Doubt all you want, I’m not sending you an ID.
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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.
SuperPengatoto
Lord Of The Rings Memes@piefed.social•Hiding it is always the real sign of addictionEnglish
1·20 days agoYeah ok, I concede this argument.
This is what is meant by “piss off”.
SuperPengatoto
History Memes@piefed.social•Slightly off-topic - a new AskHistorians comm has opened, for those interested!English
1·21 days agoReal cool, that was my favourite sub on Reddit, I missed it a bit when I deleted my account. It’s more practical to send the link wit the exclamation mark tho !askhistorians@piefed.social
SuperPengatoto
Lord Of The Rings Memes@piefed.social•Hiding it is always the real sign of addictionEnglish
1·22 days agoThis is the year of the crop, not necessarily the year it was shipped. Pippin’s remark “a good year” seems to imply it is commonplace to store some leaf for several years and distinguish the yields of good and bad years, as is done for wine.
SuperPengatoto
Lord Of The Rings Memes@piefed.social•Hiding it is always the real sign of addictionEnglish
12·23 days agoI had to take my book out to check a few things. Here’s the end of The Two Towers, Book 3 chapter IX Flotsam and Jetsam:
‘We understand it all perfectly now,’ said Gimli. ‘All except one thing,’ said Aragorn: ‘leaf from the Southfarthing in Isengard. The more I consider it, the more curious I find it. […]’
Then in The Return of The King, book 6 chapter VIII The Scouring of the Shire:
‘There isn’t no pipe weed now,’ said Hob; ‘at least only for the Chief’s men. All the stocks seem to have gone. We do hear that waggon-loads of it went away down the old road out of the South-farthing, over Sarn Ford way. That would be the end o’ that year, after you left. But it had been going away quietly before that, in a small way. That Lotho—’
So I use this chronology to see where that places us. The closest event to the end of the last year is the fellowship of the ring leaving Rivendel on december 25th. The ents reach Isengard on March 2nd, so most of Saruman’s weed stash must have arrived in this roughly three months interval. Though as Hob says, he may have started building his supply lines earlier…








True GNU/Linux moment.