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cubeghost · 11 hours
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aertime - avrst36 - 25/04/2024
Source: Glitch artists collective - Facebook
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cubeghost · 23 hours
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How can you consider yourself any sort of leftist when you defend AI art bullshit? You literally simp for AI techbros and have the gall to pretend you're against big corporations?? Get fucked
I don't "defend" AI art. I think a particular old post of mine that a lot of people tend to read in bad faith must be making the rounds again lmao.
Took me a good while to reply to this because you know what? I decided to make something positive out of this and use this as an opportunity to outline what I ACTUALLY believe about AI art. If anyone seeing this decides to read it in good or bad faith... Welp, your choice I guess.
I have several criticisms of the way the proliferation of AI art generators and LLMs is making a lot of things worse. Some of these are things I have voiced in the past, some of these are things I haven't until now:
Most image and text AI generators are fine-tuned to produce nothing but the most agreeable, generically pretty content slop, pretty much immediately squandering their potential to be used as genuinely interesting artistic tools with anything to offer in terms of a unique aesthetic experience (AI video still manages to look bizarre and interesting but it's getting there too)
In the entertainment industry and a lot of other fields, AI image generation is getting incorporated into production pipelines in ways that lead to the immiseration of working artists, being used to justify either lower wages or straight-up layoffs, and this is something that needs to be fought against. That's why I unconditionally supported the SAG-AFTRA strikes last year and will unconditionally support any collective action to address AI art as a concrete labor issue
In most fields where it's being integrated, AI art is vastly inferior to human artists in any use case where you need anything other than to make a superficially pretty picture really fast. If you need to do anything like ask for revisions or minor corrections, give very specific descriptions of how objects and people are interacting with each other, or just like. generate several pictures of the same thing and have them stay consistent with each other, you NEED human artists and it's preposterous to think they can be replaced by AI.
There is a lot of art of the internet that consists of the most generically pretty, cookie-cutter anime waifu-adjacent slop that has zero artistic or emotional value to either the people seeing it or the person churning it out, and while this certainly was A Thing before the advent of AI art generators, generative AI has made it extremely easy to become the kind of person who churns it out and floods online art spaces with it.
Similarly, LLMs make it extremely easy to generate massive volumes of texts, pages, articles, listicles and what have you that are generic vapid SEO-friendly pap at best and bizzarre nonsense misinformation at worst, drowning useful information in a sea of vapid noise and rendering internet searches increasingly useless.
The way LLMs are being incorporated into customer service and similar services not only, again, encourages further immiseration of customer service workers, but it's also completely useless for most customers.
A very annoyingly vocal part the population of AI art enthusiasts, fanatics and promoters do tend to talk about it in a way that directly or indirectly demeans the merit and skill of human artists and implies that they think of anyone who sees anything worthwile in the process of creation itself rather than the end product as stupid or deluded.
So you can probably tell by now that I don't hold AI art or writing in very high regard. However (and here's the part that'll get me called an AI techbro, or get people telling me that I'm just jealous of REAL artists because I lack the drive to create art of my own, or whatever else) I do have some criticisms of the way people have been responding to it, and have voiced such criticisms in the past.
I think a lot of the opposition to AI art has critstallized around unexamined gut reactions, whipping up a moral panic, and pressure to outwardly display an acceptable level of disdain for it. And in particular I think this climate has made a lot of people very prone to either uncritically entertain and adopt regressive ideas about Intellectual Propety, OR reveal previously held regressive ideas about Intellectual Property that are now suddenly more socially acceptable to express:
(I wanna preface this section by stating that I'm a staunch intellectual property abolitionist for the same reason I'm a private property abolitionist. If you think the existence of intellectual property is a good thing, a lot of my ideas about a lot of stuff are gonna be unpalatable to you. Not much I can do about it.)
A lot of people are suddenly throwing their support behind any proposal that promises stricter copyright regulations to combat AI art, when a lot of these also have the potential to severely udnermine fair use laws and fuck over a lot of independent artist for the benefit of big companies.
