[Tsundoku]

Tiste Simeon, on 12 March 2021 - 11:08 AM, said:

You all seen the Republican turds who voted against the Covid relief bill taking credit for it?

Ah, no. Must have missed that one. Link?

[QuickTidal]

Tiste Simeon, on 12 March 2021 - 11:08 AM, said:

You all seen the Republican turds who voted against the Covid relief bill taking credit for it?

I know I shouldn't be surprised by those piles of human shaped excrement but I am.

Yep. What a bunch of utter pillocks. Tweeting that "small businesses will finally get their relief and how it's a travesty they had to wait so long"....tweeted by a Republican who voted fucking NO. I can't....

How these assholes don't get called directly on this shit is beyond me. "Oh, we're gonna have ____ on our show? Cool. I'm going to grill him on rejecting a vote for stimulus and then claiming credit."

[Tiste Simeon]

Tsundoku, on 12 March 2021 - 11:32 AM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 12 March 2021 - 11:08 AM, said:

You all seen the Republican turds who voted against the Covid relief bill taking credit for it?

Ah, no. Must have missed that one. Link?

Here's one example on Twitter. I've seen others with similar tones...

https://twitter.com/...2964081664?s=19

[Malankazooie]

A G.O.P. senator tweets approvingly about part of the stimulus bill, without mentioning one detail: his 'no' vote.

*link is to www.nytimes.com

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'white supremacists and QAnon enthusiasts are obsessed — but very wrong — about the Byzantine Empire

[...] Kessler, an American neo-Nazi who helped organize the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, inaugurated a new supremacist group called "The New Byzantium" project.

Described by Kessler as "a premier organization for pro-white advocacy in the 21st century," [...]

His premise is that when Rome fell, the Byzantine Empire went on to preserve a white-European civilization. This isn't true. In reality the empire was made up of diverse peoples who walked the streets of its capital, coming from as far away as Nubia, Ethiopia, Syria and North Africa. Contemporaneous sources noted – at times with disdain – the racial and ethnic diversity of both Constantinople and the empire's emperors.

But Kessler's "New Byzantium" is intended to preserve white dominance after what he calls "the inevitable collapse of the American Empire." [...]

Across 8kun and other online platforms [...] the Byzantine Empire is discussed as either continuing the legacy of Rome after it was, in their understanding, "destroyed by the Jews" or being the only true empire, with Rome being merely a historical myth created to degrade Byzantium's power and importance.

This latter story emerges in a QAnon thread on "Baking" – that is, the connecting and weaving together of drops (messages) by the enigmatic Q. One post states: "It all makes sense when you learn that the books of the bible are plagiarized copies of the chronology of Byzantium, and so is the mythical Roman Empire, that never existed in Italy but was in fact centered in Constantinople."

Other QAnon commentators across message boards and Twitter speak of the "exiled throne of Byzantium," noting, "the Empire never went away, it just went occult." They exclaim "Long live Byzantium" and call for a "return to Byzantium" to save people from the satanists.

Oddly, while some hold up the Byzantine Empire as the vanguard of white supremacy, a smaller group of white supremacists and conspiracy theorists sees it as "the original Deep State."

In some renditions, Byzantium is, by way of some hazy illuminati connections, the origins of the "deep state" – the myth of an underground cabal of elites who run the world in secret. It has persisted in secrecy since Constantinople's fall, either trading in eunuchs on the clandestine market or preserving whiteness and Christianity, depending on the thread's negative or positive outlook on the empire.

Reconquest of Hagia Sophia

For many on the far right, talk of Byzantium is cloaked in Islamophobia – both online and in tragic real-life events.

A white supremacist who killed more than 50 worshippers at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019 railed against the Turks and the conquest of Constantinople in a 74-page manifesto.

"We are coming for Constantinople, and we will destroy every mosque and minaret in the city. The Hagia Sophia will be free of minarets and Constantinople will be rightfully Christian owned once more," the shooter wrote. Throughout QAnon message boards, the reconquest of Hagia Sophia is emblematic of the destruction of Islam and the restoration of a mythic white Byzantium. One post stated: "When we free Constantinople and the Hagia Sophia, maybe we can talk."

