Re: ballot option: LLM usage accellerates the destruction of our ecosystem (planet earth) and that is a deal-breaker

Holger Levsen <[email protected]> Sun, 16 Aug 2026 20:04:54 +0000
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.vote
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Hi Guillem,

On Wed, Aug 12, 2026 at 06:48:41PM +0200, Guillem Jover wrote:
> Besides the typos already mentioned, I found some issues below:

thanks for writing down these issues. I haven't reacted earlier to include
them, because I was both too tired from this (whole) discussion already and also
because I don't think these nuances matter much.
 
> > We don't have a concern with the LLM _technology_ as such: it's just maths and
> > enough training material, which outputs a very large set of numbers that we can
> > use to infer new material from existing material. But we cannot talk about the
> > LLM technology without talking about who is pushing for its usage, who is doing
> > the training and how, what effect those have on our limited resources, and what
> > are the economical and political motives of these.
> 
> This feels to me like it contradicts a paragraph down below, which I'll
> reorder [0] here only for juxtaposition purposes:

I dont think so, also this appearant contradiction has been addressed in the
proposal. Cars are also just horse carriages with an engine and then 2 tons of
steel added and thousands of kilometers highways around. Cars per se are not evil.
 
> > Foremost we don't understand how anyone can agree that global LLM usage
> > accellerates the destruction of our ecosystem, planet earth, and not feel like
> > that is a deal-breaker.
> The way this is being conveyed feels a bit odd. It does not include
> "anyone that does not agree that LLM usage accelerates such effect". And
> it also seems to contradict a paragraph below [1] about not condemning
> people?

I'm not sure saying one cannot understand how people cannot see they are harming the
planet is condemning them?

> Perhaps better to state this in a positive way. Something along the
> lines of "We consider <thing> has <effect> to be a deal-breaker."?

you are probably right, but time was running out and i was tired.

> > To often the only response we've seen to this point was that other activities
> > are also bad (some even worse) for the climate. How is this even an argument?
> > The planet is burning, we should try to stop that as much and as fast as we can!
> > If others aren't stopping, isn't that even more reason to compensate for their
> > irresponsible actions?
> This feels more like text that would appear in a mail reply as part of
> an argument, than in a project statement. Perhaps reword to avoid the
> questions?

perhaps. (also this was taken from a mail linked below this proposal :)


-- 
cheers,
	Holger

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