studiomcah
Art • Books • Writing
Community for science fiction and fantasy author/artist M.C.A. Hogarth.
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
The Jaguar's Heart 6: Hatespeech

One of the most common things I hear (and say) right now is "the asymmetry is the story." Here's one about how none of us are innocent of the sins we hate in others.


Hi, all. Welcome to this week’s episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.

It’s been weeks since the Baen’s Bar incident and I’m still thinking about it... because the longer I do, the more I feel, overwhelmingly, that it’s obvious that the problem is deeper than “this forum was saying stuff that offended us.” We have to back up to the glaring fact that people on opposite sides no longer consider each other human. Nothing I say will matter because the people disagreeing with me don’t think I’m human. They have denied my humanity; they have not bothered to listen to my beliefs, or have fake-listened to them in that way that people do when they’re so ready to prove you wrong that they’re only using your speech to provide talking points for their own ideas.

We have forgotten how to listen.

Increasingly, we have also forgotten how to extend to one another the very basic courtesies we grant to those we agree with. Which is how we come to ‘hatespeech from the other side incites violence and should be shut down, but we never commit hatespeech because nothing we say incites violence, or if it does, it’s necessary violence.’

Here’s where I’ve come to, after days of turning it over in my head. All of us say things that read as hatespeech. It’s natural for people who are angry, frustrated, or afraid to blow off steam, particularly if they believe they are among people who agree with them (because they assume, correctly, that people who agree with them will understand that they aren’t literally advocating violence… they are expressing feelings that would have no other outlet without that rant).

One of the foundational principles that I find I share with other conservatives (and sometimes people who identify in other ways) is that while you can give people tools to fight their worser impulses, we will never stop being subject to human nature. Christians would call that evidence of the Fall, but I don’t think you have to be religious to agree that all of us fight a constant war against greed, envy, hatred, fear, jealousy and spite. To create any policy, no matter how well-intentioned, that depends on people operating out of their best natures without planning for bad actors—and without realizing that we will all be some kind of bad actor one day—is futile.

This is one of the many reasons I feel like we weren’t ready for the internet, which destroys or obscures boundaries that we would usually observe when it comes to letting off steam. When you think you’re among friends, you say things you know your friends will forgive (and good friends will later say ‘hey, you know that was unfair’ and you say ‘yeah, I know it was over the line, but things bite right now’ and you keep going). But social media (and its predecessors, like forums and BBSes) give people the feeling that they’re among friends when they’re actually in public… which means the people you’re frustrated with get to see the inside of your head, and judge you on it.

I don’t think anyone deserves to have what goes on inside their head judged. By that standard, we’re all guilty. But the internet allows people to jump straight into people’s heads and start condemning them for their thoughts… and that is what turns hateful speech into hateful actions, not the other way around. When there’s no way for you to back down, when there’s no apology you can make, when it’s clear that you’ve already been hung by a jury of your peers for the careless, transitory thoughts in your head rather than your behavior… then you might as well go all the way, because how else can you protect yourself? If people will never stop thinking of you as a villain, what use becoming a hero? You’ll be condemned no matter what you do.

I think that’s worth repeating: if you wish to radicalize someone, make it clear they will always be a villain, no matter what they do or say. Give them no way out.

So the people in Baen’s Bar thought they were among likeminded people, and were blowing off steam saying things that their polar opposites say in their own spheres as well. Both sides think it’s all right when they do it, and wrong when the other side does it. Both sides think when other sides do it, it incites violence. But I don’t think anyone gets to be holier than thou on this one. To vent is human. To vent hyperbolically and with extreme language is normal. Pretending that only certain kinds of people do it, or that it should matter only when certain kinds of people do it, is wrong. It’s wrong factually, and it’s wrong ethically. It creates a society where some people are punished for their thoughts and some people get a pass, and a society like that is a powderkeg waiting for an explosion.

We need to back away from this cliff, and I don’t know how. But maybe it begins with some humility about the frailties of the nature we all share.

That’s all I’ve got. Thanks for listening to this imperfect heart. Jaguar out.

The Jaguar's Heart 6: Hatespeech
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
What else you may like…
Videos
Podcasts
Posts
Articles
October 27, 2021
Cursive Practice Video, to Relax

Or at least, I intend it to be relaxing. Hopefully it delivers.
4:22 minutes

Materials:

00:04:27
Overview of the First Oil Paint Experiment

In which I talk about the paper, the paint, and the experience of oils versus gouache. Fun stuff, will do more.

Thank you Locals supporters! Your contribution to my art war chest here is what's powering these experiments and videos. For now I'm keeping them public but I may start doing some subscriber-only videos if you all are interested.💖

00:03:35
Video Review: Oil Painting Papers

My initial review on receipt of the three oil paper products I ordered: the Canson pad, the Rembrandt block, and the Arches single sheets.

00:01:54
November 09, 2021
Alysha Misc

Thanks for your comments yesterday on the business post... all very provocative, in a good way. I'll try to respond to all of them today.

Some Alysha misc now, since I'm gearing up for the results of the Kickstarter!

