AcidiclyBasicGlitch
@AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works
Researcher in the U.S. trying to stay informed and help others stay informed. I write a blog that focuses on public information, public health, and policy: pimento-mori.ghost.io
I only recently began using ghost, and am slowly figuring things out. Apologies for any formatting issues.
- Comment on YSK in 2006 a Putin loyalist wrote a "fictional" novel accurately predicting Russia's future assault on Ukraine. In the novel, this escalates to WWIII followed by the surrender of the U.S. and Europe 1 week ago:
Yuriev, a businessman and former deputy speaker of the state Duma who died in 2019, was a member of the political council of the Eurasia Party, which envisions an essentially feudal social order overseen by a political class that rules through fear.
As Khapaeva points out, Yuriev died in 2019 and was relatively unknown outside of Russia.
However, he did pop up in an odd place in the U.S. shortly before his death:
Who Is Konstantin Nikolaev? Putin Ally Behind Mike Johnson Campaign Donation
News of money previously given to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s congressional campaign by Russian nationals has re-emerged after the Republican rejected a $95 billion foreign aid bill passed in the Senate.
In 2018, a group of Russians were able to donate to Johnson’s bid for the Louisiana seat he eventually won as the money was funneled through the Texas-based American Ethane company.
While American Ethane was co-founded by American John Houghtaling, at the time it was 88 percent owned by three Russian nationals—Konstantin Nikolaev, Mikhail Yuriev, and Andrey Kunatbaev. Nikolaev is known to be a top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A spokesperson for Johnson previously assured in 2018 that the campaign returned the money that was given to them by American Ethane once it was “made aware of the situation.” There was no indication that Johnson’s campaign team willfully broke federal law, which makes it illegal for a campaign to knowingly accept donations from a foreign-owned corporation, a foreign national, or any company owned or controlled by foreign nationals.
- YSK in 2006 a Putin loyalist wrote a "fictional" novel accurately predicting Russia's future assault on Ukraine. In the novel, this escalates to WWIII followed by the surrender of the U.S. and Europewww.theatlantic.com ↗Submitted 1 week ago to youshouldknow@lemmy.world | 2 comments
- Comment on US Energy Department signs AI collaboration deals with Big Tech for Genesis Mission 1 week ago:
Idk I think the day somebody tries to kill it with nuclear fire will just mean judgment day for all of us anyway, but maybe you can’t really fight the future.
- Comment on US Energy Department signs AI collaboration deals with Big Tech for Genesis Mission 1 week ago:
But that’s the excuse for why we just have to trust them and not ask too many questions about what they’re doing or what regulations they’re ignoring. They’re claiming this is to make the U.S. self sufficient so we no longer have to rely on foreign technology.
It’s debatable if not highly unlikely they will actually do that, regardless though this will allow them to continue to build and expand the giant authoritarian surveillance state that’s basically an open secret at this point, but if you were to ask any questions about that, you would be standing in the way of progress.
And to be completely fair, as far as not relying on foreign tech, would it make you feel any better if I pointed out the AP actually broke a story earlier this year which showed the U.S. actually sold China the technology they’ve used to create their mass surveillance state?
Not sure if it was just a test run for what they plan to do in the U.S. with Palantir at the helm, but I point it out because it does prove they aren’t completely reliant on foreign tech, and I’m not sure if you stopped reading before the casual mention about Palantir being involved in this project
- US Energy Department signs AI collaboration deals with Big Tech for Genesis Missionwww.reuters.com ↗Submitted 1 week ago to technology@lemmy.world | 8 comments
- Comment on House Science Committee Questions DOE Science Chief About Agency Reorganization 1 week ago:
Gil said the work of the new offices will be “complementary” to the basic research in the Office of Science. “Sometimes people say, ‘Well, are you doing it in tension with the support of the basic science?’ We’re not. We’re saying, because we’ve succeeded in investing in that, we have the opportunity now to create an industry,” he said.
- Submitted 1 week ago to technology@lemmy.world | 1 comment
- Comment on After viral interview, Palantir launches neurodivergent fellowship 2 weeks ago:
Exactly, not to mention the entire idea of a “tech” bro violated societies norms (it didn’t really they just wore hoodies). But the fact that you had “nerds” succeeding and winning at life seemed to contradict the Don Draper/Frat Bro prototype of success
- Comment on After viral interview, Palantir launches neurodivergent fellowship 2 weeks ago:
The cognitive traits that make the neurodivergent different are precisely what make them exceptional in an AI-driven world.” Palantir, a data and analytics company co-founded by conservative “kingmaker” Peter Thiel, was quick to argue that the fellowship is not a DEI initiative. “This is not a diversity initiative. We believe neurodivergent individuals will have a competitive advantage as elite builders of the next technological era, and we’re hiring accordingly for all roles.”
Wow, that’s super deep and profound. Maybe I had these people all wrong.
