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Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

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Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm quite aware the elites will never be meaningfully impacted. That doesn't change the reality that it's going to happen. I personally am quite afraid of the future, I know deep down me and my family are in for a bad time in the years to come, and nowhere in the world will be safe, other than the bunkers in Greenland of course.

>That doesn't change the reality that it's going to happen.

That's why the elites have secret self sustaining doomsday bunkers on private islands.

And the mid-upper class are trying to cash in as much as they can now while the going is still good so they can also move their families abroad or to gated communities in safer places of the country to be as far away from the potential riot hotspots as possible when the shit hits the fan.

Ultimately it's gonna be every man for himself. Expecting the government to do something for the "little guy", is futile. If they were to do anything for you, they would have done something since the 1970-80's, when they started shipping jobs abroad and eroding your purchasing power to enrich the shareholders.

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revolutions usually are bad. The Who puts it succinctly in Won’t Get Fooled Again “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” Best case scenario is a new set of elites that end up doing the same shit as the last group, see Russia from 1918 to the present for an example.

The Who is your evidence? Lol. The French Revolition turned out pretty well for the French people. It needed to happen. And centuries later, the French still don't accept bullshit, they will protest and riot when their protections are diminished in any way. America does protesy and riot too, though not to the same extent, but that will only get worse as things get bad. Russia is not a good example either, their socie…

> The French Revolition turned out pretty well for the French people.

What? Napoleon marched them off to war "spending 30,000 lives per month". They didn't get a proper Republic until 1870 and turned into miserable colonial overlords. Moreover the 3rd Republic;s foreign policy helped cause WWI.

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#143
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a deeply sick way of thinking. Mangione was and is a fool, a 3rd rate thinker. His manifesto is muddled, factually mistaken, and by his own words he understood the topic poorly. You only need a cursory knowledge of the late 60s and early 70s to know that political violence rarely achieves its aims and is much more likely to empower reactionaries. There's no quick fix for political change.

It is sick! It's truly sick . Think about the fact that it is sick, and it is what people are saying. We are sick right now.

Humans have been killing each other since before recorded history. There is no use pretending it's some exceptional 'sickness'. Rather than dismissing the sentiment as the product of a sick mind, it's more productive to accept it's part of us and try to understand the underlying causes.

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#144
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Schmidt offered a similar message to graduates: Their fear is rational, but they have the power to shape how AI develops. This doesn't sound like being baffled by it. It sounds like they are trying to shake the students and say: "fine boo, but you need do something about it." You can't just wallow and complain about it. I mean you can but it's a path to failure.

The problem is that average people have no power to do anything. The last year has clearly demonstrated that.

Careful about that. Everybody thinks they are "average people", but I think very few people on this site are "average people". The average person has an IQ of 100, doesn't have a college degree, and makes the median income. The average people did, in fact, do something: they elected Trump. The college educated don't like it, and have the conceit that their views and values are the only real ones, and that those other people are ignorant, ..., who would see things our way if only they were educated. Thus far, the republic is still working okay [1]--the people elected someone who is the antithesis of a statesman, but it was an uncontroversial election. Our republic was not designed to let the average person have much power on a day to day basis. The people's choice was poor, but if the college-educated class wants a different outcome, they should not run candidates who are out of touch with the values of the "average person". Unfortunately, the college-educated have some values that are incompatible with those average-person values. But it just isn't the case that average people have no power. They do, and they have exercised it; you just don't like it.

[1] It remains to be seen if it will continue working okay, and there are troubling signs, but I'm optimistic

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#145
post #138
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You only need a cursory knowledge of the late 60s and early 70s to know that political violence rarely achieves its aims Maybe cursory knowledge isn't enough, actually. The Civil Rights Act was ultimately only passed because of political violence. As another commenter said, the literal founding of the country was based on political violence.

> Maybe cursory knowledge isn't enough, actually. The Civil Rights Act was ultimately only passed because of political violence. Violence by the police against peaceful protestors is what turned public opinion. Violence by political activists did not lead to the Civil Rights Act. You have it backwards.

