I wish Americans voted the same way they move couches. That is, for the purpose of helping someone with no expectation of profit.
But pizza
That’s because there are outsiders that they do not move couches for. They get to choose. Judge as you will.
The propaganda is powerful but the DSA and the Working Families Party are working to fix things.
the disconnect between how people act face to face and how they vote is sometimes mind blowing
then with other people, it’s just right as expected. you know the type, the ones who never think to hold a door, who leaves shopping carts in the way, who act like dangerous assholes the moment they start driving a vehicle
We’d be a stakeholder socialist country if it weren’t for the oligarchs astroturfing and propagandizing.
There’s unfortunately a good bit of political gerrymandering influencing vote outcomes as well. If congressional districts were impartially drawn nationwide, the US House of Representatives would be a completely different legislative body
This floats to the top of my feed from time to time and Im always happy to read it again
The quiet, widespread masculinity that is never part of the conversation.
This is a symptom of $8k grandpa trucks now being $50k road tanks.
In Germany instead of Kevin there’s Jan, and instead of a truck he has a toolbox that’s bigger on the inside like the Tardis.
I’ve helped my Kurdish neighbors that I’ve barely ever talked to move out of the apartment next to mine. Ten hours of carrying stuff down the stairs, into someone’s cousin’s GLS delivery van. They asked me over and over, why a German would do that for foreigners that he barely knows. I shrugged. I said nothing. It was all for a warm meal and the privilege of now knowing someone who delivers parcels for GLS and can borrow the van over the weekend.
… and usually Jan knows a Maren who owns an old Bulli that you can use for the price of helping her get the seats out and later back in again. You know, in case Jan is busy carrying his toolbox with half your stuff over to your next house.
Sounds AI-written tbh. Strong Claude vibes.
No idea why you’re being down voted, Nobunaga is a well-known slop account.
This is older than ai
The account was created in 2023 and the description reads:
Samurai wandering America. SI-assisted.
Yes, even switched from AI to SI when Trump ordered it.
It’s from August 2026.
It really fucking doesn’t. Some people know how to write properly. It’s a skill that I know has been largely, but not completely, lost.
Yes it does, and there’s no need to be a dick about it.
The story itself is just off. It’s not how anybody acts or talks in real life. America is not a gift economy where strangers gladly spend time and effort and gas moving furniture and heavy appliances for a few slices of pizza (and laughingly refuse payment). Ain’t nobody got time for that. Struggling to guilt friends into doing that kind of grunt work for pizza has been a cringe humor trope forever.
The short staccato sentences. The constant anaphora (repeating “Kevin” or “Tony” half a dozen times in a few short paragraphs).
The overly dramatic ALL CAPS PRONOUNCEMENTS.
The oddly-specific numbers (“fifteen mile radius”, “eleven minutes”)
The expected not X, but Y constructions and reversals (“which felt rehearsed and was not”)
Weird serious emphasis on unremarkable things nobody would care about (sitting on the couch first, the daughter being aggressive)
Why would a man you’ve never met ask you if you could help them move?
Etc.
These are all legitimate rhetorical tricks, but the way it’s laid on so thickly and uncannily in short punchy sentences screams AI, specifically Claude’s particular style of prose.
Also, GPTZero and Pangram both say it’s 100% AI generated.
Also, they’ve literally said: “I’m simply a Japanese creator who writes in Japanese, uses translation tools and AI as creative tools, and tries to tell funny stories.”
Jesus fucking christ man. You people. A preponderance of observed characteristics is a factor, but not itself fact.
For myself, I am so goddamn tired of being called AI. I have NEVER used AI a day in my life. Why? Because I know how to write, I write well, I write for fun, and I’ve been doing it daily in one way or another for the better part of a century.
Go look at my post history. You’ll see much of what you just called AI in all my posts. Then look at the time stamps: it takes time to write. Then look at the imperfect construction and grammar: good, but by no means perfect.
Then come back here and tell me I’m AI because I know you will. Go ahead. Let’s get it over with.
Idk why you’re getting so offended. I never implied you or anyone here was AI, just the Twitter post in the screenshot.
I also said the techniques mentioned are legit and common. I’m even guilty of some AI favorites myself (em dashes, false ranges, etc.). That’s kind of the point – AI is trained to emulate human language.
The thing is, they’re also heavily post-trained to reward “interesting” or faux-profound rhetorical tricks that impress human graders. This encourages them to overuse such techniques, even when they don’t make much sense. It’s like those old Cola Wars taste tests where people preferred a sip of Pepsi because it tasted sweeter on the spot, but it becomes cloying and saccharine over a whole can. Default AI prose reads like it’s trying to twist every single sentence into some kind of surprise or artful flourish, and usually the same few kinds over and over and over again. Seeing those well-worn patterns, combined with the pretty questionable understanding of normal human behavior, makes it pretty clear what’s going on.
