I've been arguing for years about the possibility of the enshitification of linux. I think this is obviously a step in that direction. Microsoft (among others) has been lacking and it is catching up with them with more linux adoption.

Microsoft isn't stupid though and with their bags of money I'm sure they can influence stuff like this. Then it wouldn't even be hard to see MS "helping" these poor FOSS devs and getting (more of) a foothold in the development of linux if not outright having some of the FOSS devs walk away when they can't comply with these new artificial barriers.

If this goes through - and even if *this* doesn't society is barreling headlong in the surveillance everywhere direction so it will happen sooner or later if nothing changes - it will add more artificial barriers to entry for any new players in the arena.

And on this front, I'm at a loss for how to fight it. Sure we can maybe get some momentum and have the legislation stopped for now, but I simply don't see a world where this and an eventual internet real ID don't become a reality. Most people simply don't think about or care about privacy and are swayed too easily with the "for the children" garbage.

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This framegen stuff is such a boondogle. Raster performance has been on the decline for years now and we are being sold DLSS/FSR as the next step, while it is clear that 10-year-old games like Crysis 3 and the Batman Arkham games (among others) had equal or better graphics while running on lower grade hardware at higher FPS.

There is a youtube channel I recently discovered while looking into this. Threat Interactive. I can't vouch for everything he says as a lot of it is above my paygrade, but his conclusions on how modern devs are totally slacking off and relying on the bait-and-switch of framegen seems spot on.

And this is coming from a guy who is general in favor of AI.

I fear that as the gaming industry progresses, the younger players who had no experience with the older hardware/software will literally not be able to comprehend a world without this stuff. Kind of like how post-9/11 the world was so different to those born before it, while those born after it know nothing but the techno surveillance state. 😡

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If the AI generated code can't be found without labelling it, what is the problem?

If the code was crap or buggy and you could reasonably sniff it out that would make sense. But if the only way for you to tell if it is AI generated is the person behind it announces it, then the AI code is literally indistinguishable from the human generated code.

If he never labeled the stuff in the first place, no one would have ever noticed or cared.

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Quoting: GustyGhostValve: "Wins" case against Rothschild patent troll

Rothschild global influence: [External Link]

Totally a coincidence that after this case we have NYC, Washington, and the music copyright lawsuits, right? Certainly this isn't a case of "the process IS the punishment."

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyThere has never been capitalism that didn't involve government action to privatize profits and socialize loss, so if we're going to say that kind of thing disqualifies a system as capitalism then there has never been any such thing as capitalism and we should never bother using the word again. Capitalism involved major government intervention from its very beginnings in England

I think we probably agree more than disagree, but it feels like it is getting lost in translation.

I actually agree that there has never been any "pure" capitalism (or socialism) ever enacted. When you talk about Enclosure (and the other countless examples of gov intervention on behalf of the fat cats), I don't see that as an outgrowth of capitalism. I see it as corruption. Which is why I'm generally in favor of as small a government as possible. There will always be some people that want a free lunch and they will exploit whatever (economic) system they are in. I'm sure there was tons of corruption in the USSR or even a little corruption in some uncontacted tribe in the middle of nowhere.

The small tribe, given a tight "everyone knows everyone" community, would have an easier time outcasting would-be cheaters. When you get to the scale of nation states, there are simply too many people and the corrupt can hide in the crowd. And a single defector can create a cascade of spoilage. Once someone gets the free lunch, they now have more resources to snowball into more corruption and more resources. I think this is obvious when we see Robber Barons like Rhodes (dead for over 100 years) still affecting the world today. Sure, he made his fortune under the banner of capitalism, but how many times did he bribe and lie and worse to get there?

I'm willing to bet ANY economic system would work if you could eliminate/minimize corruption. While I think capitalism (unfettered by corruption) would be superior to socialism (also uncorrupted), I would be more than happy to try socialism sans corruption.

So when I hear people (not pointing at you) saying things like "tax the rich" I am sympathetic, but I'm more inclined to advocate for "hang the corrupt". It just so happens that the venn diagram of corrupt and ultra rich is actually very close to a circle.

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Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: eggroleI DO blame over consumption.

