Why should our machines for doing sums also just happen be capable of reproducing the same phenomenon of consciousness that brains do? Doesn’t that seem awful convenient? Especially considering that we have a very thorough understanding of computers, but we really don’t understand consciousness.

I don’t think any these companies would stomach a cut in sales. They’d definitely try and fight any change in the courts.

If anything, I expect the EU to try and keep anti-circumvention laws to benefit its own tech industry.

The neat thing about Doctorow’s proposal, though, is that at this point anyone could do it. Canada, India, Brazil… with tariffs already in play, there’s not really much to lose.

The logistics of the Holocaust was enabled by IBM tabulation machines; this comparison isn’t that much of a stretch.

I… guess if you have one half that’s 2025-2075 and another half that’s comprised of the two non-contiguous quarters on either side?

I mean, it also looks like Peter Mandelson’s “best buddy” status with Epstein is gonna drag down the Starmer government… but more because at this point almost anything would drag that government down, not out of any principled attempt to address the pedophile cabal.

Known pedophiles facing legal consequences is a very recent development in British politics.

Arguably, it’s not even that, since the arrest is over him talking about confidential government stuff with Epstein, not for any of the abuse.

I mean, silver lining, the dollar was never gonna remain the reserve currency forever. Now that is just gonna happen before the middle of the 21st century, rather than sometime after it.

That’s true, and my bad for implying otherwise.

But I also think much more critically, they’re back to denying coverage exactly the way they were before Thompson died.

The efficacy lasted for all of a month before returning to where it had been before.

OK, and my point is that people are using the term “AI” so loosely as to be indistinguishable from “algorithm”.

We’ll still have the statistical protein folding models after this bubble eventually pops, we’re just not gonna call it “AI”. It’s a trendy marketing department word, and its usefulness as a description in Computer Science is rapidly diminishing.

whaaaat surely BYU, the school that claimed to have done cold fusion, is an upstanding pillar of academic research

Could you define that category? Or give us an example of a programme that fits under it and one that doesn’t?

Yeah, I’m somewhat paralyzed by it myself. It feels mean to spell it out like this, but fuck… I just cannot just let this rattle around in my head for any longer.

There is some cold comfort to know others see this too, that I’m not just driving myself crazy.

I’ve heard a lot of definitions of fascism, but the one that makes the most sense, that explains the most is this:

Fascism is what they call it when an empire takes the murderous and dehumanizing policies it uses on it’s periphery - it colonies invasions territories “frontiers” - and begins using them on the citizens of the “homeland” or imperial core.

Germany had concentration camps in its African colonies well before they started ghettoizing Jewish people. The United States has had “fascist” policies all my life and all your life. Those dehumanizing and murderous actions have just been turned outward. But your means always become your ends.

If you want to know the future of this country, look at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Look at the black-sites and the special rendition treaties. The water tables poisoned by depleted uranium ammunition. The families lost to drone strikes as so-called “collateral”. We have always been fascist. Those of us who just happen to live here, no different from the German citizens who simply didn’t know and did not ask too many questions.

I completely agree

The DNC isn’t stupid, it’s evil.

except for this. Two things can be true at once.

I think you’re over-estimating how plugged in the yankee electorate actually is. Google searches for “did Biden drop out” spiked on election day. Most people have not heard about project 2025. Most people were complaining about grocery prices.

The people who took a moral principle and abstained from voting for the lesser of two genocides, they weren’t what flipped the election. It was almost completely a cost of living election.

American elections are a popularity contest, we (the American populace) don’t take them seriously

That rather conveniently runs cover for the organization that does the most to decide what kind of campaign is run.

Like, oooh millions of people are disorganized and stupid. Shocker, Mr. Sherlock. But the small, powerful node of party leadership is also stupid and disorganized. That’s actually much more of pressing concern than, lol americans dumb

Well that’s funny, since you’re not actually prioritizing well. Talking about 3rd-party/abstaining voters is a wasted effort. You reach those people with broad, national messaging. The kind you and I, on a dinky little not-reddit, don’t have access to.

You really gonna stop and have this conversation with each and every individual you assume didn’t vote Harris? You think that’s gonna move the needle? In an electoral environment measured in the hundred millions? That’s not a very effective use of your limited rhetorical time.

Why not prioritize getting the Democrats to actually take this seriously, to run a campaign that activates non-voters?

Does this seem like the actions of a party that genuinely considers Trump an existential threat?

Does it matter?

OK, so we’re gonna quibble over 3rd party voters again, and just dismiss the fact that DNC leadership doesn’t take this seriously. Great.