FWIW, your comments don’t read like AI at all. I do agree there’s a frustrating epidemic of such accusations, especially from people who don’t understand good writing lobbing it at people who are capable of putting more than one clause in a sentence. But I’m being sincere when I say that this has very specific and characteristic traits of a particular AI model that I’ve seen a lot, not just “it’s long and well-written so it MUST be fake.”
Funny, I did not expect to but I actually agree with most of you said. Primarily because to me, as a completely non-AI writer, you pegged what I personally see as the unmistakable flags of AI content: non sequiturs of language and richness of concept and ideas.
For myself, when I am looking for AI, I do not pay nearly as much attention to specific techniques as I do to the way it feels as a whole, reading it carefully as if someone were speaking to me personally and noting the oddnesses, the tiny bits that are just huh? as you move by them because in some tiny and otherwise unnoticeable way they just do not follow. They are not what a natural speaker would say, even a natural speaker of a non-English language who put their text through a translator and then posted it. Some things just don’t follow, but make sense to a pattern recognizer. I think that’s what you’re alluding to by “questionable understanding of normal human behavior” and I agree.
Thus, in light of what you replied, I actually do now see your point about OP’s posted text, but the reason it did not read as AI to me personally is because it passed this personal non-sequitur test. When I read it, it brought in the unexpected and it did turn the same rhetorical tricks you cited, but not in a jarring or “uncanny valley” way. Then again, I am also not on social media and never have been, so there’s that: to spot counterfeits, don’t spend time with the fakes; spend time with the real thing. Being away from sound bites and short form content helps a lot. That doesn’t mean it isn’t AI, only that it did not read so to me.
I also look for what I personally call “idea richness,” the cumulative number of separate (related or unrelated to the primary) concepts and ideas that are interwoven into the text but are not presented as part of a list or itemized rebuttal. To me, that richness is part of what makes something worth reading: does it introduce secondary images and ideas? Metaphors and similes? Bring unrelated ideas and concepts into contrast? Use the five senses? Include technically unimportant but still related lived experience? Demonstrate a wide and curious intellectual history? I could go on, but you get the point. Does it add tarragon to the fish?
AI fails miserably at all that. AI at this time could not actually write this comment, no matter how well it was prompted, because it is an exploration of one person’s lived and felt experience. AI is a pattern recognizer, not a human feeler, senser, and wildly imperfect thinker like me. In terms of idea richness, OP’s text didn’t pass and didn’t fail that one for me, so I defaulted to not-AI.
Speaking of which, anymore (and I might be odd for my age because only the young people are telling me the same) along with all the above I am starting to get a felt sense of revulsion for AI content, one that I chalk up to my putting so much effort over time into detecting the human content, taken in addition to my burgeoning aversion to the fake. I have a great foundation for spotting counterfeit prose because I have read so much real prose, but my revulsion to it is growing apace with learning to spot it. The young people I know (high school, early college) are telling me they feel the same, though for them it’s more about hearing it in music than reading it in text.
It will be interesting to see what happens next, because as possible as it is that AI is moving toward content that is superficially indistinguishable from human product, it is also possible in some vague way that none of us can wholly explain yet that humans are also becoming capable of detecting non-human content by purely animal means.
And you’re right, I was getting offended, but you are not the correct target. Thank you for taking the time to reply in earnest. I appreciate it.
It’s written like Raymond Carver or Charles Burkowski.
It used to be easier in smaller cities and villages where you were forced to know a lot of people. One of the side effects of being able to live more private lives in the modern age is this lack. In the same way that churches do provide communities (but I still think religion causes far more harm than good).
This is why social safety nets are important - because the baseline should not be “I know a guy”.
Social safety nets for trucks? Maybe not specifically. But you can easily rent a truck in most places these days - $20 for a couple of hours.
But then again, if you think about isolation… that’s where some of the ideas about witches came from in days past. Imagine a woman, losing her husband, living alone, struggling to survive. Society is more “spiritual” and so susceptible to believing some of those old women might be witches. It certainly happened in some instances.
Ideally, I wish we had a society and culture in the US of knowing our neighbors again. Not too much. I don’t want to know of their politics and religion and all the other things I probably disaagree with, but I’d love to be able to give them a cup of sugar if they ran out, or help move a sofa, or all those little things we used to do a bit more for each other.
I don’t want to know of their politics and religion and all the other things I probably disaagree with, but I’d love to be able to give them a cup of sugar if they ran out, or help move a sofa, or all those little things we used to do a bit more for each other.
I think about this often and I agree with you… I genuinely like the idea but then, what do you do if you learn that that neighbour votes for someone who has openly stated that he wants to kill me and my family and people like us? I’ve never really found the answer to that…
Edit: not in a US political context, just in general
Well, that’s why I don’t actually make the effort to meet my neighbors. heh.