Petrov is giving away coupon codes for every book in the Alysha series (and has some leftover coupons for Marda and the business book). You can pick those up here (and please do! The books are bought already, someone should use them!) https://twitter.com/PetrovNeutrino/status/1457344535843987461

Our own @JudasComplex sent along a sample of the Faith in the Service audiobook, which I've attached for your delight! I... haven't had a chance to listen to it. Don't ask me about my past week and a half or so. Putting it here will guarantee I get to it.

After hearing the amused comments during the livestream, I went ahead and added all the ship type illustrations I have inked from the 90s to the wiki. Glory in the rampant adorableness of their anthropomorphic stylings! See those ...

Alysha Misc
The Jaguar's Heart 7: We Are Not a Monolith

A little comedy today, at least in the link. Transcript follows.


Hi, all. Welcome to this episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.

A while back I was introduced to a comedy sketch about Cuban coffee by a Mexican comedian, Gabriel Iglesias. ( The sketch begins with him greeting all his fellow Latinos and then backing up to say ‘but we’re all different, aren’t we’ which is a segue into a demonstration of how different Hispanics speak Spanish.

It is hilarious. First, because I am a Spanish speaker and a linguistics hobbyist, and his portrayal of various accents resonated with my experiences in trying to make sense of them myself… Not always easy, since from culture to culture, slang and accent are often totally different (and sometimes grammar! Spaniards use a grammatical construct that has died out in many other Spanish-speaking countries, the plural “you.”)

I also loved it because the Cuban coffee part is real. I grew up with Cubans. I know how we are....

The Jaguar's Heart 7: We Are Not a Monolith
The Jaguar's Heart 5: Digital Book Burning

New examples of what I talk about in this ramble have popped up since I recorded it. When you read about them, think about the behind-the-scenes picture I talk about here.

Link to the ALA's Freedom to Read statement, mentioned in the ramble: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/freedomreadstatement

Transcript below.


Hi, all. Welcome to this episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.

Today, I’m here to stand for Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catch in the Rye… and Dr. Seuss. Because every author—and every person—should be against the burning of books.

I feel it would be a good idea to start this one out by meeting on common ground. Something I think we can all safely agree on is that monopolies are bad. Yes, even capitalists can agree on that one. As Hayek said, “Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are at his mercy.”

Many of you know where I’m going with ...

The Jaguar's Heart 5: Digital Book Burning

TIL a fun new word:
flu·vi·a·tile /ˈflo͞ovēəˌtīl/ adjective TECHNICAL
of, found in, or produced by a river.
"fluviatile sediments"

February 20, 2024
Orange Cat Kickstarter is Live!

If you want a sticker (or the original), go grab one. International backers, this one should be affordable for you too!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mcahogarth/orange-cat-energy-stickers?ref=5489jp

February 05, 2024
Incoming Cat Stickers!

I'm planning on launching this one at the end of February... maybe the 20th? So if you're into cat photos, stickers, or art, you can use the link to be notified when the project goes live. 😸

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mcahogarth/orange-cat-energy-stickers

February 02, 2024
post photo preview
Gamelit Novel Index

The chapter titles are all a mess. But this is the proper order so far:

Gamelit 1 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4241337/gamelit-novel-first-chapter

Gamelit 2 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4255477/gamelit-novel-last-bit-of-chapter-1

Gamelit 3 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4267366/gamelit-novel-chp2-part1

Gamelit 4 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4267371/gamelit-novel-chp2-final

Gamelit 5 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4298755/gamelit-novel-chp-3-part-1

Gamelit 6 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4330428/gamelit-chp-3-part-2

Gamelit 7 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4331116/gamelit-chap-4-pt-1

Gamelit 8 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4361942/gamelit-chp-4-last-bit

Gamelit 9 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5215305/gamelit-novel-chapter-3

Gamelit 10 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5244861/gamelit-novel-10

Gamelit 11 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5271216/gamelit-novel-11

Gamelit 12 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5301971/gamelit-novel-12

Gamelit 13 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5326625/gamelit-novel-13

Gamelit 14 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5360605/gamelit-novel-14

Gamelit 15 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5385714/gamelit-novel-15

Gamelit 16 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5418577/gamelit-novel-16

Read full Article
Gamelit Novel, 16
Crafting, Dinner, and Music

We resume Nick and Amanda's adventure! Index here: https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5215754/gamelit-novel-index

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
post photo preview
Resistance is Futile
The Jaguar’s AI Experiment

Yes, it’s true: after much gnashing of teeth and a token resistance to the inevitable, I decided it was time to do serious experimentation with AI, especially after hearing multiple reports, all good, about Anthropic’s Claude. To be clear, I continue to think the legal repercussions of the training of AI models on unlicensed intellectual property (whether that’s visual art, fiction or nonfiction, music, etc) need to be hashed out… and we need to decide now who owns a person’s voice, face, and personality to protect against the use of deepfakes to defame people or defraud their loved ones.

            None of that, however, changes that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and LLMs (Large Language Models) are not going anywhere, and are already changing things. I would rather not be drowned by the tidal wave of revolution, so for once I’m trying to surf the initial waves. “What can AI possibly do for me, if I don’t want it to write my books or draw my pictures?” I wondered, and my loved ones said, “Why don’t you find out instead of guessing?” (I am surrounded by smart people.)

