Reagan (1981-1989)

Bill Clinton

1. ADA (1990)

2. Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act (1994)

Wealth inequality reaches unsustainable levels.

3. Partial repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act (1999)

Beyond this point there was no hope for the Republic. Banks will buy everything.

Obama ACA (2010)

Trump

1. COVID (2019)

2. Recession (2020)

Private equity outcompetes human home buyers in most markets.

Biden Soft Landing (2021-2025)

Lowest income 20% cannot afford core needs.

Harris Not Trump (2025-2029)

US:

A common murderer-for-hire is difficult to hire because they’ll probably take your money and disappear. A muderer-for-hire that won’t get caught is impossible to hire because they don’t advertise to the common person.

If you want the full package then it’ll cost you five to ten years: Commit a somewhat violent crime to avoid being sentenced to minimum security prison. You’ll have lots of time. There’s not much to do except be violent and learn whatever you want from other inmates and books. Choose your friends wisely.

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Social media didn’t exist when I was a child. I’m thankful for that because my experiences now help me quickly recognize narcissistic DARVO.

1. Deny

2. Attack

3. Reversal of Victim and Offender

It often happens in a means most succinctly expressed by The Narcissists Prayer.

That didn’t happen.

And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.

And if it was, that’s not a big deal.

And if it is, that’s not my fault.

And if it was, I didn’t mean it.

And if I did, you deserved it.

A wide scope of situations can flow from the general to a fairly specific outcome: A child lacks the means to communicate righteous injustice and has a “meltdown”. The parent films it, then posts it to social media with something like, “Look what I have to put up with (laughing to tears emoji)”.

The OP article is a synopsis of a synopsis, now so shallow and devoid of nuance to be meaningless.

Russia and Iran have both undertaken cyber influence operations headed into the 2024 presidential election. In our last report, published on August 8, we detailed how Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations sought to undermine the Republican campaign through targeted hack-and-leak operations, covert social media personas, and imposter US news sites. In the past two months, Microsoft has observed a notable shift in Russian influence operations tactics reflecting the changing U.S. political environment. Specifically, we have observed Russia pivot towards targeting the Harris-Walz campaign, with actors disseminating fabricated videos designed to sow discord and spread disinformation about the new Democratic nominee Vice President Harris.

Source and an abbreviated summary from MS.

The lengthy report for those with the interest and technical competance.

Understanding propaganda, both external and internal, has become critically important to our collective future. Please, read more books: 1984; The Engineering of Consent; The Manufacturing of Consent. Then, do more than vote and engage others locally when doing it.

Can we all start a club so I can find a boyfriend?

It was one of the first Lemmy instances. It still exists in such a format, now mostly defederated.

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Ballot access is made very difficult by the duopoly. And, polls are basically fucked by bias.

Many of the best hypothetical solutions are based on votes. But, all of them have prerequisite of RCV.

For a more immediate solution, 5% of the GE POTUS vote puts an organization on every ballot in the next cycle. It’d be much more difficult to rationalize exclusion from debates when such a choice exists for everyone.

I feel like it will get to the point where AI will start writing code that works but nobody can understand or maintain including AI

Already there, and have been for awhile. In my work we often don’t understand how the AI itself works. We independently test for accuracy. Then we begin trusting results without verification. But, at no time do we really understand the logic of how the AI gets from input to output.

If you are able to explain the requirements to an AI so fully that the AI can do it correctly it would have taken shorter time to program by yourself.

This makes sense for a one-time job. But, it doesn’t make sense when there’s a hundred jobs with only minor differences. For example, the AI writes a hundred AI’s. We kill all but the three to five best models.

education about CS/responsible use of technology

The vast majority of what’s been suggested in the OP and comments focuses on the technical: CS and IT. But, no one’s focused on “responsible use of technology”. I’d like to see a course that focused on the morality and ethics of usage.

Examples of possible classroom topics:

1. Is it moral and ethical to spread disinformation as a means to “good” end? Is it acceptable to spread truth if the consequences are likely “bad”?

2. Is it moral and ethical to use generative AI to effectively libel/slander a political opponent? Does it the analysis change if used for advertising?

3. Is it moral and ethical to pirate media? Does it depend on what’s being pirated? Does it depend on why it’s being pirated?

The "problems with such a course:

1. It’d require prerequisite of basic philosophy/logic and basic CS/IT. It could be a lot of material to cover. Course construction and presentation needs to be focused, rooted in experience, likely a passion project.

2. The audience may be too young to think in these terms. A little experience goes a long way towards understanding these topics well enough to have a good faith classroom discussion. I don’t intend ageism, in fact the opposite. I think today’s youth are more capable than when I was such an age: Make it known that the course is “hard”. Those that choose it will excel.

They will come when we call.

The chaff can’t perceive the wheat.

Corporate donors disapprove.

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We’re desensitized by our usage in music and casual interaction. Racists are desensitized by their usage in hatred. The only people made uncomfortable are white moderates unwilling to do anything more than vote for the house n----r.

No. American and allied troops fought in the Vietnam conflict. Our strategy evolved in the Cold War and proxy wars. A proxy war is fought only with fiscal, humanitarian, and arms support.

For example, we destroyed Afghanistan in the 80’s by supporting the mujahideen fighting against the Soviet Union: a proxy war. Unable to communicate what’s been done, they resorted to extreme violence in September, 2001. So, we fucked 'em all the war back to 17th century religious persecution.

I’m a born American. I love so much about this country at the roots of the land and people I meet in it. But, it’s totally fucking rotten at the top and we refuse to admit it. If we did then we’d have to do something about it. Then, it quickly becomes obvious that voting isn’t going to do jack shit. That’s scary as fuck.

Don’t forget Vietnam and Korea.

Vietnam and Korea were hot wars. My examples are proxy wars where the locals retiliated with “terrorism”.

The US is constantly enmeshed in wars, but when was the last time Americans actually won one? 1945?

We’re achieving our goals in Ukraine right now, as we did in all my examples above. The last time we lost was Vietnam, unless we’re also counting failed coup attempts (2020).

No we ask how is he still alive. At that range if they meant to kill him he should be dead.

No. And, I’m disappointed so many blindly believed.

The initial information was 200-300 yards. A good shooter with range ammo (medium quality) and a decent rifle will shoot about 2 MOA or “minutes of angle” accuracy. A better shooter with better ammo and rifle will shoot about 1.5 MOA.

The math conveniently works out such that 1 MOA is 1 inch at 100 yards. At 1 MOA and 100 yards range, the distance from the furthest spaced rounds in a small number of rounds will be 1 inch.

At 300 yards 1.5 MOA is 4.5 inches. At 200 yards it’s 3 inches. At 300 it’d take three shots to be sure. At 200 it’s a likely one shot kill.

The news of 200-300 yards was intentional uncertainty. We sheep aren’t to know the actual risk to Trump’s life.