑aligned incidents that are as bad or worse.
• Western University (May 2025) – A WhatsApp group of pro‑Palestinian students contained Hitler memes, calls for “taking action against the Yahoodis (Jews),” and videos praising Hamas. The university refused to investigate despite clear antisemitic intent.
• Colorado attack (June 2025) – Egyptian guy attacked pro‑Israel demonstrators in Boulder with a makeshift flamethrower while shouting “Free Palestine.” He told the fbi he wanted to “kill all Zionists”.
• D.C. shooting (May 2025) – Guy shot and killed two Israeli embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum, yelled “Free Palestine,” and later told police he did it “for Palestine.” The indictment noted he had posted “Death to Israel” online.
Add to that several other campus incidents: the University of Washington’s “Super UW” statement that called the Oct 7 Hamas massacre a heroic victory and the UC Berkeley protest where demonstrators chanting “Long live the intifada” forced police to evacuate a Jewish event.
Trump has made elite progressive universities take account for their indifference to antisemitism btw, because it’s very popular on the left to be anti Israel / seem super compassionate by being pro Palestine. I agree with another poster that even if your examples are real, they sure aren't affecting the stance of the biggest people on the right. Honestly I feel that there are probably foreign influence ops trying to grow antisemitism in both parties - but at least be honest that there is a bigger problem on the left.
Frankly, it seems like the left will have a harder time sidelining their antisemitic supporters. Do you think Ilhan Omar is a friend to the Jewish people?
Ademonera
1mo ago
I’ll say this much. Someone I knew who was active in young republican circles met the current president far before his rise to power
Ademonera
2mo ago
I try to only do it here when someone is making bad faith arguments but it can be cathartic to downvote someone. In highly insular communities, any wrongthink is quickly teleported to the shadow realm.
Moderating is a whole other topic but it’s essential to quality discussion. The less pervasive and more focused on agreed upon rules, the better.
Ademonera
2mo ago
Remember when we were all so concerned about suicides at Foxconn in china 15 years ago? Apple helped china become even more proficient at manufacturing because they gave them the best regulatory deals possible.
It’s curious to me that we lost our edge with goods but became way better with services. Maybe that’s the ideal state if your citizens are mostly knowledge workers, but China is a huge adversary and we willingly let them usurp our chemical and commodities manufacturing strengths.
Ademonera
2mo ago
I 100% agree. Just thinking the connection is there for left wing extremists to cling onto in the same way some right wing lunatic might justify their actions through X belief system.
In popular movies, anticolonialist writing, and Hasan streams, progressives are told violence against an oppressor is de facto justified and moral. And it’s easier to think of someone like Charlie Kirk as an oppressor if you think he’s spreading ‘hate’.
That’s the key part of this I think. Crazy people on the left think they’re on the right side of history and that ends justify the means. I think it is a good basic explanation for why the Charlie Kirk shooting happened, most likely.
I think for effortpost, I try to throw internet slang into things to make it interesting. Your definition of that phrase is more accurate than the way I used it. I couldn’t think of anything better but it sounded funny.
I think honestly the disjointed references and unclear organization of thoughts is evidence it was truly typed out by me. I didn’t use any LLMs to make the initial draft. I will say I use LLMs every single day for 8 hours so it very well could be that I’m picking up on their quirks in my writing — — —. Some of my older comments are more obvious. My deep dive into Taylor Lorenz show the most obvious LLM usage. I used them as well to grab references of left wing antisemitic attacks, which was posted in quality contributions. But here I think the tone has obvious misunderstanding and flow that would not be typical of an LLM logically progressing to a conclusion.
I think educators are having the same struggle. I also believe it’s nearly impossible to detect ai writing unless providers introduce watermarks, which they seem resistant to for now.
But yeah lesson learned. I don’t really type my thoughts out anywhere except here so I’m not great at using LLMs very effectively and subtly. Also there are apparently self published books with prompts to fix writing left in by accident.
Going forward will shoot from the hip and effortpost without questionable help
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