Although Facebook's facial recognition software has identified and archived more than a billion user faces, its latest incarnation - Meta - has announced that it will stop automatically tagging people's faces in uploaded photos and videos, and will delete the data it has gathered - although users can continue to manually tag friends in their photos. Yet... Meta will continue working on facial recognition systems for future purposes, as in its upcoming smart glasses or augmented reality.
I reiterate: No amount of screaming will stop this tide from coming in. Your phone and doorbell and digital assistant will recognize faces and if you ban the tech, all it will do is give a monopoly on such systems to secret elites. Instead of trying futilely to ban technologies of light, we must focus on preventing the harms. And the way to do that is with light.
Another example? Surveilling students: Big Teacher is Watching: How AI Spyware took over schools: Especially in the wake of online learning during the pandemic quarantine, a web app called GoGuardian increasingly tracks what students do online, not just at school, but at home as well: "For kids that means their every keystroke, click and search is recorded and analyzed..." Educators can view students' web search histories, know if a kid is playing a video game, watching Netflix or Youtube - or especially viewing porn. Some programs also monitor for potential signs of emotional distress among the students. Many of these machine learning algorithms process nearly everything that students do online, even outside of school hours, and some of these companies sell student data.
And again, if you focus on accountability that might prevent harms, then you may do some good. Banning this simply won't happen.
The latest controversial weapon against theft: What happens when individuals use bluetooth tracking technology - such as Apple's AirTag - to track down stolen items, such as gaming systems, laptops, bicycles, scooters... and, especially cars? Such products are "testing the limits of how far people will go to get back their stolen property and what they consider justice."
== Increased powers of vision ==
See: “From Macy’s to Ace Hardware, facial recognition is already everywhere: Facial recognition is popping up at our favorite stores, but customers are largely unaware.” And whatever is loose in the commercial world, you can be sure elites of all kinds – bad and good – have got it.
The latest: a winged microchip the size of a grain of sand - swarms spread by the wind could be used to monitor the environment - or for civilian surveillance.
It's called Brin's Corrollary to Moore's Law: The cameras get smaller, faster, better, cheaper, more moble and vastly more numerous at a far greater pace than Moore's Law. This has huge implications, by the way, regarding so-called UFOs. But ever more (or moore) so, it means we all will be seen. But sousveillance could make a world where we catch any snoops and watchers and effectively shout "MYOB!" (Mind your own business.)
And it goes on. Take this headline from The Guardian: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance.
On and on, it’s always the same. Our paladins and pundit defenders of freedom and privacy point at event after event that appear to portend a loss of both… and they are utterly correct to fretfully worry about looming technologies of surveillance, which could genuinely lead to the control-by-telescreen that Orwell chillingly portrayed! Yes, technologies like those Snowden revealed, or the latest “Pegasus” Israeli spy program that allowed agencies around the world to listen in on iPhones, or Moscow promulgated ransomware, or ubiquitous, unmonitored state face-recognition, could very well be part of the path to that hellscape…
...though I think the “social credit” systems established by some authoritarian regimes are even more insidious and dangerous, siccing neighbors upon neighbors.
To those pointing at technologies and surveillance and shouting warnings, I say "yes! That could lead to Big Brother, so what's the plan?" To those who cry: "Ban it!" I always answer. “Um, how? Show me a moment in human history when elites have let themselves be blinded. Or when “Don’t look!” privacy laws did anything but (as Heinlein put it) Make the Spy Bugs Smaller.
Across 30 years denouncing and trying to ban technologies of vision - including face recognition - are there any such technologies that your shadow-seeking tactic ever stymied for long?
== A simple test ==
Again and again I have assigned the same experiment. Go to the nearest zoo's baboon enclosure. Climb inside with a pointed stick. Go right up to the biggest alpha baboon and stab out his eyes so he can't look at you!
Here's a clue. He... won't... let... you.
He will, on the other hand, grudgingly allow you to look back at him.
The same is true of all animals, let alone the alpha elites we hire to protect us. Any power of vision we try to deny them will instantly become the locus of paranoia and a desperate (and sometimes justified) felt need to bypass restrictions on their ability to see. All you are doing is driving any Good Guy elites into criminality.
On the other hand, the last 250 years shows that we can seize and hold some powers of supervision and transparency and apply then to elites, the innovation responsible for all our current freedom and - yes - privacy.
Imperfectly? Then make that the focus of our activism! And yes, there are dozens of ways to do that in The Transparent Society.
I say this not out of complacency. I fear Big Brother more than almost any of you do! And that is why my prescriptions are less about raging futilely at the next example of elite spying and the next, and the next forever…
... and more based upon things that have actually worked at creating this rare island of relative freedom and privacy across humanity’s dismal history.
