So now I come to you, with open arms

Idk why I’m asking this, but I’m genuinely curious why you think reservations exist?

Those are owned by Native Americans… Not white billionaires

I’m not surprised by more of this sovereign state nonsense, I’m just disgusted that they’re proposing building it on a reservation.

Well then, I guess it must have been some other Pudutr0n. You’re off the hook, for now…

I’m not 100% sure about actually preventing states from creating laws, but given what’s happening in my city rn I would imagine, if this passes, it gives federal agencies and private companies the ability to legally ignore any city and state regulations that might be passed.

My city used to have a complete ban on facial recognition and predictive policing tech after they were caught secretly working with Palantir. In 2022, the mayor requested the ban be lifted and replaced with an ordinance.

Police in my city got caught violating the very weak ordinance that regulates how facial recognition is supposed to be used.

Since WaPo exposed them, they’ve allegedly paused using the tech. However, the tech is provided by a private company, and the city can’t enforce their regulations on the state police and ICE agents that are still using the tech with zero oversight.

Given how we know states like TX have already signed up to have their national guard invade other states in order to enforce Trump’s immigration policy, this could provide legal protection for the Texas national guard to come into a state like California and use it however they deem necessary.

They could start out by saying it’s necessary to enforce immigration (which would be fucked up enough). Very quickly it becomes necessary to protect ICE agents from protestors, and they begin using facial recognition to track protestors and anyone loosely associated with protestors.

There’s no way for the city or state laws to do anything about this bc the Texas National Guard have essentially been given blanket protection by a federal law to use AI to enforce federal immigration policy. Essentially, instead of the national guard being sent to southern states to enforce civil rights like what happened in the 1960s, the national guard from a red state would be sent into a blue state to enforce a dystopian cyber-surveillance nightmare created by the federal government.

Keep in mind this is just one possibility. Even without all that happening, the best case scenario of allowing a ban on state regulations, is you’re providing legal protection for private corporations to collect data however they want and do whatever they want with it once it’s collected.

Par for the course though. Orwell called it.

Federal intervention in states to enforce civil rights= unjust burden on states

Federal intervention in states to enforce immigration policy= send in the national guard to “liberate LA”

State regulations on AI= patchwork regulations won’t benefit corporations the country

Federal regulations on AI= these regulations are underpinned by the values we believe are important. Surely we’ve already proven over and over again you can trust us to do what’s right for corporations the country.

Never forget, corporations are people.

Exactly, they created this nightmare dystopia, sunk all their money into AI and if we don’t allow them to just invade our privacy like it’s their personal kingdom, and we exist to feed their data centers, they’re fucked.

The entire economy is fucked, but that’s 100% on them.

They wanted to just dive in head first, cut a bunch of jobs and replace everyone with AI. Who in their right mind would think that we should allow these people fewer regulations now, so they can make more money via exploitation of humans?

Exactly!

Oh regulations would cut into your profits? Boo fucking hoo

More scientists and data, but research quality in China has been very poor for quite some time, hence a lot of questions and concerns regarding methods, data collection, and number of retracted articles.

The entire idea of the “China virus” and the Trump/Republicans lab leak/attack on NIH funding to EcoHealth, and their collaboration with Wuhan Institute of Virology, hinged on pointing out the lack of lab safety standards in China that wouldn’t have allowed the research to occur here.

On the flip side, now that Trump is in power, OSTP is focused on removing regulations to science and tech bc they argue they are slowing us down in the AI race against China.

Kinda seems like a load of BS especially considering AI data in China is very poor likely bc of the lack of regulations

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/8/9/china-wrestles-with-quantity-over-quality-in-generative-ai-patents

Right, but it seems like they’re getting nervous people might actually be allowed to vote in the midterms

I feel like we’re going to end up with more laws protecting robots and surveillance cameras than our own civil liberties.

Wonder where all those angry white guys with tiki torches and khaki shorts are now? The ones that thought the Jews were trying to replace them? 🤔

I mean apparently they’re partnering with a private robotics company. The picture is an actual model of the company’s robot. Whether or not they actually end up implementing this, they’re allegedly currently training the robots.

