It changes everything, I didn’t have a problem with what was being said, just with the use of this word.
I have extensively explained why I find the use of this word problematic, including links that explain this word’s origin and the reasons why it’s controversial, feel free to read my other comments.
I am not. It is fine if you don’t feel like reading the comments entirely, but then you shouldn’t be answering to what you assume it says either.
Thank you!
There are reasons to regulate machines that can harm human. There are reasons to ban heavy robots, and perhaps all robots from places where that kind of things could happen. There are reasons to ban some machines altogether if their existence is a threat. All rules of this sort apply not to the machines themselves, but to the manufacturers and/or users plus any person with agency in this matter. Just as if someone drove a car off road into a children’s park, it is the driver who is at fault.
None of this requires or justifies recycling racist tropes or rhetoric. Even if you chose to burn a delivery robot in protest, which could be justified, there would still be no need to call it a clanker. And doing so in advance sounds like you’re yearning for a victim that is acceptable to oppress and to call slurs.
You using terms of apartheid means already projecting yourself into a hypothetical future where robots are similar to humans and the separation between them and us is artificial and enforced. Such a future isn’t desirable, creating such a machine would be cruel for the machine first and foremost; and if a machine truly had human consciousness, I believe we should either shut it down and destroy it immediately or give it the same rights as humans; any other option would be literal slavery. But we are far from this point. I kinda think many of the current “AIs” should be shut down and destroyed, but not for that reasons. These robots aren’t aware, have no agency, and there is no reason to talk about them as if they were humans who somehow deserved subhuman status.
On the very page you link to:
People use the term clanker both online and in person to comment either seriously or lightheartedly on the rise of AI. Some oppose using the term, however, because they say it perpetuates other slurs throughout history.
There is also this text shown as an example:
…with the upsurge of AI and AI-related technology (robots, for example), people have been going around calling said technology “clanker” as a slur… I know it’s probably [just] a joke […] but I can’t help but feel like it’s incredibly tasteless. @Informal_Radish_1891, r/blackladies subreddit, August 1, 2025
Now that’s interesting isn’t it ? Wonder what Informal_Radish finds so tasteless about it ? Here, I found the post in question. Unsurprisingly, she and some of those who replied echo the same concerns I mentioned.
What do you not get when I say it is NOT on AI’s behalf that I’m getting offended? if anything, it’s you lot that anthropomorphize it. Because talking about a non-human thing you hate doesn’t require a slur. In fact a slur only makes sense for something you treat as a human.
I can understand that the use case for “clanker” intended here is just a dismissive term for talking about LLMs. But that is not the way it is used in many of the memes that popularised it. These memes are not about LLMs. They are set in a future where robots act like people and are treated like black people in a segregated state. Memers are roleplaying segregated US or some other racist society, just switching black people for robots, in what is clearly as thinly veiled exercise at racism. You don’t have to trust me or watch the video essay, just look at tghe knowyourmemes page that describes it in a neutral tone. That is what this specific word is tied to. I don’t mind other equally dissmissive words like “slop-machine” or “slop-generator”, because they aren’t used in this way. These are words actually made to refer to LLMs by describing what they do.
But using the word “Clanker” will always conjure up thoughts of the type of content that popularised it, even if that is not the intention.
Not every opinion you disagree with is a troll. What I say is well documented. Even if you look at the examples of “clanker” memes on knowyourmemes, it’s clear they’re just roleplaying racism.
And the point I’m making has been made multiple times by multiple people. here in a 34 minutes video essay Here in the magazine Reveille (which I didn’t know about before searching just now, but I agree with what they say on this specific issue)
You don’t have to agree with me or with them, but you can’t dismiss it as “trolling”. it’s a genuine view held by many and defended by arguments, some of which I’ve mentioned and none of which you’ve answered to.
I don’t care about AIs, I care that in many of these memes they appear to be used as stand-ins for black people, witg Clanker taking the role of the N-word. I am not offended on behalf of AIs, which I hate, else I wouldn’t be here. I am offended on my own behalf as a black person.
Please let’s avoid the term “clanker” here, it’s part of an awful meme that applies racist rethoric and trops to robots. I assume you have no such intention and are just using it as a derogatory term for AI, but please use a term that isn’t tied to these communities.
I dislike the way it’s becoming a dependency for many desktop environments and taking over many functions. Plus there’s the fact that (https://itsfoss.com/news/systemd-age-verification/)[systemd is preparing to enable age verification], And also the fact that it breaks compatibility with other UNIX-like systems.
Since I recently setup a yunohost server, I use Nextcloud instead of google Drive pr Filen, Vaultwarden/Bitwarden for passwords, and searxng as a search engine; all self-hosted. My internet service provider makes self-hosting for emails complicated, if not impossible, so for that I currently use Disroot (which offers other services as well btw, like git and xmpp, good to check out).
For youtube, on my phone it’s mostly through Newpipe, but I also use peertube for the content that exists there. Otherwise, I just access youtubw through the web… Which leads me to browsers. I avoid chromium-based ones, but I also disapprove of Firefox’s turn towards AI, so I use waterfox on desktop and fennec on mobile.