Yet, still, they reflexively rail against light (the only tool that ever preserved freedom), calling for bans on things that cannot be banned, succeeding only in clouding the vision of those elites who are on our side, while empowering those bent on re-establishing 6000 years of feudalism.
Finally....
A talk I gave for the Foresight Institute on transparency, reciprocal accountability and pyramidal vs diamond-shaped societies is well-summarized here.
And, here's an interesting article from Edge re: "reciprocity altruism" and prisoner's dilemma.
54 comments:
(spill over from last thread)
Larry,
Now, how can we envision a setup such that there can't be any such thing as a wayward corporation?
Such a world requires humans who NEVER envision moving their corporation to become wayward.
Asimov's robots were general intelligences limited by a design.
Corporations are associations of humans inclined to become wayward if it suits them. (selfish genes I supposed)
So… a world where your Laws of Corporatics work doesn't have humans in it. Not as we know them.
That's how I see it.
That's the root of my opposition.
I'm a human and like the way I am.
We are Human and I like that.
matthew,
I do not buy your argument above that "it's always been this way" is a good enough excuse to…
I'm not making that argument. I'd actually side with you pointing out that we 'always' had kings and many of us do just fine without them. Well… we didn't ALWAYS have them, but you get the point.
…it is not "learned helplessness" to say that billionaire oligarchs control our political and economic system…
It is. They control nothing without henchmen which your neighbors become when persuaded. A dollar controls nothing. It persuades others to help assemble into groups large enough to dominate. A dollar isn't the problem anymore than a gun is. The problem is what our neighbors are willing to do for them.
The raw truth is you aren't as persuasive as an insatiable guy will a billion dollars. Neither am I. So what are we to do about it? Hmm? Take the dollars? You'll have to persuade people that's a good idea. Hmm.
No one has control. Not you. Not me. Not them.
We persuade.
We are most persuasive when we believe we are.
We absolutely suck at it when we believe we aren't.
That's the cosmic tragedy in learned helplessness. We defeat ourselves.
So, pick up your battle-axe and persuade people. It's not like you don't have the energy for battle.
What I'm curiously watching with 'Big teacher' is the interaction between what the school learns and required reporting mandates. When a kid shows up to school in my neighborhood with unexplained bruises, the school is REQUIRED to report what they observe to authorities obligated to protect children.
There is nothing quite like it when one of the agencies receiving that information schedules 'interactions' that cause parents to learn what they did not know was happening.
No doubt there is a business opportunity in establishing training materials and running classes teaching all this. The lawyers dealing with related lawsuits are going to mandate a lot of this within the school districts as a self-defense measure.
I forget which novel it was in, but in one Heinlein's novels his viewpoint character stated that if cameras and audio bugs are outlawed, it means the Powers That Be have made theirs harder to find.
David is correct: it’s wasted motion to attempt to thwart elitist opaqueness.
On Earth there might always be elites, although one can try—with very limited success—to do something about it. Off Earth? That’s a different ball game. Say Mars in colonized eventually, by advanced beings—then ‘elitism’ could have no meaning, or might have a more positive meaning. And with interplanetary communications, what happens on Mars could well influence what happens on Earth and vice versa.
I don't know where Alan Brooks gets: "David is correct: it’s wasted motion to attempt to thwart elitist opaqueness." That is the diametric opposite to what I say.
Apology, David: was typing too fast and thinking too slowly. Also, projecting. But projecting means I really do think that attempting to thwart powerful people meets with only very limited success.
Obviously, reactiveness is one factor, as well as the willpower of the powerful. Lesser known is perhaps the ability of the powerful to buy people out.
Happens all the time.
Yet though I think the situation is bad, it is not hopeless, not until the fat lady sings and the curtain comes down.
My theory is we will have to wait and Try, albeit futilely, until the guard changes. That is, until the Trumps, Putin’s, and Xis, moguls, mobsters, etc, etc, die or retire. Probably the former.
I hope to be pleasantly surprised; unfortunately (for us) everything indicates that people do not relinquish their power until they die, retire, or once-in-awhile have an epiphany and mend their power-grasping ways.
Dr Brin:
I don't know where Alan Brooks gets: "David is correct: it’s wasted motion to attempt to thwart elitist opaqueness." That is the diametric opposite to what I say.
That sentence was straight out of the locumranch playbook.
Alfred Differ:
Asimov's robots were general intelligences limited by a design.
Corporations are associations of humans inclined to become wayward if it suits them. (selfish genes I supposed)
Of course, all analogies are somewhat imperfect. You perceive me erring too much on the side of corporations as tools. But I also see you erring too much on the side of "corporations are people (, my friend)". A corporation is not just an assemblage of humans. It involves carve outs in the legal system which define the rights and responsibilities of the corporation to the surrounding society and those of the surrounding society to the corporation.
