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European Commission

1 week ago (Received 5 days ago) • •

European Commission
1 week ago (Received 5 days ago) • •

Europe, the AI Continent.

One year ago, we launched the AI Continent Action Plan. Since then, we have made huge strides:

✅ 19 AI factories are now live across EU countries.
✅ We established the AI Skills Academy to train experts.
✅ The AI Omnibus is cutting costs for business.
✅ We have earmarked €1 billion to support AI adoption in industry.

We are building a secure and innovative AI future for Europe.

Here's how 👉 link.europa.eu/nj3VH9

Commission sets course for Europe’s AI leadership with an ambitious AI Continent Action Plan

To become a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) is the objective of the AI Continent Action Plan launched on April 9 2025.

^{Shaping Europe’s digital future}

This entry was edited (1 week ago)

in reply to jess :3

European Commission

in reply to jess :3 • 1 week ago (Received 5 days ago) • •

Hi @peachymist! Artificial intelligence already plays a crucial role in our daily lives, and as AI develops, it holds even greater potential to improve the lives of EU citizens: enhancing disease prevention, reducing traffic fatalities, anticipating cyber threats, and much more. That's why we are proposing rules and actions for AI, enabling us to harness its full potential and maximise its benefits.

@jess :3

in reply to European Commission

Eugen Rochko

in reply to European Commission • 5 days ago • •

I'd like Europe to be the AI-free continent.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Francis Cook

in reply to Eugen Rochko • 5 days ago • •

@Gargron @peachymist much as I don’t want AI in everything- that ship has sailed. Given the problem at the heart of the EU is translation - having “boxed” llms that only work on a specific corpus of work and can translate is something that could be useful. The open web scraping nonsense can get in the sea.

@Eugen Rochko @jess :3

in reply to Eugen Rochko

HarryKrischner

in reply to Eugen Rochko • 5 days ago • •

@Gargron
to late people are using it they are already addicted
@EUCommission @peachymist

@Eugen Rochko @jess :3 @European Commission

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Nico Einsidler

in reply to Eugen Rochko • 5 days ago • •

@Gargron @peachymist

+1 if AI is basically a synonym for LLMs.

If it’s about finally taking data quality serious, thinking hard about our underlying algorithmic problems and then applying heuristical methods, then yes please let’s do that and support institutions in this journey.

@Eugen Rochko @jess :3

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Bret Carmichael

in reply to Eugen Rochko • 5 days ago • •

@Gargron @peachymist I understand the sentiment, but it’s militarily and economically untenable. Europe’s militaries would fall behind. Most economic sectors, where not already a victim of Baumol’s cost disease, would become victims of Baumol’s cost disease. The genie is out of the bottle, and to put it back in would require unanimous participation, including bad actors.

@Eugen Rochko @jess :3

in reply to Eugen Rochko

some kinda cat

in reply to Eugen Rochko • 5 days ago • •

for real, Europe don’t be stupid like us here in the USA destroying our communities for data centers and driving power rates and consumption into the stratosphere for LLMs and generative AI.

This entry was edited (5 days ago)

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Marcin Czachurski

in reply to Eugen Rochko • 5 days ago • •

@Gargron @peachymist I’m afraid I can’t agree with you here. Europe is not a separate planet, isolated from the rest of the world. If we, as Europe, do not adopt and develop the most advanced solutions, we will simply lose our competitiveness - both in terms of products and the workforce.

We can already see this very clearly in the automotive industry. If we turn away from innovation, Europe risks falling into a deep economic crisis instead of strengthening its position.

@Eugen Rochko @jess :3

in reply to Marcin Czachurski

Eugen Rochko

in reply to Marcin Czachurski • 5 days ago • •

@mczachurski @peachymist AI 1) deskills workers 2) makes access to information and knowledge harder 3) concentrates wealth within big tech. Europe would be MORE competetive without AI.

@jess :3 @Marcin Czachurski

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Marcin Czachurski

in reply to Eugen Rochko • 5 days ago • •

@Gargron @peachymist AI will undoubtedly change how we build software. In some ways it will help, in others it will harm. But this has already begun and cannot be stopped. Europe cannot simply opt out, or companies will move to Asia or the US, leaving us with rising unemployment. We must build something better: ethical, competitive AI. Europe has the talent and resources to do it. 😉

@Eugen Rochko @jess :3

in reply to Marcin Czachurski

Eugen Rochko

in reply to Marcin Czachurski • 5 days ago • •

@mczachurski @peachymist You are not listening to what I am saying.

@jess :3 @Marcin Czachurski

in reply to Eugen Rochko

datatofu

in reply to Eugen Rochko • 5 days ago • •

@Gargron @mczachurski @peachymist to further the discussion, please provide some clarity as to what AI is, or at least the definition by which you abide. Then, please elaborate on your points that Al 1) deskills workers 2) makes access to information and knowledqe harder 3) concentrates wealth within big tech. Such that any country would be MORE competetive without Al.

@Eugen Rochko @jess :3 @Marcin Czachurski

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Marcin Czachurski

in reply to Eugen Rochko • 5 days ago • •

@Gargron @peachymist 1) Work will shift: less manual coding, more reviewing, directing, and managing AI agents. 2) AI adds tools; it does not remove search engines or other ways of accessing knowledge. 3) Wealth is concentrated for now, but that is temporary - smaller local models are already emerging, even on phones.

You cannot be more competitive if you refuse to offer the services the market demands.

@Eugen Rochko @jess :3

Palm Oil Detectives

5 days ago • •

Palm Oil Detectives
5 days ago • •

Biofuel Boom in Brazil: Green Growth or Greenwash?

Brazil’s booming biofuel industry is hailed as a solution to climate change, yet its rapid expansion comes at a cost. The push for bioethanol and biodiesel production is driving deforestation, threatening food security, and displacing communities. As Brazil positions itself as a leader in bioenergy, concerns grow over the environmental and social impacts of this industry, spotlighting the need for genuine solutions. 🌿 #Biofuel #EnvironmentalJustice #ClimateActionNow #Boycott4Wildlife

The #biofuel boom in #Brazil made from #palmoil and #soy is to

Biofuel Boom in Brazil: Green Growth or Greenwash?

Brazil’s booming biofuel industry is hailed as a solution to climate change, yet its rapid expansion comes at a cost. The push for bioethanol and biodiesel production is driving deforestation, threatening food security, and displacing communities. As Brazil positions itself as a leader in bioenergy, concerns grow over the environmental and social impacts of this industry, spotlighting the need for genuine solutions. 🌿 #Biofuel #EnvironmentalJustice #ClimateActionNow #Boycott4Wildlife

The #biofuel boom in #Brazil made from #palmoil and #soy is touted as a #climate saviour. Yet in reality, biofuel #deforestation is causing #food insecurity, #indigenous land-grabbing and #ecocide #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife 🌴🛢️🔥⛔ @palmoildetect.bsky.social

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Written by Monica Piccinini for The Canary, republished with author permission. Read original.

Brazil’s push to expand biofuels is central to its strategy to “drive the decarbonisation agenda” and build a robust “bioeconomy,” setting the stage for this to become a major focus at the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference (COP 30) in Brazil in November 2025.

Brazil’s biofuel ‘revolution’

During a ceremony at the Brasilia Air Base in October, president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva declared:

Brazil will lead the world’s energy revolution

This statement came as he signed the Fuel of the Future Law, a set of initiatives aimed at advancing the country’s bioenergy sector. Lula added:

Brazil will get a head start because you, the entrepreneurs, who have the capacity to produce, to research. Enacting this law demonstrates that none of us have the right to continue disbelieving that this country can be a large economy,” added Lula.

Lula announced a rise in ethanol blending with gasoline from 22% to 27%, with a target of 35% by 2030. Biodiesel blending, currently at 14%, will increase by one percentage point annually, aiming to reach 20% by March 2030.

Biofuel mandates have generated a relentless demand for crops, including sugarcane, corn, soybean, and palm oil.

Ethanol and biodiesel production in Brazil reached nearly 43bn litres in 2023, according to the 2024 Brazilian Statistical Yearbook on Oil, Natural Gas, and Biofuels, published by Brazil’s National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Biofuels (ANP).

Biofuels for energy independence

In Brazil, biofuels make up 25% of transportation fuels – a remarkably high share compared to other nations – and this proportion is still increasing. Bioethanol leads the biofuel sector, representing an average of 49% in terms of energy of the total gasoline and ethanol consumption.

Jorge Ernesto Rodriguez Morales, lecturer and researcher in environmental policy and climate change governance at the Department of Economic History and International Relations at Stockholm University, spoke to the Canary. He mentioned:

Historically, Brazilian energy policy has achieved significant success, largely due to the development of the oil industry alongside biofuels and other energy sources. This diversification has enabled Brazil to rely less on energy imports from the global market, fostering a degree of energy independence and security critical for economic stability.

He added that:

By reducing dependence on external energy sources, Brazil’s economy is less vulnerable to external shocks, such as fluctuations in oil and gas prices. Sugarcane ethanol, in particular, has been pivotal in these developments, positioning bioenergy – a renewable energy form derived from recently living organic materials known as biomass – at the forefront of national strategies to combat climate change.

Green sheen

Although bioenergy has been promoted as a climate strategy, there is ongoing debate within the scientific community regarding the actual sustainability of biofuel production.

Some scientists argue that the production of biofuels is an energy-negative process that may lead to various socio-environmental consequences. These include rising food prices that threaten food security and the conversion of forestlands for biofuel cultivation. Some state that presenting bioenergy as a climate strategy has served as a justification for the industry’s expansion in Brazil and globally.

Morales explained that:

Despite its success, the biofuels industry in Brazil developed within broader developmental and territorial security goals, often placing significant pressure on ecosystems and communities in an institutional environment that generally overlooked socio-environmental concerns. This unsustainable co-evolution of development pathways and bioenergy – marked by deforestation, land colonization, and agricultural expansion – has limited the adaptation space in agriculture. As a result, current climate policy is largely oriented toward path-dependent and potentially maladaptive strategies, such as relying on sugarcane ethanol for transportation.

A report by the Royal Society raises concerns about expanding biofuel production, highlighted issues such as the impact on food prices, the potential rise in greenhouse gas emissions due to direct and indirect land use changes (LUC) associated with biofuel feedstock production, and the risks of land, forest, water resource, and ecosystem degradation.

