He added that the merger would, “unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach."

He already owns and runs Xitter as a propaganda tool. Now he’s openly mixing it with his own bots.

Does anyone else get a really bad feeling about this? I see a lot of comments talking about this financially, but I haven’t seen any comments talking about the disinformation potential that comes with artificially seeding a social media site with his own AI bots. Granted, Grok’s responses have been based (so far), but that’s not guaranteed to last.

I don’t know exactly what the game plan is here, but the pieces are all laid out for Musk to spread his influence behind AI anonymity. That worries me.

Assassination would just make Trump into a MAGA martyr. They would be riled up and energized.

Yes, then the next question is, whom would they rally behind after Trump? We can see a chain of command for the line of presidency, but without Trump, there’d be a power vacuum at the top of his cult. Either it gets filled with an acceptable substitute, or the obligate-followers in his fandom won’t know where to direct their energy.

I wouldn’t be surprised if such a power vacuum created drama. Would Musk still be pulling so many strings in the government if Vance were president? Would he find a way to usurp even more unconstitutional government power, like how he controls DOGE? Would Vance tolerate Musk’s intrusions at all?

Or would his loyalist followers rally behind someone completely different, like a media personality? They’re looking for charisma in a leader, after all, and neither Vance nor Musk have that the way Trump (or someone professionally on TV) does. It’s possible some right-wing boner rises up through the crowd. Then, since Trumpsters naturally orient themselves toward the biggest dick around, he (Trump’s successor would almost certainly be a “he”) would get all their attention.

I feel you. I’ve been thinking a lot about my options lately (as I’m sure we all are.) As appealing as the idea to leave the country is, there’s some part of me that’s screaming, “No. Our place is here. These is our home. These are our neighbors. This is our fight.”

I hope those most vulnerable can find a way to stay safe… But as for myself, this system has kept me too poor to afford having kids, let alone owning a house, or any other assets, without hope of affording retirement, trapped in a system where I’m basically a slave running in a hamster wheel… So what have I got to fear? I’m going to stay here and organize.

You’re a good parent.

Meanwhile, my (immigrant) partner and I opened up about our fears to my family last Christmas, and my mom told me not to worry because my partner is “one of the good ones.” Ugh.

So yeah, thank you for being rational.

You nailed it with your username.

(I also hate that I agree with everything you said. It’s so hard to be hopeful these days.)

My favorite thing about this comment is that your username is ricecake.

Cake appreciates cake.

Wikipedia says a “North American granola bar is similar to a flapjack.” It definitely looks like what I’d call a granola bar.

Hey, while we’re here and talking dialects, I’ve got a similar question for UK folks. What the U.S. calls “cookies,” you call “biscuits.” So then what do you call this kind of biscuit?

(Unrelated side note: I’d just like to express my gratitude that Lemmy can easily handle links to URLs that end in a closed parenthesis. Back on Reddit, that caused a ton of broken links, but on Lemmy it just works.)

If you mean “a loan translation,” especially one where the distinct parts of a word are directly translated part-by-part, the English term for that is calque.

That is, if your local language translates pan = pan, and cakes = quecas, then “panquecas” would be a calque.

They also say “the best things in life are free,” but then I end up dropping $300 at the dispensary.

Somebody’s been lying.

That word goes all the way back to Proto-Indo-European, making it far older than English itself. In fact, it’s older than Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, all of which decended from Proto-Indo-European.

The more you know! 🌠

Thank you for the links. I already knew about prions, but I’d never seen the Med Twins before. A channel where an attractive young man talks about medical science in a foreign accent? You just found my catnip.

I just came across this relevant article this morning.

“If vandalism involving Tesla vehicles continues to rise and doesn’t go back down, we could see rates rise for comprehensive coverage in the future,” he said.

Martin explained that when carried, vandalism is covered by the comprehensive portion of an auto policy. While vandalism claims typically don’t increase insurance rates as much as collision claims, they can impact rates, she explained.

Martin added: “Since the recent rise in vandalism is focused on Teslas and not other make vehicles, drivers who carry Tesla Insurance may see a higher premium hike than those who have coverage with other carriers, since the risk of loss isn’t as diversified.”

As someone from the U.S., it seems like that concept has practically disappeared from the country. The nuances of civil debate, including the acknowledgement of differing opinions as valid, don’t exist in most of our popular media (both traditional and social.) We’ve been conditioned to react to things immediately and intensely using our emotions instead. There has been a slide toward this state for decades, but it’s come to the point where a lot of people genuinely struggle with separating “thing they personally disagree with/don’t like” from “thing that shouldn’t be said/heard/shared.”

(Not saying that’s the case with OP, just that it’s definitely a thing that’s been going on.)

I agree with applying healthy skepticism to any and all stories. At the same time, I can’t blame a recent Reddit refugee for not fully trusting Lemmy yet. They don’t know the environment here. It makes sense for someone to be apprehensive about repeating a thing that just got them banned somewhere else.

But I hope OP feels comfortable enough here to share their story some day.

That’s perfect. The more aliases, the better

The door is located after you click your username in the upper-right corner, and choose “Settings” from the drop-down. Scroll to the bottom of the page. On the left, in red, is a button to delete your account.

I’m not sure what really happens after that, though - I’ve never gone out that door. IIRC a deletion can take time, since various servers have to sync that information.

-Takes a bong hit-

So in a way, a recently-deleted account continues to exist across the Fediverse for a while. It is temporarily trapped to this plane of existence, until it can complete its final mission (deleting itself) across every corner of its known Fediverse. Then, and only then, can an account truly experience deletion.

-Passes to the left-

Common reported feelings include: elephant sitting on my chest (overlapping symptom between heart attack and panic attack)

This is such an apt description. There is absolutely a metaphorical elephant sitting on top of all of us.

Anyone else think chocolate is great? I love to eat the rich, dark kind for dessert. It’s a delightful way to end a meal.

Here’s a fun trick to stop using Reddit - simply install and use a VPN.

Just like that, Reddit blocks itself for you!

In case anyone wants to learn more, there’s a list of related reproductive organs on Wikipedia. (NSFW, obviously.) It’s pretty detailed.