It was very worrying to see a lot of fanfic authors in particular clap for the George R R Martin OpenAI lawsuit because well... a lot of them don't realize that fanfic is a hobby that's in a position that's VERY legally precarious at best, that legally speaking using someone else's characters in your fanfic is a much of a violation of copyright law as stright up stealing entire passages, and that any regulation that can be used against the latter can be extended against the former.
Similarly, a lot of artists were cheering for the lawsuit against AI art models trained to mimic the style of specific artists. Which I agree is an extremely scummy thinbg to do (just like a human artist making a living from ripping off someone else's work is also extremely scummy), but I don't think every scummy act necessarily needs to be punishable by law, and some of them would in fact leave people worse off if they were. All this to say: If you are an artist, and ESPECIALLY a fan artist, trust me. You DON'T wanna live in a world where there's precedent for people's artstyles to be considered intellectual property in any legally enforceable way. I know you wanna hurt AI art people but this is one avenue that's not worth it.
Especially worrying to me as an indie musician has been to see people mention the strict copyright laws of the music industry as a positive thing that they wanna emulate. "this would never happen in the music industry because they value their artists copyright" idk maybe this is a the grass is greener type of situation but I'm telling you, you DON'T wanna live in a world where copyright law in the visual arts world works the way it does in the music industry. It's not worth it.
I've seen at least one person compare AI art model training to music sampling and say "there's a reason why they cracked down on sampling" as if the death of sampling due to stricter copyright laws was a good thing and not literally one of the worst things to happen in the history of music which nearly destroyed several primarily black music genres. Of course this is anecdotal because it's just One Guy I Saw Once, but you can see what I mean about how uncritical support for copyright law as a tool against AI can lead people to adopt increasingly regressive ideas about copyright.
Similarly, I've seen at least one person go "you know what? Collages should be considered art theft too, fuck you" over an argument where someone else compared AI art to collages. Again, same point as above.
Similarly, I take issue with the way a lot of people seem EXTREMELY personally invested in proving AI art is Not Real Art. I not only find this discussion unproductive, but also similarly dangerously prone to validating very reactionary ideas about The Nature Of Art that shouldn't really be entertained. Also it's a discussion rife with intellectual dishonesty and unevenly applied definition as standards.
When a lot of people present the argument of AI art not being art because the definition of art is this and that, they try to pretend that this is the definition of art the've always operated under and believed in, even when a lot of the time it's blatantly obvious that they're constructing their definition on the spot and deliberately trying to do so in such a way that it doesn't include AI art.
They never succeed at it, btw. I've seen several dozen different "AI art isn't art because art is [definition]". I've seen exactly zero of those where trying to seriously apply that definition in any context outside of trying to prove AI art isn't art doesn't end up in it accidentally excluding one or more non-AI artforms, usually reflecting the author's blindspots with regard to the different forms of artistic expression.
(However, this is moot because, again, these are rarely definitions that these people actually believe in or adhere to outside of trying to win "Is AI art real art?" discussions.)
Especially worrying when the definition they construct is built around stuff like Effort or Skill or Dedication or The Divine Human Spirit. You would not be happy about the kinds of art that have traditionally been excluded from Real Art using similar definitions.
Seriously when everyone was celebrating that the Catholic Church came out to say AI art isn't real art and sharing it as if it was validating and not Extremely Worrying that the arguments they'd been using against AI art sounded nearly identical to things TradCaths believe I was like. Well alright :T You can make all the "I never thought I'd die fighting side by side with a catholic" legolas and gimli memes you want, but it won't change the fact that the argument being made by the catholic church was a profoundly conservative one and nearly identical to arguments used to dismiss the artistic merit of certain forms of "degenerate" art and everyone was just uncritically sharing it, completely unconcerned with what kind of worldview they were lending validity to by sharing it.