The Royal Society report recommends comprehensive auditing of biofuel supply chains as essential, along with enhancing transparency, data availability, and sharing. These elements are crucial for ensuring that the life cycle assessment (LCA) of biofuels is reliable and beneficial for policymaking.

Demand driving deforestation

The use of feedstocks like sugarcane, palm oil, corn, and soybean – predominant in Brazil – has sparked significant controversy, primarily due to competition with food production and concerns about converting agricultural land into fuel production. Rising demand for agricultural products poses a risk of increased deforestation and the use of land with high biodiversity value to satisfy this demand, along with related freshwater consumption.

The EU Deforestation-Free Regulation (EUDR) identifies soybean as one of the world’s leading drivers of deforestation. Trade interests appear to be the main barrier to removing soy biofuels from the Renewable Energy Directive, as Europe imports nearly 90% of its soy for biodiesel production from Brazil, Argentina, and the United States.

Dr David Pimentel, a professor of ecology and agricultural sciences at Cornell University, asserted that there is insufficient land, water, and energy available for biofuel production. He also highlighted environmental issues associated with converting crops into biofuels, such as water pollution from fertilisers and pesticides, air pollution, soil erosion, and contributions to global warming.

Pimentel conducted calculations that accounted for all the inputs needed to produce ethanol, including machinery, seeds, labour, water, electricity, fertilisers, insecticides, herbicides, fuel, drying, and transportation. He found that producing one litre of fuel-grade ethanol (5,130 kcal) requires an energy input of 6,600 kcal, indicating that biofuel production is an energy-negative process.

‘Serious socio-economic impacts’

A report published in the Biofuel journal states that measuring greenhouse gas emissions linked to ethanol fuel should account for emissions at every stage, including production, processing, distribution, and vehicle use. This comprehensive assessment is known as the core well-to-wheels LCA emissions, along with any additional emissions resulting from LUC.

Morales discussed some of the impacts of implementing a climate policy that relies on biomass fuels. He told the Canary:

Current climate policy positions biomass-based fuels as a replacement for fossil fuels in the transport sector, with sugarcane ethanol as a flagship solution for greenhouse gas reduction in international climate negotiations. However, scaling up bioenergy production can have serious socio-environmental impacts.

He added that:

Like food production, ethanol requires land, water, and nutrients, meaning that a large-scale expansion could intensify the negative side effects of agricultural growth. These include significant socio-environmental challenges related to sustainable development goals, such as deforestation (SDG 15), CO2 emissions from land-use change (SDG 13), nitrogen losses (SDGs 13, 14, 15), unsustainable water withdrawals (SDG 14), and food security risks (SDG 2), among others.

Brazil biofuel policies

During Brazil’s colonial period (1500-1822), sugarcane plantations established the basis for political power through land monopoly and slavery. Policies were implemented to promote the economic interests of the agribusiness sector.

In response to the energy and sugar crisis of the 70s, Brazil launched a national ethanol program called “Pró-Álcool” in 1975. This initiative included tax breaks, subsidies, and lower financing costs to benefit the sugarcane industry, including producers, planters, distillers, and the automotive sector.

The “Pró-Álcool” policy led to significant repercussions, such as the exploitation of workers (bóias-frias) and environmental degradation, which the Brazilian government neglected out of concern that environmental regulations might hinder economic growth and development.

From 1992 to 2004, while Brazil’s total greenhouse gas emissions rose by 80%, the government defended its support for ethanol on environmental grounds, positioning bioenergy as a “sustainable energy source.” This approach framed bioenergy as part of a climate strategy, leading to its promotion at international levels to combat climate change.

Overlooking indirect land use changes

However, the socio-environmental impacts of bioenergy production were largely overlooked, including direct and indirect LUC, water and biodiversity loss, deforestation, fertiliser pollution, and soil erosion.

In 2017, the “Renovabio” initiative was launched as a new government program aimed at promoting the growth of the bioenergy sector, with an emphasis on various types of biofuels, such as biodiesel, biomethane, bioethanol, and biokerosene.

A report published in the Biofuels journal indicates that Brazil’s RenovaBio programme does not account for direct or indirect LUC in its emissions calculator, potentially leading to an overestimation of decarbonisation levels and encouraging biofuel production with greater environmental impacts. To ensure the program is environmentally effective and delivers appropriate signals to decision-makers, it is crucial to incorporate LUC parameters into the calculator.

Morales mentioned that:

Brazil’s ethanol diplomacy aims to portray the nation as climate-conscious, using biofuel as leverage in climate negotiations. Many countries have followed Brazil’s ‘successful’ example by integrating bioenergy into their climate policies, even though its social and environmental costs are widely acknowledged.

Biofuel Expansion

Raízen, formed from the merger of Cosan and Shell, along with BP Bunge, Atvos, São Martinho, Tereos, Lincoln Junqueira, Cofco, Coruipe, Adecoagro, Katzen, Millenium, Brasil BioFuels (BBF), and Agropalma, represent some of the leading bioenergy companies in Brazil.

In October, Katzen International, a prominent bioethanol company, announced the successful completion and launch of the INPASA Agroindustrial S/A bioethanol plant expansion project in Sinop, Mato Grosso. This expansion boosted the plant’s production capacity to 2.1bn litres per year, establishing it as the largest grain-based dry mill bioethanol facility in the world.

Corn ethanol production in Brazil is projected to reach 7.7 billion litres in 2024/25, representing a 20% increase compared to previous years.

The biofuel industry is making significant investments in the state of Pará. Governor Helder Barbalho has announced plans for a biofuel refinery to be established in the municipality of Redenção, located in the southeastern part of the state. A collaboration between the Mafra Group and Companhia Mineira de Açúcar e Álcool (CMAA), which together comprise Grão Pará Bioenergia, will contribute over $350 million to this project.

Barbalho said that:

These are the agendas that will be challenging for us: the forest agenda, the energy production agenda. These are different agendas in which each one of them can present their solutions.

Alongside the refinery, a fattening service for cattle will be provided to partner ranchers, allowing them to use the refinery’s facilities for confining their animals. The primary feedstock for cattle confinement will be Dried Distillers Grain (DDG), a by-product of corn ethanol production.

Fueling conflicts

A report by NGO Imazon revealed that Pará accounted for 57% of the degraded forest areas in the Amazon. Forest degradation surged from 196 km² in September 2023 to 11,558 km² in the same month this year – nearly a 60-fold increase.

The state of Pará, which will host COP30, is marked by conflicts, including those related to the palm oil industry. Palm plantations in Pará cover an area that was once rainforest, approximately 226,834 hectares, nearly equivalent to the size of Luxembourg.

An investigation by the NGO Global Witness revealed that two major Brazilian palm oil companies, Agropalma and Brasil Biofuels (BBF), were implicated in conflicts with local communities in the state of Pará. BBF faced allegations of environmental crimes and violent efforts to suppress indigenous and traditional communities. Meanwhile, Agropalma was associated with community evictions and land grabbing.

A study by scientists Lucas Ferrante and Philip Fearnside revealed that biofuel companies, such as Millenium Bioenergia, are establishing a production chain for biofuels and food products derived from monocultures on Amazonian Indigenous lands and within other traditional communities.

Millenium announced plans to “partner” with Indigenous and traditional communities, proposing unpaid labour to produce corn, fish, chickens, pigs, and confined cattle. This approach not only infringes on human rights but also poses a risk of triggering new pandemics due to zoonotic leaps linked to environmental degradation.

Biofuels an exercise in greenwashing Brazil’s climate policy

Brazil must expand biofuel production to meet growing demand, which will increase logistical pressures nationwide. Critical to this expansion are infrastructure projects, such as the construction of highways like the Amazon’s BR-319, connecting Manaus to Porto Velho, and the Ferrogrão railway project, linking Sinop in Mato Grosso to the port of Miritituba, situated across the Tapajós River from Itaituba in Pará. These developments are likely to cause irreversible environmental degradation and adversely affect numerous indigenous and traditional communities in these areas.

Morales highlighted the Brazilian government’s position and priorities concerning the expansion of biofuel production:

In foreign environmental policy, the Brazilian government has historically been reluctant to prioritise environmental protection over economic growth, often attributing major environmental issues to developed countries. Although various administrations have made efforts to address environmental challenges such as biodiversity loss and climate change, these issues remain secondary concerns, frequently viewed as obstacles to short-term political and economic goals.

He added:

Positioning bioenergy as a climate strategy has effectively justified broader policies supporting the biofuel industry and contributed to the greenwashing of Brazil’s climate policy on the international stage. Several countries have mirrored Brazil’s approach, adopting bioenergy into their climate agendas in response.

Featured image via the Canary

Written by Monica Piccinini for The Canary, republished with author permission. Read original.

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3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.

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Deforestation in the Amazon is often caused by palm oil, gold mining and meat deforestation.

Imazon – Degradação da Amazônia passa dos 20 mil km² em setembro, a maior em 15 anos

_Área afetada pelo dano ambiental equivale a mais de 13 vezes_ _a cidade de São Paulo e 57% fica no Pará_ \[caption id="attachment\_47444" align="aligncenter" w...

