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Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

gatesnotes.com

171–180 of 259 posts

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Sounds great, except it ignores the fact that capital interests have controlled the levers of our faux democracies for decades, with no end in sight.” This is not election denialism. This is almost just a fact except they also subjectively declare that we have a faux democracy (which also seems accurate to me).

Yes it is. If you insist that the result of a democratic election does not reflect the will of the people, that , and nothing else, is election denialism.

No it’s not. Election denialism in 2026 in an American context refers to Donald Trump and his supporters denying the results of the 2020 election (and related claims). Pretending that capital does not significantly affect our elections contributes to the deterioration of democracy.

If you actually don’t believe capital plays an outsized role in elections and government then take a gander at the Wikipedia page called Campaign finance in the United States. There is a chart called Percent of races won by top spending candidate… and lots of other information. Also looking into the role of lobbying in American politics.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Sounds great, except it ignores the fact that capital interests have controlled the levers of our faux democracies for decades, with no end in sight.” This is not election denialism. This is almost just a fact except they also subjectively declare that we have a faux democracy (which also seems accurate to me).

Yes it is. If you insist that the result of a democratic election does not reflect the will of the people, that , and nothing else, is election denialism.

> If you insist that the result of a democratic election does not reflect the will of the people, that, and nothing else, is election denialism.

No.

This reflects the common understanding of the term:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_denial_movement_in_th...

> The election denial movement in the United States is a widespread false belief that elections in the United States are rigged and stolen through election fraud by the opposing political party. Adherents of the movement are referred to as election deniers.

It requires that people still believe they're being given legitimate choices. My comments above do not.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#174

If the result will be huge job loss doesn't that mean the overall buying power of all across all economies will go down drastically which begs the question who will buy the stuff that these companies that get rid of people are making?

The same exact people that the companies got rid of. The government pays them now instead of their former employer.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#175

If the result will be huge job loss doesn't that mean the overall buying power of all across all economies will go down drastically which begs the question who will buy the stuff that these companies that get rid of people are making?

Prices will also go down dramatically. When you eliminate human labour completely, you are essentially stuck with the problem of efficiently allocating raw materials. And raw materials are abundant compared to what human labour can currently produce. We're still a long way from there though.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is akin to arguing "nothing ever changes or improves in Liberal democracies", when policy history doesn't reflect that. Ever-growing wealth disparities, eroded rights, mass enshitification in a race to the bottom, and widespread hatred of ones neighbor over fake outrage culture war propaganda disseminated from corporate media are not a trends of improvement. They are trends of decline, unless you're of the cla…

> Ever-growing wealth disparities Higher concentration of wealth is not new, it's happened many times and dissipated many times. Real-wages are still growing, which is what we care about qua improvements in our well being (and what attracts immigrants). The key risk though is regulatory capture from consolidation of tech companies (much of this "wealth" in question is stock valuation, which tends to get reinvested in…

> This is about consumer products, not government policy.

You speak as if these things are unrelated.

> Buy an alternative, you have those choices.

Increasingly, we don't:

"Modern Capitalism Is Weirder Than You Think: It also no longer works as advertised"

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/how-asset-managers-h... (https://archive.is/wSmtd)

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#179
post #84

And why should we listen to this pedophile who never once considered how the good outweighed the bad while running his company?

So first of, there is no proof of him having had sex with a minor/kid on that island. It might be a lot stronger of an evidence from others but i was not able to find anything. And secondly, if you follow bill gates, you will realise that with his philanthropic side, he did quite a lot of good in the world. For sure not as a young bill gates but he has changed for sure. And thirdly, you can think of people whatever y…

[flagged]

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Sounds great, except it ignores the fact that capital interests have controlled the levers of our faux democracies for decades, with no end in sight.” This is not election denialism. This is almost just a fact except they also subjectively declare that we have a faux democracy (which also seems accurate to me).

Yes it is. If you insist that the result of a democratic election does not reflect the will of the people, that , and nothing else, is election denialism.

It does reflect the will of the people, but the causal chain doesn’t stop there.

The will of the people is the result of the corporate interests that control the democratic system.

Manufacturing Consent is an excellent read - and don’t stop at Chomsky, read Bernays, who pretty much codified the system as it runs today. Propaganda is a good place to start.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

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