So, essentially, you believe there are likely very talented people who don’t fit within the neat little box of what success is “supposed to typically look like.” They might even be looked over or excluded simply because they don’t fit into that box, but you are wise enough to see past that. You understand that the very traits that lead to their exclusion, may also provide them with a unique perspective that is often lacking in everyone who does fit neatly into that heterogenous box. And that the unique perspective of those divergent people, can actually be an advantage to everyone…
- Submitted 2 weeks ago to technology@lemmy.world | 71 comments
- YSK True Detective season 1 oddly mirrors several real crimes linked to a former New Orleans police officer who repeatedly escaped justice for several decades and a shadowy network of pedophileswww.neworleansunsolved.com ↗Submitted 2 weeks ago to youshouldknow@lemmy.world | 0 comments
- Comment on Why does every commercial depiction of honey involve one of this things? Literally nobody has ever seen one of these in real life 2 weeks ago:
I have a honey pot with one of those that somebody gave me as a gift.
I tried to use it one time to be fancy when I made biscuits, and put it in the middle of the table during dinner. At first people tried to use it, but it was such a fucking pain in the ass, eventually they just stopped trying to be nice about it used a spoon to get the honey bc wtf is the point?
- Comment on Trump’s immigration data dragnet 2 weeks ago:
- Submitted 2 weeks ago to technology@lemmy.world | 1 comment
- Comment on Are you sure about that? 2 weeks ago:
Then there’s this episode where she finally gets physical evidence of the paranormal. So she contacts a bunch of prominent scientists and arranges for them all to come to the autopsy bay, to reveal this invisible man.
She gets so fucking pumped and excited, but then when she pulls out the table his body as gone and she has nothing!
And she just kind of stammers “Well, he is invisible…” then unsuccessfully gropes around for him while they silently judge her and she dies a little inside.
- Comment on Big Brother Is Watching Your Online Criticism of ICE Crackdowns 2 weeks ago:
These people are mentally ill
Yes and I don’t say this as a knock on mental illness. I say it because many conservatives are raised to believe that mental illness is either a supernatural force of the devil or a moral failing. I sincerely believe that if many conservatives would just give therapy a trial run, and try to unpack half the shit that they instead insist on holding on to then unleashing upon society, the world would be a much more pleasant and peaceful place.
However, most will never do that because not going to therapy A. proves they’re totally not crazy otherwise they’d be in therapy, right? and B. Trying to control everyone else, provides them with their own sense of control.
- Comment on AI Surveillance Startup Caught Using Sweatshop Workers to Monitor US Residents 2 weeks ago:
But if the broligarchs don’t actually expect to ever get any of this “AI” shit actually working, then what is the end game?
Obviously the majority of people are only in it to make quick money, but what about the psychos at the very top who are directing policy and building these giant nuclear powered “AI” data centers?
If Thiel/Musk/Zuckerberg don’t actually have the expectation that “AI” will eventually work itself out, then it won’t matter how money the rich (but not broligarch rich) Wall Street bros and bankers dumped into the “AI” boom.
It won’t be like the .com boom and the Internet, because it doesn’t actually exist. If the economy completely collapses, and dollar becomes worthless currency, the “money” the average rich asshole hoards away after investing in the 2025 “AI” boom, will have about as much value as monopoly money.
Meanwhile the fucking Bond villain billionaires like Thiel (who have been dreaming of this exact scenario for over 20 years) hold all resources (including a recently purchased uranium mine).
So, “hypothetically,” if that was Thiel’s endgame, and the “AI” jig is up, then they no longer have to pretend they’re trying to develop artificial intelligence or AGI. But they do already hold control of most resources and they have mass surveillance capabilities and each broligarch owns one or more of these supercomputers/data centers.
In this totally fictional scenario, once the dollar collapses (likely followed by all of society collapsing along with it), what do the broligarchs actually use their giant nuclear powered “AI” data centers for?
AI or no AI, they’re currently being built all over the country, so what is their actual purpose?
- Comment on AI Surveillance Startup Caught Using Sweatshop Workers to Monitor US Residents 2 weeks ago:
I mean, there is actual “AI” tech that exists, and isn’t just people working in sweatshops, like this: deeplabcut.github.io/DeepLabCut/README.html
It’s just kind of difficult to get consistency between trials, and reliability seems to boil down to completely eliminating variability. So kind of useless outside of a lab setting (as is).
I tend to feel like it’s more trouble than it’s worth and too unreliable (as is) to usually bother with it, but I know people who are just fellow lab rats (not broligarchs) and are super devoted to getting AI to work for their projects. Like most sectors in this country, even science is being forced to embrace AI. Regardless of if it actually makes sense for your line of work or not, the expectation is get it working or face the chopping block, and there are definitely people who are trying their hardest to really get this shit off the ground (because the alternative is be prepared to be out of a job for being obsolete).
This is also why it’s kind of surprising to learn that even “AI” that’s simply comparing license plates from one camera to the next, is actually just due to human slave labor.
