Just because the information is out there doesn’t mean it’s where people are looking. You see this based on the news people watch where things they don’t cover might as well not exist. Which has always been true but it’s especially true today.
One of the things that always strikes me with pieces like this is they ignore the reality that there's already atrocities being carried out all the time and that large swaths of the population already struggle to live. Reading the sections about what people could do with these tools feels remarkably callous because it's clear this is one of the world's richest people articulating what they are still afraid of.
Yes of course you should ask the same thing of other non AI PRs. Figuring out the why and the thought process behind behavior is one of the most important parts of communication especially when you don’t know people as well
This is wonderful. Ursula K. Le Guin is a great thinker and I’d highly recommend her novels. I’ve read Ken Liu’s, who many here probably know at least from translating The Three Body Problem and Death’s End, Tao Te Ching and it was remarkably poetic. Excited to read another person’s interpretation.
Agreed! I really liked Ken Liu's translation of T3BP.
I don't speak any Chinese or Asian-based lingo for
that matter, but am a fan of the culture and rich
history. Some of us that don't know the lingo, have
issues with reading subtitled movies, for example,
can only enjoy the art via audio dubbing. Godzilla
Minus 1 comes to mind, as a good example of a movie
that generated some controversy when translated and
people claimed that it lost something in the translation.
I'm sure they were right, but I thoroughly enjoyed it
and was glad when it was dubbed into other languages.
This has been the story the whole time. Coupled with the insistence the media is unfair they’ve managed to shift the window of what is acceptable. It’s been remarkably effective and most news sources seemingly have no counter.
It's not even about whats acceptable, it's about what they can frame as a narrative for their supporters in as incendiary a manner as possible. Remember that the FCC investigations into Comcast and NBCUniversal weren't predicated on political bias or uneven reporting, but rather that they '...may be promoting invidious forms of DEI in a manner that does not comply with FCC regulations.”
Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, summarises its mechanisms and intent quite succinctly: “This is the path that Viktor Orbán took in Hungary, where you use the power of the state to ensure that the media is compliant, that outlets are either curbed and become much less willing to be critical, or they are sold to owners who will make that happen."
I don’t disagree that’s a lot of it, and with Hungary as my possible second citizenship have been following Orban closely. I do think there’s something different happening here though. The loop is:
- Do something wildly unacceptable
- Media writes an article declaring the action is indefensible
- Those involved complain publicly about the unfair nature of the story; their supporters back them up
- Next time to avoid controversy media writes a slightly more fair story
It doesn’t even require state power because technically in the US they cannot. There is clearly threat of power kicking journalists out of the pentagon is a clear example. But it’s much more about creating a permission structure through public airing of grievances.
Worse, it seems that these institutions have internalized this as a good thing. "Liberal columnists criticizing the left" is seen as a sign of intellectual righteousness while criticizing the right is seen as behavior that is beneath elite institutions like the New York Times.
The net effect is that when Trump says "we are going to fix housing prices by deporting fifty million people" the Times writes that while the policy may not work it does seem like Trump is trying to tackle the rising cost of housing.
Counter to what? Most news sources are owned by people who support this administration’s positions, and are glad they don’t have to do this whole charade of pretending to care about the truth or normal people.
The whole section that introduces Zaphod is so apt for Trump. It talks about the president's position not being to concentrate power, but to distract attention FROM it. It really feels that way to me, anyway.
Sure, but as has been demonstrated lately, some are more unfit than others. If you replaced Trump with Romney or Obama or some other equally capable, sane person, our situation would be immeasurably improved.
The other piece though is they sent an unintentional message to the rest of the world that American political system is hijackable in a way they ought to be concerned about.
Not American here. Reading your guys replies it almost feels like you are rejecting the existence of Trump supporters or invalidating their stance. Doesn’t this enforce their argument and created this situation in th first place?
> rejecting the existence of Trump supporters or invalidating their stance
I think the problem is that if you read what people say about why they voted for Trump, it becomes clear that an echo chamber is at least as salient to these voters as traditional Republican motivations.