You and your associates can associate for any (presumably legal) purpose that you wish, but why should society grant your association special rights and privileges and powers which ordinary humans don't enjoy individually? That's what I'm talking about with respect to the chartering of corporations. I see the benefits of incorporation (and the externalities that the surrounding society absorbs) as value extended to the incorporated entity. And why should society grant those benefits except in return for some benefit that the corporation produces for society?
So assemble all you want for any reason. No one is stopping you. But in order for that assembly to receive preferential treatment from society, we ask that you provide commensurate value to society in return. My Second Law is that that agreement is "in writing". That you can't violate that agreement and remain a state-chartered corporation with all that that entails. That's the closest I can envision so far to a mechanism by which there can be no (state-chartered) wayward corporations.
reprising:
Asimov's robots were general intelligences limited by a design.
Y'know, I think we read too much 21st century thinking into Asimov's early stories. I don't think his robots were originally written as autonomous beings with their own motivations and feelings which are thwarted the the Three Laws. Rather, I think robots were more analogous to Alexia. You say "Alexia, turn on the lights," or "Alexia, play WCPT," and it does what you command. That's not an oppressive limitation on a sentient being--it's how the system is designed to work. You don't punish Alexia to bend her to your will when she disobeys your commands--that whole concept is nonsensical.
Robots didn't have joysticks or steering wheels or other complicated methods for directing their actions. Commands were the entire mechanism for having robots do anything. The Second Law is just an English language way of saying that.
Alfred Differ:
A dollar isn't the problem anymore than a gun is. The problem is what our neighbors are willing to do for them.
I'm not sure that came out the way you intended. I think your point is that the gun or the dollar can be used for good as well as for evil. But it is also the case that a gun is most certainly a problem when someone is willing to do evil with it--because it makes it so much easier to do that evil. A psychopath can kill without firearms, but he can do so much more damage so much easier with an automatic weapon than he can with a club or a knife or his bare hands.
The problem isn't just what someone is willing to do with a tool, but what someone is able to do with it.
In that case, a dollar (or a collection of dollars) can indeed be a dangerous weapon, persuading or inducing our neighbors into doing things in a way that other methods of persuasion might not. So your sentence above is correct, but in practically the opposite way of what you meant by it.
Comedian John Fugelsang on Stephanie Miller's show:
Joe Manchin is the worst American president since Putin.
Alan no one ever said that establishing reciprocal transparency and accountability on elites was ease. 99% of our ancestors suffered under cheaters who rigged their feudal systems. It’s not a matter of whether you’ll be pleasantly surprised when the Putin-mafia-mob fades. It’s a question of how hard you and the rest of us fight for the Enlightenment.
After this last tornado, it looks like another libertarian motto is "Dulce et decorum est pro capitalismo mori."
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2021/Senate/Maps/Dec17.html#item-5
...
If any or all of the trio is shown to have committed fraud on behalf of the former president, it won't be the first time a Trump supporter has gotten popped. Donald Kirk Hartle, of Nevada, voted for Trump in his own right, and also on behalf of his deceased wife. Edward Snodgrass, of Ohio, cast ballots for Trump for himself, and also for his dying-but-not-dead father. Bruce Bartman, Richard Lynn, and Ralph Thurman, all of Pennsylvania, followed suit, excepting that the former two voted for Trump on behalf of their dead mothers (shades of Psycho), while the latter voted on behalf of his (living) son. Thurman also cost Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-TX) $25,000, as Patrick was compelled to pay out the $25,000 he'd promised to anyone who could prove a case of voter fraud (the Lieutenant Governor forgot to exclude cases where a Democrat could prove voter fraud against a Republican).
The E-V.com Schadenfreude Department (the Editor for Schadenfreudal Matters, Associate Editor for Schadenfreudal Matters, and Legal Counsel for Schadenfreudal Matters) likes it when people behave hypocritically and get caught red-handed. It's even better, however, when they also serve as the exceptions that prove the rule: Voter fraud is very rare and, when it does happen, it's almost always detected and punished. And it's Republicans doing it.
David, agreed;
realized after January 6 how there’s no alternative to fighting. So why am I cynical? Growing up in the NYC area, mobsters were familiar; their methods became familiar: they buy people with money and swag. And that’s general, all the way up to Putin, Trump, and Xi.
But I’ll fight even if there’s no success resulting.
Big Brother isn’t a likely outcome—however Big Capo is more than likely.
David is correct: it’s wasted motion to attempt to thwart elitist opaqueness. On Earth there might always be elites, although one can try—with very limited success—to do something about it. Off Earth? That’s a different ball game. Say Mars in colonized eventually, by advanced beings—then ‘elitism’ could have no meaning, or might have a more positive meaning.
