Netflix’s ‘Joy’ Shows Early Fears About The Moral Fallout Of IVF Were Justified

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Screenshot-2024-11-26-at-10.13.01 AM-e1732653736450-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Screenshot-2024-11-26-at-10.13.01%5Cu202fAM-e1732653736450-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]'Joy' not only diminishes the earliest anxieties about IVF but seeks to mask them under a dramatized, one-sided version of a feel-good story.

Sabo sentenced! America's best street artist needs our support



Aurora, Colorado, has finally started cracking down on crime.

No, not the violent Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment complexes, terrorizing tenants, and beating property managers to a bloody pulp.

'My wife is a migrant. I must have paid over $10,000 to get her here legally. ... I ... don’t have a problem with immigration; I have a problem with unchecked illegal immigration.'

We're sure Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser will get to that eventually.

In the meantime, the intrepid lawman has cracked the case of his career: nabbing the maniac behind the street art protesting the town's mass immigration-induced mayhem.

That's right: After two decades of risking life, limb, and liberty to bring truly provocative and countercultural art to the public, Sabo has been busted.

As the Gateway Pundit's Patty McMurray reports, the formally trained former Marine was hauled before a judge last week for sentencing.

Unable to afford a lawyer and unwilling to trust one supplied by the state, the based Banksy represented himself — offering this stirring statement to judge deciding his fate:

My wife is a migrant. I must have paid over $10,000 to get her here legally. I paid for expensive biometric scans twice, a health screening, background check. Documents had to be signed stating that she would not be a burden to the taxpayers. She’s never spent a day worried about having a roof over her head or where our next meal was coming from, this because we did it the right way. I, like most, don’t have a problem with immigration; I have a problem with unchecked illegal immigration.

I’m a self-employed artist who’s educated at one of the top art colleges in the world. I know my country; I speak its language. I’m familiar with the marketplace of my chosen profession, and with all this, I can no longer afford to live in my own country. How do these migrants have any hope to to make it here, at least not without financially bankrupting our communities while at the same time overlooking America’s forgotten poor, including veterans who live out on the street?

These newcomers, some of whom are extremely violent, are always dumped in underrepresented communities, making an already bad situation worse. Last winter, tens of thousands of improperly vetted migrants, many illegally in the country, were dropped off in Denver in -12 degree weather. Many forced to brave the cold in tents. It was reported that some were forced to prostitute their wives, daughters, and girlfriends simply to keep from starving or freezing to death. Politicians from both sides of the political aisle should be ashamed of themselves for what they put the poorest from around the world through by conning them to come here — especially in the middle of winter.

I pray we still have a First Amendment to help protect political art, which is its intended purpose. Nothing was destroyed or permanently damaged, except maybe for the feelings of some local politicians for pointing out the mess they’ve made of things.

Now Sabo must pay a fine and perform community service — all while continuing to support himself and his work on a shoestring budget.

In an email to Align, Sabo emphasized that he's not the only one sticking his neck out to spread the truth.

"My main assistant is about to pull the plug on his mother, and I'd like to spend some time with him as well," he writes. "And I'm not rich, so this would help. That guy has [done more to help] us putting up art than anyone I know."

In other words, if you're already a Sabo fan, now would be a good time to express your support.

Go to his website and buy some original art — perhaps his new Vote Wisely poster. Or contribute to the GiveSendGo he's set up to help pay his legal fees.

And if you're not a Sabo fan yet, check out Align's coverage of his previous missions here.

Phones Are Destroying Kids’ Ability To Read Books

'My son used to be a voracious reader — a couple books a week. And then we gave him a phone and the reading stopped.'

1870s French Artists Who Bucked The Establishment Left A Lasting ‘Impression’

'Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment' compares and contrasts two exhibitions held in the French capital a century and a half ago.

Is dying Hollywood doomed to churn out slop?



The secret’s out on the first Hollywood studio to ink a deal with an automated content company. Lionsgate, familiar from the "John Wick" and "Hunger Games" franchises, is all in on an agreement with data mining and research firm Runway to train high-powered computer models on its library of intellectual property, the better to accelerate the production of more fully exploited spinoff material — ideally, of course, for cheap.

The corporate spin is no surprise. Cristóbal Valenzuela, Runway’s CEO, insisted in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter that “the history of art is the history of technology, and these new models are part of our continuous efforts to build transformative mediums for artistic and creative expression. The best stories are yet to be told.” Michael Burns, Lionsgate’s vice chair, said, “Filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their preproduction and postproduction process.”

