Trump knows what he's doing is extremely unpopular and so did a republicans. He knows that there are limits to how much he can screw over voters. His base will vote for him no matter what no matter how bad their lives get because of him that's only about 30% of the population. Voter suppression can make up another 5 to 7%, but that's as much as you can get out of it before it becomes obvious that your election system is rigged and the courts can't ignore it anymore.

Trump is hoping Iran would have their state backed actors do a terrorist attack and he could ride that into a third term like Bush road 911 into a second term.

We know this is the case because right before he attacked Iran he gutted several US anti-terrorism agencies and put a 22-year-old kid who used to bag groceries in charge of what was left.

There are limits to incompetence. At a certain point it's malice.

We also know that Bibi knew October 7th was coming and let it happen. You can probably guess why.

The real problem for Trump is Iran didn't take the bait. They have much better control of their assets and they prevented them from doing any unnecessary attacks. So now they control the straight and all the cards and all Trump can do is try to wait until after the midterm and then give them $300 billion US taxpayer dollars in reparations to open the straight again.

Want to get us all wearing glasses because we'd be walking around creating a surveillance network. Americans don't like the idea of the government running a surveillance Network so we're building our surveillance Network with Private industry and then the government taps into it with private contracts.

Americans have this weird thing where they don't care how much they are oppressed or how much the boot is on their neck as long as it's a privately owned boot. The idea of that the billionaire is getting together on their golf course is a de facto government is way too complex and abstract idea for most people. And try explaining a power vacuum to them or what happens if you don't have a powerful central government...

The way I've tried to explain it to people is imagine that in the center of the town is a giant box of guns and ammo. And anyone can just pick up the guns and ammo. And you decide that guns are dangerous so you don't pick one up. That means a handful of your neighbors can grab all of those guns and now you have to do what they say.

Large governments are the box of guns. They are an inevitability. They are up there with the nuclear bomb as inventions of humanity that once we got it we were stuck with it. You either pick up that gun and take part, which is to say you take an active role in your state and federal government and understanding it is best as you can and the systems that need to be built to make it functional. Or somebody else comes along and takes all that power for themselves and uses it against you.

The solution a lot of people come up with to deal with government is the same solution people come up with to deal with nuclear weapons which is just do away with them. And yeah that would be great. Sit down with a real anarchist sometime and they will tell you for hours how great that would be.

Except it never works because sooner or later some rich asshole builds an atomic bomb or sets up the same power structures as government and doesn't call it government.

To get out from under the SEC regulations then they are going to be buying a presidential election for anyone. Elon Musk dropped a quarter billion just on Trump's last election and he's going to spend the same amount of money getting the Republicans the midterms. Maybe some more.

Years ago I saw an interview with a multi-millionaire woman who was complaining that she couldn't get the time of day from congressman anymore because the billionaires could outspend her. That's the level we're at.

It's not just that you and I don't matter. If you've only got a few hundred million to spend that's not enough anymore to buy an election. That's how much money and power we have given the billionaires. Or should I save the trillionaires...

Because they know the next county over will hire them in a heartbeat to avoid paying the money to train another cop. We made it stupidly expensive to train police because we made it the corrupt mess like we do with everything...

So they will just pick a case that's open and tie it to that and move on.

If you want to make them accountable you have to change how you vote. The lack of police accountability is a political problem. You can't solve it with a few minor policy tweeks

Dole whip is not frozen non-dairy dessert. The term Frozen non-dairy dessert means a very specific and very unpleasant thing when you are out shopping. It's how you spot fake ice cream. Dole whip is pureed Frozen pineapple. Well yeah that's technically Frozen non-dairy dessert the term is not used in marketing Dole whip. It doesn't have to be because you don't make Dole whip with palm oil...

If you see those magic words on a bucket of something pretending to be ice cream turn and walk away. I miss Klondike bars too....

It's not that they really enjoy it it's that they have some health or ethical reason that makes them settle for what they don't actually want.

And that market isn't really all that big. If you look up the current state of the impossible burger and beyond meat both companies are struggling...

