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The US can end any of its trillion dollar companies overnight. Ask anthropic how much they were looking forward to being on the receiving end of the orange gibb

by vkou 6mo ago

The US can end any of its trillion dollar companies overnight. Ask anthropic how much they were looking forward to being on the receiving end of the orange gibbon's ire.

lenerdenator 6mo ago
That's pretty much everywhere, especially China. If you have ambitions that are contrary to that of the Party, well, they're going to get what they want, one way or another. It doesn't matter if you don't want to deal your AI to the military or if you'd rather not sell your home so that a highway can be built over the lot.
- vkou 6mo ago
  Some countries have stronger rule of law protections and social customs that enforce them, but the US has been on a speed run to dismantle all of them in the past year.
  - _DeadFred_ 6mo ago
    I think we've just been on a speed run to refresh our collective memory why we do things/have the systems we have/the rules/laws we have. I am hopeful it will cause a civic improvement long term at the expense of a very high cost that was not worth it. But we've been on a long course of removing civics/western civ classes from school/requirements so this is the alternative, to relive the reasons for why we do things the way we do.
    - mindslight 6mo ago
      Even when we "refresh our memory", all of the longstanding problems that led to the blind destructive anger are still going to exist. So at best we will have refreshed our memory to a state of conservatism [0] where we just accept all of those problems as not too bad. Plus honestly do you think the people that voted for (and continue to support!) Trump really value intellectual honesty or have any kind of memory? Four years is all it took for them to "forget" what a disaster his first term was. The only things I see coming down the line are more rationalization and scapegoating. [0] actual conservatism, not the dishonest use of the label by reactionaries/fascists to cover for their radical agenda
  - lenerdenator 6mo ago
    > Some countries have stronger rule of law protections and social customs that enforce them Do they? Ultimately, what you see in China is the dream of well-capitalized authoritarians in the US. You have a near-permanent upper class that has no real political opposition that could impact their value creation ambitions. If you want to open a factory that makes electronics where people work 18 hours a day, you do it. If you want to open a rare-earth minerals mine that lets its tailings leech into the water table, you do it. If you want to launch a rocket fueled with hypergolics and it could crash onto a populated area, you do it. If a group of people get in your way, you arrest them and send them off to a re-education camp. They certainly aren't allowed to run for office and change how things are run, not unless they pass the ideological litmus test put in place by the local Party boss. More and more, that's what we're doing here in the US, too. We're making people work insane hours to afford the cost of living. We're undoing environmental protections so that we're more "competitive". And most importantly, we're letting a strongman move the country more and more towards a single-party state that enforces a social and ethnic hegemony on the population. And, to be fair, why wouldn't they want this for themselves? The headline says it all: people will look the other way on all of this for the right price. A European will talk about how important it is for the continent to decouple itself from the US while gladly shipping thousands of euros to a country that is the logical conclusion of what the US is going through.
    - mrexcess 6mo ago
      > You have a near-permanent upper class that has no real political opposition that could impact their value creation ambitions. Sorry, what? China regularly prosecutes billionaires. Between 2003 and the mid 2010s it EXECUTED at least 15 billionaires. When was the last time a US billionaire faced a death penalty case, even when their actions directly result in tens of thousands of innocents dying? Isn’t the US much more aligned with the dreams of the capital class, given that distinction alone? All the money in the world won’t save a Chinese citizen from their laws. Meanwhile, we have the President’s family selling crypto coins and NFTs and Trump Gold Cards and “produced by USA” Trump phones made in China.
      - lenerdenator 6mo ago

by vkou 6mo ago

The US can end any of its trillion dollar companies overnight. Ask anthropic how much they were looking forward to being on the receiving end of the orange gibbon's ire.

lenerdenator 6mo ago

That's pretty much everywhere, especially China. If you have ambitions that are contrary to that of the Party, well, they're going to get what they want, one way or another. It doesn't matter if you don't want to deal your AI to the military or if you'd rather not sell your home so that a highway can be built over the lot.

vkou 6mo ago
Some countries have stronger rule of law protections and social customs that enforce them, but the US has been on a speed run to dismantle all of them in the past year.
- _DeadFred_ 6mo ago
  I think we've just been on a speed run to refresh our collective memory why we do things/have the systems we have/the rules/laws we have. I am hopeful it will cause a civic improvement long term at the expense of a very high cost that was not worth it. But we've been on a long course of removing civics/western civ classes from school/requirements so this is the alternative, to relive the reasons for why we do things the way we do.
  - mindslight 6mo ago
    Even when we "refresh our memory", all of the longstanding problems that led to the blind destructive anger are still going to exist. So at best we will have refreshed our memory to a state of conservatism [0] where we just accept all of those problems as not too bad. Plus honestly do you think the people that voted for (and continue to support!) Trump really value intellectual honesty or have any kind of memory? Four years is all it took for them to "forget" what a disaster his first term was. The only things I see coming down the line are more rationalization and scapegoating. [0] actual conservatism, not the dishonest use of the label by reactionaries/fascists to cover for their radical agenda
- lenerdenator 6mo ago
  > Some countries have stronger rule of law protections and social customs that enforce them Do they? Ultimately, what you see in China is the dream of well-capitalized authoritarians in the US. You have a near-permanent upper class that has no real political opposition that could impact their value creation ambitions. If you want to open a factory that makes electronics where people work 18 hours a day, you do it. If you want to open a rare-earth minerals mine that lets its tailings leech into the water table, you do it. If you want to launch a rocket fueled with hypergolics and it could crash onto a populated area, you do it. If a group of people get in your way, you arrest them and send them off to a re-education camp. They certainly aren't allowed to run for office and change how things are run, not unless they pass the ideological litmus test put in place by the local Party boss. More and more, that's what we're doing here in the US, too. We're making people work insane hours to afford the cost of living. We're undoing environmental protections so that we're more "competitive". And most importantly, we're letting a strongman move the country more and more towards a single-party state that enforces a social and ethnic hegemony on the population. And, to be fair, why wouldn't they want this for themselves? The headline says it all: people will look the other way on all of this for the right price. A European will talk about how important it is for the continent to decouple itself from the US while gladly shipping thousands of euros to a country that is the logical conclusion of what the US is going through.
  - mrexcess 6mo ago
    > You have a near-permanent upper class that has no real political opposition that could impact their value creation ambitions. Sorry, what? China regularly prosecutes billionaires. Between 2003 and the mid 2010s it EXECUTED at least 15 billionaires. When was the last time a US billionaire faced a death penalty case, even when their actions directly result in tens of thousands of innocents dying? Isn’t the US much more aligned with the dreams of the capital class, given that distinction alone? All the money in the world won’t save a Chinese citizen from their laws. Meanwhile, we have the President’s family selling crypto coins and NFTs and Trump Gold Cards and “produced by USA” Trump phones made in China.
    - lenerdenator 6mo ago