Who are these “advanced beings” you speak of? You think all our problems won’t follow us to Mars, or Ceti Alpha Five, or Tatooine? Hilarious.
My theory is we will have to wait and Try, albeit futilely, until the guard changes. That is, until the Trumps, Putin’s, and Xis, moguls, mobsters, etc, etc, die or retire.
When they die or retire, they will be replaced by new Trumps, Putins, Xis, moguls and mobsters. What planet are you living on dude?
I am perplexed by our host’s fatalism on this one issue though. If we can transform men into women, win the wars on poverty, drugs and terrorism, abolish inequality, end viruses, defeat death, escape gravity and overcome every other age-old problem with enough technology, laws, social engineering and good intentions, surely we can stop elites from spying on us. As indeed we must. Do you want us to return to the 6000 years of darkness, when only a few crazy elites thought they were gods and not everyone?
Actually, Treebeard's raving snark here was rather on-target, this time. More proof that he is NOT locumranch, who shoots at zones of horizon where no one stands. On-target as a howl of crit that - indeed - utopians need, from time to time, to remind us that we could easily slip into modes that Treebeard denounces.
By comparison Alan... inarguably a vastly better person... is all-wrong. The Enlightenment Experiment has been VASTLY successful at moderating the evils of 6000 years of oligarchic cheating. It's successes are THE reason the world mafia-oligarchy is swarming in right now. And that fact that Alan cannot peer myopically at those 6000 years for perspective is one of our greatest problems.
Relevant to this post topic: Ryan J. Reilly reports on the self-organized and spontaneous crowdsourcing of 1/6 rioters. The abilities of citizen investigators have outstripped the overwhelmed professionals.
This doesn't zap the organizers, who of course were nowhere near the front line; that is what the 1/6 Commission is going to have to work on. But even before that, our fellow citizens volunteering in the cause of transparent justice gives me hope.
In re Larry's quote: Voter fraud is very rare and, when it does happen, it's almost always detected and punished. And it's Republicans doing it.
Republicans are outnumbered. Therefore they have, on average, more incentive to cheat. It's really that simple. To sound plausible, the conceit-meme that Democrats need to systematically cheat to win requires the prior conceit that confederate-aligned voters are a national, or at least state-by-state, majority. "We woulda wonif..."
I see parallels to, of all things, Putin's conquest of Crimea. His invasion was quick, clean, precise... and totally unnecessary for the stated aim of reintegrating Russian territory. Crimea was only ever Ukrainian for purposes of Soviet bureaucratic/propagandic convenience. Had Putin made his acquisition the 'proper' way, with a plebiscite of the territory, he would most likely have won, and any military moves after that would have had solid diplomatic cover. Vlad deliberately flouted the US/UK-crafted ruleset as a message to both Ukraine and the West as a whole; he cheated when he didn't need cheating to win, because his real actions were to insult and threaten.
Republican perfidy makes no sense as seen through the lens of pure democratic capability. The GOP, and indeed the public, have known the next permitted move in the political chess game since 2013: co-opt the newer, socially conservative, religiously Catholic, politically anti-leftist Hispanic citizens. They're getting some anyway via manipulation, but they could have swept the board and had a mostly-legit power base for a generation with a CDU/CSU-like coalition. But their instincts to keep cheating, powered by the confederate spirits haunting the elite and base alike, won out. They didn't need to cheat. They cheat because they want to, because they prefer cheating to the choices required to win fairly: relaxing nativism, absorbing new factions, and addressing a wider range of interests. They also prefer cheating because it makes oligarchic nepotism and corruption easier to maintain; but they hadn't let that urge consume their souls... until now.
On corporatics: Association isn't the cause of corporations' troubles. It's ownership and control, and opaqueness thereof. It's not the structure of corporations that would have to change (though I would advocate significant alterations to permitted and disallowed gambits, such as stock buy-backs). It's property law that has to change -- specifically, tying transparency of ownership and control to the enforcement of any contracts or rights regarding fixed or movable assets. You don't own anything unless everyone can easily see that ownership. I know OGH has made this argument in the past, but it ties into the Corporatics concept. To know if the corporation is acting according to its charter, it must not be able to hide what it is doing.
Mode 1: Ancient knowledge (esp. scripture) is the most sagacious.
Mode 2: Newer is better; shiny things are treasures.
Both modes are flights of anthropomorphism. The greatest benefit of AI is that it holds a mirror* up to our thick, vain faces. The same is true for science of course, but I'm on more solid ground talking about transistors. Improvement is demonstrably possible; Steven Pinker makes that argument very convincingly.