"Third Rome"

This "reconquest" of Constantinople had even been tied in some online posts to the presidency of [...] Trump, with images circulated online seemingly prophesying that it would happen under his tenure. In one image, Trump is seen congratulating [...] Putin "on the retaking of Constantinople" and shaking hands in front of what is presumably meant to be the Hagia Sophia, though is actually the Sultan Ahmed Mosque[...]

Putin himself is not averse to drawing on the symbolism of Byzantium. The Russian state has long tried to position itself as the rightful successor to the Byzantine Empire, with Moscow as the "Third Rome." This forms part of a religious and political doctrine tied to Russian territorial expansion that can be traced back as far as the late 15th century.

The far-right appropriation of Byzantium in the U.S. appears to be influenced by this Russian interpretation. [...] Russian proponents of the "Third Rome" doctrine have been cited as influences by prominent figures on the American right.'

https://theconversat...e-empire-154994

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 14 March 2021 - 08:38 PM

[Mentalist]

Azath Vitr (D, on 14 March 2021 - 08:37 PM, said:

'white supremacists and QAnon enthusiasts are obsessed — but very wrong — about the Byzantine Empire

[...] Kessler, an American neo-Nazi who helped organize the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, inaugurated a new supremacist group called "The New Byzantium" project.

Described by Kessler as "a premier organization for pro-white advocacy in the 21st century," [...]

His premise is that when Rome fell, the Byzantine Empire went on to preserve a white-European civilization. This isn't true. In reality the empire was made up of diverse peoples who walked the streets of its capital, coming from as far away as Nubia, Ethiopia, Syria and North Africa. Contemporaneous sources noted – at times with disdain – the racial and ethnic diversity of both Constantinople and the empire's emperors.

But Kessler's "New Byzantium" is intended to preserve white dominance after what he calls "the inevitable collapse of the American Empire." [...]

Across 8kun and other online platforms [...] the Byzantine Empire is discussed as either continuing the legacy of Rome after it was, in their understanding, "destroyed by the Jews" or being the only true empire, with Rome being merely a historical myth created to degrade Byzantium's power and importance.

This latter story emerges in a QAnon thread on "Baking" – that is, the connecting and weaving together of drops (messages) by the enigmatic Q. One post states: "It all makes sense when you learn that the books of the bible are plagiarized copies of the chronology of Byzantium, and so is the mythical Roman Empire, that never existed in Italy but was in fact centered in Constantinople."

Other QAnon commentators across message boards and Twitter speak of the "exiled throne of Byzantium," noting, "the Empire never went away, it just went occult." They exclaim "Long live Byzantium" and call for a "return to Byzantium" to save people from the satanists.

Oddly, while some hold up the Byzantine Empire as the vanguard of white supremacy, a smaller group of white supremacists and conspiracy theorists sees it as "the original Deep State."

In some renditions, Byzantium is, by way of some hazy illuminati connections, the origins of the "deep state" – the myth of an underground cabal of elites who run the world in secret. It has persisted in secrecy since Constantinople's fall, either trading in eunuchs on the clandestine market or preserving whiteness and Christianity, depending on the thread's negative or positive outlook on the empire.

Reconquest of Hagia Sophia

For many on the far right, talk of Byzantium is cloaked in Islamophobia – both online and in tragic real-life events.

A white supremacist who killed more than 50 worshippers at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019 railed against the Turks and the conquest of Constantinople in a 74-page manifesto.

"We are coming for Constantinople, and we will destroy every mosque and minaret in the city. The Hagia Sophia will be free of minarets and Constantinople will be rightfully Christian owned once more," the shooter wrote. Throughout QAnon message boards, the reconquest of Hagia Sophia is emblematic of the destruction of Islam and the restoration of a mythic white Byzantium. One post stated: "When we free Constantinople and the Hagia Sophia, maybe we can talk."

"Third Rome"

This "reconquest" of Constantinople had even been tied in some online posts to the presidency of [...] Trump, with images circulated online seemingly prophesying that it would happen under his tenure. In one image, Trump is seen congratulating [...] Putin "on the retaking of Constantinople" and shaking hands in front of what is presumably meant to be the Hagia Sophia, though is actually the Sultan Ahmed Mosque[...]

Putin himself is not averse to drawing on the symbolism of Byzantium. The Russian state has long tried to position itself as the rightful successor to the Byzantine Empire, with Moscow as the "Third Rome." This forms part of a religious and political doctrine tied to Russian territorial expansion that can be traced back as far as the late 15th century.

