I’ve been waiting for this. I wish it had happened sooner, before DOGE could do as much damage it did, but better late than never

as I said elsewhere (and have from early around the doge announcement): he was never going to last because orange was never going to felon lead, and felon was never going to settle. and everyone who brought him in did so knowing that, but that was fine for them because they were using him as a useful idiot, as a politically useful wrecking ball who they could dump all blame on later and wash their hands of

DOGE has shown you don’t need congressional approval or actual legal authority to screw over people funded by the government

this tracks with historical fascist power seizures, although ofc updated in the detail of “let felon run wild, then just accept the outcome and use it as a new precedent”. he provided them with a test run of finding just how egregious they could go without pushback (and thus where they need to machinate more)

I am looking forward to Donald screwing over SpaceX or Starlink’s government contracts. On the returning end… Elon doesn’t have that many ways of properly screwing with Trump, even if he has stockpiled blackmail material I don’t think it will be enough to turn MAGA against Trump. Still, I’m somewhat hopeful this will lead to larger infighting between the techbro alt-righters and the Christofascist alt-righters.

overall, same yeah. felon’s long appeared to be comfortable socking for outside influences, so maybe he might go knocking for some more russian/chinese/indian/emirati/whatever war funding, but maaaybe not find some soon enough to prop up his whole house of cards?

(besides, the entire ai craze is begging in the same corners, which maybe is a good thing in this light)

eugenics, saas edition

sigh

another good piece from 404, teachers being real unhappy with the tsunami of bullshit autoplag has loaded them with

new yorker profile on moldbug (archive)

(still reading)

(e: wtf, phone client posted to subthread despite top reply arrow icon. bug bug buuuuug. the jank is ever present)

“Pray tell mr Babbage…”

time amplifying the nonsense around saltman’s orb grift

features a helluva lot of words while at multiple points remaining entirely incurious about the claims it amplifies

oh, no, to be clear: this isn’t about the sex/sluttiness - I have no issue with that at all. in a more general sense (over the wider set of things aella), her positioning herself as a “sex researcher” but often using that to bash specific groups or put out a specific narrative, that is far more problematic

but regarding this specific thing, tho: the “forced a tattoo on me” bit specifically, and all the rationalists doing their weird quasi-intellectual arguing with everyone who asks questions. the “forced” wording feels … intentionally bait&switch? presumably (…hopefully?) there’s mutual consent here, so it’s a fucking choice to go frame the event that way

I’m sure your keyboard has more input controls than just that, want to try some of them?

And didn’t Aella and also Grimes have a come to jesus moment when they realized they hung out with a lot of bad people

I would give this at least -9600 credibility points. neither of them are whoopsie-daisy’ing into these scenes and crowds, they both knew what and who

I regret to inform you that, once again, aella (via this)

fucked that this is at least moderately honest

absolutely worth it given your coming plans. sucks because yet more expenditure but your happiness and safety are more important

I think there’s also some kind of at-time exit tax if you ever decide to give up US citizenship, but I’m not good on the details

I’ve semi-seriously said elsewhere that the US treats its citizens as property (in the “as slaves” sense), and it’s fucked how close to true that is

glad to read you’re making some headway on getting the fuck out though!

that third quote is so fucking immensely telling, holy fuck

and while I want to be very cautious with this (ito not putting it out as a recommendation (given these fools’ heads are already demonstrably not okay)), imagine if any of these dipshits took a mild dose of psychedelics and actually experienced some altered states of consciousness for a while

such a stupendously short-sighted set of ideas, made even more stunning by the notion that probably 2 in 3 of these fuckers consider themselves “broad minded”

yeah it’s gonna happen way too damn fucking quickly (and way too damn fucking many times, too)

can’t wait for the training set biases to cause a fresh horror for marginalised groups that happen to have to use this shit because it’s forced on them. I’m sure it’ll all go perfectly and nothing bad will happen

:|

mayhaps, but then it’s also to be said that people who act like the phrase was “cogito ergo dim sum” also don’t exactly aim for a high bar

even though I get the idea you’re trying to go for, really fucking ick way to make your argument starting from “nonhuman entities” and then literally immediately mentioning enslaving black folks as the first example of bad behaviour

as to cautious erring: that still leaves you in the position of being used as a useful idiot

the fundamental problem with your posts (and the pov you’re posting them from) is the framing of the issue as though there is any kind of mind, of cognition, of entity, in any of these fucking systems

it’s an unproven one, and it’s not one you’ll find any kind of support for here

it’s also the very mechanism that the proponents of bullshit like “ai alignment” use to push the narrative, and how they turn folks like yourself into free-labour amplifiers

and not just post it, but posted preserving links - wtf