191–200 of 283 posts
I think the really dangerous part here is not just “surveillance bad”. It is that AI removes the labour cost that used to limit surveillance. CCTV was already a problem, but someone still had to watch it, search it, interpret it, escalate it. AI changes that. It makes surveillance searchable, scalable and administratively useful. The shift is from “you may be observed” to “your behaviour can be continuously machine-i…
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That is kinda what is going on in China.
And that's what the Larry Ellisons of the world want. One of the bigger lies ever told is that free-market economies help democratize nations. They don't. If they did, we would have made massive investments in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Marxist-Leninist governments there. Instead we decided to invest in China and, later, Vietnam, among others. These are two very non-democratic nations. Why did we do that, e…
the classic "Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don’t anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn - you stick your hand in there and it’ll chop it off, the end. You don’t think "oh, the lawnmower hates me" – lawnmower doesn’t give a shit about you, lawnmower can’t hate you. Don’t anthropomorphize…
Sounds pretty bad, but what’s the context? We should be skeptical of a quote out of context with some dogpile parallels without any other context. When did he say it? Where did he say it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And that's what the Larry Ellisons of the world want. One of the bigger lies ever told is that free-market economies help democratize nations. They don't. If they did, we would have made massive investments in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Marxist-Leninist governments there. Instead we decided to invest in China and, later, Vietnam, among others. These are two very non-democratic nations. Why did we do that, e…
According to GPT, Poland (my pick because its GDP per cap is about the average for the former Warsaw Pact) received about $10,000 per person in foreign direct investment in recent years whereas during the same period, China received only about $1,900 per person.
How about 25-35 years ago when the wave of globalization truly hit?
And of course, the best behavior will be the behavior that poses zero threat to the people in power. What a great future we have ahead of us, my colleagues.
Congrats to those among us building this dystopia. It's not Larry Ellison coding these systems.
1) Me and my entire family starves to death
2) I make 600k per year building surveillance systems for whoever wants them (as long as they're aligned with Peter Thiels and/or government interests)
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And that's what the Larry Ellisons of the world want. One of the bigger lies ever told is that free-market economies help democratize nations. They don't. If they did, we would have made massive investments in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Marxist-Leninist governments there. Instead we decided to invest in China and, later, Vietnam, among others. These are two very non-democratic nations. Why did we do that, e…
“ far too much money and far too little empathy” There is the old video about the mistake of anthropomorphizing Ellison. You don’t get angry at a lawn mower either when you stick your hand into it.
That's the problem: we take that story and use it as an excuse to act like he's not a human. "Oh, ol' Larry, he's just a lawnmower". No, he's a person, one who doesn't get enough in the way of negative consequences for the harm he brings to society.
My former employer was bought out by Oracle. I didn't stick my hand in the lawn mower, the lawn mower drove over my hand.
This will only happen in fucked up nations such as the USA, where cameras are popping up all over the place.
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It's so frustrating because even the notionally good actors look at this and think "yeah but it's not gonna corrupt me " No you fuck, the only way to walk the good path is to give up power and never let it concentrate again. Larry Ellison of course is one of the most anti human people on the planet and I doubt he was ever anything else.
The real question is whether the threshold before it causes irreversible corruption is before or after the point where you can make real change. The latter is obviously quite terrifying as it essentially means that democracy will always be corrupt (unless time is a factor perhaps)
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That is not the point though? I am not saying that there are no issues with big corps and their interests. Theirs not being yours is just not one of them.
"An entity with a larger pool of cash than many countries and mutual influence with the government, which everyone agrees should have our best interests" not having our best interest is definitely something I'd consider an interest.
Them not having your best interests at heart does not make them an adversary. Just like you not having the best interests of your grocer or work place or most other humans on the planet at heart does not make you an adversary.