The far-right appropriation of Byzantium in the U.S. appears to be influenced by this Russian interpretation. [...] Russian proponents of the "Third Rome" doctrine have been cited as influences by prominent figures on the American right.'

https://theconversat...e-empire-154994

Y'know, as soon as I saw Byzantium in the first paragraph, my mind went to Russia, heh

I'm guessing soon QAnon will discover Colonel Pyat quartet and are gonna start citing Pyat's diatribes unironically- those books are full of conspiracies about "the Global Carthage" and the like. They make sense to a 20th century (and modern) Russian chauvinists, so clearly they'll make for a great manifesto.

Pyat is a serial rapist, so that'l surely help to prop him up as well... I think he can be a fine icon for these clowns.

[Cause]

The software running inside the human mind is fascinating. On some level this is a bug in the way they think and Interpet data.

It’s like with flat earthers. And like flat earthers I think the actual number of believers is probably low, but they allow for a larger less crazy group around them, which allows for a larger group around that own and so forth.

The number of people who really believe in a Jewish illuminati who took down time is probably in the thousands but it helps support the millions of people who hate Jews for example.

This thinking is dangerous. Not sure how we combat it. Education certainly but clearly that alone is not enough, especially not once they reach a stage where they think human knowledge can be so inherently biased/faked that they think we might literally have created the entire Roman Empire to take away some prestige from Byzantium

[Aptorian]

I think surveillance and re-education at black sites is the best answer but you suggest that kind of stuff at a social gathering and suddenly people are staring at you and saying things like "You're a monster" and "You're not welcome here anymore". Some people just won't take good advice. smh.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 15 March 2021 - 04:53 PM

[Primateus]

Aptorian, on 15 March 2021 - 04:33 PM, said:

I think surveillance and re-education at black sites is the best answer but you suggest that kind of stuff at a social gathering and suddenly people are staring at you and saying things like "You're a monster" and "You're not welcome here anymore". Some people just won't take good advice. smh.

And when you propose an ethnic cleansing of the Danish-German minority, woooohhh, suddenly you've gone too far.

[Aptorian]

Don't even get me started on the repatriation of southern Sweden.

[Mentalist]

Cause, on 15 March 2021 - 04:25 PM, said:

The software running inside the human mind is fascinating. On some level this is a bug in the way they think and Interpet data.

It’s like with flat earthers. And like flat earthers I think the actual number of believers is probably low, but they allow for a larger less crazy group around them, which allows for a larger group around that own and so forth.

The number of people who really believe in a Jewish illuminati who took down time is probably in the thousands but it helps support the millions of people who hate Jews for example.

This thinking is dangerous. Not sure how we combat it. Education certainly but clearly that alone is not enough, especially not once they reach a stage where they think human knowledge can be so inherently biased/faked that they think we might literally have created the entire Roman Empire to take away some prestige from Byzantium

Normally I'd say the answer would greater emphasis on teaching critical thinking; But the problem with that is, social media is allowing all kinds of BS to become accessible to kids before those faculties actually develop.

A more radical idea would be to make it mandatory for all school curriculum to include a course on social influence so that everyone is aware of how human minds are open to manipulation; But there's gonna be way too many interest groups opposed to that- no major corp will actually want people to know and be able to recognize what targetted advertising is, what artificial scarcity is, etc.

I'm a firm believer that if everyone knows hows the manipulators work, it'll make it more difficult for some- not everyone, since people often want to believe in lies that give easy answers. But there's a lot of people who benefit from the fact that majority isn't aware of how information is being mis-used, so it'd be a tough battle to have that changed.

[Malankazooie]

Wow guys, Twitter is 15 years old. That Jack Dorsey guy got it all started a decade and half ago on this very day (March 21, 2006) by tweeting (were they even called tweets then?) - "just setting up my twttr."

Do you think we're better for having Twitter? I don't. I remember when I first became aware of Twitter, must have been around 2010 or thereabouts, I thought it was a neat way to access breaking news and such, but whooboy has it gone sideways since. It now seems to be a dunk on/shut down/score points on/put people in their place to impress my followers, shit talk generator. Sadly this mentality has infected all social landing spots of the Internet. (*cough including malazanempire *cough)

I was figuring out where to post this, thought this thread was appropriate because the shit talking is most often political oriented. If you don't like what I've done here, you can tweet mean things about me from your Twitter account. I won't be mad if you do, I don't care.

