All of that is 100% objectively true, though you're missing the part where the good 'ol US of A has increasingly (since '45 and especially since '91) used military dominance, economic warfare and other covert operations as a tool to (wildly successfully) advance US interests, much like the other empires that came before it. It wasn't only good-will, trade, diplomacy and making the denizens of the "first world" rich, though that certainly all happened. Until fairly recently, virtually all citizens of the "first world" have been beneficiaries of all that to one extent or another, though currently it's almost entirely the largest corporations and the ultra-wealthy that control them that still directly benefit, though as you say, that's all going away. It will take a while for the whole world to transition away from the petrodollar and other forms of US-dominance, but it's already happening. There's no question that we (read: us-citizens and those of our "platinum-member" client states) will all be worse off for it, at least economically, including the very people that are tightening the fist to try and keep control, though it looks to me that most of the rest of the world will probably be better off once US dominance is a subject of history rather than current events, and ultimately (I hope) even though we'll be less rich in material terms, it's entirely possible that we'll be better off too in that we won't have the collective guilt and shame (how ever much suppressed) of causing so much of the suffering of the world's population just to be able to live in luxury and get away with whatever we want. In other words: we'll finally grow up.

Tolkienmaxxing! Now that's an idea I like!

Story buries the lede... 652 unpatched vulnerabilities on Windows 11 isn't really much better than 1,903 on Windows 10, since it only takes one actively exploitable vulnerability, though I realize most of those are (hopefully) not critical vulnerabilities. Course take it all with a grain of salt, since the article is basically an ad for a company selling Windows security compliance services.

I know of dozens of people still using Windows 10 (without updates) -- at this point it's probably still not really a big deal for the vast majority of people.

The only winning move (for either side) is the same as it was years ago: sincere diplomacy that works toward a permanent peace. The alternative is (essentially) a war of attrition, unless NATO is going to send a million troops to the front along with huge amounts of firepower, and if NATO was going to do that, it would have happened years ago. I suppose there is another alternative that is "unthinkable", but it's definitely there... *sigh*

But they do. Congresspeople from both parties who sit in closed door committees regularly engage in trading in the very industries they're (ostensibly) regulating. They've publicly admitted as much, and have said "So what, big deal. We have the right to make investments." So the issue isn't *catching* them, it's completely changing the system so that they can't do it as a "matter of course" with total impunity, and (I'm not holding my breath) holding the POTUS and other high-level officials to that same standard when it comes to trading immediately before/after geopolitical/military maneuvers.

If they then want to play games with blind trusts and sharing inside information with the people in charge of those trusts, they're free to commit crimes, like anyone else, if they think they're worth the risk, but if the SEC and other bodies actually had any power (or at least willingness) to hold them accountable, I'd imagine they'd at least think twice. I think most of them probably don't even see what they're doing as criminal. In their minds, they're just using their privileged positions to "strategic advantage". In a much less insane world, such actions would be *easily* traceable and would, at worst, result in public disgrace for those involved, and at best, doing hard time.

I realize that this may (at this point at least) be a pipe dream, since the whole bloody thing is stacked in favor of the people making the rules. It's always been that way, but nowadays it's approaching totality.

I bought a couple ~500 gig SSDs last year for upgrading some friends computers from Win10 to Linux. They were under $50. I had a couple more to do recently, and the exact same drives are over $100 now... It's probably the same *cause* as the RAM prices going up: datacenter hype, but it's not *because* of the RAM prices going up. I also am in the market for a new 8TB+ spinning rust drive, which I am kicking myself for not buying last year when they were ~$200. Now they're $400+.

True enough, he's definitely in group #2. No question about that. Though he and people like him are kind of a special (pathological) case, straddling the line between #2 and #3, in that they seem to believe their own current bullshit, even when it directly contradicts their previous bullshit. Not that they actually care about ethical behavior at all, but I think at least some of the time, they're deluding themselves into thinking that they're "doing the right thing" -- and they (sort of) are, but only for themselves and their cronies -- they can't see outside that mindset at all. When they're harming people they think of as "losers", that doesn't even count for them, since they consider them not worthy of being treated fairly, which is almost worse than people who know full well all the time that they're villains pulling the wool over everyone's eyes and glorying in it. It's the difference between psychopaths and sociopaths. The psychopath literally thinks that the harm they cause isn't wrong, whereas the sociopath knows that it's wrong, and does it anyway. This is necessarily an oversimplification, since humans are infinitely complex creatures, but I think it distills down to something like that.

