u/Frequent_Mountain_17

When people discuss politics, there's always an underlying axiom of discussion that's treated with divine deference: There Must Be A Government! That axiom goes without question and the discussion is centered around it.

People try to propose different forms of government, different policies in order to tweak current political shortcomings as if the problem with politics is just poor implementation. But at the end of the day, they always circle back to the same things just with a new political name or a new political nuance to try and make you believe it's something revolutionary and new and this time, THIS TIME Charlie Brown, Lucy won't pull the football out from under you.

That's why nothing ever gets resolved in politics, the costs and benefits just get shuffled around. It's like walking in a circle, going nowhere but continuing because you're making good time. It's maddening to see such shortsightedness in humanity, such willful ignorance and indifference. It's as if humanity purposefully made a game that's unwinnable in order to assure that they can play it all their lives, damn the human consequences.

It insures intergenerational amnesia, it insures that the same political ideologies will always circle back like socialism and communism are doing now. There's nowhere else to go except in a circle. But talking about the circle is as blasphemous as talking ill of someone's god. Is this a human defect? I'm starting to believe we really are in a simulation.

If someone traveled to the past and changed your timeline, you'd never know because all your memories would be of that new timeline so there'd be no way to prove or falsify anyone time traveled. If someone traveled into the future there'd be no way to prove or falsify anyone time traveled because your future hasn't happened yet.

Any claim about time travel can neither be proven nor disproven which makes is susceptible to myth, magic and outright lies. A belief in time travel is like a belief in a god: it's just something you have to choose to believe.

Consider the extreme for explanatory purposes: imagine a world with no crime, no conflict, a society of intelligent and peaceful people working together to solve their common economic and social problems.

If someone appointed themselves the governing authority, how would they justify their existence? How would they justify imposing laws on society and enforcing them with guns when the people were already solving their problems themselves? By its nature it would divide society, it would create conflict and crime and then justify its actions as an effort to resolve the conflict and crime.

Political institutions make their living promising to solve social and economic conflict while at the same time imposing social and economic conflict. It's like anti-virus companies creating new viruses so you have to buy their software to protect your computer from the viruses they created.

How would defense contractors and their suppliers and the ancillary industries make a living if the state didn't perpetually start wars?

Ever heard the joke: "how do you know a politician is lying? His mouth is open."?

That's because there are tremendous benefits to lying in politics and almost no consequences. A political candidate can promise voters anything he wants -- a pony and ice cream for everyone -- but he has no obligation to honor his campaign promises if elected. They just blame it on the other party blocking their attempts to get things done. It lays the foundation for re-election when he can use the same unfulfilled promises as "there's still work to be done!"

And since being elected is a popularity contest, it makes sense to promise people what they want in order to be popular with them. If even one competitor lies likes this then everyone has to in order to remain competitive.

If elected the benefits of sensationalizing, half-truths and outright lies become so abundant, the consequences aren't significantly different from zero. Six figure salaries, Cadillac health-care, free coach class flights, $2 million expense budget, go to the office, don't go to the office etc. guaranteed for four years. It bears no resemblance to reality.

Every now and then congress will put on a dog and pony show of political theatrics claiming to be policing their own but it's not much more than grade schoolers squabbling at each other with "yes you did", "no I didn't" for an hour and then nothing happens.

"Laws" are written so vague and abstract that they can be successfully manipulated by a clever enough "Lawyer" who knows how to manipulate the system.

A "Judge" is some guy like, George or Bob or Dave, in a dress sitting at an elevated position in order to present a position of superiority who gets to decide people's fate.

A jury is a collection of strangers -- some with a grade school reading level -- who get to decide whether someone is guilty or not.

Then they all squabble like grade schoolers claiming "Objection", "Overruled", "Objection", "Sustained" based on the Judge's interpretation of the vague and abstract rules of the game and his/her subjective biases.

The people on trial are game pieces and at the end of the day, their life hangs in the balance but for the players, it's all just a game of win or lose.

Then they all go home and sleep like a baby knowing a jury of illiterates, a judge with a porn fetish and a corrupt prosecutor sent a working man to prison because it's not a perfect system but it's the best we got.