I am unsurprised about the 2024 election and it's exactly what you'd imagine from a purely economic perspective.
The 2016 election, however, has been studied extensively, and it's clear that several aberrations (large contingent of Republican candidates, the first black president, Facebook, Comey) tipped things in a way that you wouldn't expect if voters are acting rationally.
So as someone who genuinely wishes to understand how people think about things, I don't know what's going on here. I can't tell what new lie will be pushed next week to distract us from the recently-disproven lie of last week. Were I outside all of this, I would have very little hope.
(edit: re sibling poster, Trump is not a representative of the median voter but instead a representative of the median electoral college elector. We can't have it both ways, rejecting the popular vote and then failing to acknowledge that our politics represent the electors and not the man on the street)
I’m not trying to convince anyone. I am happy to engage in a discussion if you are interested in anything beyond platitudes about what will and will not “work”.
I'm rejecting your claim that voters didn't act rationally relative to any other human.
No human is 100% rational, doesn't matter if you are Progressive or Conservative, you don't get to claim to be rational and others not (relatively speaking).
> I'm rejecting your claim that voters didn't act rationally relative to any other human.
Okay
> you don't get to claim to be rational and others not (relatively speaking).
Agreed. However, if someone presents a rubric to explain her actions, any person can assess that rubric and the actions for congruence. This is what I am doing.
> I think the problem is that if you read what people say about why they voted for Trump, it becomes clear that an echo chamber is at least as salient to these voters as traditional Republican motivations.
same can be said about people on the opposite side.
> the things that traditional Democrats supported in 1992 are largely the same things supported now.
No. See Bernie Sanders in 2015 talking about how America needs strong borders and illegal immigrants are used by big business to rip American workers off. See Obama’s speech on the same. See positions on trans identifying males in women’s sports. See open support for hiring based on sex and race. Many democrat positions from 20 years ago are now considered right wing.
Please find perspectives on each of those from 1992 (the OP mentions a handful of culture wars issues that I won’t reproduce).
You misinterpret my statement when you select hot-button issues of today that were not in the public discourse at that time- and almost none of the things you mention were in ANY public platform at that time.
My point is that the core political planks from then (healthcare for example, jobs for coal workers) are maintained in one political tradition and not another.
I don’t think the 1992 perspectives would have been different from the 2015 perspectives. Do you?
I live in a different western country but was old enough to watch the US news (Tom Brokaw) then. People did actually discuss these things. The consensus was: the border should exist. Tomboys were tomboys. Effeminate boys were effeminate boys. You can’t just have a policy of hiring someone based on their race because that’s silly and illegal.
> I live in a different western country but was old enough to watch the US news (Tom Brokaw) then. People did actually discuss these things. The consensus was: the border should exist. Tomboys were tomboys. Effeminate boys were effeminate boys. You can’t just have a policy of hiring someone based on their race because that’s silly and illegal.
I'm very curious about this if you're able to find records on this sort of thing.
From the top:
- I don't think the words we use on news these days were even allowed back then (rapists, Small Hands Rubio), so I don't think "these things" were discussed.
- "You can’t just have a policy of hiring someone based on their race because that’s silly and illegal." You said you're not American, so you may not understand that the current ethos of 'reverse racism' was not how this question was viewed in the 90's
- "the border should exist" This hasn't changed. I'm not sure why people are so ready to parrot this point, when Obama deported more people than any previous president, and Biden continued that. If anything, there has been a monotonic increase in this (but nevermind that many large businesses rely on undocumented labor)
- "Effeminate boys" I am sure that was never on the news in the 90s, and definitely not in a party platform. Gay people have always existed and it's a credit to our current era that we have finally started acknowledging that this isn't a 'wrong' way of living
First time I heard ‘small hands Rubio’ but yes totally agreed politics seems dirtier now.
Anyone with enough exposure to American culture to realise the reasons given for stopping anti black racism are now thrown out, and left wing activists are openly discriminating against Asians, Europeans and Jewish people.
