pstuart

> How do you even speak to the ineffable idea of 'incompetence'?

I think it has to start with daylight: all of the relevant info accessible to the public.

Adversaries can/will counter with fake data, narratives, etc, but if there's a trustable source of that daylight data that is a huge start.

Sure, bug Google always seems to be unable to deliver good UX. UX matters if it's bad enough and there are competing options that are much friendlier and easy to engage.

If they weren't afraid of the data being public they wouldn't be removing it.

The only saving grace of this administration is that their incompetence helps to slow down their evilness.

This is going to sound partisan, but it's not: MAGA only cares about corruption if it's done by "others". This has played out time and time again. It drives me crazy. Remember the fuss about Hunter's laptop?

And to give equal time to the Dems: I believe that Dem leadership is fully corrupt as well, albeit in a more genteel fashion: they cater to the needs of the corporate elite, the moneyed class, etc and will never betray them by actively supporting worker's rights. I think most Dem pols are less corrupt, but the need for bribery, oops, I mean campaign financing, forces them into the difficult choice of staying in office or hewing to their values.

There's no way I'd trust this in the hands of anyone, especially those operating in the service of the current administration. They say they want to use it to "protect the border" but there are reports that they'd used it domestically already.

Considering the non-tolerance of public protest and the "promise" of non-lethality, I could imagine this becoming a regular tool in population control if things don't change.

Joe Sixpack is not a deep thinker.

He cares about getting his immediate needs met.

He wants to be entertained without having to be forced to think.

He wants to see people that he's been conditioned to hate be punished.

He wants people he can look down on so he doesn't feel like he's at the bottom of the pile.

Exactly. Government is just another word for "who has the power to control things around us".

Some threat actor that demands quick payment or their perishables perish?

That's a good idea. And if a team is working in a specific problem domain, their searches are likely to be repeated by others or overlap to a significant degree. With locally hosted agents that could probably be extended to caching the applicable search results (noting freshness, relevance, and accuracy) and have some sort of RAG-like internal search portal.

They've been underfunded so regular taxpayers will hate them more and supposedly support removing income taxes, and to starve them of auditors who can go after wealthy tax cheats.

https://taxlawcenter.org/blog/the-bipartisan-budget-deal-rew...

https://verdict.justia.com/2015/04/23/the-republicans-cynica...

Maybe its just the simplest image to make and each model follows that path because they too find it the simplest.

Perhaps the prompt should include what the scene should contain.

This read as a William Gibson short story but in wetware, not silicon -- very exciting. What you're doing sounds amazing and I expect to see more great things come out of this work.

Third party audits should be part of the enforcement. And even then, those third parties should be vetted and have full daylight as to ownership, conflicts of interest, etc.

nopes

If they're training to instill morality why are they working with religious thinkers?

We went through the looking glass 10 years ago...

While an intriguing concept, that doesn't sound like it could scale to the amount of "cores" needed to do the work. Or am I missing something?

Oh sure, I was less than happy to have her be my candidate. That said, she actually was one of the most qualified candidates considering her previous experience in the Whitehouse, Senate, and State Department. Add to that her training as a lawyer and the fact that she was likely the smarter one in the marriage.

For all of that, she did lack Bill's charisma.

Sure she was a finger in the air politician but there really was no contest as far as fitness for office. But then again, the typical American voter only cares about what's ostensibly immediately in it for them.

2016 was a populist referendum, and I still think Bernie could have won it (not that he's perfect either).

The whole idea behind tariffs was to replace income taxes with them. The bonus was realizing that he could weaponize it.

Tariffs today have one real value only: protecting domestic industry. And to do that correctly, it needs to be thoughtful, consistent (legislated rather than by executive order), and coordinated with the industries they are designed to protect.

> these changes were going to happen regardless

I'd agree in the context that this wasn't necessarily a case of driven by natural forces of the universe rather than some key events that could have been better addressed to hold them off. And the best way to do that is lots of sunshine and awareness.

Those key elements being:

The Powell Memo -- https://www.inequalitymedia.org/explainers/v/the-powell-memo

Reagan's embracement of evangelicals (ignoring Barry Goldwater's warning)

Rush Limbaugh's unfettered demonization industrial complex

Bill Clinton's sellout of labor to the corporate class -- https://www.theglobalist.com/bill-clinton-hillary-pivoted-am...

IMHO politics is two distinct things: control of law and the circus of those who vie to take that power. Everybody focuses on the circus because that's where the media points to and is the most engaging.

But it's the former that actually matters, and it's boring, slow, and opaque, but literally a matter of life and death to every citizen of the union.

One final thought: the creation of literal Red vs Blue was a masterclass in division and distraction. It's crazy-making to watch it play out from the sidelines.

> police needs power to protect the citizens

Those terms need to be clearly defined. SCOTUS has declared that the police actually have no duty to protect and to serve the people.

And with an overwhelming amount of evidence, the police operate with effectively no accountability and repeated demonstrate that they abuse their powers freely.

So yes, laws without teeth are pointless but the state's monopoly on violence should only be granted when it can be demonstrated to not be abused.

Oil companies have owned the federal government for decades, getting free security to maximize their profits at no direct cost to them.

As far as Venezuela is concerned, my understanding is that China is not thrilled with this deal and we've yet to see if it will actually happen. With Trump's record of actually delivering the goods, the odds are it will not.

This is guaranteed for men. You'll either die from or with prostate cancer if you make it that far.

The Iran War was predicated on a manufactured threat of them getting nuclear weapons. That's been the line for some time.

All reports about the initiation of the war was that Bibi wanted it and manipulated Trump to join in (against the advice of all of those around him warning that the very problem we have now would in fact occur).

So the Green New Deal was about enabling foreign oil producers?

arguably and partially, perhaps a bit, but they have history to back up that reluctance.

That said, Putin's gonna do what Putin's gonna do and it likely wasn't the Crimean invasion that prompted it. It was the promise of waltzing in and just taking it without resistance.

I get your point and it's clear that sticks seem to be more effective than carrots, but our supply chains are not electrified and that will take time, in the meantime this pain will propagate widely.

It looks like it started to plummet in April 2022, which was on Biden's watch (disclaimer: I voted for him). It apparently was in response to supply chain shocks spiking oil prices due to the start of the war in Ukraine.

Having the AI summarize the pros and cons of that action has valid points on both sides. But in his defense, that particular war was not of our doing, unlike the current war with Iran which was initiated impulsively.

> if UBI causes people to work less

My understanding is that UBI experiments show that is not the case. UBI is a safety net, and does not lead to a significant drop in labor. With the pending waves of AI and automation impacting labor we'd be well-served to continue to explore how to make it work.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w32719/w327...

Are you a parent? I am, and your comment indicates you probably aren't.

Of course engaging with your children is vital, and their curiosity should never be dampened.

Boundaries are about social discipline and that's akin to training a dog. Sure, every parent should do their best to make sure their children grow up to good members of society (including classroom behavior).

But when you say that "parents are not powerless" your implication overstates that power. There's no way to force a child to be curious or to care about a subject. Some kids are just "born that way" and are a challenge even for the most caring and engaged parents.

And once that kid becomes a teenager, that power starts to ebb really quickly as they learn that parents only have so many tools to enforce that discipline.