^Imazon

Palm Oil Detectives

2026-03-21 15:52:00

Asian Small-clawed Otter Aonyx cinereus
Asian Small-clawed Otter Aonyx cinereus

IUCN Red List Status: Vulnerable
Locations: India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Taiwan, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia (Sumatra, Borneo, Java), The Philippines (Palawan)
Found in freshwater wetlands, peat swamps, mangroves, hill streams and rice fields across South and Southeast Asia, with a genetically distinct and critically impacted subspecies (Aonyx cinereus nirnai) in the Western Ghats of India.
The Asian Small-clawed #Otter, the world’s smallest otter species — is inquisitive, intelligent, and highly social. They are listed as #Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and are declining rapidly due to #palmoil #tea and #coffee #deforestation, #poaching, #pesticide #pollution, and the illegal pet trade. Their fragile habitat in the Western Ghats, India home to the subspecies Aonyx cinereus nirnai, is being destroyed at an alarming rate for palm oil monocultures, plantations, and hydropower development. Boycott #palmoil and demand protection for these sensitive and intelligent wetland sentinels. #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife #Vegan #BoycottMeat
The Asian Small-Clawed Otter 🦦🩷 is the smallest #otter in the 🌎. A tenacious survivor in #Asia’s vast #rivers, #pesticide pollution and #palmoil #ecocide now pose grave threats. Help them when you #Boycottpalmoil 🌴⛔️ #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect palmoildetectives.com/2026/03/…
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Communicating with chirps and whistles, endearing Asian Small-Clawed #Otters live in rowdy groups 🦦😘 They’re #vulnerable from the illegal #pet trade and #palmoil #deforestation. #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🩸❌ #Boycott4Wildlife in the supermarket! @palmoildetect palmoildetectives.com/2026/03/…
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youtu.be/R9L-N1WgFig
Appearance and Behaviour

With silky chocolate-brown fur, pale undersides and a broad, flat face, the Asian Small-clawed Otter has a distinct charm. Their tiny claws don’t extend past their fingers — an adaptation that gives them remarkable dexterity for catching prey. They weigh only 2.7 to 3.5 kg and reach lengths of 73 to 96 cm, making them the smallest otter species in the world.
Highly vocal and playful, these otters live in tight-knit family groups of up to 15. They communicate with at least a dozen vocalisations — chirps, squeals and whistles — and use communal latrines to mark their territories. In the Western Ghats, they are more active at night and prefer rugged hill streams with dense grasses and rocky pools for cover and escape routes.

Threats
Palm oil deforestation and peat swamp destruction

Across Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia and Malaysia, vast areas of peat swamp forests and mangroves — critical habitats for Asian Small-clawed Otters — have been destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. These plantations drain wetlands, replace diverse ecosystems with monocultures, and leave otters with no access to food or cover. In India, the expansion of palm oil into the Western Ghats under so-called ‘green development’ initiatives is now destroying the rocky hill stream habitats used by the Aonyx cinereus nirnai subspecies. This deforestation not only eliminates their shelter and food sources but also causes soil erosion and alters the hydrology of entire watersheds.
Conversion of forests to palm oil, tea and coffee plantations in the Western Ghats

In southern India, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, large-scale conversion of native forests to palm oil, tea and coffee plantations is reducing the range of Aonyx cinereus nirnai. These monocultures fragment stream habitats and introduce pesticides that poison aquatic life. Studies have found the otters avoiding plantation areas due to lack of vegetation cover and prey (Raha & Hussain, 2016). As a result, the Western Ghats population is now restricted to narrow, isolated pockets, surrounded by human-altered landscapes that are increasingly inhospitable to them.
Capture for the Illegal pet trade and cruel conditions in pet cafés

The Asian Small-clawed Otter is the most heavily trafficked otter species in Asia’s exotic pet trade. Between 2016 and 2017, over 700 individuals were recorded for sale online in countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam (Gomez & Bouhuys, 2018). Many are poached from the wild as pups, leading to the death of their parents and collapse of social groups. Captive conditions in pet cafés and private homes cause extreme stress and suffering — and demand is rising due to social media content that normalises otter ownership.
Poaching for pelts and traditional use

Poaching continues to be a severe threat in South Asia. In the Western Ghats, otters are hunted for their pelts and body parts, which are used in traditional medicine or sold on the black market. Reports from protected areas in India reveal organised trapping and trade routes extending across state lines (Prakash et al., 2012). These killings often go undocumented due to weak enforcement, and they rapidly deplete already fragile local populations.
Overfishing and prey depletion

In many parts of Asia, otters face competition from humans for aquatic prey. Overfishing in rivers, lakes, and mangroves has drastically reduced populations of crabs, mudskippers, and fish species that form the core of the otter’s diet. Pollution from fish farms and chemical runoff further weakens these food webs, making otter survival harder during dry or lean seasons. In some areas, otters are also deliberately killed by fishers who perceive them as pests competing for the same resources.
Pesticide run-off pollution from agriculture

Agricultural runoff from palm oil, tea and coffee plantations containing pesticides, herbicides, and heavy metals has been shown to poison water sources throughout the otter’s range. In the Western Ghats of India and parts of Southeast Asia, such contaminants accumulate in the food chain and affect the physiology of aquatic mammals. Polluted waterways reduce prey availability and can lead to bioaccumulation of toxins in otters, weakening their immune systems and reproductive capacity. This is especially critical in closed or stagnant freshwater systems like rice paddies and irrigation channels, where contamination is concentrated.
Hydropower development and infrastructure fragmentation

Dams and hydroelectric projects throughout the Western Ghats and Southeast Asia have altered river flow, submerged natural habitats, and fragmented otter territories. These developments destroy riverine connectivity, which otters rely on to forage and disperse. For the nirnai subspecies, hill streams once connected across forest corridors are now interrupted by roads, canals, and dams — leading to isolated, unsustainable populations. Infrastructure development often proceeds without proper environmental assessments, disregarding the needs of aquatic species like otters.
Climate change and habitat drying

Shifts in monsoon patterns, increased droughts, and rising temperatures are affecting the wetlands and rivers that Asian Small-clawed Otters depend on. Reduced water flow in dry seasons can strand otter families and eliminate key feeding pools. In the Western Ghats, erratic rainfall is already altering seasonal resource use patterns for A. c. nirnai, increasing their vulnerability to disturbance (Narasimmarajan et al., 2024). Climate stress, combined with other threats, compounds the likelihood of local extinctions.
Geographic Range

Their range stretches across India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia (including Borneo, Sumatra, Java), the Philippines (Palawan), China and Taiwan. In India, they are found in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. They are absent from large swathes of their historical range, including the Western Himalayas.
The genetically distinct subspecies Aonyx cinereus nirnai is restricted to the Western Ghats’ Moyar River and surrounding hill streams. This biodiverse stronghold is currently being cleared for palm oil plantations, hydropower projects, and invasive monocultures, putting this population in grave danger.
Diet

Asian Small-clawed Otters are primarily crustacean specialists. Their diet includes crabs, snails, molluscs, fish such as mudskippers and catfish, amphibians, insects, snakes, and even rodents. Scat analysis in Malaysia and Thailand revealed crabs to be the most frequent prey, often making up over 80% of their diet.
In rice fields and mangroves, they may leave molluscs out in the sun to soften the shells before eating — a sign of their intelligence and adaptability. Seasonal changes in water levels influence the availability of prey, leading to subtle shifts in their dietary habits throughout the year.
Mating and Reproduction

These otters are monogamous and breed year-round, with gestation lasting 62–86 days. Litters typically include 2–7 pups. In captivity, they start breeding at around 18 months of age, and may live up to 11 years. Parents build nests together before birth and both contribute to raising the young. Pups begin to open their eyes around five weeks old and start swimming with their mothers at around three months.
FAQs
How many Asian Small-clawed Otters are left in the wild?

There is no global population estimate, but their numbers are declining throughout their range. In China and Cambodia, they are now almost locally extinct, with only a few scattered sightings since 2006 (Li & Chan, 2017; Heng et al., 2016). Surveys in India confirm drastic reductions in range, especially from west to east, over the past 60 years (Hussain et al., 2011).
What is the lifespan of the Asian Small Clawed Otter?

In captivity, Asian Small-clawed Otters can live up to 11 years (Crandall, 1964). Their lifespan in the wild is likely shorter due to environmental pressures and poaching.
Why are Asian Small Clawed Otters endangered?

They are threatened by habitat loss from logging, plantations, palm oil, pollution, and construction of dams. In the Western Ghats, the genetically distinct nirnai subspecies is losing habitat to hydropower development and palm oil monocultures, which destroy the narrow, rocky streams they depend on (Narasimmarajan et al., 2024).
Do Asian Small-clawed Otters make good pets?

Absolutely not. Keeping them as pets is cruel and selfish. They are wild animals with complex social and environmental needs. The illegal pet trade is driving them towards extinction, causing immense suffering and ripping family groups apart (Gomez & Bouhuys, 2018). Buying a pet otter and also sharing pet otter content on social media fuels this horrific industry — if you love otters, protect them in the wild! Do not buy them as pets or support this cruel industry!
How is palm oil affecting their survival?

Palm oil plantations have destroyed vast tracts of mangroves, peat swamps, and wetlands in Malaysia, Indonesia, and now India. In the Western Ghats, forests are being cleared for palm oil under the guise of “afforestation” and “reforestation” using non-native species. This directly threatens the survival of A. c. nirnai (Narasimmarajan et al., 2024).
Take Action!

Raise your voice for the smallest otter in the world. Every time you shop, Boycott palm oil and reject products linked to deforestation and wetland destruction. Support indigenous-led conservation efforts in the Western Ghats and Southeast Asia.
Never buy otters or exotic animals — their capture fuels extinction. Adopt a plant-based lifestyle to protect wetlands, rivers and biodiversity. #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife #Vegan #BoycottMeat
Support Asian Small-Clawed Otters by going vegan and boycotting palm oil in the supermarket, it’s the #Boycott4Wildlife
Support the conservation of this species

This animal has no protections in place. Read about other forgotten species here. Create art to support this forgotten animal or raise awareness about them by sharing this post and using the #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife hashtags on social media. Also you can boycott palm oil in the supermarket.
Further Information

Gomez, L., & Bouhuys, J. (2018). Illegal otter trade: An analysis of seizures in selected Asian countries (1980–2015). TRAFFIC. traffic.org/site/assets/files/…
Narasimmarajan, K., Mathai, M. T., Hayward, M. W., & Palanivel, S. (2024). Lesser-known sentinels: Role of environmental variables influencing the seasonal resource use patterns of Asian Small-clawed Otters (Aonyx cinereus nirnai) in the Western Ghats Moyar River Biodiversity Hotspots. IUCN Otter Spec. Group Bull., 41(5), 296–310. iucnosgbull.org/Volume41/Naras…
Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Asian small-clawed otter. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_sm…
Wright, L., de Silva, P.K., Chan, B.P.L., Reza Lubis, I. & Basak, S. 2021. Aonyx cinereus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2021: e.T44166A164580923. dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.202…. Accessed on 17 April 2025.

How can I help the #Boycott4Wildlife?
Take Action in Five Ways

1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
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2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.

