This is no longer a test, it is a reality. Too many branches of the federal government are corrupt, with legal exceptions to back them up. If a bridge is no longer just in need of severe maintenance but is in the process of crumbling, do you still call it and use it as a bridge? That’s the actual state of your Union right now. I don’t think seceding is realistically an option right now because it requires opposition that just isn’t there, but I don’t see any other realistic alternative. Look at LA, that’s falling directly into Trump’s hands by giving him emergency powers and control of the national guard, the only difference if a state attempts to secede is that it has more of a chance to use its institutions to resist. The excuse under a dictatorship is always doomed to be manufactured if not forced.

The federal government has irrevocably been compromised, US states need to be able to leave it. Preferably like the UK left the EU, without a civil war. It’s only going to get worse, and reform is no longer possible, as too many branches have been compromised and midterms are likely to be compromised by Agent Kraskov and friends. As much as the Trump-Musk sideshow feud keeps going, it’s not doing much and is not likely to do much to stop Trump.

No time like the present to begin creating a European alternative, given the geopolitics of the times.

It seemed to tangent off so I had to circle back around.

If people need to be warned that they might be scammed by someone with an Indian voice asking them for gift cards, I think that they should be reclassified as AI mounts instead of people at that point.

People do become more senile as they get older, but they need to recognize it as well as prepare ahead of it in time. Who knows, maybe being an AI pet mount then wouldn’t be so bad, as long as it was with an offline localized LLM-like AI vetted openly and widely, not the transparent excuse for abuse this is.

I am used to listening to streams while walking, but I’ve been noticing the most annoying ads pop-up when I’m interested in something they are saying. This isn’t going to make me pay attention to those ads, it’s going to drive me to the plethora of other services I can use. The worst thing about it is that it doesn’t even pause and cache the stream, meaning that if I was listening to something interesting, the ad just causes me to miss it. Google just keeps eating its own tail.

It also serves to dismantle and pacify any possibility of actual opposition growing a pair. When just saying something is “ripping” someone, it has the effect of making it seem like something that is actually effective is being done. When the cult does it, it works for them because it is intended to build cults of ideology that oppose reality by appealing to egos, but they also call for their base to mobilize in ways that are effective. Here, people and politicians just don’t want to face doing what would be effective, so they just add stronger language for their usual fallback.

Imagine if the American revolution had been about people just waiting for the British parliament and King George III to roll over with peaceful protests while they waited. The side with the gullible personality cult is the one getting mobilized and radicalized while the opposition is pacified with the illusion that due process will suddenly materialize again and that everyone will acknowledge how right they were.

All these headlines make the relative pacifism that is happening seem like activism that is being effective. People need to realize how bad things are going to feel bad enough to do something about it, not be told that just pointing out “that’s bad!” is ripping anyone a new one just because it comes from another mouthpiece. There’s nothing wrong with the news getting out or pointing out how bad it is, it’s the language that suggests that more is being done against it than actually is.

Couldn’t agree more. On YouTube I’m particularly sick of MeidasTouch, not just because of this exploitative use of headlines but because their sponsors are usually equally bad gimmicks.

If you see Netflix as part of a bundle, get the bundle without it. You having no choice to get out of the subscription is feeding into this.

What I can’t get around with is people expecting AI that was developed by not respecting IP rights to suddenly begin respecting their presumed IP rights (not that most are not just accepting them away through the associated EULAs) with what they generate using them.

Just because something isn’t going the way you want it to go doesn’t excuse any and all behavior. Most parents are able to teach their children this one basic rule.

I was stuck in traffic the other day, and waiting for the traffic to move wasn’t doing anything so I just took my rocket launcher out and started blasting.

It will be several orders of magnitude worse than prohibition era policies if it passes, although I suspect part of the impetus is because save for the ideologues they are better at competing and prospering in black markets than they are in open markets.

He’s basically admitting that now that he’s wholly a sellout, he’s making more money. La-de-la, tell me more.

Futurama predicted this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uE96qUlJ_4

The reason this is “The Worst Internet-Research Ethics Violation” is because it has exposed what Cambridge Analytica’s successors already realized and are actively exploiting. Just a few months ago it was literally Meta itself running AI accounts trying to pass off as normal users, and not an f-ing peep - why do people think they, the ones who enabled Cambridge Analytica, were trying this shit to begin with. The only difference now is that everyone doing it knows to do it as a “unaffiliated” anonymous third party.

Good luck, independent car manufacturers usually get bankrupted out of business directly or indirectly by a market dominated by traditional car manufacturing lobbies designed to be replete with minefields that usually go up in difficulty just before it’s supposed to reach mass production. There have been plenty of innovative EV designs that have died off because of this, and it’s telling how much power those lobbies have when its the one thing countries will unite against to keep Chinese competition off of their borders.

So the narrative is COVID was a dangerous lab leak - but also, you don’t have to wear a mask?

Consistency is not a strong point of these dumbasses.

A lot of them are arguing in bad faith or have been brainwashed by the people that do. It is clear people can not only still protest, but protest far better with fewer worries and more effect under the lesser evil. These clowns would be complaining about the US winner-takes-all system of democratic governance if they truly cared, and there was only basically one option where protesting for that didn’t make you a potential deportee to El Salvador prisons.

Unfortunately, if it were only the president who’s corrupt, he would have already been impeached and removed. Even if there were a question about whether he does or does not want to become an authoritarian dictator, ignoring everything that is hinting at it, he is digging himself in the sort of hole that he can only survive in as long as he retains power and I’m sure he knows it.