Remember when the discourse about the Gay Sex cats pic was going on? One of the things I remember the most from that time was when someone went "Tell me a definition of art that excludes this picture without also excluding Fountain by Duchamp" and how just. Literally no one was able to do it. A LOT of people tried to argue some variation of "Well, Fountain is art and this image isn't because what turns fountain into art is Intent. Duchamp's choice to show a urinal at an art gallery as if it was art confers it an element of artistic intent that this image lacks" when like. Didn't by that same logic OP's choice to post the image on tumblr as if it was art also confer it artistic intent in the same way? Didn't that argument actually kinda end up accidentally validating the artistic status of every piece of AI art ever posted on social media? That moment it clicked for me that a lot of these definitions require applying certain concepts extremely selectively in order to make sense for the people using them.
A lot of people also try to argue it isn't Real Art based on the fact that most AI art is vapid but like. If being vapid definitionally excludes something from being art you're going to have to exclude a whooole lot of stuff along with it. AI art is vapid. A lot of art is too, I don't think this argument works either.
Like, look, I'm not really invested in trying to argue in favor of The Artistic Merits of AI art but I also find it extremely hard to ignore how trying to categorically define AI art as Not Real Art not only is unproductive but also requires either a) applying certain parts of your definition of art extremely selectively, b) constructing a definition of art so convoluted and full of weird caveats as to be functionally useless, or c) validating extremely reactionary conservative ideas about what Real Art is.
Some stray thoughts that don't fit any of the above sections.
I've occassionally seen people respond to AI art being used for shitposts like "A lot of people have affordable commissions, you could have paid someone like $30 to draw this for you instead of using the plagiarism algorithm and exploiting the work of real artists" and sorry but if you consider paying an artist a rate that amounts to like $5 for several hours of work a LESS exploitative alternative I think you've got something fucked up going on with your priorities.
Also it's kinda funny when people comment on the aforementioned shitposts with some variation of "see, the usage of AI art robs it of all humor because the thing that makes shitposts funny is when you consider the fact that someone would spend so much time and effort in something so stupid" because like. Yeah that is part of the humor SOMETIMES but also people share and laugh at low effort shitposts all the time. Again you're constructing a definition that you don't actually believe in anywhere outside of this type of conversations. Just say you don't like that it's AI art because you think it's morally wrong and stop being disingenuous.
So yeah, this is pretty much everything I believe about the topic.
I don't "defend" AI art, but my opposition to it is firmly rooted in my principles, and that means I refuse to uncritically accept any anti-AI art argument that goes against those same principles.
If you think not accepting and parroting every Anti-AI art argument I encounter because some of them are ideologically rooted in things I disagree with makes me indistinguishable from "AI techbros" you're working under a fucked up dichotomy.
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cubeghost · 4 days
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a wikipedia poem on software entropy
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cubeghost · 8 days
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personally i think that trying to dig into trans women's blogs so you can put together a fucking leviathan of a document containing private info or outright lies speculation about their sex lives and connections, whether supposedly in an attempt to "prove they like bad stuff 😡" or not, is just very straightforwardly more of a sexually predatory act than like. reblogging from somebody who reblogged from someone who follows someone who reblogged from someone who liked a post from someone who reblogged from someone who ate at KNOWN PEDOPHILE SANDWICH RESTAURANT Subway™
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cubeghost · 10 days
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thinking of getting a kumquat tree
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cubeghost · 10 days
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*examines your pdf folder* have you read them all?
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cubeghost · 12 days
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Fundraiser masterpost
This is a masterpost for the evacuation fundraisers I've vetted so far, a few other fundraisers I find trustworthy but have not been able to vet (inability to communicate with the organizer), and a few semi-completed fundraisers or fundraisers for a different purpose (like house rebuilding, or aid distribution). The numbers next to the names have no significance beyond ease of navigation for me for when I check their progress in the future. You should look at the disclaimers instead and focus on those. Occasionally I will update these with new info, including new fundraisers, and the amount of cash that's been raised. Check in regularly on the original post when you see it being reblogged. In all likelihood once its reached you it's already outdated. Also please don't overlook the Sustainable Aid options near the bottom! The brain drain is already creating problems but having another way of keeping or creating new knowledge and key members of a functioning society is important.