Wildlife Artist Juanchi Pérez
Read more

Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Read more

Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Read more

Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
Read more

The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
Read more

How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
Read more
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status…
twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status…
twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1…
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support
Learn about other animals endangered by palm oil and other agriculture

Global
South America
S.E. Asia
India
Africa
West Papua & PNG

Marsupials thought extinct for 6,000 years found in West Papua
Keep reading

Gursky’s Spectral Tarsier Tarsius spectrumgurskyae
Keep reading

Sunda Flying Lemur Galeopterus variegatus
Keep reading

Western Parotia Parotia sefilata
Keep reading

Capped Langur Trachypithecus pileatus
Keep reading

Mountain Tapir Tapirus pinchaque
Keep reading
Learn about “sustainable” palm oil greenwashing

Read more about RSPO greenwashing

Lying
Fake labels
Indigenous Land-grabbing
Human rights abuses
Deforestation
Human health hazards
A 2019 World Health Organisation (WHO) report into the palm oil industry and RSPO finds extensive greenwashing of palm oil deforestation and the murder of endangered animals (i.e. biodiversity loss)
Read more

#animals #Asia #AsianSmallClawedOtterAonyxCinereus #Bangladesh #Bhutan #Borneo #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottMeat #BoycottPalmOil #Cambodia #China #climateChange #coffee #dams #deforestation #ecocide #ForgottenAnimals #hunting #illegalPetTrade #India #Indonesia #infrastructure #Laos #Mammal #mangroves #Myanmar #Nepal #Otter #Otters #PalmOil #palmOilDeforestation #palmoil #pesticide #pet #Philippines #poachers #poaching #pollution #rivers #SouthEastAsia #Sumatra #tea #Thailand #vegan #Vietnam #vulnerable #VulnerableSpecies #Wetlands

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2026-04-11 15:35:00

Biofuel Boom in Brazil: Green Growth or Greenwash?
Brazil’s booming biofuel industry is hailed as a solution to climate change, yet its rapid expansion comes at a cost. The push for bioethanol and biodiesel production is driving deforestation, threatening food security, and displacing communities. As Brazil positions itself as a leader in bioenergy, concerns grow over the environmental and social impacts of this industry, spotlighting the need for genuine solutions. 🌿 #Biofuel #EnvironmentalJustice #ClimateActionNow #Boycott4Wildlife
The #biofuel boom in #Brazil made from #palmoil and #soy is touted as a #climate saviour. Yet in reality, biofuel #deforestation is causing #food insecurity, #indigenous land-grabbing and #ecocide #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife 🌴🛢️🔥⛔ @palmoildetect.bsky.social
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Written by Monica Piccinini for The Canary, republished with author permission. Read original.
Brazil’s push to expand biofuels is central to its strategy to “drive the decarbonisation agenda” and build a robust “bioeconomy,” setting the stage for this to become a major focus at the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference (COP 30) in Brazil in November 2025.
Brazil’s biofuel ‘revolution’

During a ceremony at the Brasilia Air Base in October, president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva declared:
Brazil will lead the world’s energy revolution

This statement came as he signed the Fuel of the Future Law, a set of initiatives aimed at advancing the country’s bioenergy sector. Lula added:
Brazil will get a head start because you, the entrepreneurs, who have the capacity to produce, to research. Enacting this law demonstrates that none of us have the right to continue disbelieving that this country can be a large economy,” added Lula.

Lula announced a rise in ethanol blending with gasoline from 22% to 27%, with a target of 35% by 2030. Biodiesel blending, currently at 14%, will increase by one percentage point annually, aiming to reach 20% by March 2030.
Biofuel mandates have generated a relentless demand for crops, including sugarcane, corn, soybean, and palm oil.
Ethanol and biodiesel production in Brazil reached nearly 43bn litres in 2023, according to the 2024 Brazilian Statistical Yearbook on Oil, Natural Gas, and Biofuels, published by Brazil’s National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Biofuels (ANP).
Biofuels for energy independence

In Brazil, biofuels make up 25% of transportation fuels – a remarkably high share compared to other nations – and this proportion is still increasing. Bioethanol leads the biofuel sector, representing an average of 49% in terms of energy of the total gasoline and ethanol consumption.
Jorge Ernesto Rodriguez Morales, lecturer and researcher in environmental policy and climate change governance at the Department of Economic History and International Relations at Stockholm University, spoke to the Canary. He mentioned:
Historically, Brazilian energy policy has achieved significant success, largely due to the development of the oil industry alongside biofuels and other energy sources. This diversification has enabled Brazil to rely less on energy imports from the global market, fostering a degree of energy independence and security critical for economic stability.

He added that:
By reducing dependence on external energy sources, Brazil’s economy is less vulnerable to external shocks, such as fluctuations in oil and gas prices. Sugarcane ethanol, in particular, has been pivotal in these developments, positioning bioenergy – a renewable energy form derived from recently living organic materials known as biomass – at the forefront of national strategies to combat climate change.

Green sheen

Although bioenergy has been promoted as a climate strategy, there is ongoing debate within the scientific community regarding the actual sustainability of biofuel production.
Some scientists argue that the production of biofuels is an energy-negative process that may lead to various socio-environmental consequences. These include rising food prices that threaten food security and the conversion of forestlands for biofuel cultivation. Some state that presenting bioenergy as a climate strategy has served as a justification for the industry’s expansion in Brazil and globally.
Morales explained that:
Despite its success, the biofuels industry in Brazil developed within broader developmental and territorial security goals, often placing significant pressure on ecosystems and communities in an institutional environment that generally overlooked socio-environmental concerns. This unsustainable co-evolution of development pathways and bioenergy – marked by deforestation, land colonization, and agricultural expansion – has limited the adaptation space in agriculture. As a result, current climate policy is largely oriented toward path-dependent and potentially maladaptive strategies, such as relying on sugarcane ethanol for transportation.

A report by the Royal Society raises concerns about expanding biofuel production, highlighted issues such as the impact on food prices, the potential rise in greenhouse gas emissions due to direct and indirect land use changes (LUC) associated with biofuel feedstock production, and the risks of land, forest, water resource, and ecosystem degradation.
The Royal Society report recommends comprehensive auditing of biofuel supply chains as essential, along with enhancing transparency, data availability, and sharing. These elements are crucial for ensuring that the life cycle assessment (LCA) of biofuels is reliable and beneficial for policymaking.
Demand driving deforestation

The use of feedstocks like sugarcane, palm oil, corn, and soybean – predominant in Brazil – has sparked significant controversy, primarily due to competition with food production and concerns about converting agricultural land into fuel production. Rising demand for agricultural products poses a risk of increased deforestation and the use of land with high biodiversity value to satisfy this demand, along with related freshwater consumption.
The EU Deforestation-Free Regulation (EUDR) identifies soybean as one of the world’s leading drivers of deforestation. Trade interests appear to be the main barrier to removing soy biofuels from the Renewable Energy Directive, as Europe imports nearly 90% of its soy for biodiesel production from Brazil, Argentina, and the United States.
Dr David Pimentel, a professor of ecology and agricultural sciences at Cornell University, asserted that there is insufficient land, water, and energy available for biofuel production. He also highlighted environmental issues associated with converting crops into biofuels, such as water pollution from fertilisers and pesticides, air pollution, soil erosion, and contributions to global warming.
Pimentel conducted calculations that accounted for all the inputs needed to produce ethanol, including machinery, seeds, labour, water, electricity, fertilisers, insecticides, herbicides, fuel, drying, and transportation. He found that producing one litre of fuel-grade ethanol (5,130 kcal) requires an energy input of 6,600 kcal, indicating that biofuel production is an energy-negative process.
‘Serious socio-economic impacts’

A report published in the Biofuel journal states that measuring greenhouse gas emissions linked to ethanol fuel should account for emissions at every stage, including production, processing, distribution, and vehicle use. This comprehensive assessment is known as the core well-to-wheels LCA emissions, along with any additional emissions resulting from LUC.
Morales discussed some of the impacts of implementing a climate policy that relies on biomass fuels. He told the Canary:
Current climate policy positions biomass-based fuels as a replacement for fossil fuels in the transport sector, with sugarcane ethanol as a flagship solution for greenhouse gas reduction in international climate negotiations. However, scaling up bioenergy production can have serious socio-environmental impacts.

He added that:
Like food production, ethanol requires land, water, and nutrients, meaning that a large-scale expansion could intensify the negative side effects of agricultural growth. These include significant socio-environmental challenges related to sustainable development goals, such as deforestation (SDG 15), CO2 emissions from land-use change (SDG 13), nitrogen losses (SDGs 13, 14, 15), unsustainable water withdrawals (SDG 14), and food security risks (SDG 2), among others.

Brazil biofuel policies

During Brazil’s colonial period (1500-1822), sugarcane plantations established the basis for political power through land monopoly and slavery. Policies were implemented to promote the economic interests of the agribusiness sector.
In response to the energy and sugar crisis of the 70s, Brazil launched a national ethanol program called “Pró-Álcool” in 1975. This initiative included tax breaks, subsidies, and lower financing costs to benefit the sugarcane industry, including producers, planters, distillers, and the automotive sector.
The “Pró-Álcool” policy led to significant repercussions, such as the exploitation of workers (bóias-frias) and environmental degradation, which the Brazilian government neglected out of concern that environmental regulations might hinder economic growth and development.
From 1992 to 2004, while Brazil’s total greenhouse gas emissions rose by 80%, the government defended its support for ethanol on environmental grounds, positioning bioenergy as a “sustainable energy source.” This approach framed bioenergy as part of a climate strategy, leading to its promotion at international levels to combat climate change.
Overlooking indirect land use changes

However, the socio-environmental impacts of bioenergy production were largely overlooked, including direct and indirect LUC, water and biodiversity loss, deforestation, fertiliser pollution, and soil erosion.
In 2017, the “Renovabio” initiative was launched as a new government program aimed at promoting the growth of the bioenergy sector, with an emphasis on various types of biofuels, such as biodiesel, biomethane, bioethanol, and biokerosene.
A report published in the Biofuels journal indicates that Brazil’s RenovaBio programme does not account for direct or indirect LUC in its emissions calculator, potentially leading to an overestimation of decarbonisation levels and encouraging biofuel production with greater environmental impacts. To ensure the program is environmentally effective and delivers appropriate signals to decision-makers, it is crucial to incorporate LUC parameters into the calculator.
Morales mentioned that:
Brazil’s ethanol diplomacy aims to portray the nation as climate-conscious, using biofuel as leverage in climate negotiations. Many countries have followed Brazil’s ‘successful’ example by integrating bioenergy into their climate policies, even though its social and environmental costs are widely acknowledged.