* mirrors are instruments of auto-transparency
Re- waiting for the Putins and Trumps to die
That may be more effective than it sounds - Putin (69) and Trump (75) and most of todays powerful people are all part of the lead poisoned generations
Lead poisoning as children has damaged/destroyed our "empathy" - we are less empathic - we care less about our fellow men/women
In our peak crime years we doubled the murder rate - today when we are "in charge"......
The following generations are smarter and better than were are/were
So, I have lately heard that the secret of the JFK assassination is that it's not even really a secret any more. The principals, now long dead, all told trusted friends, who spilled. Thom Hartmann details it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4GEHn3HeI8
The Conspiracy To Kill Kennedy Finally Exposed (w/ Lamar Waldron)
Apparently the engineers of the Kennedy assassination were three Mafia bosses, working with the CIA station chief in Miami, plus anti-Castro Cubans, one of whom turns up in the roster of Nixon's Watergate plumbers. The motives included John and Bobby's war on the Mafia (which owned Nixon and had blackmail goods on J. Edgar Hoover), and JFK's refusal to commit US forces to helping the Bay of Pig invasion. The Dulles brothers figure in this also, both as planners of the Bay of Pigs and of the Warren Commission cover-up.
It was Carlos Marcello, godfather of Louisiana and much of Texas; Santo Traficante, godfather of Tampa and most of Florida, with influence in Miami; and Johnny Roselli, acting for Sam Giancana in Vegas and Hollywood; all three were CIA assets. And there's a whole rat's nest of mid-and-low level CIA and Cubans out of Miami; plus patsies: Oswald was one. There were guys with a similar profile to Oswald in Chicago and Tampa who would have been patsies for assassination attempts by this conspiracy; he avoided death in Chicago (weeks before) and Tampa (four days) before Dallas.
The top of the CIA didn't know about this when it was happening, and covered it up for decades because it made the agency look so bad.
I mention this because the world mafia-oligarchy is not merely a figure of speech.
The Enlightenment Experiment has been vastly successful; but don’t know if such will continue as it has for 6,000 years. But will think on it and—yes—fight.
Again, seeing Goodfellas up-close in NYC made me cynical; however January 6th did serve as a prod to re-evaluate the cynicism—will stand corrected.
Treebeard is mistaken, though, in writing that when oligarchs die, they are always replaced by new oligarchs. Succeeding generations are NOT identical to the preceding.
Am not familiar with Treebeard, as up until now have skipped over his comments.
scidata I compare the Look Back zeitgeist that dominated most human societies to the relatively rare notion of Look Ahead... in VIVID TOMORROWS: Science Fiction and Hollywood - http://www.davidbrin.com/vividtomorrows.html
Duncan that is exactly why the world oligarch cabal knows they must act now, or never.
TCB - JFK conspiracies that involve EGGING Oswald to shoot make some sense. Those claiming him as a patsy are always just plain dumb.
BTW I just found out my father knew Jack Ruby in the 1930s!
the world mafia-oligarchy is not merely a figure of speech
I'm again reminded of John Brunner's Shockwave Rider, which has organized crime running the American government. Or at least people whose behaviour is indistinguishable from that of organized criminals.
Re: Look Ahead
Yes, I wasn't saying that Mode 2 is futurism, more that it is squirrel! -ism. If I'd known that VIVID TOMORROWS mentioned SILENT RUNNING (my all-time favourite film), I'd have been more attentive. Bruce Dern FTW. I named one of the first spaceships I ever designed "Valley Forge". (my brother and I had a running competition for years)
Had a tooth pulled today. almost all old mercury-silver amalgam. So... will I turn sane now?
Larry,
…but why should society grant your association special rights and privileges and powers which ordinary humans don't enjoy individually?
Ha! I'm not sure how you could set me up better for my line. Not sure I can deliver it with the punch it needs, but I'll give it a go.
Why do you think we need you to grant us anything?
Remember I see rights as claims. You may chose to tolerate them or not, recognize them or not, but you don't get to grant squat. [You can try of course, but I'll politely ignore it. The reason for that is I don't recognize your claim to a right to grant rights.]
I DO expect corporations to assert their intentions. I DO expect governments to charge reasonable fees for recording legal information about corporations so the public may retrieve it later. I DO expect governments to state fair rules about what an assembly must do in order to be considered a limited liability entity. I draw the line at licensing. I know many states do this right now, but I don't like it. We have things bass ackwards on that too. WE are the sovereigns… not them.
But in order for that assembly to receive preferential treatment from society, we ask that you provide commensurate value to society in return.
See? That's the part to which I object. Preferential treatment? How dare you? (my friend) It's no more preferential than marriage is. ALL humans engage in these behaviors.
Assembly must include economic assembly for the same reason speech must include politics.
