Hell, it isn't even private anymore. He's conscripted the FBI as the new Geheime Staatspolizei*. And his goons are running ICE, where now they are going to buy gloves that can inflict an electric charge on anyone they grab (think about that, here in America, yet). His justice dept. has lost the Presumption of Regularity. That is where judges presume the Fed. Gov. wasn't lying their asses off on bringing charges against people and organizations. It took 100 years to build that trust, and la Presidenta destroyed it in 1.5 years. Even the grand juries are now suspect to the point where criminal defense lawyers are asking for jury transcripts. It seems the grand juries have been misled by prosecutors. In a grand jury, there are no defense lawyers, the government prosecutors can say anything they like. Up to now, the justice dept. abided by strict rules. No longer, and some judges have cottoned on to this. Other judges appointed by la Presidenta routinely ignore the law to lick his boots.

If you want an example of the way the justice dept is being misused by la Presidenta, look at the former Olympian kayaker, David Hearn, who was run in for picking up a piece of the reflecting pool liner. Eventually the case fell apart with the U.S. prosecutor Janine Pirro U.S. Attorney. for DC (la Presidenta bootlicker from FOX) accusing the Interior dept. under Doug Burgum (another la Presidenta bootlicker) of lying to the Justice Dept. The Justice Dept. dropped the case due to lack of evidence.

That, however, left la Presidenta with his matzo balls hanging out there since he claimed the fellow used a box cutter, etc. and destroyed the liner. So now he has Pirro convening a "special grand jury" to find something, anything, with which to charge Hearn. He does not care whether it is backed up by evidence. That, in a nutshell, shows how he views the justice dept., i.e., as a corruptible arm of his retribution campaign against anyone who shows him to be gormless** git***.****

* Geheime Staatspolizei is the long name for the Gestapo.

** gormless: lacking intelligence, common sense (I picked that up from Harry Potter, excellent word)
*** git: foolish, silly, or unpleasant person (I tend to follow the "unpleasant person" reading given that it is la Presidenta....also picked up from Harry Potter)
**** The pool liner was misapplied by his campaign contributor's company (which does something or other....it is immaterial). Even the Park's Dept. had to admit the misapplication.

Ah yes, racism rears its ugly head. See Nazi Germany for how well that works.

The problem is that AI has made it very obvious that teachers have not been doing their jobs.

For instance: one history test, one report. Two different responses: "Contrast the political sentiments at the time of the American Revolution with modern day American sentiments and political events." 1 page report.

You could just paste that into chat and get a useable if not undetectable result. The result is obvious. Instead, a curious student could use the tool to pose a more complete question to chat: take into mind more emotional similarities between different political factions, as well as the contrast amongst social classes. It'll help them stand out a bit and it'll be different, and they might learn something.

But, I do note: this would require a curious student. Teachers have all but punished curiosity and a love for education for decades, catering to the dumb ones to keep them engaged instead of punishing them for wanting to be dumb.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

AI has only accelerated my desire for learning. I can learn so much more (though perhaps not as thoroughly or as deeply, because you don't have to go below the architectural surface as much anymore) now than I could before: much less switching between tabs, copy/pasta'ing, digging for documentation (and reading a lot of things that I don't remember 3 seconds later because I'm looking for something specific).

The same goes for reading about history, or anything else. Curiosity is rewarded rapidly with AI.

No, the biggest problem with education in the schools is the schools and how they teach. They've made it un-interesting and curiosity is generally punished. They have completely destroyed education long before AI was even a question - I'd argue shortly after the Internet became available and approachable for your typical 100-IQ public school teacher, in the late 90s.

I'm in favor of enforcement of laws which protect rights, but it's cheap and easy to get such devices, and there are valid reasons for them to exist — like knives.

You could cook with only shorter knives. It would be a lot more difficult (I also cook) but it would be possible.

I don't think most people who can afford a thousand dollars for a phone plan to keep their phone for longer than the 7 years Google will support their Pixel devices these days, nor do they want to buy a phone which has been out for very long. The poors will accept last year's iPhone, or an even older one, or the Shitty Edition bundled into their phone plan.

For a non-Pixel device you'd have a solid point, as most other Android phones have abysmally short support lifespans. Then again, many of those phones are so much cheaper you can buy one every three years...

All my thoughts would be about guillotines.

It's partly end stage for a nearly dead country that causes us to have to talk about politics now.

But it's also partly because we didn't take politics seriously, and get involved enough in it. If we had discussed it a lot more sooner, maybe we wouldn't have to discuss it so much now.

Even if it could find the answer it might mess it up before it gave it to you. It might give you the right answer sometimes and not other times, especially if the right answer has changed...

Wikipedia wasn't banned, though one asshole did introduce a bill which tried.

You can't cite ANY encyclopedias after elementary school, whether it's claimed they are particularly inaccurate when they aren't, or not.

We would have fixed this with wind and solar already if the money holders didn't think nuclear was going to solve these problems any day now.

Humanity is in the end stage atmospheric we're fucked fire... And the amount of fire is increasing.

If some people didn't spend political effort to make sure of that then this wouldn't be an issue.

Slashdot has ALWAYS been a place where we discussed politics. Cry harder.

Yeah he paid billions to shut down a wind project in my area in California. PGE has made it quite clear they will not bring in more power, and right now you can't get anything permitted here that requires new service because there isn't any to go around. Since California let PGE kill net metering (fuck you Gavin) we won't be getting the power from anywhere else either. The local descendant of the Confederacy yokels are celebrating because they didn't want the wind turbines to ruin their view.

Congress "did not intend" to legalize straight-up gambling nationwide through what amounts to a semantic loophole. There is absolutely no doubt about that, on any side of this discussion (including the CFTC).

It's funny - Online discussions among (real) investors often worry about, and frequently caution each other about insider trading. The reality is, insider trading isn't applicable to the vast majority of us. Unless you're a C-level employee, specifically working in M&A, or maybe as the lead on a truly revolutionary new product (no, your company's Facebook wannabe or thinly disguised open source ripoff ain't it) - You have no insider information to trade on. Sincere belief that your employer's cool new toys are going to change the world ain't it - every company has cool new toys in the pipeline, and most of them are going to flop or at best be just another branded widget.

Thanks to Kalshi and Polymarket, congrats, every single one of us can now have truly actionable insider information. And that's not good, because as the past year has shown repeatedly, the average Joe is more than willing to use that information and has zero comprehension of securities regulations.

And to be clear, I have no substantial objection to gambling. This sham is something else entirely, however, and that something is a naked power grab.

But you participate in society! I am very intelligent! Etc etc