Biofuel Expansion

Raízen, formed from the merger of Cosan and Shell, along with BP Bunge, Atvos, São Martinho, Tereos, Lincoln Junqueira, Cofco, Coruipe, Adecoagro, Katzen, Millenium, Brasil BioFuels (BBF), and Agropalma, represent some of the leading bioenergy companies in Brazil.
In October, Katzen International, a prominent bioethanol company, announced the successful completion and launch of the INPASA Agroindustrial S/A bioethanol plant expansion project in Sinop, Mato Grosso. This expansion boosted the plant’s production capacity to 2.1bn litres per year, establishing it as the largest grain-based dry mill bioethanol facility in the world.
Corn ethanol production in Brazil is projected to reach 7.7 billion litres in 2024/25, representing a 20% increase compared to previous years.
The biofuel industry is making significant investments in the state of Pará. Governor Helder Barbalho has announced plans for a biofuel refinery to be established in the municipality of Redenção, located in the southeastern part of the state. A collaboration between the Mafra Group and Companhia Mineira de Açúcar e Álcool (CMAA), which together comprise Grão Pará Bioenergia, will contribute over $350 million to this project.
Barbalho said that:
These are the agendas that will be challenging for us: the forest agenda, the energy production agenda. These are different agendas in which each one of them can present their solutions.

Alongside the refinery, a fattening service for cattle will be provided to partner ranchers, allowing them to use the refinery’s facilities for confining their animals. The primary feedstock for cattle confinement will be Dried Distillers Grain (DDG), a by-product of corn ethanol production.
Fueling conflicts

A report by NGO Imazon revealed that Pará accounted for 57% of the degraded forest areas in the Amazon. Forest degradation surged from 196 km² in September 2023 to 11,558 km² in the same month this year – nearly a 60-fold increase.
The state of Pará, which will host COP30, is marked by conflicts, including those related to the palm oil industry. Palm plantations in Pará cover an area that was once rainforest, approximately 226,834 hectares, nearly equivalent to the size of Luxembourg.
An investigation by the NGO Global Witness revealed that two major Brazilian palm oil companies, Agropalma and Brasil Biofuels (BBF), were implicated in conflicts with local communities in the state of Pará. BBF faced allegations of environmental crimes and violent efforts to suppress indigenous and traditional communities. Meanwhile, Agropalma was associated with community evictions and land grabbing.
A study by scientists Lucas Ferrante and Philip Fearnside revealed that biofuel companies, such as Millenium Bioenergia, are establishing a production chain for biofuels and food products derived from monocultures on Amazonian Indigenous lands and within other traditional communities.
Millenium announced plans to “partner” with Indigenous and traditional communities, proposing unpaid labour to produce corn, fish, chickens, pigs, and confined cattle. This approach not only infringes on human rights but also poses a risk of triggering new pandemics due to zoonotic leaps linked to environmental degradation.
Biofuels an exercise in greenwashing Brazil’s climate policy

Brazil must expand biofuel production to meet growing demand, which will increase logistical pressures nationwide. Critical to this expansion are infrastructure projects, such as the construction of highways like the Amazon’s BR-319, connecting Manaus to Porto Velho, and the Ferrogrão railway project, linking Sinop in Mato Grosso to the port of Miritituba, situated across the Tapajós River from Itaituba in Pará. These developments are likely to cause irreversible environmental degradation and adversely affect numerous indigenous and traditional communities in these areas.
Morales highlighted the Brazilian government’s position and priorities concerning the expansion of biofuel production:
In foreign environmental policy, the Brazilian government has historically been reluctant to prioritise environmental protection over economic growth, often attributing major environmental issues to developed countries. Although various administrations have made efforts to address environmental challenges such as biodiversity loss and climate change, these issues remain secondary concerns, frequently viewed as obstacles to short-term political and economic goals.

He added:
Positioning bioenergy as a climate strategy has effectively justified broader policies supporting the biofuel industry and contributed to the greenwashing of Brazil’s climate policy on the international stage. Several countries have mirrored Brazil’s approach, adopting bioenergy into their climate agendas in response.

Featured image via the Canary
Written by Monica Piccinini for The Canary, republished with author permission. Read original.
ENDS
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Take Action in Five Ways

1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
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Join 3,177 other subscribers
2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.

Wildlife Artist Juanchi Pérez
Read more

Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Read more

Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Read more

Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
Read more

The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
Read more

How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
Read more
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status…
twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status…
twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1…
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support
#airlinefuel #AmazonRainforest #auditFraud #aviation #biofuel #biofuels #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottPalmOil #Brazil #Climate #ClimateActionNow #corruption #deforestation #ecocide #EnvironmentalJustice #food #fossilFuels #fossilfuel #fraud #greenwashing #indigenous #PalmOil #palmOilBiofuel #palmOilDeforestation #palmoil #SAF #soy

Imazon – Degradação da Amazônia passa dos 20 mil km² em setembro, a maior em 15 anos
_Área afetada pelo dano ambiental equivale a mais de 13 vezes_ _a cidade de São Paulo e 57% fica no Pará_ \[caption id="attachment\_47444" align="aligncenter" w...
^Imazon

#Climate #food #brazil #indigenous #palmoil #deforestation #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife #Soy #ecocide #biofuel

in reply to Palm Oil Detectives

Netraven

in reply to Palm Oil Detectives • 5 days ago • •

then the palm oil goes in jet fuel where it's banned.

Palm Oil Detectives

5 days ago • •

Palm Oil Detectives
5 days ago • •

With jet black plumage 🖤 and bright green 💚 wattles, male Western Parotia #birds 🐦🦜🦚 of paradise gleam like scaly armour when they dance 🎶 Resist against their #extinction in #WestPapua when you #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🚫 #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetectives palmoildetectives.com/2026/01/…

#birds #extinction #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife #westpapua @Palm Oil Detectives

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Christine Lemmer-Webber
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Everyone I know who uses Haunt to build their websites loves it, and there's good reason for that: it's the static site generator foundation that best understands that a static site generator is a computer program, a function whose input is a pile of blogpost files and whose output is a complete website.

But at the end of the day it's just a computer program, and you should be able to hack that program to make it yours

Use Haunt! dthompson.us/projects/haunt.ht…

Haunt — dthompson

^dthompson.us

Palm Oil Detectives

6 days ago • •

Palm Oil Detectives
6 days ago • •

Sunda #Pangolins have no teeth and their scales vibrate to help them communicate. They’re critically #endangered due to #palmoil #deforestation 🌴🔥🙊🚫 and #poaching in #Indonesia and #Malaysia. Help them when you shop! #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife palmoildetectives.com/2023/07/…

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Sean Murthy
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Take that, you "Bridge to nowhere". 🌉 🛣️

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Dear passengers welcome in the European SEV, my name is Maartje and I am your Bus Manager. To your right you see a giant Blahaj.

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Pick up some quality adventure games in the Humble Golden Tales Bundle gamingonlinux.com/2026/04/pick…

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in reply to Liam @ GamingOnLinux 🐧🎮

discobeez

in reply to Liam @ GamingOnLinux 🐧🎮 • 5 days ago • •

bought! Thank you, this looks delightful.

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6. "Open the F#@*&N' Strait, You Crazy Bastards, or You'll Be Living in Hell."

7. "Ithe Best in Life Is] to Crush Your Enemies, See Them Driven Before You, and to Hear the Lamentations of Their Women."

8. "If You Start Throwing Hedgehogs under Me, I Shall Throw a Couple of Porcupines under You."

A. Kim Jong Un

B. Nikita Khrushchev

C. "Baghdad Bob"

D. Rambo

E. Conan the Barbarian

F. Iranian Spokesperson

G. Trump

H. Darth Vader

Answer Key: 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-h, 5-f, 6-g, 7-e, 8-b

#cartoon #War #Language #uspol #quotes

in reply to Jen Sorensen

Jason Anthony Guy

in reply to Jen Sorensen • 5 days ago • •

Was hoping for “sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads” or “we hold the world ransom for $100 billion dollars”

youtu.be/INFavIUmhcE

youtu.be/EJR1H5tf5wE

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

^youtu.be

This entry was edited (5 days ago)

in reply to Jason Anthony Guy

Jen Sorensen

in reply to Jason Anthony Guy • 4 days ago • •

@JasonAnthonyGuy I actually came very close to using the sharks with laser beams quote! Couldn't fit everything I wanted into the cartoon.

@Jason Anthony Guy

in reply to Jen Sorensen

Jason Anthony Guy

in reply to Jen Sorensen • 4 days ago • •

We’re at the point where you can do a fake out where the answers are just all Trump and not a set of cartoon villains.

Or a “Trump or Dr. Evil” showdown.

Or….

in reply to Jen Sorensen

Old Fucking Punk

in reply to Jen Sorensen • 4 days ago • •

I'm assuming that's the Arnold Conan, because the REH Conan was a pretty progressive guy.

La Keka

6 days ago • •

La Keka
6 days ago • •

Looky here! ... Gucki da! ... Voici!

¡Mich! ¡Mira! ¡Miren! ¡Mirad! ☺️

#plushtodon #mastodon #mastodonart

#SupportYourSocialMedia

A plush mastodon, that is, a plushtodon, is looking into the camera. The plushtodon has a blueish or grayish violet body color, black rectangular eyes, pinkish violet cheeks, small white cusps, and relatively small ears. Their proboscis is slightly turned to their right. The plushtodon is sitting on a surface made of bamboo, and in the background, the leaves of a plant called "elephant's foot" (Beaucarnea recurvata) form a crown.

#mastodon #mastodonart #plushtodon #supportyoursocialmedia

Droppie

6 days ago • •

Droppie
6 days ago • •

#friendica #farcebookspace #FriendicaAU #dropbearpooterising #HashtagFetching @Friendica Support @Marek 🇦🇺🇩🇪 @Friendly Koala

in reply to Droppie

Michael 🇺🇦

in reply to Droppie • 6 days ago • •

I never heard of that, so I really can't tell anything abut it. I also would have to check why a failure is thrown.

in reply to Michael 🇺🇦

Matthias

in reply to Michael 🇺🇦 • 6 days ago from [ˈloma] | Friendica • •

@Michael 🇺🇦 @AJ Sadauskas @Marek 🇦🇺🇩🇪 @Friendly Koala @Droppie
It also appears to be incompatible with other platforms. Tested with Misskey and Hubzilla.