So, do any of the broligarchs receiving these huge contracts actually believe that eventually they’ll get AI to work once enough data and money is dumped into it and the little people at the bottom figure out all the kinks for them?
Or is it just that everybody at the top acknowledges this is a dead end, but once you’re in the secret club at the top of the food chain, and you’re making ridiculous amounts of money, your incentive is just to keep your mouth shut, keep making money, and fuck the consequences because once society collapses you’ll get to be kings of your own little monarchs anyway?
If it is the second, and nobody at the top really believes AI is going anywhere, then what are all the giant, energy sucking data centers that are being built across the country actually for?
- Comment on AI Surveillance Startup Caught Using Sweatshop Workers to Monitor US Residents 2 weeks ago:
I mean there are legit companies doing good work that get passed over all the time.
How did these 3 guys get hundreds of millions in government contracts for a product that didn’t even exist.
And not only did it not exist, they were demanding everybody let them violate their privacy so that their non-existent product could “end crime.”
I’ll just come out and say it, the “scandal” imo isn’t the company was a fraud part. The scandal is that people within the government wanted so badly to amp up surveillance and the police state within the U.S. they just went ahead and dumped all this money into A.I. that didn’t actually exist because “A.I. is already here and it will fix everything, and even if you don’t want it, too fucking bad.”
Like it was never that the government thought A.I. tech was that important, or the future, or whatever bullshit. They’ve just realized the tech industry allows them the ability to spy on people, control information, and make a shit ton of money doing it.
- Comment on AI Surveillance Startup Caught Using Sweatshop Workers to Monitor US Residents 3 weeks ago:
The history of the organization seems very odd
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flock_Safety
It began as a side project in which the three co-founders built their first video surveillance cameras by hand around Langley’s dining room table. When a DeKalb County detective told Langley that his camera product had helped with solving a home break-in, Langley called the two other co-founders and told them to quit their jobs.
What?? How did a detective use it to solve a crime? Who was he? And based off of this one dude you all 3 just quit your jobs??? What??
Then we just jump ahead to 2022 and these cameras that didn’t even work had raised over $380 million in venture funding?
Then by the next year they were being used to sub for actual police due to a shortage of police officers?
- Comment on AI Surveillance Startup Caught Using Sweatshop Workers to Monitor US Residents 3 weeks ago:
The main thing flock is really supposed to do is capture and match pictures of license plates at different locations. It’s not even complex.
So how tf did they get the green light for the first government contract if they never even had that capability?
- Comment on AI Surveillance Startup Caught Using Sweatshop Workers to Monitor US Residents 3 weeks ago:
I have to give the broligarchs credit for always somehow managing to leave me stunned. Every time I learn some unbelievable bullshit like this, it’s like falling in hate all over again.
As we leave the stagnation of society behind in the ruins of regulations and democracy that only held us back, and the technocratic elite steer us full speed ahead through this “Renaissance” we are truly blessed to be forced to live through, the line between technology and magic continues to blur…
Or maybe it’s just 700 sweatshop workers in a trenchcoat. Who’s to say?
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to technology@lemmy.world | 32 comments
- Comment on Big Brother Is Watching Your Online Criticism of ICE Crackdowns 3 weeks ago:
- Comment on Big Brother Is Watching Your Online Criticism of ICE Crackdowns 3 weeks ago:
Ok, thanks for the update! We will cancel the BNB reservation we had waiting for you.
To be clear, this doesn’t change how we feel about you, carol.
- Comment on Big Brother Is Watching Your Online Criticism of ICE Crackdowns 3 weeks ago:
Earlier this year, The Intercept wrote about surveillance contractors sought by ICE, who would be expected to perform algorithm- and AI-aided deep dives into social media users’ post histories, searching for, among other things, “proclivity for violence,” which could include “empathy with a group which has violent tendencies,” among other things. Hope you haven’t expressed “empathy” at any point for any group with “violent tendencies,” right? How does it feel to know that you’d be at the mercy of a freelance surveillance contractor’s mastery of “social and behavioral sciences” and “psychological profiles,” according to ICE’s statement of objectives?
How fucking creepy is it to think about this psychological manipulation pre-crime bullshit and take into account that one of the briefings released yesterday took note of people in New Orleans seeming especially disturbed by videos with the sound of crying children.
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to technology@lemmy.world | 93 comments
- Comment on Women would rather do drugs than go to therapy 3 weeks ago:
Well tbf, I did read the tweet and immediately upvote in solidarity with her
- Comment on Women would rather do drugs than go to therapy 3 weeks ago:
It’s really sad but also kinda fascinating that there are definitely people who could read this and believe it’s evidence of the downfall of modern society caused by equal rights, instead of realizing that this bitch was just understandably tired and making a humor joke in an attempt to lighten the burden of having to face another day trying to roll the boulder back up the bullshit mountain created by the people who want to take away her (and everyone else’s) rights, dismantle society, and cause it to collapse.
- Comment on Not receiving replies from .world 3 weeks ago:
Nah still not working :(