Even with the very best of intentions and the most dialed-in technological augmentation, the most likely outcome of the automation of entertainment is its further consolidation in still fewer hands for the sake of flooding our lived environment with slop produced by bots.

On paper, the logic is attractive enough. Hollywood’s brutal experience in the COVID/BLM/MeToo buzzsaw left its talent pipelines in tatters — and then the tech industry’s large language models hit the scene. Now, computers can crank out a theoretically endless supply of audiovisual content that’s getting sharper, more realistic, and more competitive with big-budget CGI-laden blockbuster fare each day.

Not to worry; much of this material is best suited to dumb fantasy. That’s what audiences are best suited to, right?

More about that in a minute. First, consider the darker side of the deal. Cheap is a temptation, and it’s often one fueled by ulterior motives or structural necessities imposed by structures which themselves are not all that necessary.

In the case of Hollywood, the culprit is consolidation. On the surface, the fusion of so many disparate companies into a cartel-like handful of mega-mergers — one in keeping with what seem to be the rules of our economic and financial system — is a result of the harsh realities of capitalism and competition. Teched-up kids today gravitate away from films. International markets are where the big money is. It’s better for bottom lines to scrap finished films like "Batgirl" or "Coyote v. Acme" and write them off as a loss. Soulful cinema for mature adults (you know, fully functional grown-ups) doesn’t sell, doesn’t scale, and, worst of all, doesn’t spin off a waterfall of derivative IP — the licensing and brand deals that fill the world with action figures, backpacks, lunch boxes, phone games with in-app purchases, etc., etc., etc.

Like I said — on paper, it all makes sense. But why is it better for the ailing industry to consolidate so drastically in the first place? Here, the dirty secret is easy enough to divulge — it’s actually not better for the film and television industry, which includes, y’know, vast numbers of people in talent, crew, production, and subsidiary but essential components like trucking, props, warehouses, catering, craft services, audio and video equipment and servicing — the works. The consolidation we’ve seen in Hollywood over the past ten years simply favors the biggest firms in the industry.

And it favors the biggest firms in the industry because the whole entertainment sector has been relentlessly consolidating into the hands of a very few individuals. For an illuminating if dispiriting side quest, read up on the latest about legendary talent kingpin Irving “Poison Dwarf” Azoff and his circular empire of celebrity stars, tours, venues, and cartel-like corporations.

I won’t link to the latest about other key figures in the nexus of entertainment power consolidation, such as P. Diddy. Suffice it to say that the entertainment industry we ought to have is one free of corruption, self-dealing, and institutionalized, almost automated vice.

The solution there, some say, is to cut more of those pesky humans out of the process, just as, ostensibly, we ought to do in science, politics, and everything else. Human self-government was tried and found wanting! Or so we’re told. If all we want is cross-eyed escapism, why not climb into the pod, slip on the helmet, and go sail away with the bots?

And that brings us to the true heart of the problem. We all know already that, especially on the internet, routinized content production converges on what we might kindly call filler or, more honestly, spam. Even with the very best of intentions and the most dialed-in technological augmentation, the most likely outcome of the automation of entertainment is its further consolidation in still fewer hands for the sake of flooding our lived environment with slop produced by bots.

But oh, the rejoinder goes — such a high price may sting to pay, but how much greater the pleasure and payoff to reap as a result! We’re talking premium entertainment for a relative few beyond their wildest dreams. Entertainment that fully merges with “real life” to the degree that those few — in a class so coveted it’ll drive unimaginably productive competition just for a chance to enter — will experience an altogether new form of life as semi-immortal gods.

Yes, an overall scenario as depressing as the botslop era we’re facing requires the most overclocked and insane visions of pleasure to compensate.

Industry people who won’t go down without a fight are focused on legal counterattacks. A major suit against Runway is working its way up the chain right now. But for all the importance of preserving the rule of law, if you think copyright and trademark will save us from the botslop cartel, you’re not going to make it. Art begins with artists — disciplined visionaries devoted to forging real spiritual connections with their audiences for the sake of their souls.

Hollywood has earned its share of hate for making a money machine out of spiritual vampirism, but audiences know the work of the true artist is worth far more than a tub of popcorn, a vat of Baja Blast, and a pretzel the size of your head.