Presumably, if nothing else, Amazon/Bezos is probably getting some sweet federal kick backs to attempt this and further the current administration’s agenda to beat “Gyna” in the science and tech race. Except unlike Gyna, the U.S. is firing all of their scientists (which, until Jan. 2025, was one area that the U.S. had unquestionably dominated China) bc they think AI can replace them too.

So now, they’re just handing all the resources to the kind of technocratic “elites” who are used to just purchasing their good ideas, rather than actually creating anything. This is also why they seem to genuinely believe something like Amazon humanoids is a sound investment, “durr, we don’t need people bcuz we haz robots.”

Fun fact, just learned they are indeed going to try to replace scientists with robots too. There was a meeting about it yesterday:

For all we know they made the futuristic robot exoskeleton, took some fancy pictures of it holding a package, and that’s all she wrote. The end result is just some rich assholes are slightly richer at the expense of the tax payer, and we should be grateful. 'Merica! 🇺🇲

I guess they felt like drones flying over civilian populations was a bit too unsettling in this day and age, so they are shifting to humanoids that will jump suddenly from moving vehicles and dash towards a destination.

What are the worst instances?

I haven’t read them yet, but I’m hoping to. It seems like he has some books actually focused on religion, but i’m not sure how much it actually comes up in this one.

If it does at all, it doesn’t seem like he weaponized Christianity against non Christians. His views on it actually sound pretty interesting

Ellul identified himself as a Christian anarchist. Ellul explained his view in this way: “By anarchy I mean first an absolute rejection of violence.” And, “… Jesus was not only a socialist but an anarchist – and I want to stress here that I regard anarchism as the fullest and most serious form of socialism.” For him, this meant that nation-states as the primary sources of violence in the modern era, should neither be praised nor feared, but continually questioned and challenged.

The Technological Society, a book that, decades after its publication, feels less like a historical analysis and more like a chilling prophecy unfolding before our eyes. It’s a book that forces us to confront a profound truth: We are not just using technology; we are being used by it.

The common fear is that of robots rising up, or machines taking over, but Ellul points to a far more subtle and insidious threat: the rise of “Technique.” This isn’t simply about machines or gadgets. It’s about the principle of efficiency becoming the dominant force in all human endeavors. Technique, in Ellul’s view, is the search for the “one best means” to achieve any given end. It is the relentless pursuit of the optimal, applied not just to industrial production, but to politics, education, medicine, even our personal relationships. Think about it: data driven decisions, algorithmic recommendations, metrics to measure everything from happiness to productivity. This is Technique at work.

Anything that slows down the process, anything that deviates from the optimal path, a moment of spontaneous creativity, a lengthy conversation that isn’t productive, a decision based on intuition or empathy rather than data, becomes an inefficiency. Something to be minimized or eliminated.

Was discussing this book in a different post earlier I’ve always wanted read it but never had a chance.

Definitely seems relevant for a lot of reasons.

Thanks! Might repost that link instead.

I actually only know about it bc it’s the book that seemed to send Ted Kaczynski over the edge lol.

It’s pretty spooky how accurate it has become especially since it was written so long ago.

To be fair, he was probably the youngest and most vulnerable participant, and the experiment lasted 3 years. He started attending Harvard at 16, and was probably around 16/17 when the study began.

They used psychological warfare on a kid who was already socially reserved on top of feeling alienated from his peers due to his age, and likely stressed due to being away from his family and home for the first time in his young life. During a developmental period that we now recognize is probably the most critical window for young men in particular to develop a mental illness like schizophrenia, they did this:

Subjects were told they would debate personal philosophy with a fellow student and were asked to write essays detailing their personal beliefs and aspirations. The essays were given to an anonymous individual who would confront and belittle the subject in what Murray himself called “vehement, sweeping, and personally abusive” attacks, using the content of the essays as ammunition. Kaczynski spent 200 hours as part of the study.

Like holy shit…

True, and I didn’t mean it in a necessarily derogatory way in terms of judgment for his mental illness, but for his actions. I know I should be more careful about saying things like that, and didn’t mean to imply anything negative about people who struggle with mental illness.

It’s complicated. Nobody should have had to go through what he did, but something awful somebody went through can’t be used as a justification for them doing something awful to somebody else. It can be the reason they did it, and it may arguably make them not fully responsible for their own behavior, but it also doesn’t make them an innocent.