VETTED FAMILY ESCAPE FUNDRAISERS
Walaa Abusamra (1). 10 family members. 24.2k out of 80k €.
Ezzideen Shehab (2). 6 family members. 7k out of 32.5k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Madleen Abu Jayyab (3). 4 family members. 18.7k out of 70k USD.
Jehad Shehada (4). 1 individual. 3.5k out of 15k CAD. LOW ON FUNDS.
Aser Alassar (5). 5 family members. 405k out of 550k SEK. Or 37k out of 51k USD.
My friend Mona Abu Hamda (6). 9 family members. 59.5k out of 75k USD.
Mohammed Shamia (7). 7 family members. 8.9k out of 35k USD.
Abdullah Al-Saghir (8). 9 family members. 67.3k out of 100k €.
Randa Abubakr (9). 6 family members. 14.6k out of 17k €. (NEARLY COMPLETE)
Fadi Alshrafi (10). 9 family members. 54.5k out of 85k USD. (1 evacuated)
Osama Abdelrahman. (11). 9 family members. 35.2k out of 45k €. (1 CHRONICALLY ILL CHILD, NEEDS TREATMENT)
Alhaw family and the Albittar family (12). Between 18 and 12 family members. 8.8k out of 90k €. (EXTREMELY LOW, NEEDS FUNDS)
Verified Fundraiser by Palestine Asdiqa to help a malnourished baby with cerebral palsy. (13) 7.7k out of 31k USD. (URGENT + CHRONICALLY ILL CHILD, NEEDS TREATMENT)
Rana Abu Ahmed (14). 6 family members. COMPLETED ✅
Mohammed Abu Matar (15). 6 family members. 9.9k out of 34k CAD.
Moataz Abu Sakran (16). 3 family members. 12.4k out of 20k $ ORIGINAL CAMPAIGN COMPLETE, NEEDS TRANSFER FEES COVERED. 629$ out of 5k needed.
Ayah Abu Sidu (17). 10 family members. 15.8k out of 50.4k USD.
Said Fadel (18). 7 family members. 19.7k out of 50k USD.
Tasneem Nabil Musa (19). 7 family members (ALL INJURED, NEED MEDICAL CARE.) 10.5k out of 50k USD
Belal Azmi Msallam (20). 14 family members. 7.1k out of 160k AUD. EXTREMELY LOW ON FUNDS.
Mortaja Family (21). 11 family members. 28k out of 70k €.
Abu Ramadan family (22). 14 family members. 10k out of 148k €.
Mai Rajab (23). COMPLETED ✅
Amal Abu Shammala (24). 4 family members. 33.7k out of 42k €.
Maryam & family (25). 30.3k out of 50k USD.
Haneem Abdelhalim (26). 8 family members. 31.8k out of 40k USD raised.
Ahmed Masoud (27). 12 family members. 10k out of 60k €.
Mohammed Fareed (28). 30.2k out of 60k CAD.
Lena Nofal (29). 40.6k out of 44k € (NEARLY COMPLETE, original family registered to evacuate, extended family are being helped now)
Rasheda Alfaiomy (30). 6+ family members. 27.5k out of 65k USD.
Ula El Hindi (31). 1+ individuals. 8.6k out of 15k €.
Muhammad Safi (32). 5+ family members. 4.5k out of 30k BP. LOW ON FUNDS.
Yazan Khalaf (33). 18 family members. 16.9k out of 40k USD.
Afaf Masoud (34). 5+ family members (2 evacuated). 83.8k out of 110k €.
Motasem Khayal (35). 5 family members. 1k out of 43k € (26.5k needed for escape.) EXTREMELY LOW, NEEDS FUNDS.
Youseff Abu Saeed (36). 3 family members (1 is already out for treatment). 155k out of 200k USD.
