Curious Canid

I’m getting a T-Deck, but I don’t feel too bad about using Bluetooth on a phone, as long as everything else is disabled. It isn’t hard to track, but it will be a distant third after cell and Wifi in terms of what the authorities will be tracking. Not ideal, but an acceptable compromise for now.

We got some Meshtastic radios that we use for protests (as well as for protests). They solve most of the problems quite neatly.

AI is already replacing significant parts of the technical workforce. The key is that it doesn’t have to successfully replace them. It just has to convince the sociopaths in the C-suites that they can pretend it will so they can layoff masses of employees. That will allow them to collect obscenely large bonuses, sell their stock at a huge profit, and move on to destroying the next round of businesses. Fortunately, the only people this will hurt are, well, us.

AI is so far from being the main problem with our current US educational system that I’m not sure why we bother to talk about it. Until we can produce students who meet minimum standards for literacy and critical thinking, AI is a sideshow.

That is a good point. I think you’re right that being raised in an entitled environment by a socipathic parent brings out the worst in people. It also selects for the worst child being the one who wins the fight to take over the business.

The ratio of poor to ultra wealthy is far greater than a million to one. Other than that, the only practical reason they have for not doing it is that they still need human labor for most of what they do. That isn’t going to change anytime soon, despite AI. However, they don’t need their labor force to be free or happy, which is why the US is on the cusp of a fascist takeover.

The rule of law has largely stopped mattering to the ultra wealthy. It may occasionally inconvenience them, but they know it will never affect them in any personal way.

Not all of the ultra wealthy are socipaths. Unfortunately, terminal-stage capitalism does a surprisingly good job of selecting for sociopathy at the very top of the hierarchy. Becoming that rich requires both a strong belief that you deserve it and a disregard for how acquiring it harms others.

This is actually a triumph for Musk. SpaceX has figured out how to blow up their rockets without all the cost and time required to prepare for a launch.