I love to drink. Absolutely adore it. Putting on a great recors, open 2 bottles of wine and call 10 different people during the span of 4 hours. I wouldn't trade it for social media any day of the week. I am drinking right now actually
AI founders will also make sure that users - the ones that are not capable of telling if you're lying to them by taking their money and energy - will learn the bitter lesson of taking it right up the arse. Again. Just like a repetition of history. Humanity is like ever before caught in the action of serving the individuals that made us fuck ourselves over. And the only thing you do is thanking them for it by applying to their tactics. Middle class humanity and above is morally bankrupt, and AI is the next thing they will fight over and with, but of course without adding anything positive to the world.
> the western premises and good faith leans on the non written law of not taking eachothers land
We’re in the midst of the collapse of the rules-based international order. America ignored it in Iraq and Libya. Russia ignored it in Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. China is ignoring it across the South China Sea, Hong Kong and Tibet. (For brevity I’m largely ignoring the Middle East and entire continent of Africa.)
The only ones holding onto the system for dear life are the Europeans, and even there they’re starting to wise up. I’m not thrilled about what’s to come. But it’s clear that just because annexing through force is de jure illegal doesn’t have much bearing onto whether it will happen.
I think control of shipping channels (northwest passage especially), natural deep water ports, and military installations are the main potential values. The oil and gas will likely never have much value, since by the time they’re thawed, the price of both will presumably have collapsed. The rare earth elements and uranium might be nice but bringing in the equipment and infrastructure to do serious mining will takr decades.
I mean, best case possible interpretation is that he meant "sure, if Russia was about to occupy it, we could do that" - avoiding saying "no way" so that nobody can say that he flip-flopped on it later.
In context, with talking about using "economic force" to force a US "unification" of Canada? I'm less likely to give him the maximum benefit of the doubt.
Well the US invaded Greenland when Germany invaded Denmark in WWII and have had a military presence ever since.
The US also engineered Panama's independence in order to get sovereignty over the canal zone, which they completed. And then of course they actually invaded the country in 1989.
Just learned from Wikipedia that the US previously considered buying Greenland in 1867 and actually made an offer to buy it in 1946.
So the idea is clearly not new.
Now, this is Trump so a lot of bluster and unclear what he is actually getting at but in an historical perspective neither this nor (re)gaining control of the Panama canal (which the US only fully relinquished in 1999) are new or crazy.
"Invaded" implies a hostile, or at least forceful takeover.
That's not what happened. In fact its local government reached out to the US and agreed to come under its wing as a de-facto protectorate, which it saw as a preferable alternative to Canadanian/British (and in any case German) intervention.
Ok, they "occupied" Greenland if you prefer although if they didn't have Copenhagen's greenlight it was an invasion. But that's largely semantics and does not address the general point and the fact that the US's interest in Greenland is not new despite Trump being Trump and they were keen to keep it. Even at the time it was not new.
I live in a country with great unions. And I am happy for both parts of the force; workers are treated fair and company has no option for exploitation as such.
But in a world where manufacturing has gone down in the west since the 1970s, and money shuffling and soft office jobs has become the way of work life, unions has little benefit.
In the west people has shifted from a solidarity way of work to a far more individualised career path. We work for ourselves, to become wealthier for ourselves, while the struggle is still as real as ever, in terms of who holds the wealth.
The control of money has never before been on such small amount of hands and the only ones not benefitting from that is the workers. There is no class building or leverage any longer, the fight is fought individually. The winners are corporate and people in power.
Try to look up the history of unions in USA just for study, and see how its almost baked into politics that unions will never happen.
The reason is the neoliberal shift. The US used to have more union activity and was more social democratic when it did.
> Now, you explain to me why that is. I will help you. It's not about democracy.
What democracy? Capital is stronger than any democratic system that I know of. But unions etc. provide enough of a counter-weight in some nations.
The US has a particularly bloody labor history according to Chomsky. From memory that was probably in contrast to other advanced nations which happen to have high union participation. In case that’s where you are from.
> I will help you. It's not about democracy.
You will help me understand. With what? Because your FUD “less manufacturing” and “more individualized” BS reasons don’t help explain it.
Great theory. In reality the vast majority us serves only the economy without getting anything truly valuable in return. We serve it only, with noticing it, to grow into less human and more individual shells of less human. Machines of the Economy.
Name one technology that has come with computers that hasn't resulted in more humans being put to work ?
The rhetoric of not needing people doing work is cartoon'ish. I mean there is no sane explanation of how and why that would happen, without employing more people yet again, taking care of the advancements.
It's nok like technology has brought less work related stress. But it has definitely increased it. Humans were not made for using technology at such a pace as it's being rolled out.
Self check-out stations, ATMs, and online brokerages. Recently chat support. Namely cases where millions of people used to interact with a representative every week, and now they don't.
"Name one use of electric lighting that hasn't resulted in candle makers losing work?"
The framing of the question misses the point. With electric lighting we can now work longer into the night. Yes, less people use and make candles. However, the second order effects allow us to be more productive in areas we may not have previously considered.
New technologies open up new opportunities for productivity. The bank tellers displaced by ATM machines can create value elsewhere. Consumers save time by not waiting in a queue, allowing them to use their time more economically. Banks have lower overhead, allowing more customers to afford their services.
If I had missed the point I would have given a much broader list of examples. I specifically listed ones that make employees totally redundant rather than more useful doing other tasks.
When these people were made redundant, they may very well have gone on to make less money in another job (i.e. being less useful in an economic sense).
Please do. I'm certain you can't, and you'll have to stop much sooner than you think. Appeals to triviality are the first refuge of the person who thinks they know, but does not.
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