BlueMonday1984

Starting off this Stubsack with a solid essay I ran across: Don’t expect the tech platforms to help us this time.

Gotta say, this is a damn good takedown of this utterly toxic mindset that pervades far too much of our daily lives. Hopin’ David posts this to the socials, it deserves more eyeballs.

How do you all suppose the Great Bullshit Implosion is going to interact with our incoming US government? When it becomes clear that the money is running out, will OpenAI be able to talk the Trump government into bailing them out, or will the fash kick them when they’re down, since tech will be a nice fat scapegoat for the economy hitting the shitter?

Kicking them whilst they’re down would be an easy win when “the cruelty is the point” is your unofficial motto, and there’s plenty of anti-tech sentiment for Trump to work with. And, of course, they’re a piss-easy scapegoat - AFAIK tech’s managed to piss off both political wings here.

He’s probably gonna kick them whilst they’re down.

They can be, but they can also be a social and recreational space.

Your mum’s a social and recreational space, but I don’t see you going to bat for her despite being more useful

Its times like these which make me happy I switched to Librewolf.

Fuck it, off-the-cuff prediction: I expect resistance to Silicon Valley is gonna turn violent during Trump’s term.

Recently read Brian Merchant’s latest piece on the upcoming election, and I felt like making a quick-and-dirty prediction:

If Harris wins, I expect there will be some pretty harsh regulation against Silicon Valley. Putting aside everything but simple political pragmatism:

1. Elon Musk’s election antics and Trump’s support from tech billoinaires have shown SV holds a significant amount of power over politics - power which will almost certainly prove a constant thorn in Harris’ side. As such, it’d be in her self interest to kneecap the Valley ASAP.

2. Public opinion of Silicon Valley has taken a pounding over the years for a variety of reasons, with the AI slop-nami just the latest and most serious grievance the public has against them. Any tech regulation a Harris presidency makes (especially against AI) is gonna enjoy significant public support from day one.

I’ve seen this floating about quite a bit, and everyone I know is dunking on it - the most frequent comparison I’ve seen is calling it “Minecraft with dementia”.

NASB - Brian Merchant’s celebrating the first anniversary of Blood in the Machine’s release

Reading through it, its clear an earlier comment of mine was dead-on - the public image of the Luddites has been fully rehabilitated, and we can primarily credit Merchant for pulling it off.