ozmodiar

So far the only jobs AI seems to be trying to take are the 'good' ones. Creativity, analysis, programming. Sure there's the dream that people in all 3 groups will just leverage it to do more and better, but most of the impact so far has been management openly extatic at all the people they can fire/pressure/not hire. Not the revolution I was looking for so far. And that's before taking the new horizons for disinformation and harassment into account.

Visited 4chan twice about 5 years apart, saw CSAM both times. I have an absolute hatred of the place rightly or wrongly.

They might not be more successful, but they are still very successful given the difficulties they face, and any Chinese person with half a brain can realize they give lie to the idea the CCP likes to propogate that there's something intrinsic to Chinese culture that requires an authoritarian approach.

I largely agree with this so far, but my worry is that it's only been two months (though it may seem like an eternity). I'm worried he has much worse in store that won't be so easily circumvented, and we may already be seeing some of it with his buddying up to Russia against Europe. Between the military and corporate control the US has over other countries, there's much worse they could start doing. From my understanding of the current state of constitutional interpretation, the president has essentially unchecked power if they're willing to ignore any sort of decorum (which he certainly is), and he's already started huge purges of anyone not aligned in the government, intelligence and military. What do things start looking like when these purges are complete?

That's why I always try to buy from Gog. They have a commitment that you should be able to download the game, back it up to whatever media you like, and play it without an internet connection. Of course this means you can't find everything there, but they still have a good selection and I think it's an important mission. The internet is surprisingly ephemeral.

You're not joking, a lot of people I talk to have gone from anti nuke to hard pro nuke. I can see the future having a lot more nukes in it now that there's no reliable world order to believe in.

There are, or were, talks in Taiwan and China about the possibility of a "one party two systems" style unification similar to Hong Kong. It was pretty fringe but growing in popularity until China cracked down on Hong Kong. I don't know if it's much of a thing anymore, but I do know a couple of old Taiwanese that still believe in it.

They don't hate them, but it is an emberassment that a group from the same culture is so successful under a different political system that allows for more freedom. That combined with cultural revanchism about not breaking up the country (and having spent a lot of time there I can tell you it is strong) makes the existence of Taiwan as an independent nation a real sore point.

The ethnic cleansing Uyghur concentration camps are probably the biggest one. Also threatening Taiwan, which is a lovely country I would hate to see destroyed. Besides that the social control the government exerts is pretty frightening to me (I've lived in China).

All that said I still see China as less of a direct threat right now.

If people try to go back to the way things were in 4 years they're stupid. Trump threatens allies, nakidly goes after political enemies and makes 'jokes' about becoming a dictator and the people love it unless/even if it negatively impacts them.

Hell, Korea almost turned into a dictatorship in the last few months and Yoon still has a lot of support even after being found out and removed. Democracies are fragile and the only way I can see them surviving is if power isn't concentrated.

And considering a lot of them probably are aspiring to emulate it, everyone else should be figuring out how to avoid this sort of power consolidation and capture.

Because he forwards political causes in the US and abroad that are vehemently anti-global warming and anti environmental protection in general (among other things...). This will likely more than undo any contributions he's theoretically made.

IMO we've really got to start pressuring our own governments to take control of their networks, as well as the companies the population is going through (not just Facebook, but even international contractors for services). Letting a foreign government have this much control over the data of your populace and the ability to feed whatever algorithmic message they like is a path bound for disaster in the long run. The powers of the world are way too consolidated as is, and a company can turn into a state actor at the drop of a hat. I don't think we can maintain kayfabe about the country/corporate divide. I also think this can be done without impacting freedom of speech for your population, as long as you don't consider corporations people.

Most countries don't have the resources to do much, but even then they can try their hardest not to be beholden to any single foreign country coughChina, Americacough.

We're a bit rural but still too tightly packed for farm dogs. They've got a regular dog but it doesn't have quite the free rein a farm dog requires to keep chickens locked down. Kind of the worst of both worlds as far as the chickens are concerned.

I really wish I could still believe that last part.

Yep, this is a problem right here. Once something does make it in it's a massacre.

My neighbor has chickens and the predators are no joke. Raccoons constantly trying to weaken their coop, weasels always ready to slip into any little hole, hawks and other birds of prey circling overhead. They've lost a lot of chickens despite keeping a close eye on them and trying to keep a very sturdy coop. It's like a signal goes out to all the wild animals "COME GET TASTY CHICKENS HERE!" Of course we are in a pretty rural area. You can get some pretty cute fluffy chickens though.

Say that to all the Ironman XCom games I've had ruined by a missed 99% shot.

The problem is they've already threatened most of their allies. In divide and conquer the goal is supposed to be to divide your enemies, not divide yourself from your allies. As it is their enemies and allies now have good reason to work together.