As for Arch Linux… I was with you a few days ago, but I just switched to Artix. I’m not a huge fan of Systemd, and Dinit makes it boot a bit faster.
Only if you have a very long arm, like Monkey D Luffy.
You sound like that cartoon rooster.
Okay, so we’ll break it down in increasingly narrow boxes :
1- Hatred of religion in general
Religion has been and continues to be a tool for legitimizing power structures. As such, they’re associated with the oppressive systems they’ve historically upheld. That goes from state structures like monarchy to modes of production like slavery, reaching whithin family dynamics, like patriarchy. Atheism was until recently broadly criminalized throughout the world. Atheism, or at least secularism, is a feature of many ideologies that arose since the late 18th century to uproot these systems, while religions are claimed by ideologies that arose in reaction tooto these. Politically, religion is therefore seen as conservative .
2- Hatred of Abrahamic religions
Some see these religions (Christianity, Islam, Druzism, Judaism) as inherently more oppressive than other, because they see it as a sin to worship gods other than their, and do not permit synchretism like other religions do. This is a big debate, and it doesn’t hold true to the same extent for all Abrahamic religions, but I’m not getting into details on this.
3- Hatred of Christianity
There are religious people who hate christianity for theological reasons, but I’m once again more interested in the political aspect. Many hate christianity for its role in colonization and association with western imperialism. It’s basically the first two points applied to specific circumstances of christianity : How it came to eradicate paganism in Europe and attempted (sometimes continues to attempt) to do the same globally, how, using colonial means it erases cultures. Same can be said of Islam to an extent, and you could say the main difference is that Christianity has been successful more recently and more globally. But then again, while they’ve had the same attitude towards paganism, Islam has historically tolerated more religious in their states, as long as these were “religions of the book”. Tho it’s true that the situation has come to be a bit reversed on that point…
4 a- Hatred of Catholicism for theological reasons :
Idk about the details, but part of a reason why the reform happens was that catholicism was seen as drifting to far from true belief and focusing on preserving and enriching itself as an institution. Other accusations include being too close to paganism due to the cult of saints and the continuity with Roman institutions (diocieses that predate the christianisation of the empire, nuns too similar to Vestal virgins…), and the fact that at the time, the mass was always in Latin although most people didn’t understand it.
4 b- Hatred of Catholicism : Post-colonial reasons
Point 3 applied to former colonies of France, Spain and Portugal, for which evangelisation was purely Catholic. the Catholic church continues to wield large power there, and some people consider its influence a remnant of colonialism. However, it is interesting to note that catholicism can be seen the opposite way by people from catholic countries for which a protestantprotestant country is seen as a greater or more recent oppressor (like Ireland or Puerto-Rico).
4 c- Hatred of Catholicism : Structural reasons
Catholiscism has a strict clergy hierarchy, moreso than Protestantism or Islam. Some see this as wrong in itself for philosophical or theological reasons, but even if that is not the case, this means the Catholic Church, more than others, can be perceived as an institution with agency and responsabilities. More than others, they’re expected to answer to their past positions and to solve their ongoing issues, something it struggles with as it doesn’t want to alienate the more concervative parts of its clergy. Also, this leads me to the next point :
4- d : The pedophilia thing. This is already very debated in the other comments, so I’m not gonna get in the details, but clearly not a good look.
4- e: Catholics in majority protestant country
Ecumenical debates pass over the heads of most christians, who just go with the form of christianity that is the “default” in their country/region. But what about those raised in families that hold on to their religions where it is a minority? This point seems important to me because a lot of the debates about Catholiscism I see online are really about catholicism in the USA, where it is a minority. In such countries, catholics will usually be seen as more pious and conservative than other christians, and quite often they’ll be, for several reasons :
Principle of selection: A family that is just vaguely christian, upon immigrating, could’ve converted to better integrate. If they didn’t, it’s either because their specific belief was important to them personally, or because the community in which they integrated was mostly of other catholics, making it a solidarity factor which in turn increases its importance.
Sense of responsability : If holding a belief is an active choice rather than going with the flow, believers will tend to give it more mind. They may feel they have more of a personal responsability to uphold it. This can culminate in what’s known as “siege mentality”: People who feel like an important part of their way of life or their belief system is threatened will react with fervor, oftem violence. This is why so many religious or political speech relies on tropes such as “They’re trying to steal/destroy/corrupt our thing!”
Also, the first post was possibly just a play on the trope and not an intended reference to Iran, tho the addition applied that theoreric pattern to the actual conflict.
No, this is wrong, Linux can run on an HDD.
China, Hubei, Huanggang, Huangzhou District, 99, 东南方向40米 邮政编码: 438000 https://maps.app.goo.gl/rPQHRm2eZPfYFfaJ8
I started selfhosting recently ! Yunohost makes it really easy, especially if you want to have several applications on your server that may or may not be on the same domain. But you can always go classic with Debian (any other linux distro could do, but Debian’s stability makes it ideal. Yunohost is also based on Debian).
Doubt all you want, I’m not sending you an ID.