This is the cursory knowledge I'm referring to - it leaves out extremely pertinent details. The Civil Rights Act did not pass until multiple days of rioting following the assassination of MLK.

The peaceful protestors were also only one side of the coin. Their impact relied on being an alternative to the other side, which was not peaceful.

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revolutions usually are bad. The Who puts it succinctly in Won’t Get Fooled Again “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” Best case scenario is a new set of elites that end up doing the same shit as the last group, see Russia from 1918 to the present for an example.

The Who is your evidence? Lol. The French Revolition turned out pretty well for the French people. It needed to happen. And centuries later, the French still don't accept bullshit, they will protest and riot when their protections are diminished in any way. America does protesy and riot too, though not to the same extent, but that will only get worse as things get bad. Russia is not a good example either, their socie…

> The Who is your evidence? Lol. The French Revolition turned out pretty well for the French people.

Many people have made comments that are similar in nature, the line from that song is the pithiest example I could think of to express the idea that replacing terrible leaders usually leads to more terrible leaders.

Spending decades fighting wars across Europe under Napoleon was good? I wonder how the troops that invaded Russia feel about the French Revolution lol

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#147
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've done this dozens of times before. In the short term some people suffer and that is bad for them. In the long term everyone is much better off due to increased productivity.

Who cares about productivity? Your CEO. Not you, not me. We all cannot be CEOs.

Productivity is why we have hot and cold running water and electricity piped to our houses and internet connections and cars and waterproof clothing.

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#148
post #44

People are not idiots. AI benefits only the ones at the top of the chain, and the 10% of the rest of us. Are you in the top 10%? No, you typically are in the bottom 90%. So we don't want AI, we don't want the top getting richer at our expenses. We just want a job to bring bread home and keeping pushing our store while being "happy". You take that away from us, just so you can double your net worth, and well, bad thin…

Yeah. So many people drinking the cool-aid dreaming oneself to be the 10%.

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#149
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I was looking for jobs the other day (because the market as a whole is kinda cooked), and one fairly small company had a half-dozen openings for Staff level engineers, and nothing else. If I'm having this much trouble with staff level experience, I can't imagine how new grads are doing.

Check your schools alumni jobs board postings, and have a look at local telecom offerings. Few will want to spend $50k in resources to train knowing you will jump to a better job in 1 year. These people have been around a long time, and may be able to get you started: https://www.aerotek.com/ Would also recommend talking with companies you find interesting at local trade-shows. Don't get lazy with the online gauntlet…

You may have misread my comment a bit. I've actually got a dozen+ years experience, mostly recently at the staff level. I am currently looking and having trouble finding positions, but probably not because they're worried I'll jump ship in a year (5+ and 7+ years tenure in my two jobs).

Also sorry for the downvote, it wasn't me.

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#150

I’m genuinely confused as to why the speakers are baffled by the boos. Everyone, and especially new grads constantly hear that AI is going to replace every job. And absolutely no one seems to be interested in answering the question of “okay, then what?” Of course people are going to react negatively when they hear, “the machines are going to take your jobs from you. No, we don’t care how you’ll be able to pay your re…

The elite class is completely out of touch these days.

They knew they were unpopular with a certain vocal crowd in Silicon Valley before the 2024 election, and thought they could be redeemed with the public through support of "the people's" choice Trump, but it's backfired spectacularly, and they are far less popular than they were before. Far far more people think that Schmidt is straight up evil than they did 2 or 4 or 6 years ago, and AI talk is only accelerating that.

They haven't seen how things have switched in a year, just how unpopular they in particular they have become, and how a good chunk of Trump's unpopularity is due to his sucking up to billionaires like Schmidt and Bezos and Cook and Musk. They don't see just how betrayed the people are, who thought that Trump would fight for the common many. (I say this trying to restrain my judgement that working person who thought Trump was on their side is an easily fooled chump... but...)

The actions of Elon Musk in particular are now so toxic that people drive around with stickers on their car about how much they dislike him.

The Paypal Mafia plus a few others like Schmidt have taken the great work and innovation coming out of Silicon Valley and turned it all into toxic BS.

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