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Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

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Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#81

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

HWR_14 wrote: post #44
sakisv wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I may point out here that if we take the word "democracy" at face value (i.e. That the ruling entity needs to have the support of the majority of demos) then most countries are really not democratically governed: The people in charge get voted in by a minority of the people who go to vote - which gets even worse if you account for people who are eligible to vote but abstain.

> The people in charge get voted in by a minority of the people who go to vote Except for a couple examples in the US, I'm not aware of democratic countries where this has actually occurred. And in the US, it's not a common occurrence.

Surely you've heard of Australia?

This paper discusses minority governments in Australia between 1989 and 2009, a period of two decades in which there have been at least ten examples of this political phenomenon in the Australian States and Territories.

https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Pages/minor...

If I was paying any attention at all recently it was on the fact that we've had at least a few minority governments since 2009 also.

Finland is having a minority government now too:

With all of the votes counted on Sunday, the right-wing National Coalition party (NCP) won 20.8% of the vote, with the populist, nation-first Finns party scoring 20.1%. Marin’s SDP took 19.9% of the vote. Voter turnout was 71.9%.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/02/sanna-marin-fi...

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#82

Post by FormerBandmate »

mindcandy wrote: post #74

Everyone is crying Corporate Greed in here. And, I can understand why. But, here’s another perspective based on listening to David Holz answer all kinds of questions from random users for four hours a week for over a year during Midjourney’s “Office Hours”. AFAICT, Midjourney has no shareholders and David Holz is the farthest thing from a slick CEO. He’s a big dreamer hippie dork. He made all the money he cares to ha…

> David seems to think that since ridiculing politicians in China is taboo, having people ridicule Xi on MJ would make it unwelcoming to people in China.

It's taboo because a dictator forbids it. The people have nothing to do with it

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#83

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mindcandy wrote: post #74

Everyone is crying Corporate Greed in here. And, I can understand why. But, here’s another perspective based on listening to David Holz answer all kinds of questions from random users for four hours a week for over a year during Midjourney’s “Office Hours”. AFAICT, Midjourney has no shareholders and David Holz is the farthest thing from a slick CEO. He’s a big dreamer hippie dork. He made all the money he cares to ha…

Bowing to foreign authoritarian censorship is okay if it’s done for a rich man’s convenience? What a shitshow begging for regulation.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#85

Post by FormerBandmate »

prox wrote: post #69
andrewstuart wrote: post #47

>> “the ability for people in China to use this tech is more important than your ability to generate satire.” How about "the ability for people to be free and have free systems and society is more important than the money we hope to get from doing business in China". But here we are in Silicon Valley where business and money rise above all else including national sovereignty.

As long as western companies can’t do unrestricted business in China, neither should Chinese companies be able here. The earlier we break the toxic relationship, the better. But yeah, money over everything.

No one should be able to do unregulated business anywhere. Trading with China is good but they shouldn't be able to influence our culture to conform to the whims of their government at all

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#86

Post by andrewstuart »

mindcandy wrote: post #74

Everyone is crying Corporate Greed in here. And, I can understand why. But, here’s another perspective based on listening to David Holz answer all kinds of questions from random users for four hours a week for over a year during Midjourney’s “Office Hours”. AFAICT, Midjourney has no shareholders and David Holz is the farthest thing from a slick CEO. He’s a big dreamer hippie dork. He made all the money he cares to ha…

So it just happens that hippy values and western greed kowtowing to authoritarian regime values purely for the sake of money happen to be exactly the same thing. A story too convenient for my taste but everyone is free to believe whatever they want.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#87

Post by doodlebugging »

It seems we have reached the point in our existence as a society where it is time to take a stand.

Who are we? What values do we share? What behavior are we willing to tolerate? How much will it cost us to allow a company or an individual to compromise our principles?

A lot of people, far too many in fact, allow greed to define themselves. Profit above all else.

Those people should be universally vilified and removed from positions of power or influence.

Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh or as Porky Pig. Take your pick. If he is offended then that is simply a sign of his own personal weakness, a character defect of which we all know he has many. Pity the weak bastard that can't take criticism and never, ever put them in a position of power.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#88

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

meghan_rain wrote: post #20
jay_kyburz wrote: post #7

I actually think having one person in the whole world you can't generate images of sends a much stronger political message than allowing people to make funny pictures of said person in puffer jackets.

Sorry I will oppose Chinese censorship until I die and no amount of (good-willed) reverse psychology will make me give them a pass.

If there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that younger me had no business telling older me what he should or shouldn't do.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#89

Post by toxicFork »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #82
mindcandy wrote: post #74

Everyone is crying Corporate Greed in here. And, I can understand why. But, here’s another perspective based on listening to David Holz answer all kinds of questions from random users for four hours a week for over a year during Midjourney’s “Office Hours”. AFAICT, Midjourney has no shareholders and David Holz is the farthest thing from a slick CEO. He’s a big dreamer hippie dork. He made all the money he cares to ha…

> David seems to think that since ridiculing politicians in China is taboo, having people ridicule Xi on MJ would make it unwelcoming to people in China. It's taboo because a dictator forbids it. The people have nothing to do with it

Being banned would make it quite unwelcome

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#90

Post by Traubenfuchs »

prox wrote: post #73
oakpond wrote: post #58

> It’s not just Midjourney’s China-based users that can’t satirize Xi Jinping — that rule applies to users everywhere, even in the United States. I'm speechless and a bit scared...

Just looked up his bio : After Leap Motion, Holz started wondering about what the future would look like, and what people would need in this uncertain future. He came up for 3 pillars for what he thought would be the most important: reflection, imagination, and coordination. Looks like he tramples on his own pillars.

> reflection, imagination, and coordination

Those are buzzwords that mean absolutely anything you want them to mean.

"While reflecting on the future he desired for the company he is CEO of, Holz imagined how much more money he could make by keeping Midjourney available in China and coordinated the necessary actions to make it impossible to produce content about Xi Jinping"

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