It's so ridiculous. From an outside perspective the US starts cackling wildly and making threats (and they do seem to delight particularly in trying to humiliate their targets), then when people think they won't actually do it they start implementing them to remove any doubt. Then the final step is to say "oops, give us a second, like maybe a month."

Like, they've played their hand already, do you think everyone's just going to assume everything is fine? Any competent world leader, include "The West" which the US seems to think it owns completely, should now be scrambling to cut the US out as much as possible and they've got good company to go to with all the other countries being bullied. It's practically a matter of pride at this point to cut the US off as much as possible.

As a Canadian, with the amount of unprovoked aggression coming from the USA and the turmoil being caused by even the threats of tariffs (yes, companies have to take into account that there might be tariffs and that causes chaos) let along if he actually does levy them, I would not count on Canada to be as close of an ally any longer. The writing is on the wall that we need to do everything we can to align away from the US. It's going to be hard and take time but even if Trump is gone 4 years from now we know how capricious and vindictive the American public can be.

Most Canadians would like to strengthen our bonds with the EU, but unfortunately I think it's going to mean getting pretty cozy with China as you said. No I don't think China is better than the US but the world is getting a wakeup call for how stupid it was to put all our eggs in one basket. From now on having any one partner dominate to the degree the US has is going to be seen as a huge weakness.

Seriously, I remember the Bush admin going after the wife of a CIA operative by leaking her identity after he spoke out about the war intel being bullshit. As someone who was following the Iraq war from the left side and pretty disgusted by it it definitely seemed like it was being pushed hardest by the GOP with anti-war information coming out of the CIA or even military. Granted leakers don't represent the opinions of an agency but this narrative that the CIA was the real villain (not that they aren't) that hoodwinked the poor GOP strikes me revisionist whitewashing.

If there's one thing I don't think you get banned for on Bluesky it's porn so that comic made zero sense.

As a Canadian I haven't heard about the trucker protest since they happened. It was bizarre seeing it come up as the top discussion point in this thread and seems like a big mismatch between American and Canadian perception of what's going on.

To try to expand on this in a constructive way, I think the similarities are that they both pretend to be outsiders while being very connected and powerful and have a worrying amount of disrespectful and vindictive rhetoric and a refusal to engage with the media/intentionally egging on of rage towards the media. That's kind of where it ends though, since I don't think Poilievre has Trump's trademark complete lack of self awareness (I'm not trying to be insulting here, I think it gets him pretty far honestly and has lead to some of his funnier tweets, though I'm not a fan.).

Poilievre seems more like a traditional politician trying to ride the populist right wing train, and he's far less charismatic than Trump. Conservatives I know aren't crazy about him, if he weren't up against the even more unpopular Trudeau during the post covid global incumbent purge going on I don't think the election would be nearly as favorable. I am worried, but mostly due to the general state of the world.

Also Canada gets most of its media from the states, so right wing Canadians talk like right wing Americans with most of the same talking points. I think they'll always look similar and I can't necessarily blame Poilievre for that even if it does annoy me and he definitely intentionally rides it. It's certainly not going to end with him, and the Libs also like to pretend to be Democrats when it suits them.

We've done something very wrong as a society if we need to kneecap ourselves to prop up property investors. My life feels like nothing but "once in a lifetime" financial problems.

Sadly I think you're right. As some say the cruelty is the point. I also think much of the AI boom is just an excuse to get rid of people and get them to accept worse conditions. At the local IBM office they cut half the staff with the reason given being that AI would replace them, then told the other half they would need to work unpaid overtime to cover the lost staff (what happened to the AI?).

Programmers have been an expensive cost to companies for awhile and it's been obvious since outsourcing attempts decades ago that CEOs would like to do whatever they can to break their backs.

I assume by unable you mean they had to stop due to persecution? It sounds from this article that this practice that had survived so long also hit an abrupt stop when faced with persecution from colonizers (at least that's why I'm assuming they have to go by records from 1880 and not just ask the current practitioners). I think this says more about the ability for persecution to shut down a cultural practice more than any quality that practice has to have to survive.

This jives with my experience as well. Chinese has a ton of near homophones that are distinguished by tone. One interesting result of this is that Chinese speakers seem to hate hate hate accents, even just from other parts of China. I hear because it's just mentally taxing to listen to.

Though I'm certainly not 100% bilingual. I like to think it isn't just that I'm annoying to listen to. I have heard other speakers get put down as sounding like 'birds chirping' which seems to be a popular way to describe accents.

I would equate this with a form of extreme slander, so your inference is wrong. They aren't a problem because they are real, they are a problem because they can be passed off as real, and the issue is in the reputational damage. I'm not saying there's a good solution but I don't think the problem should be dismissed so easily.