Sure. Why blame the system when you can blame the ones with no power. You're blaming the addicts, not the pushers. You're blaming the players, not the ones writing and enforcing the rules.

Quoting: eggroleIf you're interested check out Propganda by Bernays for a really easy read and a good look at how this works.

As long as you keep in mind that it's not an objective, much less a critical look. It's written by one of America's leading advocates of propaganda.

The first point is a perspective. You say the consumer has no power while I say they have 99% of the power. If people stop buying, the corpos go broke. If corpos stop selling... the people don't get trinkets?

On the second point, of course it advocates for propaganda. If you want to learn what your enemy thinks, listen to what they say. If you only read books that are critical of things you already disagree with, you'll never expand your understanding. I read almost exclusively books I disagree with now-a-days. (Another book in that regard would be Cybernetics by Weiner).

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: eggrolebut (at least here) we don't have anything close to what Smith or Ricardo described in their seminole works.

The modern "free market" is a market that actively promotes rentiers. Smith would have hated it.

Yes, that is what I was saying. I don't like to argue semantics as people call things capitalist and socialist (or any other -ism or -ists these days) when they have little understanding of the roots of the words. I argue that we don't have capitalism today in the USA (or the west in general) and we have a system much closer to socialism.

Now, I'm not saying socialism is bad. But when I look at the redistribution of wealth today it is astounding. The "problem" is the middle class pays (via taxes and manufactured consumption), the poor get bribed with crumbs, and the wealthy accumulate even more. When the fat cats make bets that go awry, they get bailouts or trading is halted. When the bounce goes the other direction no such guardrails are implemented. If we had anything close to classical capitalism, failure wouldn't get bailed out.

All that said, I feel like we are nearing a period when the "free market" (lol) is going to seize up. As you said the pie is shrinking and more people are getting locked out, so-to-speak, of a future. IMHO so much happening these days (Epstein, now Iran, endless things really) are all to distract from the cumbling global economic system. And, if you'll allow me to don my tinfoil hat, when it finally "crashes" the very people that strangled it to death will be waiting with their Hegelian synthesis. I think this will be bribing people with UBI that allows for even more surveillance and control. But again, I'm a tinfoil maniac. 😁

P.S. I really enjoyed this exchange. I like seeing rational opinions that differ from my own without all the name calling and echo chambering I see elsewhere. Cheers!

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Quoting: chr

Quoting: eggrole

Quoting: Kimyrielle

Quoting: Mountain Man$150,000 seems too small of a penalty. They should have added another zero.

Even that isn't enough. Businesses like that have no right to exist. They should have seized the entire thing and shut them down.

I'm really torn over this. On one hand I'm pretty pro-capitalism

Quoting: eggroleWhy, oh why, did so many of us allow money worship to be such a central focus... :(

Yeah, I, too, used to think that consumerism (over-consuming/producing) or something is to blame for many of our society's woes. But over time I learned that capitalism is the system that incentivizes breaking any guardrails ("lobbying", illegal bribing, monopolization, public opinion manipulation, promoting polarization, promoting other kinds of distractions, destabilizing states) and if you add enough guardrails to stop that, there is nothing left to justify still calling it capitalism.

Capitalism is also inherently anti-democratic - those with more money/capital have much more of a say in society. And why do some people have more than others? Even if their recent-most earnings (of power) are by-the-rules (who made the rules? - the ruling class), the origins of those differences of capital (why they got a million loan from daddy and you didn't) always trace back to historical injustices and abuses of those who couldn't defend themselves.

In my country, the wealthiest people today - are those who were close to wealth in the 90s (buying up businesses and resources). Those who got wealthiest in the 90s - were those who stole the most public resources at the dissolution of the Soviet Union. And the people with best opportunities to steal - were those who were near power in the Soviet Union...

So capitalism isn't, strictly speaking, the feudalism of old (born into the status of your ancestors) but it might as well be feudalism in a trench coat and in those fake glasses with a mustache attached.

I think blaming our current state of affairs on capitalism is an extremely weak position. It wouldn't matter one iota what economic system is in place if corruption is allowed to flourish. In capitalism or socialism, you'd see the same bribing, fraud, neopotism, etc that you see today. Think about the bailouts circa 2008 (and beyond). That isn't even close to capitalism. I'm reminded of the saying "capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich". Heck, even Carnegie said "competition is a sin".