[Mentalist]

Malankazooie, on 21 March 2021 - 03:43 PM, said:

Wow guys, Twitter is 15 years old. That Jack Dorsey guy got it all started a decade and half ago on this very day (March 21, 2006) by tweeting (were they even called tweets then?) - "just setting up my twttr."

Do you think we're better for having Twitter? I don't. I remember when I first became aware of Twitter, must have been around 2010 or thereabouts, I thought it was a neat way to access breaking news and such, but whooboy has it gone sideways since. It now seems to be a dunk on/shut down/score points on/put people in their place to impress my followers, shit talk generator. Sadly this mentality has infected all social landing spots of the Internet. (*cough including malazanempire *cough)

I was figuring out where to post this, thought this thread was appropriate because the shit talking is most often political oriented. If you don't like what I've done here, you can tweet mean things about me from your Twitter account. I won't be mad if you do, I don't care.

Twitter feels like it's encouraging shorter attention spans. That was my initial reaction when I heard about it getting big in... 2008, I wanna say?

I was one of the early adopters of Facebook back in 200d (when we still needed a Uni e-mail address and to belong to "a group" in order to sign up). And I remember how first they let the high school kids on, and then everyone.

I managed to burn out on social media right before Twitter took off, and I've been really ambivalent about the whole concept
ever since (you'll never catch me on Instagram, because I absolutely hate being in photos, which is 90% of the point of most modern social media).

But yeah, Twitter with it's mid-sized messages certainly contributed to the ADD generation of post-Millenials with their cellphone + notifications addiction. That's my humble opinion.

[Cause]

https://www.cnn.com/...raud/index.html

So she claims she can’t be sued for libel because no reasonable person can believe the things she says are true. The ‘tucker Carlson’ defense!

I can only imagine that a lawyer who tried to open court cases based on this lie, who had the president repeating it and who had affidiavits ant get away with this defense. I hope she suffers the consequences of her actions and gets a very rude wake up call.

[Mentalist]

Cause, on 23 March 2021 - 04:17 PM, said:

https://www.cnn.com/...raud/index.html

So she claims she can’t be sued for libel because no reasonable person can believe the things she says are true. The ‘tucker Carlson’ defense!

I can only imagine that a lawyer who tried to open court cases based on this lie, who had the president repeating it and who had affidiavits ant get away with this defense. I hope she suffers the consequences of her actions and gets a very rude wake up call.

The defense itself could hold up. What the plaintiffs should do, then, is go to whomever was the defendant in the other suit, and ask them to request a contempt hearing for Trump and co, since they filed a frivolous and vexatious politically motivated lawsuits in the first place, and have confirmed that this was done in bad faith.

Not that something like this is likely to happen retroactively, but one could dream.

[Cause]

Yeah I had that thought too, this defense seems to make it mandatory that some authority should initiate disbarment proceeedings. It’s a tantamount admission she made bad faith court filings

[Malankazooie]

Well the flag trucks are still out there, albeit a lot less now. They've changed their flags' message though. Saw one yesterday that read: "Pro-America, Anti-Biden." How does the calculus work? The bigger the flag, the smaller the penis? I think that is the right formula. This guy's flag was a big ol' honkin' one. Damn near was tickling the car behind him.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'The Supreme Court May Be About to Blast Another Hole in Gun Control

[...] the conservative-controlled Supreme Court will not allow us to have commonsense gun regulation, let alone any ambitious, progressive legislation to get guns off the streets, like they do in other countries that don't have mass shootings every other day.

[...] There is no new gun regulation or reform that can survive six bloodthirsty conservatives on the Supreme Court, just like there is no way to "win" a game of Russian roulette when there are six bullets in the revolver.

This Friday, the justices will meet to decide whether to take a case [...] designed to create a brand new constitutional right to carry firearms outside the home, whenever a person wants to.

[...] getting rid of the permitting process for handguns (or liberalizing them to the point where functionally anybody can get a permit), effectively inventing a new unequivocal right to bear these weapons outside the home. That's different from the last gun right they invented in 2008: the right to bear arms for self-defense. The astute reader will remember that the original constitutional right was merely to bear arms to form militias and kill Black people who didn't want to be held in bondage.'

https://www.thenatio...rt-gun-control/

'How the Supreme Court Could Supercharge the GOP's Voter Suppression Agenda

A new case could open up the door to unapologetic discrimination.

