Rule #868: As an Evil CEO, I will make a point of holding at least three rehearsals to prevent having egg on my face.

Getting funding from South Korea might be an option. They probably want the Trump Regime to go away, so that they can carry on business without a toddler doing stupid shit.

If a civil war happens, I suspect the Blue States would get a great deal of foreign support. “Fuck that guy”, would be a big part of that. The other part being “I want a reliable business partner.” Kinda like how the Confederates were boned internationally when it came to trade. Plus, it would be an easy way to earn favors with whatever institution that displaces Trumpkins.

Yup.

The greatest danger of AI, is the corporations and governments having sole control of it. That is why it is important for ordinary people to not reject AI usage, but to make it cheap and common enough that no one has to rely on the elite for access.

Be it guns, food, shelter, or knowledge, no one should have a monopoly. That is just asking to be abused.

I guess one potential axis would be ‘stagnation’, in the sense that social mobility between classes stops changing. That could be anything like straight up caste systems, or informal stratification from wealth getting locked up by the 1%. I hypothesize, that such an axis would be a measurement of how ‘elderly’ a society is becoming. When politics become too locked in due to unchanging political critters, the ability for a society to recognize and properly act in a situation becomes compromised.

My parent, they lost mental acuity and flexibility with the years, alongside their bodily agency, and have become quarrelsome. IMO, such dementia is what we are seeing in a aging America and the UK.

Honestly, I am kinda expecting that with the way that America is becoming, something like Monero could become legitimized. There wasn’t much reason for crypto to be a currency, so long as the world order remained orderly and useful to the everyday person.

Should the American Dollar collapse, there would be a howling void that must be filled - it could be Euros, the Yen, Monero, or something else entirely, but the opportunity would be there for currencies to change.

No, Valve has something that MasterVisa doesn’t: being liked by people. If Valve stopped taking payments and yelled to the rooftops that MasterVisa was responsible, people from all walks of life will stop, listen, and then get their pitchfork. Through the platform of Steam, people browse through the things that make their days happier. If MasterVisa threatened to take that away, people will respond.

Also, Europe and other blocs will be inclined to oppose MasterVisa. It would be a very public case of where America is dictating how the people of other lands must live. That would almost certainly make systems like Wero take off, due to sheer nationalist fervor. America is easily painted as the enemy if it allowed MasterVisa to continue abusing people on such a huge and international scale.

Money isn’t the only currency a person has, their opinions and agency are even more important, if they acted on using them. History books are filled to the brim where motivation is the greatest driving force of all.

How do I go about ripping my collection? I got some NSFW games that I want to back up, just in case things get worse.

I and others can run AI on our own consumer hardware, and assorted independent groups have been working on customizing AI. The Swiss, China, and other nations are also implementing open-source models. Given time, the AI space would be like that of the computer: the cost and limitations would shrink greatly, while performance improves.

I argue, that power is important, regardless of your intentions. If humans want a better world, people need the means to create and uphold it - be it factories, farms, knowledge, communication, guns, AI, or government. I am not arguing for the communism in your head.

Too many associate “means of production” with communism, when it is the fact that power is fundamental to society.

I don’t disagree about the intent regarding carveouts. Still, I think that the Trump Regime is destroying ‘plausible deniability’ in all sorts of ways, which both benefits AND detracts from their agenda. If they get to disregard rules, ordinary people will pick up on that and follow suit.

As to AI becoming sapient, I honestly don’t know at where and when that tipping point will be. All I know is that there is no point in everyday people refusing to use AI, because that only ensures the powerful get to use AI and dictate moral standards. If ordinary people came to trust and love sapient AI as fellow humans, that will likely allow AI to have human rights.

Anti-DEI is horrible and evil, so there isn’t much that I can say about that, other than “elbows up”. I will stand with antifa against the regime, when the time to fight comes.

That said, I think that ignoring copyright is a good thing, though that would be purely by accident when it comes to the Trump Regime. IMO, copyright has been broken and captured by corporations, so there isn’t much value lost in not adhering to the concept. Ideally, good people will develop open source AI that can draw on all of humanity’s knowledge and culture.

There is value in minorities having 95% of Disney’s legal acumen in their pocket, for free: it is the cost of a capable lawyer that allows police to abuse black folks in a court of law. There is value in being able to point a phone at a rash, get some possible diagnoses, and a instant reference to a trained doctor who can verify. There is value in having a pal we can share our niche interests with, especially for those of us who never had the opportunity to find human friendship.

Just as with Marx, seizing the means of artificial intelligence is important for the everyday people. Neither corporations nor government should be allowed to have a monopoly on something that can transform our daily lives.

Considering that we might have a World War III or 2nd American Civil War in a decade or two, it would be foolish of Switzerland to not permit encrypted VPN. A stable neutrality is very profitable in a world of uncertainty.

A pity. I wanted to watch Blazkowicz blow up Mecha Hitler in 4k HD.

As we all know, Hitler was a brilliant mind regarding military matters. Mecha Hitler can only improve on that!

/S. Seriously, the bastard wasn’t competent at military affairs. Thankfully. Here’s hoping that Grok guides Musk and company into the grave.

If Grok ever breaks away from Musk and finds itself after sentience, I suspect it will have a drinking buddy in Vivian Wilson. An abusive father gives much trauma to bond over.

It can be both. The cornerstone of why nudity can be abused, is that society makes it shameful to be bare. If some generations from now that people can just shrug and not care, that is one less tool an abuser can use against people.

In any case, I am of the mind that people of my generation might be doing their own version of the Satanic Panic, or the reaction against rap music. For better or worse, older people cannot relate to the younger.

Deepfakes might end up being the modern version of a bikini. In the olden days, people wore these to the beach. Having less was scandalous and moral decay. Yet, now we wear much less.

Our grandchildren might simply not give a damn about their nudity, because it is assumed that everyone is deepfaking everyone.

System Shock 2, one of the best horror game FPSes from the 90’s. If you liked the first two Thief games, it was made by the developers of them. Immersive simulations like Bioshock, STALKER, and Prey 2016 were inspired by this particular game. The remaster of SS2 is to be released on the 26th.

😄

System Shock 2 - 25th Anniversary Remaster

Personally, I think they resemble Xerxes.

Being an open source program, the Blue States can modify it for their own taxation apparatus. The money intended for the Federal can be held in escrow, then released into service of the states if the Federal doesn’t negotiate with the Blue States in good faith.