As for AI yeah there's a market for people who just want slop in endless supply. But it's usually people with nothing going on who just need limitless content to fill a day. Like a lot of old farts I've got a bad back and I'll admit that I consume a lot of garbage while doing a ton of physical therapy. Crap I never would have bothered with if I wasn't spending a couple hours a day doing PT and I needed something to listen to to get my mind off the misery of it.

But that's not really a big enough market for anything but niche producers. Right now they can survive because AI companies are burning through cash giving away free service but that's going to stop pretty soon.

And marketers have already looked into it. Those folks have absolutely no morals whatsoever and they don't care what they sell as long as it sells. And AI slop doesn't sell. The only thing that's useful for is scams and it's only useful for that right at the moment because the lower quality is a good thing Nigerian prince style and again it's being heavily subsidized by venture capital.

I think it's more a quality difference. China's film industry is much smaller so anything that needs special effects of any kind doesn't have the kind of budget to make it to the point where a casual viewer is going to be turned off by AI at the level you can currently get it at.

China does have some big budget films but I suspect those aren't going to use AI much or at all.

Here in America even TV shows have ridiculously high budgets. Some of that is the actors but a lot of it is the cost of doing and redoing CGI with human beings modeling everything. And even that was a cost-cutting measure over practical effects because CGI companies are non-union.

For a smaller studio with a lower budget and an audience that's used to your output at that level you can probably get away with a bit more. If they tried that in one of those big period pieces China does every now and then though I bet it would stand out like a sore thumb and people would hate it. Like I don't think they would get away with that in The Forbidden Kingdom.

You ever had that Frozen non-dairy dessert crap?

Every now and then I accidentally buy a tub of it by mistake. I take a few bites and start eating it and it doesn't taste right but I take a few more bites before I really can convince myself something is wrong.

Every time I just assumed that I bought a bad tub of ice cream somehow. So I look at the expiration date and the stuff should be good I didn't buy something that just got stuck in the back for 10 years or something. And inevitably I noticed that what I bought was the ice cream. It was oil made the taste a little bit like ice cream.

It's the one and only time that I will take the effort and time needed to return something to a grocery store.

AI is like that. I might take a bite or two before I realize something is off meaning I might watch a few minutes of a TV program or play a few minutes of a game. But I quickly realize and if I have time you can bet I will be refunding that game on steam. You usually get stuck with any DVDs or Blu-Rays you buy though. As for streaming yeah I just cut it off and move on.

So you can fool me for a little bit and you can sometimes get a purchase out of me but not for very long.

AI slop will get better but it's never going to not feel a little bit off just like how fake ice cream is never going to taste right. It's The uncanny Valley effect where the closer you get the worse it gets.

That's the real problem. Not the cost of locking them up but the cost of firing them.

We turned police training into a racket for well-connected political operatives.

This means that even though the training is substandard and focused on mostly violence that the vast majority of police officers will never get a chance to engage in (73% of cops will never draw their sidearm in their entire career) we spend a fortune training them.

This means that every single municipality is desperate to snap up any police officer who is already trained and that they don't have to spend the money training again. And that means you can fire them all you want they're just going to go to the next municipality over and all you've really done is giving them a 30 minute commute.

On top of that for tax purposes you have a shitload of municipalities because well to do people don't like paying for the services they use in the main city so they incorporate their own cities a few miles away from the main line City so they can avoid paying taxes for the stores and services used there. This has a side effect of there being a virtually unlimited number of municipalities for fired cops to run off to. They will have a long since retired by the time they run out of them with cops who have hopped munis three or four or five times not being uncommon.

As for locking them up that's basically impossible. The supreme Court and the courts in general have granted them immunity from anything and everything unless the public gets so pissed off they start threatening to riot or worse vote Democrat.

There is a complex system and a complex mess here that would need to be completely dismantled. And unfortunately the American left weighing are dumb as dirt so instead of talking about that in a useful and effective manner they come up with shit like defund the police and freak the public out because nobody ever taught them marketing or what a dog whistle is

They've been pretty open about it. At least when they don't think anyone is listening.

The most famous example is probably mitt Romney being recorded by the help potentially costing him the election. But a quick Google search for something like "billionaires talking about the labor market" yields plenty of good results.

They are a little more careful since Romney but they still slip up all the time because frankly they don't think very much of you.

