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US Army Appoints Palantir, Meta, OpenAI Execs as Lt. Colonels

thegrayzone.com

121–124 of 124 posts

Re: US Army Appoints Palantir, Meta, OpenAI Execs as Lt. Colonels

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's called capitalism — capital has the last word. As we have seen clearly, even Trump is overwhelmingly limited by the constraints of capital.

Sadly, Fascism and Capitalism largely walk hand-in-hand these days... Their bastard love-child will almost certainly be the death of "civilized" society if allowed to continue on the path it's currently on... It's well past time society starts brainstorming a better option.

I don't care. Capitalism is the problem and pretending its something more obscure is easier but useless.

Re: US Army Appoints Palantir, Meta, OpenAI Execs as Lt. Colonels

#122
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attacking anything other than the argument itself is fallacious. The core of tenet described in Ad Hominem is that the argument is being diminished because of who is delivering it, if it is a person, a robot, a magazine or parrot doesn't change that the argument itself is being ignored.

That is absolutely untrue. One can comment on the unreliability and inappropriateness of a source without impugning the material, and that's exactly what's been done here. I don't think you are fully reading what was written.

In a rhetorical sense, yes. But it doesn't invalidate the logic of the statement. Your viewpoint would that of an attorney, not a logician.

Re: US Army Appoints Palantir, Meta, OpenAI Execs as Lt. Colonels

#123
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's too late for free elections, we haven't had one since pre-Bush I think. Most votes are programmed into people and they don't really know it, and if they do they just don't care. I think very few people actually study and do unbiased research prior to voting. Everyone votes based on what people around them think, and whichever party's social media "brainwashing" has affected them most.

This is such bunk. People aren’t “programmed,” they just don’t agree with you. And people being poorly-informed is not new, and it doesn’t make elections “non-free” or make them not count. I don’t want to get into a political debate here, but the DNC can thank itself for Trump since they coronated (with no primary!) a candidate who dropped out before Iowa when she ran in the primaries because she had zero support bec…

I was programmed, I held strong opinions on stuff I later found out I didn't really know enough about and honestly didn't care about beyond the surface level bits. It took a media "fast" to get back to normal, and I still have to remain some level of vigilance to avoid it happening again. Both parties have teamed up with Ad people to implant memories and ideas in our heads https://www.wired.com/2011/05/ads-implant-false-memories/

Re: US Army Appoints Palantir, Meta, OpenAI Execs as Lt. Colonels

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if your candidate could only win by having the moderate vote split five ways, you're the ones doing political maneuvering. That's highly presumptive. Supporters of the other candidates made their initial choices for reasons. If they could have chosen someone other than Biden, they would have. The DNC purposely induced a panicked run to their chosen candidate (when they weren't calling heads instead of tails). That's…

> If they could have chosen someone other than Biden, they would have They could have chosen Bernie(they didn't want to). > The DNC purposely induced a panicked run to their chosen candidate (when they weren't calling heads instead of tails). That's as much a vote as the decision which door to exit out of after someone yells, "Fire," is a choice. Bernie's name was on the ballot. He was / is one of the most recognizab…

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Capitalism is about "How much can I spend?", and not, "How much do I own (and how can I leverage it)?". Property like media outlets, where you can do things like manufacture consent (e.g., convincing black voters that the man who railroaded Anita Hill, and who called the most virulent segregationist of his generation a dear friend, cared about black folks' interests). Like your party's national committee, where you threaten members and candidates with persona non grata-status for campaigning or endorsing against your whims. Like the candidate himself, who initially did not want to run in the first place.

All of these things represent influence - influence that, like other methods used to induce fear and panic, can undermine both individual's rational decision-making process and their capacity to express their raw feelings.

Let's be clear: there was zero broad enthusiasm for Biden's policies (partly because he refused to detail them). But leveraging influence can allow you to take an electorate that, by all measures, wanted Bernie Sanders' platform - with M4A and the GND in particular being wildly popular - and turn it into one that checks the box next to Biden's name instead. What you get is not an expression of the electorate's will or desire, but of their terror.

So, actually, the influence of Capitalism (through the means I spoke of earlier - in a word, corruption) readily explains Biden's win in 2020. He was not a good candidate, he was not a good president, and people did not want to vote for him, but felt forced to, because an overwhelming amount of capital was leveraged to that end. People, in fact, did choose Bernie, until coerced not to. And that was simply a matter of people with wealth getting what they wanted. It may very well be that you only get to stand up to that force once in a lifetime, and Millennials had already elected Obama.

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