Also if it wasn't for group #3 running amok for the last several decades (or centuries, depending on where one wants to draw the line) he'd most likely still be doing reality TV shows, at best.

Yeah, on reflection, that statement I made is not a maybe/sort of, it's a no/not at all, as you say. I guess I was lazy and didn't think that through: what "Ethics" "is" ultimately gets defined by the people already in power who benefit most by defining their unethical behavior as actually ethical, and their opponents behavior, whether ethical or not, as unethical. In other words: "My bad behavior isn't bad, it's good, because I support the system as-it-is, which is good by definition, and hey, you're just complaining about 'a few bad apples', but your bad (and good) behavior is very bad because you're a dangerous and subversive [insert pejorative] and (more to the point): Hey! You don't even have standing here, go away." That is, I guess, more or less, the established order. "History is written by the victors" may be an oversimplification, but is nonetheless part of a larger, very real phenomenon.

Wasn't familiar with Brickman, thanks for sharing him.

Yeah, that's a definitely a thing, though for the most part, that's willful ignorance, since the foundation of ethics (an innate sense of fairness) is rooted in biology [citations widely available]. And "do onto others" isn't quantum physics.

Though you're right there is a fourth group that legitimately "doesn't understand what ethics even is", though I think that group is vanishingly small, and most people with an IQ above 50 that couldn't tell you what "ethics" is know what the "golden rule" is.

"Fake Kevin Bacon" definitely knows what ethics is and understands it perfectly well, he just chooses to engage in the opposite. He's a perfect example of someone in group #2.

"I think that lawyers who understand how to effectively and ethically use generative AI replace lawyers who don't,"

There are three kinds of people in the world:

1. Those who strive to behave ethically.
2. Those who don't give a damn about ethics at all and make no bones about it.
3. Those who pretend to behave ethically.

People who want to "do the right thing" aren't a problem. They sometimes make mistakes, but try to correct them. I think this is most people, like more than 80%.

People who don't give a damn aren't really a problem either, since in a world populated by mostly good people, they'll ultimately be shamed and marginalized or end up in jail.

People who can successfully project the illusion of behaving ethically when they have no intention in doing so are a HUGE problem. While there aren't a lot of them, they're highly concentrated in positions of power and hold most of the world's wealth.

Maybe in the field of law, you can sort of cancel out the pretenders over time, since everything is (ostensibly) reviewed, so maybe "AI" will help the unabashedly unethical lawyers to self-destruct, but everywhere else, the problem remains, and "AI" is mostly going to make them worse.

And stop calling ii "Generative" -- it doesn't generate anything -- at best, it's "reflective" in that it reflects back whatever was put into it. It's still GIGO.

What?!?! Are you a password-generating LLM that is irritated by my comment?

I set all my passwords to CorrectHorseBatteryStapler you insensitive Claude!

Came here to say exactly this, but you beat me to it.

That's part of the problem, but not the whole problem. Even *with* a properly configured and tuned surround-sound system there are an infuriating number of movies and TV shows that sometimes present nearly inaudible dialog for various reasons: actors "whispering" and mumbling is one very real issue, though that *could* be at least mostly corrected by the sound engineer responsible for the final audio mix-down. I think there are directors that are literally doing this on purpose to "enhance realism" or some bullshit like that, and hey, I'm all for "Cinema verite" when done well, but if people with reasonably normal hearing need subtitles to HEAR THE DIALOG then the director and sound production crew have COMPLETELY FAILED! I also get that if I'm watching an action movie, I might need to turn the sound system up quite loud to hear all the dialog, and that's fine, but I've experienced many instances where a regular tv show or movie that is literally just people talking, with no explosions or any real background sound, needs to be turned up to an unreasonably loud level for the dialog to be audible, and at least a few cases where even maxing out the sound system's capabilities (stopping short of distortion) still results in barely-audible dialog.

As far as dumbing down movies for people who stare at their phone instead of actually watching the show: sure, go ahead. As someone who watches things because I WANT TO SEE THEM, I just won't watch those shows and movies designed for people who won't actually watch them; the same way I already don't watch TV shows and movies that I don't want to see, which is most of them. Don't get me wrong, that leaves a lot of things that I do want to watch, but it's probably something on the order of 5% or less of the available content. If this knocks it down to 1% of what's out there, so be it.