Politicized issues are created by those who want to use the force of politics and government to mold the society they want regardless of the social, economic or personal costs to others. These are issues that never get resolved so those financing them can remain in power. These are non-issues outside the realm of politics.

Climate change, women's rights, wage gap disparity, minority rights, covid, gay rights, handicap rights, elderly rights, animal rights, free speech etc. Everything is a political issue now because people have learned how to manipulate the narrative, leverage the process and get what they want.

If you adhere to and obey these movements you are politically correct, a badge of social honor that shows you are a team player, a patriot, a useful idiot.

Freedom used to be the badge of honor, now it's used as a punchline. You can't help those not willing or able to help themselves.

A shameful emotional ad on YouTube of a father crying and urging people to sign a petition that demands congress pass laws to prevent school shooting.

If laws could prevent school shootings, there'd only need to be one law: school shootings are illegal. Problem is that criminals and murderers don't care about the law.

Society has a psychological defect, created by a lifetime of political indoctrination, that makes them believe that "laws" can protect them. If that were the case there'd only need to be one law: crime is illegal.

As it is there are tens of thousands of laws on the books and crime is rampant. Just use some critical thought, reason, rational and common sense and you'll come to the conclusion that the people are the problem and no amount of laws will make them better people.

If you have a solution to the people problem other than another million years or so of evolution I'm all ears.

The only way to maintain a monopoly in the long-run is with government barriers to entry.

Ironically, that same government says monopolies are illegal. What they really mean is if you want a monopoly you have to "play ball" and make healthy contributions to re-election campaigns and charitable foundations. Then they got your back.

Politics is theater, the actors put on their costumes, they go to hair and makeup, they have writers who write their politically correct scripts and then they read it off a teleprompter trying desperately to seem sincere but they are just horrible at acting. They have their personas: conservative, liberal, libertarian, independent etc. There's always the "good guys" and the "bad guys" but those roles change as needed to keep people interested. People protest the "bad guys" in the street and cheer the "good guys" online. They gladly pay for the privilege of seeing the show go on and they can't imagine life without it.

And even though most people know this, even though most people know it doesn't matter who is president or who is in congress or on the SCOTUS, even though most people know that politicians lie through their teeth, they still can't get enough of politics, they're addicted and its that addiction that keeps mankind enslaved. It's all so embarrassing.

The problem with AI is that there is no large scale problem that AI is the solution to. Experienced human labor is always the solution. It's cool technology and the propaganda has people saying it will replace human labor across the board, it's more intelligent than humans etc. and the lower level intelligence population believes it.

If the problem is making work more efficient at a lower price then that has always been the business problem and automation has been doing it for decades. No need for AI in a McDonald's kiosk. AI is a fad and the propaganda is pumping the bubble up and it's going to pop. This is as clear as Bitcoin replacing fiat currency.

AI is an armchair expert. It "knows" a lot about a lot but doesn't know a lot about anything.

Tag systems are simplified abstract algorithms used to demonstrate Turing machines and if written correctly are Turing complete meaning they can do any calculations a computer can. All modern digital technology including AI are Turing equivalent.

I asked Claude and Gemeni to write a tag system to add x+1 meaning given any input x, it can calculate the output x+1. Neither could do it. It's a simple task with a finite number of commands and each time they get it wrong. I point out their mistake and they try again and still wrong. Not only did Claude fail to calculate x+1, it actually gave me something that entered into an infinite loop.

Philosophically, it's incredibly interesting that a system based on Turing principles can't correctly produce something based on Turing principles. This implies that AI doesn't understand how it works and can't even build the simplest algorithm based on how it works. It can regurgitate what it's been fed and give a best guess response but it can't figure out when it's wrong because it doesn't "understand" how it works because AI can't "understand" anything.

So you can put your fears of AI becoming Skynet and self-aware in the garbage. It can't build something it doesn't understand. It also explains why AI can never be as intelligent as humans because humans don't understand their own intelligence so we can reproduce it in technology.

AI reminds me of people with photographic memories: they can recall anything and make connections between their memories but that doesn't mean they understand it. They can memorize how to do a Fourier Transform but that doesn't mean they understand why it works.