mcv

joined 3 months ago
[–] mcv@lemm.ee 12 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Or is xAI paying for access to Telegram conversations to train Grok?

[–] mcv@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago

Over 60?! Can we please classify Friendica as over 50? I feel old enough as it is.

[–] mcv@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago

Same with people complaining that Star Wars or Star Trek is too woke or too liberal. When was it ever not?

People turn fascist only to discover that that's exactly what all their favourite art always opposed.

[–] mcv@lemm.ee 10 points 1 month ago

That's going to cost them votes in the long run, if their base can't reproduce.

[–] mcv@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago

It's worth remembering that there was a time when the highest US tax bracket was taxed at 90%, and that didn't stop the US's longest period of sustained economic growth.

Ridiculously high tax rates for ridiculously high incomes have been done before and are entirely feasible.

[–] mcv@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There are a few exceptions. JK Rowlings became a billionaire simply by writing some really popular books, and even stopped being a billionaire by giving much of her wealth away. As far as I can tell, she didn't become an asshole until later.

[–] mcv@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

I'm willing to say more positive things about him. His dedication to Linux is great of course, but I've also heard that people working for him get a lot of freedom to choose what to work on. And no crunch. In the games industry, that's pretty good.

So yeah, he seems to me to be one of the better among the tech billionaires. But in the end, he's still a billionaire, and he's god that ridiculous fleet of super yachts.

[–] mcv@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There was a time the same was true for Elon Musk, before he suddenly decided to jump the queue. I really hope Gabe isn't going down that path.

[–] mcv@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

The parliaments don't, and they don't have the loyalty to the security apparatus that US Congress has.

Either way, this is a distinct and important difference between the US and the EU, and a frequent point of disagreement in treaties and discussions between the two. It's silly to claim they're the same on this.

[–] mcv@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

We all thought Germany had learned from that history, but apparently they didn't learn the correct lesson.

[–] mcv@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Not "the EU", but one particular group in the EU. This sort of thing pops up every couple of years, and unlike in the US, it always gets shot down. The current law says the exact opposite.

[–] mcv@lemm.ee 12 points 1 month ago

And he'd be right to, if the alternative is MAGA.

But this is the buf problem un US politics. Of course you should vote against Trump, and of course even the most questionable Democrat is preferable to Trump. But with only two options, that seems to have lead the Democrats to think they don't even have to try anymore. They keep drifting further to the right, instead of running a credible opposition.

The US desperately needs more options, but the system is rigged to allow only two credible parties. To change, there are only two options: seize control of the Democratic Party, primary every lackluster candidate, until the DNC can't ignore that people demand better. Or start a new grassroots party, but it would have to be universally seen as the only way to get change, it needs to be massively funded to take on the machines of the other two parties, and convince the American voter that they really can win in this system that's rigged against the people.

Primarying is certainly the more likely option, but you need to do it everywhere.

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