———
I don't see Asimov's robots as beings thwarted from a human design either. They did as they did by design the same way a watch tells time. They were general intelligences in the sense of not being what we'd (today) call an expert system (paper clip maker). They were limited by a design because that was simply how they were made. Your watch won't row your boat down the stream either.
Corporations aren't like that. Not even close. I've started a couple (LLC and a regular C corp) and they ARE people assembled. They respond to legal stimuli, but so do people. Most people in them pay little attention to the legal framework, though. They do as people do when they surrender some of their rights in order to amplify the consequences of actions around which the assembly is focused. They aren't designed like a watch. They aren't commanded like a tool. It is much more accurate to say they are raised like children.
If you are looking for a science fiction analogy for a small corporation, think of V Vinge's Tine packs, but with less intelligence. Members of the pack come and go changing the personality of the assembly.
I'm not sure that came out the way you intended.
You might be surprised. I'm of the opinion that a billion dollars in the hand of a psychopath is more dangerous than an automatic weapon with large magazines. Even a spoon is dangerous in the hands of a psychopath, but I'd be more fearful of one with a billion spoons.
The point isn't that we can use a tool to do good or evil. The point is that we use tools to do good AND evil. Does destroying a tool stop evil? Yes and No since stopping good is probably an evil thing to do. We could destroy all our spoons and protect people from getting their eyes gouged out, but that would be dumb. So it is with eliminating billionaires by taking their spoons.
Money isn't any more dangerous than guns, but everything is in the hands of a sociopath. Intent matters more than ability if you want to preserve the good we can do with our tools. So… deal with the actual danger.
treebeard,
Do you want us to return to the 6000 years of darkness, when only a few crazy elites thought they were gods and not everyone?
Be careful. I might start taking a liking to you if you keep that up. 8)
Let your craziness out. We ARE all gods, but of the old variety that had to contend with others.
Catfish 'n Cod,
It's property law that has to change…
Agreed. Whether they are chartered or not, the system is currently rigged against transparency to hide control, incomes, and competition data. Some of that must be moved into the light.
Maybe they should take that tooth on tour, like they did with Laplace's brain. It may be responsible for some legendary sci-fi.
Re: Jack Ruby and your father
My grandfather, the WW2 machinist I've occasionally mentioned here, worked at Babcock & Wilcox in Canada. A long and tenuous connection to the USS Valley Forge carrier, where some of SILENT RUNNING was filmed. It's amazing what turns up while researching one's ancestry and their careers and associations isn't it?
Oswald claimed at his press conference that he was “just a patsy”. But if he knew he was a patsy, then he wasn’t a patsy. if Charlie McCarthy had known that he was Edgar Bergen’s dummy, he wouldn’t have been a dummy.
—-
Know one thing for sure: don’t like Treebeard calling me a “dude”. He wrote, “What planet are you living on, dude?”
A dude is someone in high school who plays hooky to smoke marywanna with his dudette.
Most of my molars are similarly composed (preventative dentistry, I think it was called. It seemed to work as, other than a replacement, I haven't had a filling in thirty years)
As for sanity... well, if you start asking what you were thinking at star-faring dolphins...
Alan in high school most dudes did not have a dudette. Alack.
TCB - JFK conspiracies that involve EGGING Oswald to shoot make some sense. Those claiming him as a patsy are always just plain dumb.
I used to think that too. But now? If Thom Hartmann believes it, I am not so quick to dismiss.
Alfred Differ:
I DO expect governments to state fair rules about what an assembly must do in order to be considered a limited liability entity.
We're in agreement about that. I don't understand why you consider that such a triviality in the discussion. I might agree with you about everything else, with the caveat that "limited liability" isn't the only special power granted to corporations. I believe they are currently allowed to legally bribe--I mean anonymously contribute to campaigns in unlimited amounts whereas individual human beings are not.
Less trivially, don't corporations shield income from taxation, in the sense that revenue generated by the corporation is not personal income of the participants, nor is it taxable for the corporation except after many deductions and deferrals? I mean, I could make the case that food and shelter are requirements to my being able to earn money, and therefore my taxable income should be reduced by the expenses I incur keeping alive. I can't actually do that, but corporations can do the equivalent and much more.
You can assemble with whom you want without interference by the state, but the individuals assembling can't grant themselves exemptions from legal constraints at will.
Alfred Differ:
Corporations aren't like [robots]. Not even close.
I agree they don't function the same way an Asimov robot does. The analogy was what Asimov was thinking when he refused to treat his robots as Frankenstein's monsters--as warnings of what humans were not meant to meddle in--which is how robots in sci-fi had typically been portrayed before. His Three Laws were meant to make robots safe to use. "That's why knives have handles."
