This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The usual suspects are of course having a bit of fun with this one.
The "AI sheen" is frighteningly distinct. If you go onto NSFW imageboards, you'll notice it even in thumbnails. I hate how omnipresent it seems to be with AI images, I normally love seeing those kinds of lighting highlights in art, but I hate it now and it's kind of made me hate AI art in recent times. The associative negativity heaped onto AI art worked on me, I guess.
It's obnoxious if you're trying to get (mainstream) models to do anything without using style transfer or similar, since even if you want that sort of lighting highlights Gemini/Bard/Midjourney almost never get them right -- in this example, the rest of the shadows are too diffuse, but it's just as prone to have the highlights themselves be inconsistent.
I'm not sure if it's a result of ingested data (whether Pixar, a particular art style, or just ingest transcoding), or an upscaler involved somewhere on output, or what. Some of the furry models are better at avoiding it (esp if they don't have an NAI leak in their history), which just makes it weirder that it's so present for normal stuff.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Maybe the dataset on 17th century kings is a bunch of paintings, so it gave a strange faux-painted look. But yeah, weird it added a bright white light reflecting off their shiny skin. Like just out of frame are a bunch of fluorescent bulbs.
And for some reason it gave them all a smarmy grin.
More options
Context Copy link
Alternate timeline where Edward the Black Prince ascended to the throne.
More options
Context Copy link
Oooh this is good trolling. The "you did this to yourself" aspect is very strong here, despite it being obvious that the poster is creating this combination on purpose, which is precisely the balance that a good troll creates.
More options
Context Copy link
This is ahistorical. Back then they didn't have seedless watermelons.
Yeah, back a few centuries ago lots of foods were barely recognizable. Watermelons especially so.
https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-giovanni-stanchi-watermelons-peaches-pears-a-5765893/?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link