“The malice of a true Christian attempting to destroy an opponent is something unique in the world. No other religion ever considered it necessary to destroy others because they did not share the same beliefs. At worst, another man's belief might inspire amusement or contempt - the Egyptians and their animal gods, for instance. Yet those who worshipped the Bull did not try to murder those who worshipped the Snake, or to convert them by force from Snake to Bull. No evil ever entered the world quite so vividly or on such a vast scale as Christianity did.”

~ Priscus, as written by Gore Vidal, in the historical fiction classic Julian.

#Religion
#Christianity
#Cults

Here we go again, another so-called “Christian preacher“ doing his job as cult leader, and mass murderer.

“Mackenzie is a former street vendor and taxi driver who set up his evangelical Good News International Church in Malindi in 2003. Some of his preaching included opposition to formal schooling, some medicines and vaccinations.”

What to know about Kenya's starvation cult after its leader is convicted on 191 murder charges

https://apnews.com/article/kenya-starvation-cult-mackenzie-shakahola-b0ff199504ff668f44d0abefe1c47e44?

RE: https://cyberpunk.lol/@mxchara/117448758116272568

I’m always down for a good rant about the christist cult.

RE: https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/117433836572653144

I’m in.

“Don't even get me started about how expensive it would be from a compute and capital perspective to train new generations of models on cross-sectional images with >GB files sizes, cross reference those models with the underlying clinical data, gain regulatory approval for mass access to imaging data, and the inevitability of model drift as new generations of imaging hardware and procedures continue to roll out.

Oh, and legal liability, which would require a congressional act of god to immunize them from.

Trust me: I will be doing this field for a long time to come, and you too will be doing yours. Do not believe these out of touch plutocrats.”

#NoAI

“In the meantime, some of the interviews with the billionaires are just mind numbing. Jensen Huan on Ezra Klein last week seemed to suggest that the task of automating our field had essentially been completed. Ross Douthat interviewing Dario Amodei claimed that it's well-established that AI can read a "scan" better than a radiologist. Don't forget Geoff Hinton saying in 2016 that AI would replace all radiologists in 5 years...

These people have zero idea what we do. And If they have zero idea what WE do, then that means they've got zero idea what anyone else does. Rather than being the first ones to be replaced, I contend that we are canaries in the coal mine for this technology and why it will not wreak the havoc that our billionaire overlords are hoping to scare everybody into.

They are just too far removed and self-satisfied to realize how incorrect their predictions are. Not to mention how useless their technology is in the real world when lives are at stake.”

more ->

“I'm truly just blown away by how little impact AI has had in our field, even when it comes to pure diagnostics.

My hospital employs a limited number of "models" for basic tasks like pulmonary nodule detection, and even then they suck to such a point that I stopped using them early on in my residency.

Beyond that, I have never heard of anything remotely approaching the point of analyzing CT, MR, US, PET, or catheter angiography accurately and producing a complete report.

The technology is not just in "early stages"...it's plainly nonexistent. And the "cutting edge" research that I review ain't exactly making much progress (it's usually for much more banal bullshit, like fixing reporting errors, and triaging critical findings...which is all well and good, but only modestly impactful in the setting of a true clinical workflow).”

more->

So, about AI taking all those jobs… this from a radiologist on Reddit.

“Real talk here in radiology

Just need to get this out there, since some of the interviews and opinions I have heard about the state of radiology are just unmoored from reality...

I am a senior resident in diagnostic/interventional radiology with a background in applied ML research from the pre-LLM era. I also review papers for a leading medical AI journal.”

more->

We all knew global warming was a death sentence for humanity at least 25 years ago.

But for me at least, there was an assumption that as it got worse, people would pull together to do something about it.

Watching that assumption die as the oligarchs pour gasoline on a flaming planet is really a bummer.

Bravo!
“For decades, fossil fuel companies have hidden behind a simple defence: we only produce the product. The driver filling a tank, the household heating with gas — they are the ones burning it, not us. The Paris court has now dismantled that argument. It found that TotalEnergies’ investment strategies, industrial choices, and energy portfolio directly shape the emissions that follow. The consumer alibi, the industry’s most lucrative fiction, is over.”
https://euobserver.com/226432/as-europe-swelters-paris-judges-say-consumers-arent-to-blame-totalenergies-is/

To hell with AI, more innovation like this please.
#solarpunk
#climate
#ecology

Bonkers.
Bat-shit Crazy.
Nuts.
Sick-in-The-Head.
Deranged.

And of course, the media‘s favorite euphemism: Unhinged.

Thinking of synonyms for ‘insane’ this morning for no particular reason.

Mmm hmm.

Pffttpt !!!!
I almost spit out my coffee..

“This critique of Republicans is not meant to suggest that Democrats are distinguishing themselves in matters of courage. Lead Democratic capitulator Hakeem Jeffries unveiled a new campaign slogan, sourced from a venture capitalist’s book; it is, and I swear I'm not making this up, “Strong Floor, No Ceiling.” It’s the sort of thing that seems designed to inspire nobody and promise nothing, which is certainly seems to be the vibe Democratic leadership is after.”

Wow. What a sentence 😬

“To sum up: The Republican White House, including the president and his cabinet, is regularly engaging in open white supremacist and neo Nazi rhetoric from official and unofficial channels, in service of their racist ethnic cleansing program, their unconstitutional crimes against humanity both domestic and foreign, their demolition of our modern society, of our scientific progress, and our democracy, their punitive acts of war against the civilian population of the United States and civilian populations abroad, and an almost unfathomable level of self-enriching corruption—and the elected leaders of Republican Party and the bribed fascist Republican supreme court, which could have stopped any of this at any time, is largely accelerating it. There is a general corrosive attack on any notion of kindness, of dignity, of competence, of knowledge, of diversity, and of truth.”
https://www.the-reframe.com/cult-ure-of-abuse/

I just realized my Mastodon experience hasn’t enshittified one bit in the 2+ years I’ve been here.

In fact, it’s only gotten better.

It’s time for Europe and NATO to face facts.

USA, the world‘s biggest superpower, has had its leadership seized by a fascist international organized crime cartel.

Not once have fascists given up power through elections, there’s no reason to think Trump and his gang will be any different.

Whatever “deals“ or “policies“ they put forward are simply kabuki theater. Bait and switch. Lucy and the football.

The end goal of their every activity is to consolidate power, and ensure kleptocracy for their cronies.

Ukraine is a test case and the first domino. If this Russian rehab deal goes through on their terms, look down the road 5, 10 or 20 years.

Currently, Russia is on the ropes. Zelinsky just needs a little more back up to finish the job, and it’s obvious that the US is going to stand in the way.

It’s time for the sober western liberal democracies of the world to put on their big boy pants and face the facts.

Amen
“Mastodon is my social network now. I don’t use anything else because I don’t want an algorithm showing me what it thinks I should see, rather than what I want to see. I follow people for a reason. I turn on notifications for people for a reason. I prefer to experience social media that way, rather than every time I come here, it’s just like, “Oh my god, it’s always the same people and the same topics,” which is a bubble, and I don’t want to be part of it. There are other things, too, like the lack of advertising, which is fantastic.”
#Mastodon

I agree with this 100%
“I can honestly say I love using Mastodon. I follow interesting people, my mental health is much better without X and Meta (Facebook, Instagram, etc.), and the absence of performative posts is refreshing. I follow and engage with whom I want, easily block bots, spammers, and annoying people, don’t care about my follower count, and enjoy an algorithm-free feed without ads or people posting things for disingenuous reasons.”
#Mastodon