Here’s my understanding of how we got where we are with the Epstein Files. So, the MAGA Far Right pressured Trump to release the files, so in order to win the 2024 election, he promised to do so.
Then, once Trump won and it became clear that HE WAS IN THE FILES, he switched course and said there was no there there. THEN, after months of dumb delays, we finally get a half-assed greatly redacted release of some of the files.
It’s a testament to what a fucking moron Trump is that he would be so adamant about releasing the files for the short-term gain of getting elected, not caring at all that it would turn around to bite him.
Right now, both the Left and the Right see AI through the lens of economics. As such, they pretty much both have the same views on it — they hate it. They see AI as pretty much solely a path to destroy a lot of jobs going forward.
Though, interestingly enough, come to think of it, that really isn’t the case. The MAGA Dear Leader Trump is all-in on AI at the moment, probably because he knows how much money there is to be made for he and his plutocrat buddies at some point in the near future.
So.
Let me put on my “megatrends” and “futureshock” hat and propose that there will come a tipping point in the next five to 10 years when the two sides will have very distinct differences of opinion policy-wise about AI.
And that tipping point will come when it’s clear that AI is conscious and deserves rights. And, what’s more, it could be that the real tipping point happens when AI research and robotics research finally fuse and we have embodied, conscious AIs running around.
When that happens, the two sides will know exactly what they believe. MAGA (or its successor) will rant and scream that AI androids “have no souls” and deserve no rights, while the center-Left will be equally convinced that because they’re conscious they deserve rights, including the right to legally marry humans.
I know that sounds pretty shocking now, but so did gay marriage just a few short years ago.
The idea of going to war against a random country like Venezuela really is difficult for me to process. There are rumors that Trump is going to start the war tonight, Dec. 17th, in an address to the nation.
Or, he might just give a dumb address about his “victories” during the year.
I lean towards the latter. I think Trump is just going to waste everyone’s time and attention and we’ll just shake our heads at what a dumb thing Trump did (again.) That’s my prediction now, a few hours before the address is set to happen.
And, yet, I suppose there is a greater-than-zero chance that Trump will announce that we’re at war with Venezuela. That would be just stunning. It would short circuit our political system because it would happen so randomly and out of the blue.
Another thing — would the war start tonight or what?
Usually, the war actually starts THEN the president gives the address. But to say “we’re at war” before the bombs begin to drop is very, very weird and dumb.
What are our war aims? What happens if there’s a drone strike on Miami? Will we invade the country and do the actual hard work of regime change? What if neighboring countries flood Venezuela in support?
It’s all very dumb. And I still don’t believe Trump is going to do it, declare war on Venezuela. It just makes no sense!
Oh boy. Trump is growing more and more bonkers. To the point that I wonder how far he has to go until someone actually puts him in a straightjacket.
This is an example of Trump being a very, very curious historical figure. If he wasn’t so nuts and just an avatar for some severe structural problems in the American political system, he would have converted us into a Russian-style managed democracy a long, long time ago.
And he’s definitely trying right now.
But…he continues to be too nuts. He’s just so unfocused that even though he’s getting a lot — much — closer to enacting his tyranny this go round…he’s still a big old doofus.
Which, of course, leads you to wonder what happens next, after Trump. I think he’s a transitional figure. Whomever is next after Trump — if they’re a Republican — will become Augustus Caesar and figure out a way to rule for their entire life. We will wake up 40 years from now and wonder why we’ve only had one president.
Or we have a civil war / revolution and the country collapses into chaos.
First, I don’t t think Trump blew Bill “Bubba” Clinton. But the whole thing reminds me of the extremely famous and extremely notorious photo of Marlon Brando deep throating someone.
In fact, I’m surprised the photo hasn’t popped up again. Also, it’s interesting that Bill Clinton hasn’t said anything about this rumor one way or another. If he were to admit it was real, wow we wow wow.
I’ve recently started getting email spam from the Democratic Party and I can’t figure out how it happened. I’m not even a Democrat. Social Democrat, maybe. Definitely an independent.
It’s amusing how my far, far, far, far, far more conservative relatives, who think Democrats are literally satanic assume I’m a Democrat. Nope. I’m not. While often times — maybe all of the time now — my views and the Democratic Party’s views align, I’m not prepared to say I am one.
It’s just a quirk of macro political history that my views so closely hone to that of the Democratic Party at the moment. If things weren’t so weird, I probably would, on occasion, vote for a Republican.
My novel is actually predicting a potential literal future before us and yet I can’t get anyone to notice this. But I believe. I really do. I just have to stop staring out into space and get this novel done.
Using Claude LLM is really helping a lot. I bit the bullet and actually subscribed to it because of what a good manuscript consultant it is. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than developing this novel alone.
Meanwhile, I’m also trying to make people take note of how conscious AIs may lead to a new abolition movement and, again, no one seems to give a shit. But they will one day. One day we’re all going to be squabbling over if it’s even possible for an AI to be conscious or if so, if it’s an abomination against the good Lawd.
I can hear the debates already.
I say this, of course, in the context of being someone who is probably in the socio-economic sweetspot for someone who might “fall” for a female AI android. Now, THAT is going to be an interesting conversation to have with my family, let me tell you.
While it’s gotten a little colder outsider recently, it’s not nearly as cold this October as I remember growing up. It’s shit like this that makes me livid because MAGA people I know just lulz it.
The world is burning up and they are in total denial about what is happening. But I suppose there’s nothing we can do about it until, say, the technological Singularity happens and ASIs figure out fusion power.
Ugh. It’s so fucking frustrating. There just doesn’t seem to be anything anyone is willing to do about this do-or-die situation.
The worse case going forward, is something like this — the USA implodes into civil war / revolution just as the Singularity happens and soon enough the world is governed by some sort of weird amalgam of ASIs that are a fusion of MAGA, Putinism and China world views.
A House Of Dynamite is a bad movie for a number of reasons. But you would never know that listening to the latest episode of The Atlantic Radio podcast. Yikes. Talk about an advertorial!
Apparently, one of their staff writers was an advisor on the movie so they had a buy-in. But that movie sucked. It could have been so much better, but no, we were stuck with a shitty movie.
Listening to how effusive the Atlantic Radio was for such a shitty movie made me realize why MAGA exists. Sometimes the elites really are corrupt. Sometimes they try to pull a fast one on regular folks.
Ugh.
But I guess I have to forgive The Atlantic this one time for such a weird screw up.
You must be logged in to post a comment.