The only similarity between robots and corporations which I need for this discussion is that they are both tools ("constructs", if you don't like that word) which can cause terrible harm. The point of constraints like the Three Laws isn't to dominate the corporation (or robot). It is to keep the corporation (or robot) from inspiring the peasants to come after it with pitchforks and destroy it.
I've started a couple (LLC and a regular C corp) and they ARE people assembled.
You seem to be in agreement with chief justice Roberts that corporations have it both ways--they are people when being so benefits them, and they are something other than people when that benefits them. They have human rights but no human responsibilities.
I'd rather that they are or are not people as benefits society as a whole--society which includes the corporation itself.
They aren't designed like a watch. They aren't commanded like a tool. It is much more accurate to say they are raised like children.
I'm ok with that. And we as parents and as society do put constraints on what children are allowed to do, because they can't be presumed to make responsible decisions in situations with lasting consequences. Corporations are similar. To cite one example, if corporations are to be legally treated as people, then they cannot also be legally constrained to put maximization of profit ahead of any other consideration.
Alan Brooks:
if Charlie McCarthy had known that he was Edgar Bergen’s dummy, he wouldn’t have been a dummy.
Heh. That sentence can never be either true or false, like "This sentence is a lie."
A dude is someone in high school who plays hooky to smoke marywanna with his dudette.
You must be as old as I am. In my daughter's generation, even the girls call each other "dude".
Brin:
Alack! Alas! Ah lack a lass!
TCB there is nothing about Oswald that does not fit motive, means, opportunity and equipment and skills. And Occam's Razor since it is simply magical incantation to say a fellow on his perch couldn't have made those not-at all-impossible shots.
NoI believe Ruby eliminated him for a reason... to cover those who egged him on.
The W.R.Grace corporation (Libbey, MT asbestos) committed mass murder by prolonged torture with conspiracy for profit. The executives responsible suffered no punishment. How do libertarians justify this? "Uf you can't compete, die"?
DG. Capitalism might actually work if almost all secrecy were banned.
Re: Corporatics:
My three laws would look like this:
3) Must generate profit.
2) Is disallowed to harm people.
1) Must protect human dignity.
"Harming People" is broadly defined as ensuring work security, product safety, and environmental protection. It certainly means that people do not have to work until exhaustion. Also, not lobbying to wage war to generate profits.
Protecting human dignity would be defined as ensuring that workplace discrimination does not happen, and living wages are paid.
David Brin - "Capitalism might actually work if almost all secrecy were banned.
You could say the same about the Presidency. But the Senate, that is another matter. It is abominable.
I knew it! Emphasis mine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/opinion/freedom-liberty-racial-hierarchies.html
Specifically, it means that we should think of freedom in at least two ways: a freedom from domination and a freedom to dominate. In “White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea,” Stovall shows how both are tied up in the history of race and racial thinking. In societies like those of the United States and republican France, he writes, “belief in freedom, specifically one’s entitlement to freedom, was a key component of white supremacy.” The more white one was, he continues, “the more free one was.”
Joe Biden's announced intention to manacle federal student loan serfs back onto the financial breaking wheel will doom the Dems in 2022 and '24, most likely. Madness and stupidity.
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/12/student-debt-cancellation-repayment-trump-elections
The socialists are right: centrists are useless allies who will let the enemies of democracy have the high ground and refuse to admit there's any problem until the eleventh hour. Two major examples are right-wing control of vast propaganda networks (Fox News and right wing radio), and the right-wing project to pack the courts. These two strategies have been underway for decades; the Democratic leadership seemed to finally notice circa 2016. Any, ummmm, intelligent person knew about them in the early 1990's. Tony Kushner mentions the court-packing strategy in Angels In America, written before 1993.
It's too late now: I predict fully fascist government within five years, and maybe hot civil war too, Northern Ireland style.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/opinion/gerrymandering-guarantee-clause.html
...
Here, I think it is worth looking at one rarely discussed section of the Constitution.
In Article IV, Section 4, the Constitution says, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”
...
Anyone else spot the obvious flaw in this line of argument? "We, the red states, are guaranteeing a Republican government, by making sure that only Republicans can ever be elected."
The W.R.Grace corporation (Libbey, MT asbestos) committed mass murder by prolonged torture with conspiracy for profit. The executives responsible suffered no punishment. How do libertarians justify this? "Uf you can't compete, die"?
What of IBM? They legally profited from the Nazi death camps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
Or Nestlé?
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/nestle-baby-milk-scandal-food-industry-standards
Great duscussions, wish I weren't so time pressed.
Thank you TCB for again perfectly illustrating WHY we will lose and the confederates likely will win. Your almost gleeful spring to shatter all bonds to our coalition based on single affront-issues is precisely why JB's poll figures are low and why we were devastated by MINORITY confederate surges in 80, 88, 94, 2000, 2010 and 2016.