[...] this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will hand down its decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, a case that Republicans very much hope will grind what little remains of your right to vote into a fine, democracy-tinged dust.

[...] Voting Rights Act's "effects test," which applies to seemingly neutral laws that nonetheless disproportionately affect minority voters. [...] the effects test has emerged as the last, best tool for enforcing the Voting Rights Act.

The effects test isn't all that's at stake, though. Also before the justices is the appeals court's finding that the ballot collection ban's impact is not an accident—that Arizona lawmakers actually intended it to disenfranchise voters of color. In Brnovich, the court's conservatives could insulate this sort of unapologetic voter suppression from legal scrutiny for good.

[...] Across the country, revanchist Republicans are working to pass literally hundreds of anti-democracy bills that target minority voters, drafting off Donald Trump's outraged insistence that fraud cost him the 2020 election.

Like many states, Arizona has a long history of excluding people of color from democracy. [...] In the 1960s, a Republican Party initiative known as "Operation Eagle Eye" challenged the qualifications of minority voters at polling places in the name of "ballot security." Among the participants, witnesses said, was a young lawyer named William Rehnquist, who would go on to serve as Chief Justice of the United States.

[...] ballot collection had become a key get-out-the-vote tool in poor, remote, or predominantly minority communities where many Democratic voters live—and where voting is especially difficult. In urban areas where mail theft is common, volunteer collection enabled voters to cast a ballot without risking its disappearance. Outside the state's two most populous counties, just 18 percent of Native voters have access to home mail service. Native voters who live on reservations sometimes must travel two hours to the nearest mailbox, and between a quarter and half of households don't have access to a car. Ballot collection relieves some of Arizona's most marginalized residents of the burden of embarking on hours-long journeys just to cast a vote.

[...] Shooter secured 83 percent of the nonminority vote, but only 20 percent of the Hispanic vote. In a remarkable coincidence, he proposed the ban the following year even though[...] there was no evidence that ballot collection fraud in the state has ever taken place.

[...] appealing not to the veracity of the purported problem but instead to rapidly metastasizing fears of its existence. "What is indisputable is that many people believe it's happening," [...] "And I think that matters."

At the Supreme Court, Arizona and the Arizona GOP urged the justices to treat this history as if it did not exist. "Evidence of how legislators came to a particular, good-faith, non-discriminatory motivation cannot taint that motive or the resulting bill," the party writes. In other words, as long as lawmakers like Mesnard believed they were acting to, say, safeguard election integrity—even if they arrived at that objectively wrong belief after absorbing a series of racist lies—the ban can't be illegal.

The perversity of Republicans bemoaning this supposed loss of faith is that it is the product of the party's purposeful efforts to bring it about. Using tales about shadowy, democracy-hijacking plots to disenfranchise marginalized people is among the oldest tricks in American politics. Well before Election Day, Trump was warning of a "rigged" contest that would take its place among the "most fraudulent elections ever." Since then, Trump and company have parroted this lie so many times that it has become an article of faith for party leaders and supporters alike: [...] found that some three-quarters of Republicans believed the 2020 election was tainted by "widespread" fraud. The line between pretextual fearmongering about the supposed dangers of voter fraud and sincere belief in their existence—to the extent such a line ever existed—is vanishingly thin.

Republican lawmakers have been laying this groundwork for months. Securing the Supreme Court's formal endorsement, however, would launder their rhetoric using bone-dry legalese, allowing the success of the party's cynical misinformation campaign to justify the party's voter suppression agenda. At oral argument, the conservative justices seemed ready to buy it, sometimes invoking talking points about speculative dangers and worst-case scenarios that would not be out of place in a Tucker Carlson monologue. [...]

[...] to the chief justice, [...] Nothing matters, apparently, except the publicly stated positions of the specific elected officials who voted to enact the ballot collection ban into law.

This logic badly misconstrues how racist disenfranchisement works: Obviously, lawmakers need not discriminate explicitly in order to act intentionally.'

https://slate.com/ne...ct-arizona.html

'Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced a 10-year plan to overhaul the U.S. Postal Service [...] that would slow down deliveries, raise prices for services, and shorten hours at post offices. The sweeping overhaul, called "Delivering for America," [...]

[...]

