jwmgregory

No it doesn’t, not at all.

in what way are your further points contrary to what i have said?

racism certainly can be an individual problem. the OP is literally an example of racism manifesting as an individual problem.

it is also a societal problem at the same time.

we call such problems systemic.

why is racism a systemic problem? because it is a social construct. it does not exist in reality, it exists in the collective consciousness of society.

obviously it isn’t feasible to just cast a spell and make the social construct of race go away in an instant.

but it is a pertinent fact that without the belief in race itself, one would be incapable of racism. note, not incapable of bigotry, just incapable of being racist.

arguing anything otherwise is going to quickly become self-contradictory.

racism is not built into the foundations of society, it is race as a social construct that is, and then further inherently lends itself to racism, both individually and societally.

it is an important distinction.

we mustn’t need to divide ourselves unless we choose to do so. i’ll take the L on having strewn myself off topic compared to the OP, however. this definitely is unfounded under a post just looking to vent.

i just get upset seeing how ingrained social constructs are for people. nothing has to be this way. it isn’t a solution, it’s a hope for a better tomorrow. the way people are so hot to ridicule is shameful

obviously it would be goofy at best to point out the way race is a social construct in the face of a bigot hurling slurs. that’s clearly not the point being made here? don’t be intentionally obtuse.

race isn’t real the same way gender isn’t real. these things, despite their unreality, have massive confluence on the lives of people across the world.

it is our belief in these things that power them, like false gods. it isn’t some “gotcha” moment to point out the thing i’ve literally already clarified. like, yes? believing in race makes you a racist. no, it isn’t some magical cant that will make the bad men go away.

doesn’t mean it isn’t important to recognize.

this isn’t some enlightened centrist shit. recognizing the true nature of these social constructs is the basis of affectual change in society.

starting anywhere else is arrogant and folly

accepting the social institution of race is what makes one racist. we live in a racist society. our grandchildren will look back on us in shame for stubbornly clinging to our chains

that’s fair, my absolute statement doesn’t reflect the exclusive way anti fraud laws are written. you certainly might find and successfully exploit legal ways to lie for financial gain, but at best it’s unethical and at worst you’ll have to defend why your deceit isn’t criminal fraud in a lawsuit. it kind of depends on who you piss off the most, imo.

uh, yes? it's at the least fraud fs? the article says the doj is charging mike smith with three money laundering charges and one count of wire fraud. obviously the wire fraud charge comes from an argument that smith defrauded the distribution companies into illegitimately paying out royalties for false streams. note that the artificial intelligence solution only comes into the argument for the purposes of how he committed the crime, it really had nothing to do with the crime itself, at least intrinsically. if you read the press release from the doj, you can see that they make a pretty airtight argument that, quote:

SMITH made numerous misrepresentations to the Streaming Platforms in furtherance of the fraud scheme. For example, SMITH repeatedly lied to the Streaming Platforms when he used false names and other information to create the Bot Accounts and when he agreed to abide by terms and conditions that prohibited streaming manipulation. SMITH also deceived the Streaming Platforms by making it appear as if legitimate users were in control of the Bot Accounts and streaming music when, in fact, the Bot Accounts were hard coded to stream SMITH’s music billions of times. SMITH also caused the Streaming Platforms to falsely report billions of streams of his music, even though SMITH knew that those streams were in fact caused by the Bot Accounts rather than real human listeners.

SMITH’s hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs were streamed by his Bot Accounts billions of times, which allowed him to fraudulently obtain more than $10 million in royalties.

it is not illegal to lie. it is absolutely illegal to lie for the purposes of financial gain. sure, i'm not disagreeing that what he did could not somehow be construed as something of a robin hood character arc (even tho he most certainly did this for the purposes of his own personal enrichment). but he almost definitely is guilty of the wire fraud charge and i do have a strong feeling, based on the prosecutorial level of this case, the involvement of a specialized division of the fbi, and his purported co-conspirators; that the money laundering charges are ironclad as well. frankly, i'm hoping his co-conspirators actually do end up going to trial and we get to learn what the company that aided in his fraud actually was. on fucking god it'd be one thing if he ran this grift machine for a little while, paid off a lil bit of his debts and all, maybe even lived off of it. but to steal $10 million fucking dollars with it, even when he knew he was committing fraud and had to explicitly hide his criminal activity??? no shit the fbi was hot on your trail. what an absolutely, colossal dipshit michael smith must be. i respect the ingenuity but it is so blindingly obvious that 10 million dollars was egregiously too many times to press a "free money button" you just invented in a capitalist autocratic hellscape.

QUICK EDIT: i do just wanna say also i did not downvote u/shani66 and i just wanted to contribute to discussion. just noticed after i posted someone had downvoted them which is kinda goofy of whoever that is.

restaurants provide a service the same way landlords do. just bc you privatized an essential commodity does not immediately make your privatized entity a useful or essential service, and i detest the notion that it does. it’s circular logic.