• Akasazh@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    19 minutes ago

    Turns out that taking hubris to far, thinking that the public will suck it all up just because they always did does have its turning point.

    • eicker@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      4 hours ago

      That’s the unsettling part. When billionaires spend fortunes shaping elections, it’s reasonable to ask whether they see voters as citizens to persuade or obstacles to manage. Democracy becomes a lot less inconvenient when you can fund the candidates, influence the platforms hosting the debate, and lobby the people writing the rules. All perfectly legal, of course.

  • eicker@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    4 hours ago

    Turns out telling people your technology will replace their jobs, devour their electricity, and possibly end civilization isn’t the winning sales pitch billionaires imagined. Imagine spending hundreds of millions buying political influence, only to discover voters don’t enjoy being treated like obsolete hardware.

    • Karjalan@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 hours ago

      telling people your technology will replace their jobs, devour their electricity, and possibly end civilization isn’t the winning sales pitch billionaires imagined.

      “but what you guys aren’t getting is the fact that it’ll make me a lot more money.”

    • Random_Character_A@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 hours ago

      AI is still not viable business. All that fear mongering is to create an alternative revenue sources.

      “look, I created a monster that can destroy us all. Please give me money to contain and tame it. We can’t destroy it because our enemies are creating their own monsters.”

  • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    3 hours ago

    Financial obesity is neurotoxic, an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.

    Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but trillionaires should be forced to transition into billionaires, and billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.