In the USA we have social welfare, a socialist military, extreme restrictions on business, etc. Now, I'm not against any of this. I'm no full-blow laize-fair advocate, but (at least here) we don't have anything close to what Smith or Ricardo described in their seminole works.

I DO blame over consumption. Those people that get ultra wealthy (on top of the corruption, which should be public enemy #1) got there because millions of "little people" gave them their hard earned money. Maybe you could argue that people will only buy what they think will improve their lives, but I think that comes back to a branch of corruption. The media portrays a lifestyle of luxury that will make you happy. They sell their wares with beautiful people and promises of fulfillment, but it is all hollow. Not long after you purchase something, the newness wears off and you are back to longing for the next thing. If you're interested check out Propganda by Bernays for a really easy read and a good look at how this works.

I've checkout out of this system by-and-large via a general boycott. I barely spend money on things I don't need and then try to support companies doing things I like. IMHO this is the only way to bring about any kind of social change - by essentially crashing* the (global) economy. Accelerationism in short. I believe that the people are completely able to build a better (hopefully more local) system and keep corruption in check, but right now there is no incenetive to break from the line. If the economy were in shambles, I think a lot of the distractions and bullcrap would fall away and people would be motivated to build something (whatever it is they decide - not for me to say) better.

And even given a crash and rebuild, it will only be a matter of time before corruption bleeds in again as people get fat and happy and content. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".

* General boycott leads to lower revenue leads to layoffs (yes this will be economically painful - that is the point) leads to even lower revenue leads to a deflationary death spiral.

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Quoting: Kimyrielle

Quoting: Mountain Man$150,000 seems too small of a penalty. They should have added another zero.

Even that isn't enough. Businesses like that have no right to exist. They should have seized the entire thing and shut them down.

I'm really torn over this. On one hand I'm pretty pro-capitalism (with the understanding that all -isms need some guardrails) but I'm also very much against owning "ideas". Maybe there could be some kind of middle ground where you can sue for patent infringment if you are actively using the patent in a product. But, if you aren't using it then you lose you ability to sue for infringment. Heck maybe even move the patent to the now producer of said patented product.

Still, it all is so tiresome trying to figure out a million laws/ways to stop everyone from screwing each other over. Why, oh why, did so many of us allow money worship to be such a central focus... :(

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyThey're opportunistic as all get out. But they're not smart enough for this to have been a plan all along.

These guys are fucking morons. Their ideas are incoherent, their plans are simpleminded. If they didn't have the masses of money and this sort of elite-scumbucket-solidarity backing them up, their stupid playbooks wouldn't get anywhere.

In the old days it was plausible to imagine the billionaire class as masterminds

It turns out they're just dipstick scuzzbuckets with avalanches of cash, whose stupid brute-force plots kind of succeed because avalanches of cash.

I don't disagree with any of this per-se, but the fact that the descendants of the old school oligarchs DO have all those buckets of cash and can deploy it on people who aren't as dumb to carry the water is the reality.

I also suspect it isn't a clockwork precision crafted plan they have. More like, "lets centralize control". And then offer financial incentives to do what they want within their industries. Heck, I bet most of the people higher up in companies like nvidia/apple/etc are all completely out of the loop in terms of a grand conspiracy and are simply acting in the most profitable way they can.

Further, I think it is folly to underestimate your opponents. Sure those emails show a bunch of room temperature IQs, but I'm more concerned with who was behind organizing Epstein. The people in the emails are, IMHO, the worker bees of the actual oligarchs. Someone financed it all. Someone was/is using whatever happened as blackmail. Those are the real "masterminds" - the names we don't see.

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Quoting: chickenb00Balanced take: there is no conspiracy, this is simply a market reaction, and once these data centres are built but the envisioned demand does not materialize, prices for all components will fall as data centres stop being built.
I thought about panic-buying HDDs too, but they're expensive now, and anyways I have nothing to store.

This seems reasonable and though I am in the conspiracy camp, I don't have any insider information. If we accept your position, what is troublesome is that a.) what if the market demand IS there? and b.) if the market demand is not there, what does this say about the entire leadership of these companies/industry?

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