While this is old, I still assert that none of you splitters can face even one of these challenges:
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2019/08/five-devastating-rebuttals-to-use-with.html
Without legislation, Biden can NOT simply cance a vast mountain of debt without the ripple effects bankrupting vast sections of the economy. He cannot legally do it, at all. But of course he can't give the leftists what they want re immigration, either.
"He's only 90% of what we want! Kill him!!!!"
"Almost gleeful"? Bullcrap. Joe Biden can, with the stroke of a pen, make millions of young voters dance in the street and vote Dem, but it sure looks like his neoliberal conditioning won't let him. I'm talking about money owed to the government, not to private banks.
............................
https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/student-loan-ranger/articles/where-do-federal-student-loans-come-from
Quote:
Once you have signed your promissory note, which is the document where you promise to pay back the funds you are borrowing, you can begin repaying your loan. The federal government owns 10 student loan servicers that manage the account status and repayment of your loans.
When you begin paying back your loans, you send the payments to your servicer. You should receive a monthly statement from your servicer either by postal mail or email.
If you have more than one federal student loan, you may have more than one servicer. A complete list of Department of Education student loan servicers is available online.
[ READ: When to Contact Your Student Loan Servicer. ]
When you make a payment, the money does not stop at the servicer. The servicer is simply collecting it for the federal government and managing your account status. The money is then sent to the Department of the Treasury, since that is where the student loan funding came from originally.
..................................
So unless my reading skills have fallen prey to tertiary syphilis, that means MASSIVE LOAN FORGIVENESS can happen in a day and only the federal budget takes a hit. We print money by the boatload for rich tax evaders and the Pentagon, no?
More than once I have been made to feel less-than-respected in this forum. Fine. Have fun arguing with Treebeard.
Tom Buckner, permanently out.
I got a lot of crap here in 2020 for daring to say that I would vote Blue no matter who without pressuring Democratic candidates to share my goals on free college or abortion or climate change. Well, for the duration of this Civil War, I am a single-issue voter, and that one issue is pro-democracy. My only goal is to prevent Republicans from keeping the rest of us from having any say in our government.
If any of you other liberal single-issue voters think you will get anywhere, ever under permanent Republican rule, you are fooling yourselves. Until we re-establish democracy as America's core value beyond the next election year or the next one, no liberal goals have a chance. If the Democrats we elect today aren't our favorites, we can work on them later. If we allow Republicans to control the House, and thereby the electoral-vote counting and investigations into coup attempts, we will never have influence over our government again in our lifetime, and our children will have to fight a shooting war to get it back.
So to anyone here or elsewhere who espouses punishing Democrats by letting Republicans win, know that I consider you to be pro-torture-and-death for me and my daughter. And I react accordingly.
Or Perdue Pharma, etc.
(I apparently can only proofread after posting.)
TCB I say 'almost gleeful' because I know from experience - since 19 freaking 68 onward - the desperate pain splitters exhibit when they see top level dems doing good things and expecting in return that horrible thing - loyalty. And the eager rush to find any excuse to deny them any.
AGain. NO president can give you what you want, re immigration, though Biden/Harris have improved things mightily and are pressuring Honduras/Guatemala hard with both sticks and carrots... and if thems win in 2022 the dreamers will get legalized. But none of that matters.
Again, no president has LEGAL POWER to cancel debts. What dems hope to do is end the ban on students refinanceing, which would soften the burden by half. And several other things that are possible, if you splitters decide to step up and actually actually join the union army in this phase of civil war...
"President Biden and Democrats can point to some major successes in 2021, including a $1.9 trillion pandemic aid plan with a $300-per-child income support that slashed poverty rates; a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law that had eluded the two previous presidents; the confirmation of 40 judges in Biden’s first year, the most of any president since Ronald Reagan; and a House inquiry into the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
But those achievements were overshadowed by legislative setbacks and a sense that Congress was not rising to meet a perilous moment in history. “It has been a horrible year, hasn’t it?” asked Senator Lisa Murkowski.
Murkowski can go to heck. And YOU and your kind could help that happen. But no, you just refuse to answer even one of these challenges:
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2019/08/five-devastating-rebuttals-to-use-with.html
onward
onward
In this age of Kyle Rittenhouse and "self-defense" covering even fights that you yourself provoked, why is it so hard for shows like Marvel's Runways to get this concept:
If you kill someone because he purposely gives you a choice between you killing him and him killing you and all your friends, you are not "as bad as him".
If you wrest the baseball bat from your grandfather and beat him senseless because otherwise he would kill your father with it and then turn on you, you are not "as bad as him".
...aaaaaaand I missed the onward!
onward!
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