They're after low wages. You have to think about the labor market as a whole not just your slice of it. When you get to the c level that's what you're doing. You're hanging out with your other multi multi-millionaire or billionaire golf buddies talking about how you're going to lower wages in your industry so they can lower wages in their industry so that everybody's wages can be lower.

This is important because even if it costs you slightly more overall you get a lot more power out of it. And it's not about money at that level. It's about power. It's about the ability to tell you what to do and you have to do it or they take away your access to food and shelter and healthcare.

That's the difference between you and them. They think in a completely different way about everything.

Arguing with me in your mind, widdle cawardette? There are many different levels, and don't for a New York minute think that if you stand with Trump, means you are a conservative. All you are is a widdle caward, who was a prime example of the need for your daddy to pull out before he came, and done the world a favor by spilling his splooge on the floor, where at least it could be recycled without producing a waste of oxygen.

Or are you a fifth grader, thinking that he can effectively ytroll a person who can grind him down, and feed him to Facebook as an example of the need for a license to have cildrfen.

If you are that fifth grader, make certain you give mommy and daddy their laptop back, ans make certain to delete those special pictures you enjoy so much. Don't want mommy and daddy to think you need chemically castrates, yaknow, Oh yeah, and mommy wanted to know why some on the keys on her laptop got stuck, and why your socks are all stuck together. Jezuz H Kryste , coward, at least use paper towels and toss them in your future prospects folder AKA the trash.

Haven't done a Saturday night Curb Stomping in a while - I think you so very much!

And yet, it extends beyond the stupid. My wife, who is very smart, (VP at a construction associated corporation) but very non-technical, is scared AF about AI. And me trying to explain my "insiders outlook" just doesn't sway her.

She looks at me askance sometimes when I tell her I use AI, but think the concepts at the moment are wrong...."How can you be both, honey?" And trying to explain localized AI to a person who thinks it's all about humongous Data Centers using up groundwater, destroying farmland, and requiring as much power as the rest of the country uses for themselves...... damn, I wish I could get her off of Facebook!

Otherwise, yes, there are plenty of stupid people around.

Keep in mind, I have no issues with people being against Data Centers. When the paradigm changes, and it won't be too long, those centers will be pretty useless - maybe repurposed as a fulfillment center?

Actual journalists didn't stop doing journalism by choice. They were fired and it's difficult for them to get by without an income.

There are some people left trying to do journalism. Mostly keeping their heads down and hoping that psychopath like Elon Musk don't rip them off while waiting for the public to come back to their senses...

I guess what I'm saying is I'm not blaming the journalists. The propagandists can go fuck themselves. Anyone working for Fox News knows what they are. I dabbled a little in journalism in high school and college and I respect actual journalists. It's a tough and miserable and largely thankless job.

Most of that money was spent bribing politicians because what they're doing is illegal. They also were paying the drivers a reasonable amount of money in order to tell the public that it was okay that all of the traditional protections for workers had been gutted.

So yes Uber did have a short-term amount of money they had to put out in order to do something profoundly illegal and antisocial and something that your great-grandparents died to prevent...

But they weren't losing money because of a lack of profitability or even how much they were paying the drivers. They could have of course competed honestly with the taxi cab system but they were massively underpricing taxi cabs.

So like I said yes paying the driver's okay will cause fares to go up slightly. This means that people who take Ubers for casual use like say I don't feel like driving to the grocery store or kids putzing around in them will no longer be able to afford them. That will more than be made up for by the people who have to take a taxi cab for a variety of reasons. For example every year I go see my eye doctor and I don't have a choice I have to take a cab because everyone I know works during the day so I don't have anyone to drive me in the middle of the week and when they dilate my eyes I'm basically blind. So yes they can double the price of my trip and I will pay it.

But here's the dirty Little secret they already doubled the price of that trip. Because they have a shitload of data and they know I have to pay it

You need to accept that you're wrong. That we can have a decent civilization that pays people a living wage and you won't have to give up your lifestyle for it. That we don't have to torture people just to make you happy.

On the other hand you might not want to accept that because you might be one of those deeply unhappy people who desperately need somebody else to be even more unhappy. I meet a lot of guys like that and they are always anti labor and right wing