National WWI Memorial opens a new front in the modernist war on beauty



WASHINGTON — The long-awaited World War I Memorial opened Friday in Pershing Park, across the street from the storied Willard Hotel and down the road from Old Ebbitt Grill, a historic restaurant where you can still see the doughboy helmet one young man accidentally left at the bar before shipping off to the European trenches.

D.C. has a lot of monuments, and a number of them are beautiful. Many of the newer ones, however, are not. The Martin Luther King Jr. Monument comes to mind. Its harsh, blocky features would be far more at home in Tiananmen Square than overlooking the picturesque Tidal Basin. Then there’s Frank Gehry’s monument to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, which is more like a monument to Gehry himself and which quickly and deservedly became a homeless camp.

This is true civic art: A beautiful public work that lifts the viewer’s eyes upward toward the heavens and shows him what heroism and sacrifice and patriotism look like while not hiding the price our soldiers and our country paid.

Sculptor Sabin Howard’s contribution, “A Soldier’s Journey,” breaks that losing streak. Simply put: It’s stunning. It begins the moment an American soldier’s young, sweet-faced daughter hands Daddy his helmet for war, and his wife, standing in for a reluctant America, tries to hold him back. The viewer is guided along as he marches to war with his comrades from many different branches and backgrounds, into the trenches, through searing gas attacks, and limping back home again.

In the fray, we see bold heroism, excruciating pain, and the cross rising above the battlefield, disguised as shattered beams. Our man returns home, but you can see the war will live on in the haunted eyes of his comrade, whose eyes are turned behind him instead of home, to his family and his country.

But it’s the end that will cause a grown man to choke on emotion. Back home, the soldier’s daughter takes the helmet back from her daddy, but she isn’t smiling, and there’s no sweetness in her face. She’s looking down now. She knows what her father has been through, and it’s taken her innocence in much the way the First World War robbed the West of its own self-confidence.

This is true civic art: A beautiful public work that lifts the viewer’s eyes upward toward the heavens and shows him what heroism and sacrifice and patriotism look like while not hiding the price our soldiers and our country paid.

It also marks a new phase in the fight to regain public beauty from the self-important “expert” class that’s given us so many ugly buildings and statues while telling us we’re just not intellectual enough to understand. Howard knows this, and he’s very open about that war.

“I was raised within Western civilization and the Italian Renaissance, and that was the lineage that I was going to play forward,” he told Blaze News, "so I didn't have any confusion about making some sort of brutalist sculptural reference to the modern era [of art], because the modern era [of art], from my perspective, should be wiped off the map, just as the modernists have wiped off the previous history off the map.”

Stay tuned for a deep dive on the matter in the coming week, including more of Blaze News’ hour-long interview with Howard, as well as interviews with other artists and architects on the front lines. And next time you’re in D.C., go visit “A Soldier’s Journey.” If you have the time, catch it at midday, when the sun is hitting it just right, or come back in the evening when it’s masterfully illuminated. And don’t forget to make time for a mint julep at the famous Round Robin bar next door. Or maybe even a stop at that doughboy’s haunt, the Old Ebbitt.

Germany's Stasi-style crackdown on free speech



While Americans on the left worry they have a Hitler in their midst, Germany seems to be taking a cue from a more recent leader: East German socialist strongman Erich Honecker.

Honecker maintained his grip on power through fear, coercion, and a vast network of informants, all under the guise of protecting the state. Now, decades later, this mentality has returned but with more sophisticated digital tools and a post-pandemic veneer of legitimacy.

And yet this new thought-crime regime resembles nothing so much as the informant culture that flourished in East Germany under the Stasi, where citizen was pitted against citizen.

There's no better example of this updated secret police playbook than the case of Simon Rosenthal.

Attack of the mutants

A painter and conceptual artist, Rosenthal studied art history, philosophy, and graphic art in Bamberg, Paris, and Dresden.

But it’s the 40-year-old’s defiance against the creeping authoritarianism in Germany that has really put him on the map. As Rosenthal describes the current state of his homeland:

"For me, Germany has changed massively, especially since the start of the Corona policy. Academic freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right to privacy, property, and, more and more often, artistic freedom are being taken away from us by politics."

atelier-simon-rosenthal.de

The German citizen has, for years, watched the country he loves morph into an absolute monster.

So it's apt that Rosenthal addresses this transformation with a collection of biting digital collages he calls the "Mutants" series. German authorities don't seem to be fans.