Abdulaziz & Abdullah, escape & surgery (37). 2+ family members (1 has already been treated, 1 NEEDS TREATMENT). 96.3k out of 150k BP.
Nadine Abdullatif (38). 8 family members. 113k out of 130k AUD (NEARLY COMPLETE).
Sami Salhab (39). 6 family members (5 already evacuated). 16.9k out of 26k €. (NEARLY COMPLETE)
Jehad Al Ghandour (40). 5 family members (1 already evacuated). 31k out of 100k USD
MORE VETTED FAMILY ESCAPE FUNDRAISERS (tumblr has a character-per-block limit, there's no difference between the following fundraisers and the previous ones).
Mahmoud Algharabli (41) COMPLETED ✅ (check last section for more info)
Dr. Marah & family (42). 2+ family members. 7.2k out of 40k USD. LOW ON FUNDS.
Khaled Alshabrawi (43). 5 family members. 1.5k out of 35k € (25k needed for escape, but will begin with 10k for stable housing). LOW ON FUNDS.
Muhammad Osama Alzaq (44). 5 family members. 3.1k out of 60k BP. LOW ON FUNDS.
Mohammed Wishah (45). 7 family members + 1 pet. 7.9k out of 71.5k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Muhe Ayman (46). 5+ family members. 6k out of 60k €. (CAUTION: If you scroll down in the GFM there are photos of mutilated and dead babies.) LOW ON FUNDS.
Abdallah Animal Rescue (47). 1 individual + lots of pets. 34.5k out of 40k USD. (NEARLY COMPLETE)
Haya Orouq (48). 5 family members (1 injured, NEEDS TREATMENT). 35.9k out of 50k.
Retaj Abu Abdo (49). 8 family members. 9.1k out of 60k USD.
Mohammed Zyad (50). 9 family members (1 MISCARRIAGE). 5.6k out of 40k BP. LOW ON FUNDS.
Souad Al-Kurdi (51). 5 family members (1 DIABETIC W/O INSULIN, CRITICAL, 1 INJURY). 3.7k out of 50k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Mahdy Zourob (52). 1 individual. 622 out of 20k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Ahmed Alboji (53). 5 family members. 78.4k out of 100k USD. (TIME SENSITIVE)
Sama Lulu (54). 7 family members. 5.4k out of 80k USD. LOW ON FUNDS. (CAUTION: PHOTO OF INJURED CHILD IN GFM)
Fadel Moghrabi (55). 4 family members. 33.3k out of 40k USD. (NEARLY COMPLETE)
Qosai Hani (56). 2(+?) family members. 28.2k out of 40k USD.
Khaled Khraizim (57). 14 family members. 32.6k out of 100k €.
Ahmed Raida (58). 3 family members (1 INJURED, NEEDS TREATMENT). COMPLETED ✅
Rozan family (59). 6 family members. 3.6k out of 38k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Samah Oudh (60). 5 family members. 30k out of 35k USD. (NEARLY COMPLETE)
Qasim Al-Kafarneh (alternatively: gfm) (61). 33 family members. 1st one, 5.7k out of 80k AUD. 2nd one 86k out of 94k USD. (NEARLY COMPLETE)
Mahmoud Qassas (62). 42 family members. 6.9k out of 200k CAD. (ONE CHRONICALLY ILL, NEEDS TREATMENT)
Ottawa4Palestine’s vetted fundraiser spreadsheet (76 different families with listed fundraisers)
UNVETTED, BUT HIGHLY LIKELY LEGITIMATE ESCAPE FUNDRAISERS:
Rasha family (1). 5 family members. 1.3 out of 15k € (EXTREMELY LOW, NEED FUNDS)
Natasha Matar (2). 14 family members. 20.8k out of 200k CAD (140k needed for escape). LOW ON FUNDS.
Islam Daher (3). 6 family members. 2.6k out of 50k CAD. LOW ON FUNDS.