Biden cannot directly fire DeJoy; only the board of governors, which oversees the USPS and is currently dominated by Trump appointees, has that power. Last week, [...] House Democrats called on Biden to fire the six members currently sitting on the board for cause, though it's unclear whether such a move would hold up in court. DeJoy first came under fire in summer 2020 when he instituted a raft of cost-saving measures like cutting overtime and limiting extra trips for trucks to deliver late mail that contributed to a major slowdown in postal services. Ever since then, USPS has never quite gotten back on track with delivery rates

[...] DeJoy told a House panel in February that he was considering such an extension. "Does it make a difference if it's an extra day to get a letter?" [...] "It's a terrible message to send, because it's tolerating poor service at the top," he said. "It's tolerating mail service that is not as good as it was 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago." [...] service also took a nosedive the last time USPS formally codified a reduction in standards in 2012, which included shifting much of the mail that would normally be delivered overnight to a two-day or three-to-five-day window instead. From 1971 to 2012, USPS had a one-day delivery standard for a good portion of its first-class mail. The one-day standard was eliminated completely by 2015. The Delivering for America plan augurs a further decline. [MAGA!]

DeJoy is downgrading mail delivery services with an eye toward reorienting the Postal Service around packages under the premise that many communications have already moved online, and therefore that part of the service has become less economically beneficial for the agency. [Because making public services strictly for profit is WJWD!]

"The mission of the Postal Service has been to deliver mail, [...] They're the only folks who can deliver mail. There's a lot of other folks who can deliver packages out there." [...] many people still depend on letters for essential errands in a timely manner. [...] like prescriptions and taxes,"'

https://slate.com/bu...-slowdowns.html

'Why Did Border Security Firms Bet on Biden in 2020?

The 13 top border contractors for CBP and ICE donated three times as much money to the Biden campaign than they did to Trump.

[...] 15-foot wall (that Senator Joe Biden voted for), followed by high-tech surveillance towers, courtesy of a multi-billion-dollar contract with the Boeing Corporation.

[...] the forces that shaped our southern border over the decades have been far more powerful than Donald Trump or any individual politician. [...] Underneath the theater of partisan politics, there remains a churning border-industrial complex, a conjunction of entrenched interests and relationships between the US government—particularly the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—and private corporations that has received very little attention.

[...]

In the 12 years from 2008 to 2020, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) dolled out 105,000 contracts, or a breathtaking average of 24 contracts a day, worth $55 billion to private contractors. [...] many of them—including the most expensive—went to companies creating high-tech border fortification, ranging from sophisticated camera systems to advanced biometric and data-processing technologies.

This might explain the border industry's interest in candidate Biden, who promised: "I'm going to make sure that we have border protection, but it's going to be based on making sure that we use high-tech capacity to deal with it."'

https://www.thenatio...security-biden/

'National Security AI Commission Recommends Ramping Up a Military Tech Race with China

"In the future, warfare will pit algorithm against algorithm," [...]

[...] the report bolsters a widely held perception among senior policy-makers—Democrats and Republicans alike—that the United States is engaged in a protracted struggle with China for global supremacy and risks losing out to its more tech-savvy adversary. "For the first time since World War II, America's technological predominance—the backbone of its economic and military power—is under threat," the report asserts. "China possesses the might, talent, and ambition to surpass the United States as the world's leader in AI in the next decade if current trends do not change." If this country is to avert such a calamity, "the US government must embrace the AI competition and organize to win it."

[...] while some might question the need for more ships and planes to confront the Chinese, few debate the need for increased investment in advanced technologies. "We believe we have powerful bipartisan consensus to win the technology competition with our strategic competitors," [...]

Should US policy-makers adopt the commission's recommendations and organize to "win" the tech competition with China, American society will be profoundly altered. The nation's top research universities will be converted into outposts of the Department of Defense, and scientists at these and other institutions will be recruited for work on military-related AI projects. Formerly unfettered educational exchanges between US and Chinese educational institutions will be shut down, and corporate connections heavily monitored. Scholars with even the slightest connection to China will be forced out of academia and, if Chinese nationals, driven out of the country. Money that could be spent on medical research or climate change mitigation will instead be devoted to military-oriented tech applications.

Such bold and intrusive measures are needed, the commission argues, because China appears to be sprinting ahead of the United States in mastering the AI revolution. "China's plans, resources, and progress should concern all Americans," the report reads. [...]