And no wonder. "German Mutant" criticizes the government’s authoritarian handling of the pandemic, directly referencing German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach's infamous statement that "vaccination creates freedom," a chilling echo of Nazi-era rhetoric.

For this, Rosenthal was hit with a €3,250 fine, accused of "incitement to hatred" by the state-funded "hate speech" reporting portal Meldestelle REspect!

Citizen snitch

According to Rosenthal, "New denunciation portals are constantly being created, and people are encouraged to anonymously report others for crap. A large part of society even seems to welcome this and calls it ‘Our Democracy.’"

And yet, this new thought-crime regime resembles nothing so much as the informant culture that flourished in East Germany under the Stasi, where citizen was pitted against citizen. The Berlin Wall may have fallen, but the ghosts of authoritarianism seem to be rising again.

Rosenthal heads to court on October 29. If he loses, he could face financial ruin; even now, it's draining his funds.

"The case also puts a strain on me financially," he notes, "as I have to pay for my lawyer and possibly also the court proceedings and a large fine myself. No legal protection insurance covers this — because when the accusation of ‘incitement to hatred’ is made, the insurance companies assume that one acted intentionally. That's completely crazy."

Democracy in decline

He’s right. It is. On one side, Rosenthal — a lone artist battling for his constitutional rights. On the other, the state, using taxpayer money to crush dissent. If the state wins, the taxpayers gain absolutely nothing. But if it loses, taxpayers foot the bill. This leaves the citizen at a severe disadvantage. This isn’t merely a legal case; it's a reflection of Germany’s democracy in decline.

And Rosenthal's fate could have far-reaching repercussions for all artists in Germany. As he explains, "The state apparently wants to take away a right from me that, after the end of National Socialism, was given an increased status in our constitution precisely to enable artists to counteract undesirable political developments."

If the government succeeds in using Rosenthal’s case to set a precedent, it will not only undermine artistic freedom but also strip citizens of their right to protest and criticize.

As Germany hurtles toward an abyss of authoritarian control, the October 29 trial is shaping up to be far more than a legal proceeding — it could be the death knell for the freedoms that once defined the nation.

If ever there was a moment to pay attention, it’s now.

Political long COVID

The case against Rosenthal also reveals how deeply compromised Germany's political and legal systems have become. As Rosenthal himself points out, “One should not forget that the public prosecutor’s office in Germany reports to the Ministry of Justice — i.e., the government parties — and is therefore not politically independent.” This is crucial. What Rosenthal faces isn’t just legal action; it’s a political case, a targeted attack on anyone who dares challenge the state’s increasingly authoritarian overreach.

Rosenthal's art is about more than just criticism — it's an act of resistance against a government that, in his words, "seems to hate our constitution and therefore the freedom of the individual" (sound familiar, American readers?). The very freedoms enshrined in Germany's post-war constitution are under siege by the same state that should be defending them.

He’s correct to call out the absurdity of the government’s behavior. While a few (not many) European countries have moved on from their pandemic overreach, issuing amnesties and offering apologies, the German government clings to its failed policies.

“If it weren’t the case,” Rosenthal argues, “it would finally stop defending the Corona policy and — like in other European countries — issue a general amnesty, apologize to the citizens for everything they did to them, and then resign as a group.” Instead, the government doubles down, using “petty and spiteful actions” to punish critics like Rosenthal, damaging not only the reputation of the government but the state itself.

Hopeful signs

As Germany continues its descent into a bureaucratic hellscape where artists are fined for challenging the state and prosecutors operate as government pawns, the question is no longer whether the country is heading in the wrong direction. The real question is, how much further will it fall before the people push back?

There are signs that Germans have had enough of this police state 2.0. The conservative Alternative for Germany party has surgedto 19.5%, claiming the second spot in national support. Meanwhile, the far-left coalition government is imploding, barely scraping together 28%. The Christian Democrats lead with 32.5%, while the left-wing BSW flounders at 10%.

Brandenburg’s September 22 election could mark the beginning of the political overhaul Germany desperately needs. And not a moment too soon.

Will we become slaves to the AI manipulation?



Elon Musk is one of the most polarizing figures on the planet — a part-time tech genius and full-time provocateur who never fails to get under the left's skin. His latest venture, xAI, has just unveiled a new image generation tool that is, as expected, stirring up inordinate amounts of controversy. This feature, designed to create a wide range of visuals, is accused of flooding the internet with deep fakes and other dubious imagery.

