grafmax

6 ms·

31.
by grafmax 7mo ago
Our government is captured by oligarchs. I realize it's a democracy on paper..
32.
by grafmax 7mo ago
"Our" adversaries, huh? There are more people in our country than pedophile billionaires, but it's this group starting the wars, murdering civilians, and producing generations of "adversaries".
33.
by grafmax 7mo ago
I work on 1M LOC 15 yr old repo. Like you it's across the full stack. Bugs in certain pieces of complex business logic would have catastrophic consequences for my employer. Basically I peel poorly-specific work items off my queue int
34.
by grafmax 7mo ago
A person has a supervision budget. They can supervise one agent in a hands-on way or many mostly-hands-off agents. Even though theres some thrashing assistants still get farther as a team than a single micromanaged agent. At least that’s my
35.
by grafmax 7mo ago
Capital is a commodity, just like a business' product. It does not produce value. Labor does. This is a central point of LTV! We witnessed the same thing with looms and other automation in the Industrial Revolution. Capital that helps
36.
by grafmax 9mo ago
Prices should be transparent, yes. But supply and demand isnt going to take down an oligopoly.
37.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Even if it is worthless, it will still be used for these things - because of the sense of confidence it instills in the kinds of people undertaking these sorts of activities.
38.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Many things are missing from this picture. It uses mean not median income, which would do a better job of telling how widespread the increase is. It uses a basic inflation adjustment which doesn’t differentiate between luxury goods and serv
39.
by grafmax 10mo ago
American tech companies have already built an apparatus of mass surveillance that works hand in glove with our government to violate our constitutional rights on a regular basis. But it turns out that an economy based on rent extraction an
40.
by grafmax 10mo ago
The question isn’t the jobs created but how have workers benefited from increased productivity? They haven’t materially since late 1970s. That’s when the American labor movement began its decline. Innovation isn’t what helps workers. The ga
41.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Right we had a functioning labor movement to thank for productivity gains being distributed to the working class. When that got undermined beginning late seventies early 80s with offshoring we see wealth just flowing to the top without sign
42.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Venezuela participates in a small portion of the illegal drug trade. US government officials have stated that they want Venezuela’s oil reserves. This is a transparent excuse for an oil grab.
43.
by grafmax 10mo ago
So-called property rights are a legal construction that protects the wealth of the wealthy from the working class utilizing the justice system to maintain the domination of the wealthy over the working class, classifying expropriations of t
44.
by grafmax 10mo ago
That’s an argument made about training the initial model. But the comment stated that DeepSeek stole its research from the US which is a much stronger allegation without any evidence to it.
45.
by grafmax 10mo ago
No you need a state to enforce the property rights of capitalists over workers. Nor are people all “free” under capitalism - for example the ability to start a business is predicated on assets to fund the business. Capitalist freedoms is
46.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Markets are a place where buyers and sellers come together and exchange money for goods and services. Markets exploit. Example: the labor market; individuals are forced among unfavorable options to work for the enrichment of business owners
47.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Capitalism is a system where workers create value through their work and are compensated with a portion of that value in the forms of wages. The business owner, the capitalist, is able to extract a portion of that for themselves because the
48.
by grafmax 10mo ago
I guess see a “free market” as a contradiction, a utopia that even if it existed for a moment would promptly undo itself. As for capitalism - capture of the state by monied interests has always been a central feature.
49.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Inequality has always existed to some degree, sure, but that’s a shallow platitude. Markets have give us levels not seen since the Pharaohs. No the existence of any inequality doesn’t justify the insane levels we see today. And blaming NIMB
50.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Markets are the expression of an unfree society because they concentrate power in the hands of the few. Those with more money benefit by exploiting those with less - exploiting workers on the one hand and consumers on the other (through ren
51.
by grafmax 10mo ago
No, my point is the root cause is wealth inequality, which is fundamentally undemocratic, and a different issue than free speech. The solution is wealth expropriation, not censorship.
52.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Money is power. Markets produce wealth inequality. The richest use their money to buy influence and write the rules. Fundamentally a “regulated market” is an unstable system that eats itself, a fiction.
53.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Your voice being heard is one thing. What we have here is the consequence of huge wealth disparities. Those with the money can influence the “democratic” process in outsized ways. That is the opposite of democratic.
54.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Yeah it does seem there’s some confusion. Here is the similar proposal referencing Israel from earlier this year (perhaps a source of some of the confusion): https://collaborate.unpri.org/group/35681/home
55.
by grafmax 10mo ago
It’s more akin to an arms manufacturer knowingly supplying a genocidal regime. As for targeting Palantir instead , boycott, divestment, and sanctions is most effective when it targets all the complicit players.
56.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Where moral superiority means condemning genocide.
57.
by grafmax 10mo ago
Tried and true Silicon Valley strategy: burn VC money to build a moat, wait until switching costs are high enough, and then enshittify the product to extract rent. Dont forget to call it progress.
58.
by grafmax 10mo ago
I didn’t say it’s a small forum but a small financial contribution - to one book. This is the totality of actual evidence you have of Mearsheimer, Chomsky, and Sachs being Russian propagandists. Your argument is paper-thin. Criticizing Amer
59.
by grafmax 10mo ago
> They are Russian propaganda, Mearsheimer most notably. His books are financed by the Russian government. The closest thing I could find about this was that in one of his books he acknowledges partial financing of this one book from a s
60.
by grafmax 11mo ago
First off, what I stated is a view held by reputable scholars such as Noam Chomsky, Jeffrey Sachs, and John Mearsheimer, not just a view you (also) can find in Russian propaganda. Second my point is understanding the Russian POV, regardle

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