I get from this “you cannot have expectations of me, because I’m an NPC, so stop the judgement because I cannot change what I am. It’s in my programming.”

Like, not really anything else. I cannot handle failing to meet expectations (regardless of where they come from, who is seemingly imposing them, or really anything related to expectations at all) so I just absolve myself from having any.

They try to reign it back in at the end with “goal is to do your own thing” but the examples given, and really NPCs in general, are the antithesis to that.

Ironically, the NPCs are designed to do exactly what they are supposed to with no free will at all. I have programmed you to do this, and thus you shall.

I think the author lost the plot.

It’s like telling a depressed person to just “not be depressed” and expect that to be helpful. Don’t you think if the depressed person had that lever they would pull it? They don’t know HOW to not be depressed. Ergo, stuck in the cave.

TFA is saying that what you think you may be doing is likely something else. Not publishing your work, not challenging yourself in the arena, etc. isn’t really about trying to make yourself good enough to succeed, it’s an avoidance of the bad feelings when you expect to fail.

So the message is rather simple, just go out and challenge yourself. Again, easy to do if you know how to mentally and emotionally handle the bad feelings. Seemingly insurmountable if you think the bad feelings will destroy you.

Ironically, the only way to know if they will or not is to actually dive in and experience the thing you’re afraid of failing at.

I worry about some of y’all.

After reading the article, I don’t disagree with the EFF. We shouldn’t rewrite copyright law to ban creative generation of {art}. AI generated images only increases competition, which is good for consumers of {art}. I do agree that copyright should still exist to prevent duplicate {art} being sold by a new individual claiming it as their own.

I think the tricky thing with AI is that as the end user, it’s still your responsibility to identify when you might be infringing on someone else’s copyright. I imagine that will be very difficult to do. Perhaps we need an AI copyright agent that can ingest your {art} and compare against all existing {art} for percent copyright infringement score.

In my opinion, the biggest thing I worry about is small creators having their work stolen, repackaged, and sold by big corporations. Which copyright protects. In fact with AI assisted lawyering, it might actually be even easier for small timers to protect their stuff, just like the big wigs do.

Abolishing copyright altogether is just such a wild, knee jerk take.

It’s really the small villages and grass roots communities that shine with heritage, tradition, and unique experiences. Unique of course when compared against one another, but even more homogeneous within their own borders.

I feel like you gotta be the change you want to see though. The small indie web, which never really went away I think, seems to be on the rise again. I know I’ve been enjoying clicking through all sorts of small personal sites people have running.

Just because it’s not widely used doesn’t mean it’s dead.

Despite humans being a natural part of our planet, and thus an end to an ecosystem could be considered natural in some way, we are unique in our ability to challenge and question our natural ways. Maybe we should be exempting ourselves from the natural order of things and working to allow the natural course of an ecosystem to die out on its own. Then we have the ability to inhabit and change without having destroyed in the process.

Idk, additional things to muse on.

I think the authors point about history is a key element of this. If I can track how the community has evolved and changed, I can still identify that community in its current form as the sum of all its changes.

I’m not sure that holds true if an outside entity tries to dismantle and rebuild the existing community without the context of the history.

Doesn’t specify the 2020’s.

Either way, I do feel we are fast approaching something of significance as a species.

Perhaps these constant restrictions will finally spur us to create our own spaces again Our own little groups that exist independent of the corpo-sphere.

The only reason ‘the way things used to be’ went away was because the new thing was convenient. Well, now it isn’t anymore. So let’s just go back to the old thing.

As a human with limited lifespan, that sucks.

In your scenario, as an artist you are still actively selling and making money on your art. That’s great, and maybe there should be exceptions in copyright for late bloomers who found their popular stride way later in their career with their earlier art. Regardless, you’re selling it and now I can buy it, awesome. This solves my problem.

However if I saw a photo of yours, from say 35 years ago in a restaurant you did as a commission, and you don’t want to sell me that print (totally fair) but also you don’t want anyone else to sell the print to make money off your 35 year old work, then I’m kinda hosed. I’ve got no options. I just have to travel to that restaurant, hopefully still open and they kept the photo on the wall, or just use my good ole noggin to remember what it looked like.

Just feels fundamentally broken, ya know?

I’m sure you could argue “well it’s my art and I’m allowed to determine its availability.” Now we’re into morals and what’s good for humanity. I will say art is in my subjective opinion good for humanity. Keeping it locked away is bad.

I don’t recommend a binary all or nothing approach to copyright protections, I just think at a certain point it’s for the betterment of the people now, not for the individual.

I appreciate your healthy challenging to my ideals.