Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

techdirt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 352 posts

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#281

Post by collegeburner »

skrebbel wrote: post #171
andrewstuart wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What would you do? Remember, there’s really only two options: run a service in a country and abide by the law and norms of that country, or don’t run a service in that country (ie IP geoblock the entire place). I mean, sure, you can run a service that abides by the law but not the norms (eg Onlyfans is available in the US despite the US being a country founded by prudes), but it’s hard and you need your full focus to…

i mean no there's obviously a 3rd option. run the service anyway and don't geoblock. like the banning country might block your service but that's on them.

if i'm running something not illegal and some other country bans it i see no moral case for me doing work to enforce some foreign government's laws for them. i'm not magically "operating" in every country around the world just because someone from there pings my server.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#282

Post by Aunche »

madeofpalk wrote: post #196
skrebbel wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you do? Remember, there’s really only two options: run a service in a country and abide by the law and norms of that country, or don’t run a service in that country (ie IP geoblock the entire place). I mean, sure, you can run a service that abides by the law but not the norms (eg Onlyfans is available in the US despite the US being a country founded by prudes), but it’s hard and you need your full focus to…

> drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not, https://twitter.com/dril/status/464802196060917762

The difference is that drunk driving objectively kills over ten thousand people every year. Meanwhile, the negative effects of 10 person company refusing to generate low-effort satire is less clear.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#283

Post by voicedYoda »

skrebbel wrote: post #171
andrewstuart wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What would you do? Remember, there’s really only two options: run a service in a country and abide by the law and norms of that country, or don’t run a service in that country (ie IP geoblock the entire place). I mean, sure, you can run a service that abides by the law but not the norms (eg Onlyfans is available in the US despite the US being a country founded by prudes), but it’s hard and you need your full focus to…

Just to clarify, puritans were involved in the founding of the USA, but much of the country was not based on prudish norms

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#284

Post by collegeburner »

fsloth wrote: post #137
jpgvm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar would also be illegal in Thailand under Lèse-majesté. Political satire of the old King in particular would be unwelcoming to many Thais which held him in an esteem above such things. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean it wouldn't also be culturally unacceptable and alienating.

The difference between the king of Thailand and Xi Jinping is that the former is basically a cultural institution, while the latter is a political figure who uses repression and censorship to consolidate power. Xi's power grab is not part of some Chinese cherished cultural tradition - it's just a power grab, and probably viewed as such even within the party.

calling a political figure a "cultural tradition" sounds like a flimsy excuse to try to short-circuit any political debate about a monarch. makes me wanna start whistling yankee doodle...

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#285

Post by anotherman554 »

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…

>"AFAICT, Midjourney has no shareholders and David Holz is the farthest thing from a slick CEO. He’s a big dreamer hippie dork."

I'm trying to figure out the functional difference between a "hippie CEO" and a "slick CEO".

The HBO show Silicon Valley has a satirical business owner who hires a "spiritual adviser" that tells him the most spiritual thing to do is whatever makes him the most money in every situation.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#286

Post by lostmsu »

mjr00 wrote: post #272
alkonaut wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> teams tries to stay out of it. There is no "staying out of" politics or just "remaining neutral" on topics (edit: the context here is "when doing business with the one of the belligerents of a conflict, an oppressive regime and so on. Not universally). Not taking a stand for one side in a two sided topic means taking the other side. Either you are pro gay rights or against it. Or you are pro democracy or against it…

Which side are you on in the Liancourt Rocks/Takeshima/Dokdo dispute? Remember, there's no remaining neutral in politics, so I expect a well-reasoned answer on this fundamental territorial rights dispute.

He doesn't know. Not sure what your point is though.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#287

Post by lostmsu »

aenvoker wrote: post #240
pmoriarty wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently, Midjourney lets users invite the Midjourney bot to their own private Discord server/channel, where no one else can see the images they generate using that bot. There's no reason that Midjourney couldn't allow whatever content the user wants to be generated there, as other Midjourney users would not be able to see it. But they insist on censoring Midjourney even in channels/servers inaccessible to the wider…

Hi. I’m a volunteer Midjourney content moderator. They don’t pay me. I’m under no obligation to make them look good. The team behind MJ are a bunch of overly-nice people. The work very hard night and day to help people bring art into the world. When they see their hard work resulting in porn, gore, gross-out or hate material, it is very discouraging. It’s not material they want to collaborate on. It’s not what they w…

Quite a lot of blood in the world was spilled by people with "nice" intentions.

Limiting art is one of the worst things one could do, IMHO.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#289

Post by alkonaut »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #261
alkonaut wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> teams tries to stay out of it. There is no "staying out of" politics or just "remaining neutral" on topics (edit: the context here is "when doing business with the one of the belligerents of a conflict, an oppressive regime and so on. Not universally). Not taking a stand for one side in a two sided topic means taking the other side. Either you are pro gay rights or against it. Or you are pro democracy or against it…

Or you can legitimately not know what to think about any particular issue. Some people don't have a favorite color. Expecting everyone to have a considered opinion about every political topic is just unrealistic.

Yes. And then you probably don't do business in or with a foreign country. The point is that you should know and likely do know, for example, what Qatar thinks about minority rights when you award them a World Cup.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#290

Post by alkonaut »

joenot443 wrote: post #270
alkonaut wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> teams tries to stay out of it. There is no "staying out of" politics or just "remaining neutral" on topics (edit: the context here is "when doing business with the one of the belligerents of a conflict, an oppressive regime and so on. Not universally). Not taking a stand for one side in a two sided topic means taking the other side. Either you are pro gay rights or against it. Or you are pro democracy or against it…

"If you're not with us, you're against us" is a pretty reductive, American-centric way of approaching politics. There are plenty of topics which I'm happy to not hold a strong opinion on and I'll probably spend my entire life that way. Folks who feel strongly about _any_ issue will always tell moderates they're just shills for the other side, which is part of what makes the argument so tiresome.

> There are plenty of topics which I'm happy to not hold a strong opinion on and I'll probably spend my entire life that way.

My statement wasn't about opinions in any way. It was basically about the fact that some times an action is already an opinion in itself. You can't e.g. do business in Russia and claim that "we like to remain neutral and stay out of politics/wars (and keep our income from the business in Russia)".

You can of course just not do business in/with Russia and few would wonder whether you have any strong opinions on the conflict. This isn't about forcing anyone to have strong public opinions. It's about that you can't meaningfully separate such opinions from business (or sports, or...)

Post reply on HN