[...] "AI systems will extend the range and reach of adversaries into the United States just as the missile age…brought threats closer to home," they wrote. And just as the USSR once viewed ballistic missiles as the way to overpower the United States, "China sees AI as the path to offset US conventional military superiority by 'leapfrogging' to a new generation of technology."

[...] The commissioners view AI as a "breakthrough" technology that will transform global society as extensively as did the invention of the steam engine and the harnessing of electricity. But whereas those earlier breakthroughs reduced the need for human muscular energy, AI will reduce the need for human mental energy.

[...] As machines are endowed with aspects of intelligence, the tempo of warfare will be vastly accelerated and the role of humans greatly diminished—with profound and frightening consequences. [...] Humans will still have a role to play in such encounters, but the key players will be intelligent machines.

A possible response to this dilemma—one advocated by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and several dozen countries—would be to impose an international prohibition on the deployment of AI-enabled weapons systems. However, claiming that China and Russia cannot be trusted to comply with such a pact, the commissioners determined that the United States cannot agree to one. Instead, we must race ahead in the development of autonomous weaponry and other AI-enabled systems [...]

[...] Whereas America's principal engines of tech innovation are privately owned and largely devoted to private gain, China's top tech firms—even those in private hands—are beholden to the central government and so must do its bidding. Although Silicon Valley firms can (and often do) bid on lucrative Pentagon contracts for military-related AI work, they are not obligated to do so.

To further complicate matters, the report notes, many of America's top programmers and computer techies are reluctant to work for the Department of Defense[...]

These disparities, the report claims, have prevented the United States from moving as swiftly as China in exploiting commercial innovations for military use. [...] must find ways to harness the private sector for military purposes—in other words, to become more like China.

If all its proposals are embraced by US decision makers, we can expect a Cold War–like environment in which technological competition with China becomes the defining factor of American society. Aside from its distorting impacts on education and the economy, such a posture would fuel a new arms race in emerging technologies with little end in sight; other national priorities, such as medical research and climate change, would be brushed aside.'

https://www.thenatio...na-ai-military/

Granted, technologies developed for the military have historically been adapted for civilian use... early digital computers, the internet, etc. But it would almost certainly be better to apply those resources directly to more pressing issues like climate change etc.

'US sinks to new low in rankings of world's democracies

The US's new ranking places it on par with countries like Panama, Romania and Croatia and behind countries such as Argentina and Mongolia. It lagged far behind countries like the United Kingdom (93), Chile (93), Costa Rica (91) and Slovakia (90).'

https://www.theguard...m-house-new-low

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 25 March 2021 - 05:07 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Georgia Lawmakers Sign Voter Suppression Bill Into Law Under Painting of Slave Plantation

[...] infamous slave plantation [...]

[...] Their master was so cruel he built a quasi-jail on the property for unruly slaves, and set dogs onto those who tried to escape[...]

[...] dubbed the new voter suppression bill "Jim Crow 2.0."'

https://www.thedaily...tation?ref=home

'Redfield: I Think COVID-19 Escaped From Wuhan Laboratory

[...] ex-director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention[...] Redfield made the extraordinary claim in an interview with CNN's chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta. He provided no evidence for his belief, and stressed that it's only an opinion[...]

[The etiology of this disease?] former Trump official [he was a Trump appointee]'

https://www.thedaily...ratory?ref=home

Context:

'Asian American businesses are defending themselves against rise in anti-Asian violence

There's an economic cost to racism as business owners reduce hours, shell out for security [...]

[...] Alongside the racist graffiti covering the windows of his ramen shop — "Kung flu," "Commie," "Ramen noodle flu" — were these words, spray-painted in red: "Hope u die."

Shock and hurt turned to rage, then fear. After Nguyen reported the vandalism to local law enforcement and the FBI, police agreed to step up drive-by patrols. But he and his employees would be left largely on their own.

the threats to Nguyen's life and business have escalated. Last week, someone wrote "hope it burns down" on the Instagram account for his restaurant, Noodle Tree. An anonymous man phoned the restaurant, reciting Nguyen's home address with a warning: "We're coming for you."

"The threats are getting more violent, more extreme," [...]