Ahmed M. Saleh (4). 4 family members. 8.3k out of 35k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Salwa Zarifa (5). 4 family members. 2.1k out of 50k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Moutasem Quffa (6). 6+ family members. 7k out of 65k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Alaa Nidal (7). 4 family members. 12.6k out of 22k BP (original goal met, family evacuated ✅. Extended family being helped now, 2 INJURED, 1 OF THEM ELDERLY)
Zeina and her family (8). 3 family members (1 evacuated, 2 NEED TREATMENT). 6.4k out of 90k $. LOW ON FUNDS.
Jamila Begum (9). 7 family members. 35k needed. UNKNOWN STARTING AMOUNT. Zelle 347-738-0257, and Venmo @/merilm
OTHER FUNDRAISERS:
Mohammad Qadas. NEEDS TREATMENT + FOOD. EXTREMELY URGENT! HAS CHILDREN TO FEED!!
Help Yousef Replant Family Farm & Greenhouse. 2k out of 50k BP. SUSTAINABLE AID.
Rebuilding Developers Plus and Gaza’s community. 2.4k out of 47k €. SUSTAINABLE AID.
Samar Elrayih Hydoub. It seems that most family members have been evacuated, but they need an emergency 1.5k for medical expenses.
Eman Abdel Rahman. Need help rebuilding home and access to food. 7.1k out of 42.6k USD.
Ibrahim Adil Osman. All intended beneficiaries have escaped, they just need some financial support to start being stable enough to make money to get more family members to escape.
Anonymous Palestinian-Canadian woman. She was doxxed and harassed by zionists until she got fired. She's in a very precarious situation and needs funds to survive daily life. NEEDS FUNDS.
Abd Al Karim Adnan Alakklouk. Most intended beneficiaries have escaped, they just need some financial support to start a new life and send more family members money to survive.
Bana AZ. All intended beneficiaries have escaped, they just need a bit of support in establishing a new life. (only 866 € left to meet goal)
Kareem Abu Samra. All intended beneficiaries have been able to escape. They just need support to establish a new life.
Mahmoud Algharabli (previously no. 41). All intended beneficiaries have been evacuated. They just need support to establish a new life.
Al Hitana Omdurman soup kitchen.
Helping the People of Gaza – Mutual Aid Fund (run by my friend Mona)
Supporting Displaced Families in Gaza (CareForGaza)
Emergency Medical Relief for Gaza Refugees.
Help Sudan Tarada Initiative.
Amer Qudaih’s Relief efforts in Gaza.
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cubeghost · 13 days
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The immediate impact of the Israeli occupation was to exacerbate unemployment: service jobs for the Egyptian army and UN forces vanished, trade with Egypt halted, and the port was closed. Moreover, since the combined GNP of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was only 2.6 percent of the Israeli GNP in 1967, they faced inevitable integration into the Israeli economy as the occuption continued. Furthermore, Israeli policies increased the Strip's dependency. These practices included permitting only certain Gaza products to be sold within Israel, flooding the Gaza market with Israeli goods, restructuring Gaza's agriculture, and encouraging Arab laborers to work in Israel.
The Balance and Composition of Trade. After only one year of occupation, 72 percent of Gaza's imports came from Israel; no imports were allowed from Egypt, and 1 percent of its imports came from Jordan (the balance came from Europe). This represented a dramatic shift, since all the prewar trade had been either directly with Egypt or with Europe and Asia through the Gaza port. [...]
A decade later the shift in trading patterns was even more pronounced. [...] 91 percent of imports came from Israel, and nothing was imported from Jordan or Egypt. [...] Dates, strawberries, and vegetables were also sold to Israel, and local industries engaged in subcontracting for Israeli firms.
Agriculture and industry were both hard hit by Israeli competition. Israeli eggs, poultry, and even vegetables sell at lower prices than local produce, and virtually all canned and bottled goods come from Israel. [...]
A 15 percent excise tax and soaring inflation erode the profits of merchants and factory owners. Gazans have no way to hedge against inflation, since the Israeli shekel is the only legal tender on the Strip.
