I don’t actually, the climate is already collapsing. Our timeline won’t extend far enough.

But if we were to change our relationship as I described, this model of capitalist-funded maintenance would become incompatible.

I’m well aware that the modern ML techniques are not what we now call AGI, but I don’t see the relevancy here?

He’s had a very visible career so it’s actually pretty clear what his views are. He is not at all a socialist, he is a SocDem. He likes neoliberalism with some safety nets.

Are people using capital to acquire more capital to then undertake more capital-intensive endeavors? Yes? Then it’s still capitalism.

At this point I think Varoufakis only continues to rant his drivel in order to feel better about being a rich capitalist himself.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing but I’m shuddering at the new of industry of lawyers it would require to make that a semi-functional ecosystem. There are certainly contemporary examples of this business model. (Ironically ML is handling a lot of the work these days, but you still need the lawyers.)

Can we fast forward to the part where AI is maintained by all and benefits all? Pandora is out of the box and there won’t be peace until we find harmony with this new entity.

Yeah, yeah, I know - if only.

America is a terrifyingly broken country.

It’s like ‘every day is backwards day’ crossed with an infinitely-recursive manifold.

I saw a headline this morning that hedge fund managers are bullish on diesel. And the logic here seems to check out from what I skimmed. Will be interesting to see how this develops. A consumption downturn might kick the can out further.

I do support the argument that further complexifying essentials before the great decomplexification is a bad idea. However, burning a ton of fossil fuels to build alternative power sources is not a solution unless it is basically free energy - renewable alone is not sufficient justification. We need volitional degrowth. We won’t get it, but that’s what we need.

Not to diminish any particular arguments, but this is how these conversations always play out in my view:

Stop burning fossil fuels.

But we are in overshoot.

Yes

But we won’t be able to keep up agriculture.

Yes

But we won’t be able to keep up industry

Yes

But we won’t be able to keep up consumerism

Yes

But people will die.

Yes :(

But the rich will loses their riches

Yes

but but but

It doesn’t matter what the cost is, that’s the solution. The rest is simply consequence - and it grows greater by each day we ignore it.

Just because an ask is nigh impossible, does not mean that it is foolish or that it comes from ignorance.

c/collapse… such a lovely sound to it, even here at the end of civilization.

(refering to having decentralized from r/spaces)

The elite are trying to whip everyone back to the office to avoid a commercial real estate crash.

Yes, but I’m surprised the author doesn’t even mention CMBSs.

Hm. Maybe I’m missing something but I’m not seeing a million ‘successful’ AI startups pop up overnight like during the Dot Com Bubble. Most of the AI investments I’ve seen have been from major corporations that can pivot and eat a little loss. I do see several resume and business-plan writing services but it just doesn’t seem like much of a parallel, to me.

The article doesn’t address this disparity, it just pretends like it’s an equivalency - citing only megacaps like GOOG, MSFT, etc. Clickbait headline, I guess.

twitch plays pokemon, airliner edition

It’s been awhile… maybe Bernard Green and The First Three Centuries?

…I’m too informed to believe that a hand gun would be useful against these assault weapons, sorry.

I grew up around these things, you see - and hated them for years. Then at one point I realized I was just about the only leftist around, and just about the only person without a gun around, and the math clicked for me: It’s a much stickier situation than anyone really wants to acknowledge.

I’ve seen them carried around frequently while in the US - people carry them openly displayed on the back of their trucks. Who’s to guess how many have guns in their cabins and trunks? I’ve also followed the US’ wars closely enough to know that modern warfare looks like a bunch of armed citizens in a hilux, and that a state border won’t be saving any leftists stuck in southern Illinois when the RWDSs return.

Edit: I’m standing by this one. Disagree as you will.

To one extent every religion is.

Yes! History is a tale of cyclical power struggles. I disagree that every religion is syncretic but in principle that’s right. It’s exactly why this headline exists!

I am not quite seeing however what Biblical Jesus borrowed from Rome that the Jews of the area hadn’t already. Can you list some examples?

No I cannot because Biblical Jesus wasn’t real, whether historic Jesus was or not.

The human being that is most recognized as being the inspiration for Jesus had nothing to do with the Bible or the stories in it. The first hint to this should be that many Biblical stories predate the preacher, of course with different characters in the originals. Jesus was simply the device needed to create the opportunity to rewrite regional beliefs in a format more compatible with the contemporary nation-states.

It was non-contemporaneous authors that made Christianity what it is, not some Jesus character. During the time of Jesus around a century after iirc, the practices now called Christianity were not present. There was a very ambiguous and locally varied new twist on the old stories, but Christianity did not start with Jesus as a singular point and then branch from there. Christianity started as an influence on existing religions that slowly tied together disparate branches with a story that became more and more consistent only after it had been around for generations. When his name first started to be used to retell these stories, 2000 years ago or so, there was little agreement on who Jesus was or what he preached. And so the things Jesus is claimed to have said now, are not the same things they were claiming he said back then, which were themselves removed from what the human preacher actually preached (which is currently understood to have been pretty standard teachings for the time and region).

And so, as a character in a story, Biblical Jesus was not an entity that ever had agency. He couldn’t “borrow” anything.

Really only discussing what Biblical Jesus is supposed to have said.

Then you must pay attention to who wrote his lines! It was Rome. Forget the Bible, if you want to learn the answers to your questions, then go read history books to understand the actions that went along with the words. Christianity was the vessel for Roman colonialism.

If you’re too attached to approach it without biases, you could study Islam instead. After understanding the history of Islam, the history of Christianity should become easier to understand for Christians.

Just to reiterate this, there is a difference between smoking the last cigarette you could legally purchase, and the last gun you could legally purchase: The gun sticks around afterward.

I agree to the change in behavior that it will lead to a decrease in sales on legal markets, which was the basis of my comment. Now, what change in user behavior - if any - do these laws cause that would result in the non-possession of currently possessed firearm? That’s the only way the bans would be comparable.

Christianity is syncretic - is that not inherently subversive of the source?

And in this way it created common ground regional cultures, but the direction of the syncretization was also that of Romanization - the new mythos served to legitimize the earthly authority of Rome (and their territorial claims) in a way the teachings of the Jewish tribes had not.

You’re right. His teachings (on how the individual should act) are politics, and they are viable as the basis for a political system. It was actually put into practice, too, in monasteries and other communes.

I think the problem stems from cognitive dissonance. The popular political ideology that most closely reflect his neighborly teachings, is anarcho-communism. That is the exact opposite ideology from fascism (i.e., in-group authoritarianism) which is the ideology practiced by most of his adherents.

They are motivated to find ways to convince themselves and others that the teachings aren’t political, so that they don’t have to reconcile the teachings of their in-group identifier/shibboleth with their practices in the real world.

(I’m not saying this is why everyone says it isn’t political, I’m saying that this is the source of the meme that religion-isn’t-political.)