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Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

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Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#111

Post by johnchristopher »

chrisdbanks wrote: post #27
fsloth wrote: post #12

> It turns out authoritarian power and capital markets can be scary effective. I don't think authoritarian systems are as dynamic and innovative as democratic ones, but a gigantic authoritarian regime can utilize external democracies for innovation and then leverage their market power to silence criticism both home and abroad. Creative tools that impede free speech are harbingers of Orwellian future. "Sorry, you are…

These new models could be the downfall of authoritarian regimes. These regimes rely on suppressing access to information but soon we'll have an LLM that can answer any questions about the world and fit on a USB stick that can be passed from person to person. No more great firewall of China.

The "truth" is not enough. Look into Tian'Anmen and how the subject is completely taboo across generations. How to change social norms is a whole another thing.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#112

Post by speedgoose »

maest wrote: post #93
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…

> Lots of people complain that they don’t allow porn. But, as a result, a millions of people who are not just horny teenage boys enjoy hanging out on the server sharing and discussing art that is not just pics of sexy women all day every day. I don't think that follows - boobs being allowed doesn't stop people from creating SFW works as well.

It's becoming difficult to find good content among the tons of waifu with various degrees of anatomy realism. The most popular stable diffusion resources website is a mess right now: https://civitai.com

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#113

Post by throwaway4good »

fsloth wrote: post #105
throwaway4good wrote: post #104

I am not going to defend Chinese censorship - I think it is way overdone and a huge waste of resources but all companies operating in China must uphold this regime and pay the cost associated with it. However all countries have laws and norms governing satire and free speech. For example the Mohammed cartoons (deliberately drawn to trigger a reaction / discussion of free speech and censorship): https://en.m.wikipedia…

Being offended, and censoring are two different things. Free speech should allow speech that offends people.

The first is an example of a drawing censored in a large part of the world.

The second is an example of a cartoon that likely would have been deemed against “media standards” had the organ that did the assessment been in the US and not in Australia.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#114

Post by heavyset_go »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #32
chrisdbanks wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These new models could be the downfall of authoritarian regimes. These regimes rely on suppressing access to information but soon we'll have an LLM that can answer any questions about the world and fit on a USB stick that can be passed from person to person. No more great firewall of China.

Didn't we say the same thing about Wikipedia?

And the internet, liberalization, free trade, etc.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#115

Post by doodlebugging »

throwaway290 wrote: post #71

In the same country: overseas students from China make death threats to fellow students they consider Chinese if they hold inconvenient views, with no consequences ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29593320 )

Not a new thing here at all. This has been true since Tiananmen Square. They place their students in the position of having to report each other for speaking about it and use the threat of harm to their family back home to enforce it.

Anyone like this greedy Midjourney guy who would bow down to that fat-ass Jinping needs the entire family to be forced to surrender their passports, be stripped of their citizenship, and be sent over there to live the rest of their lives permanently barred from re-entry and from any business relationships over here.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#116

Post by junon »

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…

> Looking at you, unending parade of unfathomly huge boobs on ...

Holy shit you weren't kidding.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#117

Post by epups »

jacquesm wrote: post #35
epups wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately things are not so simple. You can find satire of Xi Jinping on TikTok right now: https://www.tiktok.com/discover/xi-jinping-winnie-the-pooh?l... , but not on Midjourney anymore. So, ironically, banning TikTok would suppress speech critical to the CCP more than banning Midjourney, a US company.

> So, ironically, banning TikTok would suppress speech critical to the CCP more than banning Midjourney, a US company. The ban would be outside of China. Speech critical of the CCP is only really effective if it reaches inside of China and banning TikTok outside of China would have a negligible effect on the other side of TGF.

Midjourney is banning Xi Jinping satire everywhere, also outside China.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#118

Post by PutinPoopin »

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…

[dead]

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#119

Post by thinkingemote »

doodlebugging wrote: post #115
throwaway290 wrote: post #71

In the same country: overseas students from China make death threats to fellow students they consider Chinese if they hold inconvenient views, with no consequences ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29593320 )

Not a new thing here at all. This has been true since Tiananmen Square. They place their students in the position of having to report each other for speaking about it and use the threat of harm to their family back home to enforce it. Anyone like this greedy Midjourney guy who would bow down to that fat-ass Jinping needs the entire family to be forced to surrender their passports, be stripped of their citizenship, an…

There's an additional threat in that overseas students must report regularly to the party otherwise their funding will be cut and they will be sent home. (This applies to Chinese funded students not those funded by overseas grants etc)

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#120

Post by HWR_14 »

andreiii wrote: post #80
HWR_14 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

in almost any election in every European country the voter presence is 50% or below. I think that's what the comment was about... is just a small % of people that participate in voting and even smaller percentage that votes for the winner.

The quote I responded to was explicitly about a minority of people who opted into voting. Other parts of the comment included nonvoters, but that's a different discussion.
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