The All Things Political Topic - What's Going On...?

[Lexx]

I dunno man, still can't see the radical left in him.

[Lexx]

Forum made me post twice

Edited yesterday at 03:17 PM by Lexx

[Hawke64]

Meanwhile in the UK.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/palestine-action-terrorism-charges-b2825342.html

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“This absurd misuse of terrorism legislation is deeply damaging to our freedom of speech,” warned Lord Paul Strasburger, a Liberal Democrat life peer, in the House of Lords on Tuesday.

Already, the number of terrorism charges since the group was banned after protesters broke into an RAF base and damaged two military aircraft earlier this year has exceeded any given year, when comparing to the latest Home Office figures. This remains the case even when including more serious offences such as directing or fundraising for a terrorist group, or weapons training.

"Would anyone think of the planes?" It is ironic that the supposedly left-leaning party is as bad as the far-right one in going after the refugees, the disabled people, and the trans community. While I was unsatisfied with the latest GE (voted for the Green party), I did have a small hope that they might have been slightly better than the Tories, though many of the former Labour voters now share this sentiment.

The new Green leader sounds good, so there is something positive.

[Hawke64]

Also this, as mentioned in another thread: https://internet.exchangepoint.tech/the-dog-that-caught-the-car-britains-world-leading-internet/

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The problem was not that the people at the opposite end of the table did not understand the risks at hand, or, as is commonly assumed, the technology of the internet. The problem was that one of the the Act's main policy goals was to create a market, and a marketplace, for the British safety tech sector. That includes age verification providers. In the aftermath of Brexit, which drove away tech talent and investment, the UK desperately needed a digital success story. That success story, in the Conservative vision, would come through expanding the use of British technology for law and order. Hence lawmakers drafted the OSA to mandate the integration of an age verification wall, as a compliance requirement, for the over 100,000 service providers in scope of the law; and hence the revolving door between the online safety regulator, Ofcom, and the age verification software lobby. In this vision, the Great British Internet stack would simply have a few extra technical layers: innovations which would keep people safe whilst boosting British industry. Who could possibly have a problem with that? That's right–those pesky civil society technologists. By nagging politicians about fundamental rights and surveillance technology, we weren't just standing in the way of a law promoted as being about child safety; we were failing to "back Britain".

Not sure how realistic was the ChatGPT subscription (sounds too ridiculous, but so does everything coming from the current government and the 3 previous ones I have witnessed), but the combination with the Environment Agency’s comments was interesting.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-drought-group-meets-to-address-nationally-significant-water-shortfall

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We are grateful to the public for following the restrictions, where in place, to conserve water in these dry conditions. Simple, everyday choices – such as turning off a tap or deleting old emails – also really helps the collective effort to reduce demand and help preserve the health of our rivers and wildlife.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/sam-altman-and-uk-government-minister-reportedly-discussed-giving-chatgpt-plus-to-all-brits-for-free

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OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, and the UK government Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, have discussed a deal which would see the UK’s entire population given premium access to ChatGPT, according to a Guardian report this weekend. However, the bill, which would have to be covered by the government, may have stymied any chance of the deal going official, with Guardian sources indicating ChatGPT Plus for every Brit would cost as much as £2 billion ($2.7b).

 

[Elerond]

£2 Billion sounds quite low, considering that with OpenAI's current pricing it would cost over £10 billion and if OpenAI has not done something meaningful to cut costs then even that £10 billion would most likely causes them losses, even though it probably would give them virtual monopoly in UK.

Maybe OpenAI count that most of the people would not actually use the service and hope that number of super users will be relatively low, but still I am bit sceptic that it would be profitable for them, but they have not pursued profits for now anyway and investors still throw them money with unfathomable speed.

[Zoraptor]

It very much depends on what the deal would actually entail. An entire country's worth of data for an AI vendor would be priceless, for example, and they'd no doubt seek to eventually monetise things in a somewhat, hmm, Googlesque way at some point.

Which was of course a company that- along with Facebook- was notoriously unprofitable. Right up to the point it became notoriously profitable. Nothing like defaultism for establishing a monopoly, and nothing like a monopoly for generating profits.

[rjshae]

Trump team disbands controversial US climate panel

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Faced with a lawsuit, the administration of US President Donald Trump has disbanded a panel of five well-known critics of climate science who issued a controversial draft report questioning the evidence underlying global warming. US energy secretary Chris Wright asserted that the group had accomplished its goal in publishing the first draft, which the Department of Energy (DoE) has declined to withdraw. 

Okay, I don't get this one. He hand picks a panel of people who hold non-mainstream beliefs unsupported by facts and data. They produce a report with non-mainstream beliefs unsupported by facts and data. They he fires them over a lawsuit?

I guess their task is finished, so off with their heads.

[Malcador]

 

Heh.

Gov Cox saying he's definitely a leftist (somewhat funny that Cox seems keen to share that given his talk of calming things down) 

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/utah-gov-cox-shares-more-details-from-investigation-into-motive-of-kirk-shooting-suspect

Edited 4 minutes ago by Malcador