And I live in a metro that’s decently blue, but we are mixed enough here that most people don’t really talk politics much.
But hey… I lived 15 years in an area where literally every public television (like waiting rooms at mechanics or doctors) was Fox News. Here? It’s HGTV or at one place the Weather Channel. So… I’ll take it as an improvement. heh.
But really, I’d like to live someplace where fascism was still an idea that everyone agreed was fucked. :(
But really, I’d like to live someplace where fascism was still an idea that everyone agreed was fucked. :(
Don’t we all… I get you and sympathize with the rest of your message as well…
This is a story about community building. And I loved it to bits.
This is an old(-ish?) copypasta, but it’s a good one.
I’ve read it before. I’ll read it again. I have a truck, it’s ugly, it’s old, and it runs, so it gets used to haul stuff, most recently a refrigerator. The owner of the fridge was out of country. I had to be elsewhere at the designated time, so I was not the “arms”, just the guy with a truck. I’ve owned it for decades. I could not possibly sell it for anything like it’s value to society.
Images you can hear.
My first car was a big black mid-80s Dodge truck. I was Keven for a long time. But back when I was Keven, the standard fee was a six pack of beer and enough money to cover gas. I usually wouldn’t bother about the gas money unless it involved driving some significant distance though. The price only went up to include pizza if it was going to be a multi-hour or all day kind of affair, like helping someone move house. BBQ or fried chicken was also acceptable.
This shit never gets old
When America isn’t busy being at war with itself, it is a hilariously wholesome co-op where everyone is a member of everyone else’s family.
I love coöps! It’s insane to me that this country doesn’t a coöp commonwealth based economy. Stakeholders are way more important than shareholders, but everyone wamts to gamble instead of sharing effort and lightening each other’s loads.
This reminded me of how annoying my previous employer was after I got a Jeep Wrangler instead of a truck. He would mock me having a Jeep all the time. Like I know why you want me to get a truck and no thank you.
I am also concerned you got a Jeep.
I’m jk lol. Enjoy your vehicle.
Thanks, I’ve had it for about 10 years now. I plan to convert to an EV or hybrid sooner or later. The funny part is I use it like a mini truck.
Old Grand Cherokees are like the best of all worlds. Truck, Jeep, car, all in one.
I’ve always wanted a Comanche, a little bit more modern. A shame they did away with them, too big of a threat to the big three. Then again I would love a body on frame instead of the unibody.
There’s that for giggle.
Yes, I have old european cars, I know this pain
Also from this self-proclaimed “SI assisted” (yes, using Trump’s Super Intelligence term) account:
Americans, you may think this election is about the cost of living.
But I want you to think harder about what’s really at stake.
A dystopia where your daughter gets raped, and her father gets arrested for reporting it.
A world where your daughter is enslaved, beaten over and over, forced to cover herself in black cloth, and forbidden from going to school.
I want you to think seriously about whether that future could come to America.
You hate Trump. You’re pissed off because Musk is rich. You didn’t get richer under the Republicans.
For reasons that petty, you can’t think beyond a three-foot radius or two years in either direction.
Have you even considered that your country could become a hellish Muslim kingdom? That America could end up like Europe?
I want you to think about that when you vote.
Aren’t your families and communities what really matter?
Why would you let your daughters be tortured just to prioritize Islam, gay couples buying children through surrogacy, or groups of women demanding acquittals for people who kill children?
Why are you so determined to put the rights of people you consider abnormal ahead of your own daughters?
Not the rights of minorities. Not the rights of people facing discrimination.
The rights of people you consider abnormal.
Seriously. Please think again.
TL;DR: Yes Musk is rich, but you should still wait for republicans because voting for the slightly less intolerant, but still right-wing party means gay muslim women are gonna come buy and kill your children.
Xitter link here, luckily many people are now realizing that it’s a propaganda slop account. Which for people still using that service is a pretty big deal
This is funny (in a sad kind of way) to me, because:
- It’s already a dystopia where your daughter gets raped and if she reports it, she gets swatted
- The “hellish Muslim kingdom” he speaks about shares more values with republicans than democrats (hardcore muslims are extremely right-wing and in fact the main gripe islamic terrorists usually have is that the other muslims aren’t right-wing enough)
- I’ve yet to see this hellish Muslim kingdom in Europe. The one (1) Syrian family in my town has yet to bomb anything curiously enough
- In what universe is voting for republicans going to be in the interests of “your own daughters” anyway? They’re the ones curtailing women’s rights (because, again - they’re the ones who have so much in common with islamic extremists. Just right-wing extremists of two different religions, of course they have similar ideas).
- I thought minorities were also part of your communities. Also his character is a minority too. I suspect he himself is either American, Israeli or Russian.
Yeah, the only reason I didn’t vote for Republicans last time was that I didn’t get rich