Among the content being shared are images of Donald Trump and a pregnant Kamala Harris as a couple and depictions of former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama with illegal substances. While these images have triggered the snowflake-like sensitivities of some on the left, those on the right might have more reason to be concerned about where this technology is headed. Let me explain.

This trend, coupled with the biases in training data, suggests that LLMs could continue to mirror and amplify left-leaning viewpoints.

To fully understand Grok's impact, it is crucial to see it within the broader AI landscape. Grok is a large language model, which places it among many others. The broader context reveals an important reality. The vast majority of LLMs tend to exhibit significant left-leaning biases.

LLMs are trained on vast amounts of internet data, which often skews toward progressive viewpoints. As a result, the outputs they generate can reflect these biases, influencing everything from political discourse to social media content.

A recent study by David Rozado, an AI researcher affiliated with Otago Polytechnic and Heterodox Academy, sheds light on a troubling trend in LLMs. Rozado analyzed 24 leading LLMs, including OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, GPT-4, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude, using 11 different political orientation evaluations. His findings reveal a consistent left-leaning bias across these models, with the “homogeneity of test results across LLMs developed by a wide variety of organizations is noteworthy” being particularly striking.

This situation becomes even more significant when considering the rapid evolution of search engines. As LLMs begin to replace traditional search engines, they are not just shifting our access to information; they are transforming it. Unlike search engines, which serve as vast digital libraries, LLMs are becoming personalized advisors, subtly curating the information we consume. This transition could make conventional search engines seem obsolete in comparison.

As Rozado points out, “The emergence of large language models (LLMs) as primary information providers marks a significant transformation in how individuals access and engage with information.” He adds, “Traditionally, people have relied on search engines or platforms like Wikipedia for quick and reliable access to a mix of factual and biased information. However, as LLMs become more advanced and accessible, they are starting to partially displace these conventional sources.”

Rozado further emphasizes, “This shift in the sourcing of information has profound societal implications, as LLMs can shape public opinion, influence voting behaviors, and impact the overall discourse in society. Therefore, it is crucial to critically examine and address the potential political biases embedded in LLMs to ensure a balanced, fair, and accurate representation of information in their responses to user queries.”

The study underscores the need to scrutinize the nature of bias in LLMs. Despite its obvious biases, traditional media allows for some degree of open debate and critique. In contrast, LLMs function in a far more opaque manner. They operate as black boxes, obscuring their internal processes and decision-making mechanisms. While traditional media can face challenges from a variety of angles, LLM content is more likely to escape such scrutiny.

Moreover, they don’t just retrieve information from the internet; they generate it based on the data they’ve been trained on, which inevitably reflects the biases present in that data. This can create an appearance of neutrality, hiding deeper biases that are more challenging to identify. For instance, if a specific LLM has a left-leaning bias, it might subtly favor certain viewpoints or sources over others when addressing sensitive topics like gender dysphoria or abortion. This can shape users' understanding of these issues not through explicit censorship but by subtly guiding content through algorithm-driven selection. Over time, this promotes a narrow range of perspectives while marginalizing others, effectively shifting the Overton window and narrowing the scope of acceptable discourse. Yes, things are bad now, but it’s difficult not to see them getting many times worse, especially if Kamala Harris, a darling of Silicon Valley, becomes president.

The potential implications of "LLM capture" are, for lack of a better word, severe. Given that many LLM developers come from predominantly left-leaning academic backgrounds, the biases from these environments may increasingly permeate the models themselves. This trend, coupled with the biases in training data, suggests that LLMs could continue to mirror and amplify left-leaning viewpoints.

Addressing these issues will require a concerted effort from respectable lawmakers (yes, a few of them still exist). Key to this will be improving transparency around the training processes of LLMs and understanding the nature of their biases. Jim Jordan and his colleagues recently had success dismantling GARM. Now, it’s time for them to turn their attention to a new, arguably far graver, threat.

Tim Walz Lied About How His Children Were Conceived For Years To Attack Pro-Lifers Over IVF

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Screenshot-2024-08-20-at-10.53.42 AM-e1724169345908-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Screenshot-2024-08-20-at-10.53.42%5Cu202fAM-e1724169345908-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]Democrats including Walz have lumped IVF into the party’s radical quest to codify unlimited abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.

The New York Times Is Shocked That Pro-Lifers Are Serious About Protecting Babies At Conception

There's nothing off-kilter about pro-lifers promising to shield babies from harm and destruction, whether that be abortion or IVF.