“the border should exist” is now controversial. People think “defending migrants” (which I am) means defending illegal migration. There are suburban mom vigilantes taking on LEOs.
I am talking about sterilising and giving cosmetic surgery to effeminate boys and tomboy girls. We used to acknowledge they existed. Now we tell them their bodies are wrong. Which is not a credit to our current era.
All these positions are remarkably different from the 1990s. Asides from present day politicians having different views in older recordings, Bill Maher also talks about this very frequently.
I hate to bring up all the actions taken against American citizens and legal migrants.
> Bill Maher also talks about this very frequently.
I would not take his talking points to reflect Democratic Party orthodoxy. However, I would challenge you to compare his 1990s recordings to the more recent ones to see how things have changed.
> all the actions taken against American citizens and legal migrants.
Yes, for example this guy. He was indeed an american citizen, and anti-ICE activists framed it has him being kidnapped and driven around for two hours. The wider story is much more interesting: https://x.com/TriciaOhio/status/2013317071342317918
> I would not take his talking points to reflect Democratic Party orthodoxy.
Yes, agreed. That's the point. Bill Maher's views haven't changed much compared to 15 years ago, the Democratic Party's views have.
Also 'talking points' is a silly word for things people say. I write things, you write things. You don't have 'talking points' and I don't have 'talking points'.
This is perhaps true to an extent. But what is also true to an unprecedented extent for Americans is that this 'stance' is almost pure demagoguery. For many, there is no 'stance', their 'stance' is Trump, whether he hews close to a principle or completely contradicts it.
"median American voter" implies a distribution of views like a normal distribution, with a lot of people in the middle and a few people on extremes. If that is the distribution, then the median is representative of most people. I am not sure that is really a great way of thinking about American voters these days. It seems to me that American's views on many issues are tending to cluster around extremes, with fewer people in the middle. So I am not sure the median is as meaningful.
Median does not assume anything about the distribution which is precisely why I use it. Median allows for us to count max total of one category because the variances are so small. Hence why medians can actually demonstrate the underlying distribution instead of commingling amplitude like the mean.
In this case it’s “American Voter” as the category. This is what messes most people up, because they read “American Citizen” but I’m describing only the subset of citizens who successfully vote.
Using that number you’ll see what the demographics demonstrate: there are not as many progressive voters as there are “conservative” voters and only 2/3 of eligible voters even cared to vote.
If you zoom out even further and you evaluate which candidates run, then it really does not matter who is voting or not because ultimately who is on the ballot is dictated by a small group of party leaders, who in turn are dictated by whomever has the most money for ad spending.
The median American voter voted for Obama, and then Trump, and then Biden, and then Trump. They are angry about inflation, hate billionaires, don't want to start a war, and don't know who pays tariffs.
Basically, the median American voter does not have a coherent position. It's futile trying to build a narrative around them.
I mean I think that’s exactly my point this concept that there’s some kind of like ideal or coherent version of the American voting public it just doesn’t exist
Donald Trump is an irrational randomly reactive, incoherent person who doesn’t know what he wants other than to just be in charge and to do whatever he wants all the time
If that doesn’t describe the median American voter I don’t know what does
No, but they they were somewhat accurate representations of the median American voter (note here VOTER is the key) - less so than Trump, given what he’s been able to get away with.
> Trump is an accurate representation of the median American voter
On foreign policy? Probably not.
Like, Biden wasn’t an accurate representation of the median American voter on e.g. transgender kids in school sports. That wasn’t just right-wing delusion.
Because he’s telling Americans exactly how he’s going to oppress and punish them, doing it publicly with no remorse and a patina of lying, and people still supporting
Reticulum is a full network stack with full user anonymity.
You can integrate it in every app that needs P2P network connections and that can live with a slow connection.
Reticulum is an alternative to TCP/IP and UDP/IP, using a mesh.
Meshtastic and Meshcore are mesh messengers, focusing on mesh text messages.
It’s pretty classic civil disobedience. In my mind it’s really the founding principle of the states. There is a difference between what is legal and what is just. For the past 250 years what is just has continually evolved and expanded.
> Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
reply