> [People] who just spent the last 50 years blowing off democracy for nonsense moral panics and their particular interpretation of some dumb book somehow think that when the screws start to tighten on them that all of that machinery of democracy that they have cheerfully allowed to be dismantled is going to save them.
'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.
> This isn't the EU. He's going to win.
This is indeed not the EU. This is a former democratic country where the rule of law has been replaced by the rule of who can shout louder.
The government can shout much louder. He's going to lose.
> Customers can be reassured that the Facewatch system has a 99.98% accuracy rate,
I'm sure Matt Arnold is extremely reassured.
> Surely you have a backup plan?
I do have a backup plan. And don't call me Shirley.
"Major Major's father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major's father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county."
Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Which framework? Is it one of these?
If this goes on, my next car will have to be a Trabant.
That's why system admins love VoIP. People don't call in to complain that their Internet doesn't work.
> There have been many times in past humankind where populations have chosen what makes the day-to-day easier or more productive, despite it clearly being wrong - is AI one of these situations?
I asked Google AI, and this was its response:
Historically, humanity has frequently embraced convenient or productive technologies -- such as fossil fuels, industrial agriculture, and single-use plastics -- only to face severe long-term environmental, social, or ethical consequences. Whether artificial intelligence belongs in this category is a subject of intense debate among ethicists, scientists, and policymakers.
Arguments that AI parallels these past mistakes focus on its hidden, deferred costs. Critics point to the massive environmental footprint of training large language models, which requires immense amounts of water and electricity. Socially, the immediate productivity gains of AI risk causing widespread job displacement, worsening wealth inequality, and eroding human cognitive reliance. Additionally, the algorithmic spread of misinformation and the potential loss of human agency over critical decisions echo past instances where short-term efficiency compromised long-term societal well-being.
Conversely, proponents argue that AI is fundamentally different because it can actively help solve humanity's most complex existential crises. Unlike passive technologies that merely deplete resources, AI is being deployed to optimize clean energy grids, discover new materials for carbon capture, and accelerate breakthroughs in medicine and agriculture. From this perspective, the technology is not inherently "wrong," but rather a powerful tool whose ultimate impact depends entirely on global regulation, ethical guardrails, and intentional alignment with human values.
you'll discover that anything-goes is what came before Capitalism
Anything goes sounds quite good to me.
WTF is even Klarna?
A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.