            This ended up being a perfect time to experiment because (by accident!) I had a problem that needed solving: I want to set up a sales website so people can shop from me directly instead of buying from Etsy or Bandcamp or Amazon. I’d just read a book that broke down the tiers of products you want to offer, from freebies to lure in new readers, all the way to premium purchases that will only be attractive to superfans. Since my book catalog alone is over 70 titles, brainstorming what things to put in what categories sounded less like fun and more like shoveling the Augean stables. I had just signed up for Claude, so I figured: why not see if it can figure these things out for me?

            Its initial suggestions were generic based on the information I gave it—that I was an author, of 70 books, mostly science fiction, but some fantasy, children’s, romance, and nonfiction. I was also a painter. I was intrigued by the fact that it knew that ebooks made good low tier products based on price, and that premium offerings should involve autographs, special editions, or bundling with themed art or merchandise… but it was too non-specific for me.

            Which is when I fell down the rabbit hole. I discovered I could feed it my list of published works. Then my book catalog with all the covers and descriptions and tags. I gave it all-time sales data from my retailers… and then bandcamp… and then etsy… and then all my kickstarter data. I even gave it website traffic information, patreon and locals stats, and social media follower counts. With every file I fed it, I asked it to refine its ideas on how I should be positioning, bundling, and marketing my products. I asked it what underperforming books might be promising if presented to some new audience. I even asked it to find recurring themes across all my books and use that information to create marketing copy for new readers.

            Every so often I’d stop to ask it ancillary business questions, like “My large backlist can be intimidating to new readers. How do I attract them despite that?” or “I write in diverse genres, which makes my work difficult to market. How can my broad writing range be used as a strength, instead of a weakness, and how can I make new readers interested in all my offerings?” And it continued to give me sensible ideas, many of which I had already thought of, along with a few I hadn’t.

            Already I had to stop and marvel at how bizarre it was that a computer was just spouting off all this stuff in response to questions. Where does it get these answers? How does it construct them? How does it know what words mean?? It is completely inscrutable, but the interaction feels so normal that you keep going. So I did.

            By the end of that conversation, Claude knew not only which of my books and settings were bestsellers, it gave me excellent guesses on which of my themes or tropes were doing best in the market, and had used that information to craft a set of offerings for my (as yet unrealized) shop that would not only attract people with the tried-and-true series, like Dreamhealers and Her Instruments, but also tempt people with the promising but underselling ones, like Thief of Songs. “Narrow that down to ten initial offerings,” I told it, “because I want to launch my store with a limited number of items to get my feet wet.” Which it did, and they were all reasonable ideas. And I went to sleep (or tried), feeling like I’d completely underestimated the utility of LLMs. I had started the day with a tedious task I hadn’t wanted to do that required knowledge of my entire product catalog and how my art and writing interacted over the 25+ years I’d been making things, and Claude had learned enough to do it for me.

            Here, friends, is the wildest part.

            When I woke up at 4 am (thank you, orange cat), I remembered that while researching Shopify, I’d read that they supported bulk upload of products by means of a CSV file (which can be turned into a spreadsheet). There was a template online with sample products in it. I wondered suddenly if Claude could create a bulk upload spreadsheet for me. So I got up before dawn, fed it the sample file from Shopify, and told it to fill it in with the paid products it had brainstormed, excluding the free offerings, and generate a CSV file I could upload.

            …and it did. When I cut and pasted the output and saved it as a CSV file, Excel opened it and it was perfectly formatted. Claude had even added product codes, tags, descriptions, and SEO and Google adword information.

            Was it perfect? Of course not. But it had done most of the grunt work, leaving me to the far more reasonable task of adjusting things here and there.

            I was floored. Every description I’d heard about LLMs so far had made them sound like toys. I don’t want AI generated images. I don’t care if it can brainstorm creative ideas, or suggest ways to fix my novel. Every time I asked about business cases, I heard back ‘oh, it can’t do that yet’ so I shrugged it off. But it’s been less than half a year since I started asking about business cases, and Claude just handled an extremely annoying and pertinent one for me, the day I started using it. This is astonishing. I don’t know if we’re still saying ‘I can’t even’ or if that’s passe, but… I really can’t even.

            Have I done nothing but experiment with this tech for two days? Indeed, I have. I might have skipped three hours of sleep to do it, too.

            There are a lot of limitations on this technology, especially if (like me) you have so much data that you casually break its file limits. But LLMs are evolving so fast that I wonder not if that will be fixed, but how quickly. And it’s certainly still the Wild West out there, with various competing AIs that are good at some things and bad at others. Figuring out which one will work for you isn’t a minor task. But it’s clear to me that this technology is not only coming, it’s going to be indispensable, and I’m glad I’m surfing this wave.

            Bonus: you can also use it to shore up your confidence when you’re feeling bad. XD

            So there you have it, my first adventure with LLM. Should I keep talking about this? What kind of boring things do you hope AI will automate for you?

Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals