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Right. I have no idea. I’m not Ukrainian or Russian so I can’t speak for either, it just seemed to me that Ukraine and Russia are so close linguistically and culturally that it’s just difficult, I think, to draw a line. As somebody who was there when this was all beginning I’m honestly still very confused and I can’t wrap my head around the severity. At Maidan everything was super concentrated to the city center and outside of that life was on as normal (in Jan 2014 thru July 2014 when I was in Kiev). I think it would be tough to be Ukrainian. A lot of my friends have left Ukraine and immigrated to Poland or the US because it got to thepoint where it was impossible to support themselves and or their families

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I was volunteering with Mormons. I’m not Mormon but I wanted to go and was really interested in learning more about Russia at the time. It was difficult to get a Russian visa and I was offered to volunteer in Ukraine and get everything i needed covered since nobody was willing to go because of the situation. I was young and kind of stupid but I don’t regret going. I honestly can’t say that I understand the situation any better in terms of what happened and what is going on right now. In January 2014 a lot was happening at the city center. It seemed like, at the time, when Crimea was declared a Russian territory (I think it was in May?) a lot of people were ambivalent and it seemed like most of Eastern Ukraine was pretty much part of Russia anyway. In Kiev it seemed like people were split down the line on most issues. Every one of my younger friends supported Euro Maidan and seemed to hate communism. I tried to ask them what it was like living in the USSR but a lot of them didn’t remember what it was like, but their parents seemed to have ambivalent opinions. I talked to some older people who missed living in the USSR. Also, near the city center (there’s a metro stop near Maidan that’s called Kontracktova Plosha) I remember there being some people selling Nazi memorbelia which I thought was weird. Like, selling old photographs of Hitler and stuff. It’s hard to imagine what is going on in Kiev right now because in 2014 literally everything was concentrated at the city center. Outside of that life was on as usual. I went to this town in East Ukraine that was near Lvov, I think it was called Kemenetz Podolski (I’m probably butchering the name) but I thought it was cool because they had a lot of communist monuments still standing. In Kiev most things were torn down. Also Western Ukrainians just seemed to have integrated that history more which was interesting. I wish I could have talked to more people and was better at Russian. I’m sorry I’m not the most articulate on my phone and the Lemmy app keeps fucking up.

Isn’t most of Eastern Ukraine pretty much Russia anyway?

I honestly wonder how many more military recruiters are gonna pop out of the woodwork on college and high school campuses now. Ugh.

Funny how that works.

You have definitely given me a lot to think about and your replies want to make me learn more. Thanks for offering some solid discussion here (I know I keep replying but honestly I don’t know how to message people individually).

It’s kind if creepy that you’re deducing people to chemicals and their thoughts and life experience to be the same as a computer.

I’m not going to try and pull out a bunch of fancy theories and flowery language to get my point across but I still feel like everything that I have read here leaves me feeling hopeless that people don’t care about what happens with AI and how people are going to be affected materially and spiritually.

Sure, that sounds nice in theory, that people will just chill and fall in love and eat food together and there will be sunshine and gumdrops and roses if AI takes over and communism is realized. But that isn’t what is going to happen. That is why I’m saying that AI is a really bad thing for everyone in reality and where we stand with the world right now.

The reality is what people will be replaced by AI. Capitalism will continue to be the driver of the world, and a lot of people will live in abject poverty. There will be no opportunities to work except maybe for the people who are caregiving for the elderly and disabled (if robots do not take over that). And people will continue to shit on artists or people who are critical of AI replacing them. Information, education, art, culture, music, research will be centralized to corporations that use AI and the few that upkeep it. This is bad for a lot of reasons. And even if people start colonizing Mars, what will there be to do if robots and AI are doing all the work? I guess people will get bored enough to just start making their own creative works, but that goes back to what I was saying before that it will be met with a lot of resistance from people who hate artistsorr believe that people don’t deserve to have anything materially or spiritually.

People need a reason to live. Like I said, even if you are going to reduce people to “meatsacks” there is a reason why people NEED things outside of food, water, and shelter. I believe in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs but depending on the person and situation those needs can be moveable.

Can we stop this progression? I don’t know what is to be done - I guess we can only see it unfold and time will tell. But honestly I haven’t seen an argument that is giving me hope other than going back to the core of why I choose to be alive and keep going, and that is keep learning more and not give up. I guess that’s all I can do. Even if people tell me it’s futile.

Some people want to draw for work. What would be the point of just drawing “for fun” if your work is just kept to yourself and piled under a bunch of soulless AI generated images?

If everything gets automated, and nobody does anything since art can just be reduced to prompting, then what are people going to do? Sit in a room and rot? I’ve asked this question in the thread before but I didn’t get an answer.

The topic at hand here is art. It’s how I connect with the world. It is how I met my wife. It’s what motivates me to move forward when the world completely sucks.

I feel like it’s really unrealistic to assume that AI will create some kind of utopia that is free of work. What will people do? Tell me what a typical day will look like if literally everything, including art, is automated? If art is not going to be valued as an effective form of communication or experiencing the world, and that it is useless to learn and gain skills in because AI can do it better, then what is the point?

I believe that some arguments and statements are not worth listening to and that is so many of the comments in this thread. Unless you are an artist yourself you can’t speak on behalf of them.

It is sad that something actually makes life meaningful is being taken out of human hands. It’s akin to taking away hope and faith in itself.

I don’t feel motivated to live in a world where I would never get the opportunity to work toward something I cared about, and to be demoralized every step of the way because a computer can replace me at any second. On top of that, being reminded of it at every second of the way.

Even on top of that, from a purely scientific perspective, humans’ brains are the way they are because we have the need to be valued and feel useful and fulfilled. There is a reason why people work and always have worked toward something. There has never been a society that has not had some form of work in human history. Even during my time in West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer, people worked very hard even if they didn’t have jobs in the western sense. I’ve met African women who have worked harder than anybody I’ve ever known and they didn’t work a job.

I guess I’m alone in feeling the way that I do about it and maybe I just fundamentally disagree with someindividuals’s interpretations of the situation, but it is just very sad. A very sad future indeed. Imagine a world that is controlled by people trying to convince you that you should be fine with this. I guess all I can do is keep it to myself that I hate it or be seen as crazy for thinking that people are so quick to jump on a bandwagon for what the majority or the most domineering opinions in the room.

Edit: I also see and understand your idea that people could just do art as a hobby if AI automates everything, but the reality is that it won’t do that. Likely the only available jobs will be the ones that are physically and emotionally all encompassing (such as home health care or something) and people won’t have the energy to even do art as a hobby. And AI will just take away every job opportunity anyway. Do you honestly see socialism being integrated into the US (at least) any time soon? It is creepy to just deduct humans to chemicals and meatsacks. Where is the empathy? Also, if you are implying I’m an idealist when it comes to art, are the people in this thread who argue against me really so naively idealist to believe that socialism and communism will be integrated any time soon? And even so, would it be utopia if it is seen as worthless to do anything because AI can do it better?

After being on this thread today, I decided I’m going to take a break from being online at this point at least as it relates to politics. Thanks for the book recommendations and also your insight about communism.

There has been a couple of people here who have been very nice and seem to be interested in socialism to help other people and are taking into account these big questions about what it means to he human, and what makes life worth living. I appreciate yours and their insight in this thread.

Thanks very much for your insight and also the books recommendations. I’ll see if I can find a copy at the library and keep thinking about these issues. Maybe I can try to see if there’s a way that Marxism fits and offers any insight and answers.

I thought about it and we live in a really difficult time with all of these changes and everything that is going on with the world. It isn’t easy.

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Thats very sad. I was at Maidan in 2014

Who cares? Are you really going to go as far as flaunt a your cultural capitol, gatekeep, and shame me for trying to have an honest conversation about what people should be expected to do if AI takes over everything? I’m here to learn, not to get dogpiled for having real concerns about this subject and the OP. I don’t like AI, as I understand the basis of socialism it is to allievate the burdens of capitalism. And it goes beyond production. You have done nothing but insult me and honestly make no sense in any of your arguments. I don’t feel any more inspired to hear more about your idea of Marxism and I’m not the only one.

I know about art and that is the topic at hand.

One last question since you seem hellbent on AI taking over work: what do you expect people are going to do when everything is automated by AI? Sit and decay and rot?

That makes no sense. People who go into the arts (specifically the entertainment industry) do things that are in demand and for the “bourgeoisie”. Everyone needs entertainment and novel ideas, or else they literally go crazy. There’s a reason that sensory deprivation in prisons is torture.

I feel like you’re doing a bunch of mental gymnastics to defend AI and dump on people in general who want to devote their time to doing something that is in line with developing their own skills and contributing to the well being of themselves and others.

You haven’t made any good arguments in support of AI if that is what your goal is to change my mind here.

The two posts you made in this post were just dunking on artists as just wanting to go into it to just be among capitalists and be the next Piccaso. Which is honestly ridiculous. Nobody wants to be an artist to get rich. On the flip side, everyone wants to get into tech to get rich, unless you are planning to go into academia or research with the aim of helping people and that isn’t often. Just look at AI developers. They aren’t creating the technology out of goodwill. It isn’t beyond reality to assume that most of the people defending AI aren’t artists. I’m going to call it for what it is: people who hate artists are jealous and they hate anybody who puts in the mental and physical labor to doing something that requires effort. Literally anybody is allowed to do what they want and deserves to feel good about building their skills in something. Being an armchair political theorist on Lemmy and online circles takes literally zero effort but it takes effort to do anything creative. Prompting AI game assets and furry boobs and overly rendered space porn doesn’t count.

For somebody who does art as their full-time day job you sure seem to think way more highly of programmers and not very highly of artists. I know you replied to another user saying that you were a full time artist but I doubt that is true. Prompting AI on Mid journey and all the other stuff you listed doesn’t make you a full time artist.

Thanks for the book recommendations, I’ll check it out!

I’m pretty sure that literally nobody these days expects that they are going to “rule among the capitalist class” by becoming an artist. You have got to be kidding me. It’s ironic because most of the users on this site are programmers/involved in developing computer science and you know that they are more well off and have more status than anybody who has ever claimed to be an artist here that is an artist first and foremost, not a programmer and then an art hobbyist as a second.

Literally anybody can be an artist or do anything if they want to do the work. Itisn’t reserved to a special class or something. Like what the heck.