Asian American entrepreneurs across the country are combating a sharp rise in racist threats and attacks on their businesses that many feel authorities are not taking seriously'

https://www.washingt...es-hate-crimes/

'Trump says China is [...] ''trying to kill us in so many different ways"
3 days ago'

https://www.msn.com/...SGin?li=BBnb7Kz


'Man Charged With Punching Asian American Mom at NYC Rally Against Anti-Asian Violence

[...] heading to the Asian American rally in Union Square with her 7-year-old daughter [...] when a man stopped her. He asked for her sign, and, assuming he was also joining the rally, the woman gave it to him—but then he started tearing it up and stuffing it in a trash can. She recounted: "I walked forward and towards him saying, 'What are you doing?' And he just came in front of me and punched me in the face, and then I think I stopped for a little bit, and then I chased him." The man was photographed by bystanders, and witnesses said he flashed his genitals at people before he escaped on a train. NYPD officials confirmed the arrest of 27-year-old Erick Deoliveira on Monday evening. He's been charged with a hate-crime assault and criminal mischief as a hate crime.'

https://www.thedaily...-asian-violence

'[Reported] Anti-Asian hate crimes increased by nearly 150% in 2020, mostly in N.Y. and L.A.[...]

From 2019 to 2020, the overall hate crime rate declined, while hate crimes targeting Asians increased, from three to 28 in New York and seven to 15 in Los Angeles.'

https://www.nbcnews....stly-n-n1260264

'According to the NYPD there have been 23 anti-Asian hate crimes [reported] so far this year [as of Tuesday], compared to 29 during all of 2020.

[...]

Over the weekend [in NYC], a 66-year-old man was punched in Chinatown and a 54-year-old woman was struck in the face with a metal pipe by a man yelling slurs who was later apprehended.'

https://abc17news.co...aughter-in-nyc/

'already had plenty of problems from the pandemic[...] — before his employees started getting punched in the face.

One of the workers was [...] attacked coming to work, leaving him with broken glasses and a swollen face. The other was a woman, on her way home, who suffered a cut lip and bruised nose. "They were just traumatized," [...] "These attacks are happening in broad daylight."

'Wang and I spoke the morning after a Malaysian man was randomly beaten in an attack outside a subway station. Wang said he had started shopping for bulletproof apparel. Would he need protection against a 9 mm bullet[...] or perhaps even a rifle shot, he wondered. "Hopefully no one's aiming at me with a rifle," he said. Two weeks after we spoke, six Asian women were shot dead in Atlanta.

Meng's call for action came less than 48 hours after another Chinese man had been stabbed in the back with an 8-inch knife in an unprovoked attack on the border of Chinatown. The suspect in the stabbing turned himself in and said coldly, "If he dies, he dies. I don't give a fuck." Ralliers cried for justice.

[...] His face had been sliced open with a box cutter on his way to work one morning a few weeks earlier, and the wound — which rips across from the far end of one cheek, under his nose, to the opposite end of the other cheek — was still fresh. Quintana hasn't been able to sleep, he later told me. When he goes to bed each night, his mind can't seem to get to that fleeting moment of peace that allows a person to submit to rest.'

https://www.washingt...es-hate-crimes/

'NYPD Turns to Undercover Tactics to Fight Anti-Asian Hate

Plainclothes officers of Asian descent will serve as decoys in public spaces'

https://www.wsj.com/...mes-11616707074

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 26 March 2021 - 03:17 PM

[LinearPhilosopher]

Mentalist, on 23 March 2021 - 06:13 PM, said:

Cause, on 23 March 2021 - 04:17 PM, said:

https://www.cnn.com/...raud/index.html

So she claims she can’t be sued for libel because no reasonable person can believe the things she says are true. The ‘tucker Carlson’ defense!

I can only imagine that a lawyer who tried to open court cases based on this lie, who had the president repeating it and who had affidiavits ant get away with this defense. I hope she suffers the consequences of her actions and gets a very rude wake up call.

The defense itself could hold up. What the plaintiffs should do, then, is go to whomever was the defendant in the other suit, and ask them to request a contempt hearing for Trump and co, since they filed a frivolous and vexatious politically motivated lawsuits in the first place, and have confirmed that this was done in bad faith.

Not that something like this is likely to happen retroactively, but one could dream.

By saying that no reasonable person can believe this, its implied that they thought the court was below the threshold of being a reasonable person... Like... isn't that the kind of thing any judge would take umbrage at?