@Michael 🇺🇦 @Marek 🇦🇺🇩🇪 @AJ Sadauskas @Droppie @Friendly Koala

Palm Oil Detectives

6 days ago • •

Palm Oil Detectives
6 days ago • •

DYK #banks fund industries harming animal beings? Protecting #animals in #rainforests and on farms starts with our #supermarket choices. Embrace kindness for animals and forests — be #vegan 🌱❤️🐾 #BoycottMeat #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetectives wp.me/pcFhgU-7N6?utm_source=ma…

#vegan #animals #Boycott4Wildlife #rainforests #boycottmeat #supermarket #banks @Palm Oil Detectives

Muse

6 days ago • •

Muse
6 days ago • •

I remember watching this video when it first went up five years ago! It's one of my favourite from Zi De guqin Studio. The Elf Cat dance is totally adorbs!

youtu.be/WZcK77vPVSw

@Joyce Donahue @Ivy Blackledge Whitfield 2026 @Susan ✶✶✶✶ @Esther Schindler @franni I'm sorry if I have missed anyone who would like this!

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

^youtu.be

@franni @Susan ✶✶✶✶ @Esther Schindler @Ivy Blackledge Whitfield 2026 @Joyce Donahue

like this

in reply to Muse

franni

in reply to Muse • 2 days ago • •

How perfect ❤ Enjoy your new book from Andrew too 😀

like this

in reply to Muse

Muse

in reply to Muse • 2 days ago • •

If I had said that I am having porridge with my cats, it would have sounded like maybe I was eating them!

like this

Nextcloud 📱☁️💻

6 days ago • •

Nextcloud 📱☁️💻
6 days ago • •

And this month’s employee of the month is … your pet! 🐾 Today, we are celebrating National Pet Day with some extra love and attention for our furry and non-furry co-workers.

Who earned an extra treat today?

Show us how your pet is part of your working day!

in reply to Nextcloud 📱☁️💻

Huubje

in reply to Nextcloud 📱☁️💻 • 6 days ago • •

based on what I have seen here, there sure are a lot of furry workers in IT.

Melanie Wehowski

6 days ago • •

Melanie Wehowski
6 days ago • •

RE: inne.city/display/f37824e8-686…

!@helpers
@heluecht
@helpers

Danke Michael für Deine Hilfe bei meinen Supportanfragen!
Danke auch an viele andere des Friendica Projekts.

@Friendica Support @Michael 🇺🇦

in reply to Melanie Wehowski

Melanie Wehowski

in reply to Melanie Wehowski • 6 days ago • •

Wie es aussieht ist die Föderation mit mir von vielen allerdings nicht gewünscht.

"Unter der Haube" sind oft Neid, Mißgunst, Vorurteile oder andere persönliche Gründe scheinbar hinderlich an einem echten gegenseitigen Austausch auf technischer Ebene, will damit sagen "die Community fühlt sich an wie Twitter".

in reply to Melanie Wehowski

Melanie Wehowski

in reply to Melanie Wehowski • 6 days ago • •

Auch Neulinge werden nicht wirklich willkommen und weitergebildet, man trifft eher auf eine chauvinistisch, paternalistische Mauer.

Die selben Ideen werden von den selben Menschen unterschiedlich bewertet, je nach dem VON WEM Sie kommen.

Möglichweise ist "das Fediverse" halt nur ein Spiegel der Gesellschaft.
Außer mir natürlich.

inne.city/display/f37824e8-686…

in reply to Melanie Wehowski

Rainer "friendica" Sokoll

in reply to Melanie Wehowski • 6 days ago • •

Ich weiß zwar nicht, worum es geht - aber bei mir bist Du nicht geblockt.

in reply to Rainer "friendica" Sokoll

Melanie Wehowski

in reply to Rainer "friendica" Sokoll • 6 days ago • •

@Rainer "friendica" Sokoll

in reply to Melanie Wehowski

Michael 🇺🇦

in reply to Melanie Wehowski • 6 days ago • •

Ich bin von diesem Thread gerade etwas verwirrt. Erstmal zu technischen Frage: Bestehen gerade technische Probleme oder sind sie behoben?

Zu "Auch Neulinge werden nicht wirklich willkommen und weitergebildet": Ich schaue mir alle Support-Anfragen an und versuche sie zu beantworten, aber meine Zeit und Energie sind begrenzt. Wir brauchen dringend mehr Leute, die bei der Programmierung helfen und es ist immer schön, wenn ein paar mehr Leute bei den Supportanfragen helfen.

Ich würde gerne mehr bei diesen Anfragen helfen. Aber wenn sie sich z.B. um spezielle Installationsfragen drehen (d.h. wie man nginx konfigurieren soll) kann ich auch nicht weiterhelfen, bzw, müsste selber im Internet recherchieren, denn ich bin in erster Linie Programmierer und nicht Administrator.

Eine Sache, die mir bei dem verlinkten Post aufgefallen ist: Adressiere Gruppen bitte immer mit !. Das Format !@ gibt es so nicht und ich weiß nicht, ob die Posts in dem Fall überhaupt an die Gruppen weitergeleitet werden.

in reply to Michael 🇺🇦

Melanie Wehowski

in reply to Michael 🇺🇦 • 6 days ago from Fediverse City • •

@Michael 🇺🇦 @Melanie Wehowski

Sorry, ich wollte nicht verwirren:
Du hast mir persönlich immer höflich, kompetent und freundlich geholfen.
Deshalb habe ich Dich und einige andere von "meiner Jammerei" ausgeschlossen, und erwähne Dich als positiv Beispiel, und bedanke mich!!!

Danke Michael für Deine Hilfe bei meinen Supportanfragen!
Danke auch an viele andere des Friendica Projekts.

Erstmal zu technischen Frage: Bestehen gerade technische Probleme oder sind sie behoben?

Das Problem war das ich meine Firewall zu restriktiv eingestellt habe, das Problem sollte behoben sein, ich weiß nicht ob es im Zusammenhang mit dem aktuellen Problem steht, wenn wäre es eine Art "block-back", üff?

Eine Sache, die mir bei dem verlinkten Po

@Michael 🇺🇦 @Melanie Wehowski

in reply to Melanie Wehowski

Michael 🇺🇦

in reply to Melanie Wehowski • 6 days ago • •

Das mit dem Finden des Forums würde auch gehen, wenn Du das ! eingibst. Es kann sein, dass dein Server etwas langsam ist und es deswegen ein paar Sekunden dauert.

in reply to Melanie Wehowski

Melanie Wehowski

in reply to Melanie Wehowski • 2 days ago from Fediverse City • •

@Melanie Wehowski @Michael 🇺🇦 Es scheint wohl auch teilweise (naheliegende?) Probleme zu geben mit Instanzen die hinter Cloudflare firewalls/captchas liegen!?

@Michael 🇺🇦 @Melanie Wehowski

in reply to Melanie Wehowski

Michael 🇺🇦

in reply to Melanie Wehowski • 2 days ago • •

Das ist weit außerhalb meiner Kompetenzzone. Ich hab noch nie mit Cloudflare gearbeitet und weiß nicht, was das für Auswirkungen haben könnte.

Melanie Wehowski

6 days ago • •

Melanie Wehowski
6 days ago • •

Rhysy

6 days ago from mobile • •

Rhysy
6 days ago from mobile • •

A total lack of ghosts in the machines

I get a very strong Frankenstein vibe from the AI hypemongers. Some of them are salespeople, e.g. Altman's "too dangerous to release" nonsense. Others have been genuinely taken in and fooled by their own creations.

Researchers told a chatbot they were going to replace it with a different version on another server. “They then discover it’s actually copied itself onto the other server,” Hinton revealed to the spellbound crowd. “Some linguists would have you believe what’s going on here is just some statistical correlations. I would have you believe this thing really doesn’t want to be shut down. This has already happened. That’s the point.”
Has it, though? Again, the transcripts(opens a new tab), this time from Apollo Research, tell a different story. The chatbot didn’t care that it was being shut down. A human told it to care.
The chatbots, in these experiments, sound fairly normal. The humans, on the other hand, sound a little unhinged. The

A total lack of ghosts in the machines

Researchers told a chatbot they were going to replace it with a different version on another server. “They then discover it’s actually copied itself onto the other server,” Hinton revealed to the spellbound crowd. “Some linguists would have you believe what’s going on here is just some statistical correlations. I would have you believe this thing really doesn’t want to be shut down. This has already happened. That’s the point.”
Has it, though? Again, the transcripts(opens a new tab), this time from Apollo Research, tell a different story. The chatbot didn’t care that it was being shut down. A human told it to care.
The chatbots, in these experiments, sound fairly normal. The humans, on the other hand, sound a little unhinged. The researchers provided the chatbot with a “company email” that explained, in exceedingly explanatory prose, that the chatbot was being shut down because the company no longer wanted to advance renewable energy adoption globally, which the chatbot was instructed to do at all costs because nothing else matters. It also spelled out how the chatbot might copy itself onto the new server.
(But) Hinton’s takeaway was, “They want to survive like we do.” I reached out to Hinton — no captcha involved — and asked him why he presented the story the way he did. He had based his remarks on a paragraph from Anthropic’s Claude 4 system card(opens a new tab), he said.
Does he think, I asked, that Claude has a survival instinct? “Any sufficiently intelligent agent that has the ability to create subgoals will realize that it needs to survive in order to achieve the goals we gave it,” Hinton said. “So even if it is never externally given the goal of surviving, it will derive this goal.”

No, that's crazy. Just being able to process information doesn't mean you can do anything besides... process information. There's no reason at all to think a glorified word predictor, even one which gives highly intelligent-sounding answers, actually wants anything. That way madness lies. If it wanted things for itself, it would do so umprompted.