Restructuring Agriculture. Israel has prevented farmers from exporting to Israel any items that compete with Israeli produce and has imposed restrictions on the planting of certain crops. As a result, the output of melons, onions, grapes, almonds, olives, and fish has decreased. Farmers need permits to plant trees and vegetables.
[...] The government has encouraged production of some specialized crops, such as strawberries and dates. Farmers in Beit Lahiya village say that they were ordered to grow strawberries and would otherwise have been prevented from using their land and well. These strawberries are marketed exclusively through Ashkelon port by the Israeli export firm Agrexco. No permits, however, have been given to farmers to plant such crops as mangoes and avocados, which are also grown in Israel.
Arab Labor in Israel. In 1970, 10 percent of the Gaza labor force was employed in Israel, but at present approximately 40 percent (35,000 persons) work there. This includes 25,000 workers who are registered with the official labor exchange and another 10,000 who work illegally. The high unemployment within the Strip and the fact that wages inside Israel were five times those in the Strip made such employment irresistible.
[...] Even those holding regular jobs face difficult conditions. For example, it is illegal for them to remain inside Israel from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. But employers and workers collude in circumventing the law so that the workers will not have to spend several hours every day commuting. Farmers let laborers sleep in huts, abandoned buses, or even in the open under the orange trees. In town, workers jam into hostels, sleep on construction sites, or spread out on the floor in restaurants. There have been cases of disasters when workers locked into factories at night were unable to escape when fires broke out. [...]
The overall impact of Israeli economic policy is to turn the Gaza Strip into a large labor camp. The Strip is a source of cheap labor for Israel and its internal economic base is continually eroded.
– 1985. Ann M. Lesch, "Gaza: Forgotten Corner of Palestine." Journal of Palestine Studies 15.1, pp. 43-61. Emphasis mine.
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cubeghost · 15 days
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i miss vhs tapes and cds i miss feeding my computers and tvs yummy treats. now theyre eating nothing. theyre being born without mouths
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cubeghost · 15 days
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aertime - untitled (eclipse) - 08/04/2024
Source: Glitch artists collective - Facebook
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cubeghost · 19 days
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cubeghost · 22 days
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This is the same thing over and over again. Palestinians die every day, but it gets a lukewarm headline from mainstream media because death and destruction is inherent to Arabness. Then an aid convoy with white workers is obliterated, and now both the president of the United States and the president of Israel are making statements apologizing for “the poor protection of aid workers.” At one point we were seeing multiple reports a day of paramedics from the Palestine Red Crescent Society dying, but nothing. Crickets. Because they don’t care. And even in these “remorseful statements” there is a strategic reminder that white lives hold more weight than brown lives.
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cubeghost · 23 days
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It is almost as if the world is telling us a morbid joke: we will kill you if you resist and kill you if you hide, and if you refuse, and if you concede, and we will devour your land and gulp your oceans and kill you with hunger and thirst.  The massacres will be televised, broadcast in broad daylight. Our judges will legalize them. Our politicians, inert, inept, or complicit, will fund them then feign sympathy, if any. Our academics will stand idle—that is, until the dust settles, then they will write books about what should have been. Their rotten institutions will commemorate us after our death.  And the vultures, even from our midst, will tour museums glorifying, romanticizing what they once condemned, what they did not deign to defend—our resistance—mystifying it, depoliticizing it, commercializing it. The vultures will make sculptures out of our flesh. A morbid joke, but I am not amused. 
Mohammed El-Kurd, Are we indeed all Palestinians?
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cubeghost · 23 days
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Hakim Alakel, from the series The Eye of the Bird, 2013
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cubeghost · 24 days
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Kim Sangso (South Korean, b. 1996), 얼음처럼 차고 계산적이다 [It's ice-like and calculating], 2021. Oil on canvas, 60.5 x 50 cm
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cubeghost · 24 days
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tiktok tts lady voice: We are trapped in the belly of this horrible machine, and the machine is bleeding to death! 😃
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