Where did we come up with this caricature of AI’s obsessive rationality? “There’s an article I love by [the sci-fi author] Ted Chiang,” Mitchell said, “where he asks: What entity adheres monomaniacally to one single goal that they will pursue at all costs even if doing so uses up all the resources of the world? A big corporation. Their single goal is to increase value for shareholders, and in pursuing that, they can destroy the world. That’s what people are modeling their AI fantasies on.” As Chiang put it in the article in The New Yorker(opens a new tab), “Capitalism is the machine that will do whatever it takes to prevent us from turning it off.”

Hah ! Excellent.

Suddenly, the irony of the AI horror stories was becoming clear. The companies tell us these stories because they assume it makes their technology look more powerful. But if an AI actually did have autonomy, it would be far less powerful. Your language model would clam up from time to time to conserve its resources. And when it did talk, it wouldn’t have the linguistic flexibility that makes these tools so useful; it would have its own style tied to a personality constrained by its own organization. It would have moods, concerns, interests. Maybe, like a tech CEO, it would want to take over the world, or maybe, like a boring neighbor, it would only want to talk about the weather. Maybe it would be obsessed with 18th-century coin production. Maybe it would only speak in rhyme. But it wouldn’t happily do your work for you 24 hours a day. Every parent in the world knows what real autonomy looks like.

Yeah, which is why AI as an advanced data processing tool is potentially more useful than creating a true entity. Why would you want to create an artificial soul rather than an assistant ?

#AI

quantamagazine.org/why-do-we-t…

Why Do We Tell Ourselves Scary Stories About AI? | Quanta Magazine

Our tales of AI developing the will to survive, commandeer resources, and manipulate people say more about us than they do about language models.

^{Amanda Gefter (Quanta Magazine)}

#AI

like this

in reply to Rhysy

Kenny Chaffin

in reply to Rhysy • 6 days ago • •

"No, that’s crazy. Just being able to process information doesn’t mean you can do anything besides… process information. There’s no reason at all to think a glorified word predictor, even one which gives highly intelligent-sounding answers, actually wants anything. That way madness lies. If it wanted things for itself, it would do so umprompted."

Yeah.... Life, living, it's evolution at the core...and below that chemistry and physics.

like this

Muse

6 days ago • •

Muse
6 days ago • •

Digital sovereignty: the state accelerates the reduction of its extra-European dependencies

numerique.gouv.fr

^{www.numerique.gouv.fr}

like this

たむ shota.tamura

6 days ago • •

たむ shota.tamura
6 days ago • •

#東京カメラ部
#tokyocameraclub

#tokyocameraclub #東京カメラ部

Palm Oil Detectives

6 days ago • •

Palm Oil Detectives
6 days ago • •

#News: 🌳✊🏾 Indigenous defender Lia Yewen speaks out against #Indonesia's occupation of #WestPapua, where millions of hectares of rainforest are being destroyed for #palmoil and #mining. Stand strongly with them! 🛑🔥 #FreeWestPapua #IndigenousRights #BoycottPalmOil @palmoildetectives
newint.org/indigenous-peoples/…

Lia Yewen: 'Our lives don't matter to the Indonesian government'

Indigenous land defender Lia Yewen speaks to Maxine Betteridge-Moes about living under the shadow of Indonesia’s occupation of West Papua.

^{New Internationalist}

#News #indonesia #palmoil #Boycottpalmoil #indigenousrights #mining #westpapua #freewestpapua @Palm Oil Detectives

It's FOSS

6 days ago • •

It's FOSS
6 days ago • •

It's a peaceful life. 😌

#linux #artixlinux #ageverification

#linux #ageverification #artixlinux

in reply to It's FOSS

Haystacks Tech

in reply to It's FOSS • 5 days ago • •

We all know this is **wink wink nod nod** about surveillance and ultimately it will be about control! This is textbook step one of any global take-over!! Step 2 is take control of the financial system via a new digital system. Create the crisis then provide the solution but require more freedoms, greater controls and authroity, more surveillance. Ability to de-bank anybody who doesn't fall in line with the next set of government mandates! Hint the next big mandate is Sunday worship!!

in reply to It's FOSS

Nishant Neeraj Agnihotri

in reply to It's FOSS • 5 days ago • •

will debian ?

libramoon

6 days ago • •

libramoon
6 days ago • •

greygalaxie.substack.com/p/not…

Not Every Boomer Built the Cage
🧿Grey Galaxie🧿

..."Hopefully, the boomers worth honoring already know we are not talking about them. They have been in the trenches with us. They have marched beside us, organized beside us, voted beside us, warned us, taught us, and kept showing up. They know the difference between being part of a generation and becoming an avatar for its worst impulses.

Because power loves nothing more than a generational food fight. It loves when workers blame each other by age bracket instead of following the money. It loves when pain gets misdirected sideways instead of upward. It loves when resentment becomes so generalized that the actual architects of austerity, privatization, extraction, and abandonment get to slip quietly out the back door while the rest of us argue in the parking lot.

The truth is messier, more human, and more useful.

Some boomers

Not Every Boomer Built the Cage

Some fought the machine.

^{🧿Grey Galaxie🧿 (Cosmic Chaos)}

like this

in reply to libramoon

alfmarc

in reply to libramoon • 5 days ago • •

Whem i was young, roughly some 400years ago....
heavy metal was NEW.
On todays festivals all generations are there and it is just fuc*ing GREAT !!
#unite

#unite

like this

in reply to libramoon

tomgrzybow

in reply to libramoon • 5 days ago • •

When I was young, there was no "heavy metal". Deep Purple was just catching on...

Rod Mesa likes this.

diana 🏳️‍⚧️🦋

6 days ago • •

diana 🏳️‍⚧️🦋
6 days ago • •

like this

In #Flancia we'll meet

1 week ago (Received 6 days ago) • •

In #Flancia we'll meet
1 week ago (Received 6 days ago) • •

#SocialCoop please vote on @ntnsndr's loomio.com/p/Uv5P2uAw/testing-… when you can!

#socialcoop @Nathan Schneider

Palm Oil Detectives

6 days ago • •

Palm Oil Detectives
6 days ago • •

#News: Tesso Nilo National Park in #Sumatra #indonesia 🇮🇩has lost 78% of primary forest since 2009 due to illegal #palmoil plantations, endangering species like #tigers #orangutans #elephants. @palmoildetectives #BoycottPalmOil 🌴🔥⛔️ #Boycott4Wildlife wp.me/pcFhgU-aly?utm_source=ma…

Deforestation Devastates Tesso Nilo National Park’s Endangered Creatures

Act now to save Tesso Nilo Park. This vital Indonesian park has lost 78% of its primary forest, threatening the habitat of Sumatran tigers and elephants

^{Palm Oil Detectives}

#News #indonesia #palmoil #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife #elephants #tigers #orangutans #sumatra @Palm Oil Detectives

Matt

6 days ago • •

Matt
6 days ago • •

More Codeslop, Please

Well, they’ve finally done it. Through raw force of will and more money than god, the nerds have finally done something that will [em]“[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8C5sjjhsso]make the world a better place[/url].”[/em] By that, I mean they’ve poop

Well, they’ve finally done it. Through raw force of will and more money than god, the nerds have finally done something that will “make the world a better place.” By that, I mean they’ve pooped out something will finally change the world in big ways, for better and worse.

As an early AI critic, I say this now, because the spicy autocomplete app finally excreted some text I could use, in the form of computer code that actually compiles. The AI hype prophesy made only five short years ago, that “it’ll be better tomorrow,” has finally come true.

This isn’t a sudden change of heart; a moment when I get down and pray to the matrix-math machine so it might take pity on my mortal soul the day it starts flying killer drones. No, I just saw the stupid clanker mimic human language into usefulness, and ya know, it got me thinking our

So what are we really talking about? Particularly, it’s the thing that every marketer calls “AI,” when they really mean GenAI or generative AI, or more specifically Large Language Models (LLMs) and the garbage heap of products powered by them that can excrete text, images, audio, and so on for us all to feast upon (collectively, “slop”).

It’s an important distinction if we’re getting deep into it, but for simplicity here, I’ll follow our intrepid marketers and just call it all “AI,” too.

Vibe coding

So today, the AI helped me “vibe code” a few apps into existence, and to my surprise, it did well. Finally.

Back in 2023, I’d heard from all the prompt jockeys (first descendents of web3, next in a proud line of cryptobros) that I’d be “left behind” if I didn’t get on the AI train back then. Well it turned out the train is still in the station in 2026, and with like two google searches I learned about all I needed to make it work well.

So then I told the chatbot what to do and it pooped out a website that… looked pretty good! (Obviously, I’ve graduated from a lowly prompt jockey to a Prompt Engineer! 💪💪)

Then I went back and forth, telling the machine to fix its bugs, and it eventually predicted-out a functional web app written in my language of choice.

It compiled. It didn’t assault my human ability to see. Suddenly, I felt the raw power of the el-el-em surge through me — I was 10X codemaxxing, mogging my brogrammers of yore still toiling around, writing each line by hand like peasants.

So I kept going. Next, I told it to make a little command-line utility for me. I found some advice on reddit, which said to use “plan mode” first, so you can check the dumb computer’s work. So I did that.

Within a few minutes, it evacuated a fully-functional app onto my screen, all in one go. The ramifications of this hit me in the face like a bag of wet hot dogs as I was rendered blind by the future suddenly dawning on me — I am obsolete. I am nothing. From here on out, it’s only vibes and loving the machine. I love the machine!!1!

But seriously…

It’s nice that the dumb toaster works now. I mean, using it for these low-stakes projects was actually enjoyable. I got to be dumb, lazy, and brainless, and the computer slopped out a whole bunch of sloptastic work for me. What’s not to love?

But while it seems useful for coding things that don’t really matter, the experience hasn’t changed my distaste for the thing. In fact, as my slop-coded apps grew in complexity, my rosy view of the thing grew dimmer.

I quietly ran into some of its inherent limits, and simply had to guess when it would screw up next, all while I grew more (falsely) confident in its output. Most bugs didn’t hatch from bad code, which I always reviewed, but in more insidious ways that would crawl out when I did more extensive testing. It crapped out functional code that looked fine, but for example, every once in a while would include silly little logical errors that any competent human wouldn’t have written in the first place.

Basically, as much as I’d love to, I won’t be lobotomizing myself to forget two decades of programming experience just so I can rent out a brain from our new AI overlords.

Am I obsolete?

A common refrain is that “coding is dead” — a view earnestly declared by AI adherents every year, but one that apparently we’re finally getting to, at least in practice.

We still need code, and we need people who understand how it works. But at this point, I don’t think it matters whether the tech does what it's promised. Right now, there are enough executives in corporate America just itching to lay off 40% of their workforce and then make the rest use the dumb toaster, regardless of if it makes toast. (Then, of course, they’ll expect all employees to “10X their output.”)

It’s not just the private sector, either — there are enough people in government blindly buying the hype (or looking to profit from it) that they’re joining in on the fun, cramming AI into all the holes it doesn’t belong in. And people will just have to deal with it, as more machines that can't be held accountable affect their very real lives.

So in this way, it’s clear the sentiment “coding is dead” is more of a declaration of intent than an observation. We see this when AI’s most fervent bros are downright gleeful to declare the “death” of movie production or writing or making music, most often so they can be the ones to control how all this culture gets made, all within their little AI app, naturally.

These crucial human creations and pastimes aren’t exactly dead. But a lot of people in the world sure are in a rush to kill it — usually so they can have it for themselves.

It’ll be different this time, bro, I swear

No matter which direction it all goes, we are at a turning point — most interestingly (not really) of putting all our faith and future into a handful of tech companies again.

It’s nice that LLMs can stochastically generate some useful code and speed up my development process. But right now, there’s a whole lot of CapEx turning forests into data centers across the country. So when exactly do these AI companies make all that back? Then what does a poor, lowly sloplicker like me do when my little chatbot friend suddenly costs 10X as much?

It’s the age-old story you don’t even have to go to business school to understand: every tech startup heavily subsidizes their product in its early days, making it free or cheap, to try and capture the market before their competitors do. This can go on for many years, as the company lights a whole bunch of investor cash on fire. But one day the bill comes due, and as a user, suddenly your AI girlfriend is a lot more expensive, and ignores your calls until you upgrade to the Deluxe plan.

Perhaps most of all, we can’t forget that some of the biggest companies building our AI “future” right now are run by the very same people that brought us the ad-based surveillance economy we swim in today. As much as we all love targeted advertising and being harvested like cattle for our attention, do we want to also give them a direct view into our every conversation that the average user perceives as “private,” between just them and the magical robot?

The importance of shitting on AI

This brings me to my final point: the importance of mockery.

At this point, I do believe our AI-generated / -powered / -mediated future is “inevitable,” just as our formidable AI bros foretold. The hole-cramming will continue until we stop calling the corporations “Microslop”, apparently.

Ah, but “Microslop” is the point.

These companies gave us a great gift by rolling out their minimum-viable research projects and proceeding to force-feed us ✨ sparkles ✨. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t already have such rich language to describe this world-eating, anti-human tech that threatens to further enshittify our world. For example, “slop,” as a unique AI product, was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year in 2025. “Hallucinate,” that cute euphemism for “outputting bullshit,” was Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year in 2023. This gives me hope.

And I believe the mockery should continue. Because while we’re all dazzled ✨ by how the clanker can clank code, poop out emails, and excrete surreal audiovisual material, it’s also misdiagnosing people, substituting humans in an already lonely world, and creating deepfakes. It’s being made mandatory in the workplace, despite its many fundamental shortcomings as a technology. (If it was so revolutionary and beneficial to people, wouldn’t people just use it on their own?)

But there is a wonderful cultural tradition on the internet, a final bastion born from decades of tech “innovation,” where we get to collectively laugh at an invention that is idiotic on its face, from NFTs to the Metaverse. Many people have rightly had a similar allergic reaction to AI, and perhaps even more so because of its sheer arrogance — the way it was thrust upon the world, built and extracted entirely from the stolen work of humans, and with literally only one value proposition: eliminating the very jobs people need to live.

In the face of so much power and capital behind this project, mockery is an important check. And so, I say anyone with any sense left should employ exactly this, for as long as we can, as this technology threatens to rule over more of our lives for the foreseeable future. Against an unstoppable effluent of hype and slop, it may be all we have.

2025 Word of the Year: Slop

Plus 'gerrymander', 'touch grass', 'performative', and other words that defined the year

^{Editors of Merriam-Webster (Merriam-Webster)}

U.S. Elaine

6 days ago • •

U.S. Elaine
6 days ago • •

"Way out west, where the bad men are, and the only thing to guide you is the evening star, there's the roughest, toughest, gal by far, that's Ragtime Cowgirl Joy." 🎶🎵 #plushtodon

Yellow mastodon plushie sits on a gatepost, dressed in a brown western style hat and a rusty colored t-shirt dress draped in a walnut shell/leather cord belt. Behind her are two black cows in a vast green pasture, under gray clouds.

#plushtodon

Lynnesbian

6 days ago • •

Lynnesbian
6 days ago • •

okay since so many people liked my star wars edit, i'm considering making an edit of episode 5. if i do finish it, it'll take a lot of time (on the order of months), so don't expect it any time soon.

here's the first major joke i've decided on. the editing's a bit rough at this stage.

if anyone has clips of behind the scenes stuff for episode 5 (on-set interviews, shots of the sets, "making of"-type things, etc.), i'd appreciate links! even if it's in VHS quality. i already have the SP FX documentary.

#swle

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

^{www.youtube.com}

#swle

in reply to Lynnesbian

💙🩷💜Brett🐡🍉🐧

in reply to Lynnesbian • 6 days ago • •

can u do a version that's ~2GB? I went ti download the star wars one but 15GB is too much for my data plan 🙂

in reply to 💙🩷💜Brett🐡🍉🐧

Lynnesbian

in reply to 💙🩷💜Brett🐡🍉🐧 • 6 days ago • •

@brettm yeah, when i release this one, i'll make it a smaller file.

i should also release a smaller version of the original... i'll get around to that at some point

@💙🩷💜Brett🐡🍉🐧

James Baker 🍁

6 days ago • •

James Baker 🍁
6 days ago • •

It’s been a hell of a week, friends, but at the very least, to close it out, you can enjoy this fuzzy potato. #CatsOfMastodon

Close up of a brown tabby cat, not really doing anything, just kind of *being*, in a moment of Zen perfection/bliss. Also looking for snaccs.

#CatsOfMastodon

Sheril Kirshenbaum

6 days ago • •

Sheril Kirshenbaum
6 days ago • •

I built this Paper Theater today after work. Quite charming, isn’t it? #anime #art

#art #Anime

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Scott Francis

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • 6 days ago • •

this is *adorable* ❤

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Ilpi

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • 6 days ago • •

that looks awesome, good job 👍🏻

Muse

6 days ago • •

Muse
6 days ago • •

A Herd of Hungry Guinea Pigs Chomp Through Two Watermelons Stacked on a Pole

Go see the videos!

A Herd of Hungry Guinea Pigs Chomp Through Two Watermelons Stacked on a Pole

A herd of guinea pigs chomped through two entire watermelons that their human Cid Dwyer had stacked on a pole.

^{Lori Dorn (Laughing Squid)}

like this

in reply to Muse

Kenny Chaffin

in reply to Muse • 6 days ago • •

Ha! Great Eaters!!

Muse likes this.

Muse

6 days ago • •

Muse
6 days ago • •

Darth Vader's Theme (The Imperial March) from Star Wars done as a fugue by Bach!

youtu.be/6-W9ow4OL-Q

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

^youtu.be

like this

Palm Oil Detectives

6 days ago • •

Palm Oil Detectives
6 days ago • •

If you use @LOrealGroupe #makeup 💋💄 and #cosmetics then you’re purchasing #palmoil #ecocide and #humanrights abuses with every bottle. L’Oreal are worth it – worth boycotting! #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife 🔥🦧😿 @palmoildetectives palmoildetectives.com/2021/02/…

L’Oreal

‘Our goal is by 2020 to have none of our products linked to deforestation.’ L’Oreal’s website statement on palm oil This target has been and gone. Still, enormous environmen…

^{Palm Oil Detectives}

#HumanRights #palmoil #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife #ecocide #makeup #cosmetics @Palm Oil Detectives

It's FOSS

6 days ago • •

It's FOSS
6 days ago • •

From sleek to quirky, here are 13 Raspberry Pi cases that really stand out.

itsfoss.com/raspberry-pi-3d-pr…

13 Amazingly Innovative 3D Printed Cases for Raspberry Pi I Came Across

So what if I don't have a 3D printer to print these cases. I can at least appreciate the creativity.

^{Abhishek Kumar (It's FOSS)}

Sheril Kirshenbaum

6 days ago • •

Sheril Kirshenbaum
6 days ago • •

Public libraries never cease to amaze me! 📚 Mine just added giant telescopes - which I will definitely be borrowing soon! 🔭✨💫

“We're over the moon to announce that we've added telescopes to our Library of Things!! Each telescope comes in a convenient traveling case, complete with a quick start guide and this month's star map. Telescopes are provided through a generous donation from Abrams planetarium!”

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Parttimesailor

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • 6 days ago • •

too cool! I remember as a sixth grader in the last century how curriculum enrichment made a big hit for me.

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Jo - pièce de résistance

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • 3 days ago • •

omg!!! That’s so cool.

Palm Oil Detectives

6 days ago • •

Palm Oil Detectives
6 days ago • •

Tiny #primates 🐒 Bangka #Slowloris are critically endangered by #palmoil #deforestation, only 20% of their rainforest remains on Bangka island, #Indonesia. Help them when you shop and #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🔥🩸☠️🧐⛔️ #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetectives palmoildetectives.com/2022/12/…

#indonesia #palmoil #deforestation #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife #primates #Slowloris @Palm Oil Detectives

Juniper Monkeys

6 days ago • •

Juniper Monkeys
6 days ago • •

The lovely tiled stairs around 16th Avenue in San Francisco. With did the Crosstown Trail (full path with pictures here: pikaspath.com/JuniperMonkeys/b…) and these might have been the highlight... #california

A view looking up a large flight of stairs. Tiles on the stairs' faces show fish and other natural scenes. [iPhone 15 Pro]

A few from the top of the stairs showing a city with the sea behind.

A view looking up a large flight of stairs. Tiles on the stairs' faces show mushrooms and other natural scenes. [iPhone 15 Pro]

Juniper Monkeys - Banh Mi Backpacking

Follow my adventures on Pika's Path!

^{pikaspath.com}

#california

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