The citizens of the U.S. are neither organized enough, sufficiently intelligent and motivated, to keep the various levels of government in check.
As we have seen with the Epstein stuff, even when the evidence is overwhelming and unambiguous there is massive amount of direct support and an accompanying vacuum of response
The only conclusion to be had is: Everyone is ok enough with the state of reality that they will not change it.
Even if those don’t work SAP, Dassault, etc… make massively complex software and services across multiple verticals and could trivially ship a competitor
Element’s topco may be UK based for now, but the vast majority of our business and footprint is in the EU - https://element.io/en/about. All but one of our mobile app team is in the EU for instance (and when we started, the UK was too :|)
In the Netherlands, a lot of government systems aren't procured from the Microsofts of this world. There are a lot of middle men (consultancy agencies) involved that over the years have helped build a strong ecosystem with lots of expertise around Microsoft and related suppliers.
So indeed, it's not like you can just replace a software product (or service) by some EU or open alternative. And there are huge vested interests.
Installing another app, such as Signal, on your personal computer is one thing. On 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 computers, installing it, configuring it, changing settings, updating it, backing it up, locking down settings from user changes (such as retention) - all that requires special tools to do it efficiently at scale. Without the management tools, no way that bit of IT can be used.
The most common tool by far is Microsoft's Active Directory and Group Policy, which has the best compatibility with Windows and with Microsoft applications, including Office. If AD/GP is already deployed, imagine the burden of deploying a second tool to your 1K/10K/100K computers, setting up the server, learning to use it ... you're not doing that for one application unless it's very valuable. The exception is a tool bundled with the application for its own management, but that's going to have to be efficient to deploy, learn, and use to be worthwhile.
Therefore, for many organizations, any application must be effectively managed by AD/GP, which requires the application's developer to create AD/GP management components.
Do Matrix, Signal, or any other application have system management tools?
Zoom came along with a securre video/voice chat, sure it's American, but it was by far the world leader
Microsoft then used its monopoly in office tools to push Teams to everyone
You can't compete with a trillion dollar company offering your product as a bundle your clients already pay for, even if your product is better. Even VC money runs out eventually
To be fair, Microsoft already had Skype (for Business) and NetMeeting before that. It's not like they were new to that market. NetMeeting existed for more than a decade before Zoom even came into existence.
Zoom had COVID-19 play in it's favor, that's about it.
Skype for Business is the VoIP component for Teams, now. Sharepoint is the file service for Teams, too.
Basically, Teams is a front end for a bunch of old Mircosoft cloud services... plus chat. Actually more than one chat as teams channels chat is a separate tech stack from private chat. It used to be much more monlothic and then the Sharepoint people got their hooks into it.
"We also as individuals [without billions] have fairly limited capacity to directly act against these things. I donate a fair bit to the EFF for instance and I've sent outreach to representatives multiple times over the years for specific bills and when its possible I vote against surveillance." - from a parallel thread I was commenting in.
I'm totally fine stopping at minimizing my culpability. I sleep just fine at night and don't really jump at purity tests like you seem to want. I'm not other people's savior and I don't want to be. If you want to put your energy into that, I support you.
> Don't lump me in that "we". I did no such thing. I know exactly how it could be abused and have spent 12 years intentionally not working for companies that perpetuate it.
I don't think you know how to read because I certainly didn't do that. But also go fuck yourself.
This is why no one cares about your causes btw because weird angry little dudes isn't a good look.
I think we'd need a lot more suffering before we have enough people to start that kind of action. If we see 35% unemployment over the next 5 years with insufficient time to adjust, then maybe the pitchforks come out.
Well, time is one aspect but we'd also need motivation and proper execution for a reasonable chance at successful adaptation. My guess is we'll coast along the boundary. I don't imagine things will move so fast as to cause the sort of general upheaval that I think you're talking about. But I do think things will move fast enough to cause significant harm on a larger scale than we've seen recently in the West.
You do understand that is who you’re competing with now right?
My daughter is a excellent student in high school
She and I spoke last night and she is increasingly pissed off that people who are in her classes, who don’t do the work, and don’t understand the material get all A’s because they’re using some form of GPT to do their assignments, and teachers cannot keep up
I do not see a world in the future where you can “come from behind” because all of the people with resources are increasingly not going to need experts who need money to survive to be able to do whatever they want to do
While that was technically true for the last few hundred years it was at least required to deal with other humans and you had to have some kind of at least veneer of communal engagement to do anything
That requirement is now gone and within the next decade I anticipate there will be a single person being able to build a extremely profitable software company with only two or three human employees
Ironically I feel like this may force schools to get better at the core mission of teaching, vs. credentialing people for the next rung on the ladder. What replaces that second function remains to be seen.
>She and I spoke last night and she is increasingly pissed off that people who are in her classes, who don’t do the work, and don’t understand the material get all A’s because they’re using some form of GPT to do their assignments, and teachers cannot keep up
How do they do well on tests, then?
Surely the most they could get away with is homework and take-home writing assignments. Those are only a fraction of your grade, especially at “excellent” high schools.
Generally there are 2 types of human intelligence - simulation and pattern lookup (technically simulation still relies on pattern lookup but on a much lower level).
Pattern lookup is basically what llms do. Humans memorize the maps of tasks->solutions and statistically interpolate their knowledge to do a particular task. This works well enough for the vast majority of the people, and this is why LLMs are seen as a big help since they effectively increase your
Simulation type intelligence is able to break down a task into core components, and understand how each component interacts and predict outcomes into the future, without having knowledge beforehand.
For example, assume a task of cleaning the house:
Pattern lookup would rely on learned expereince taught by parents as well as experience in cleaning the house to perform an action. You would probably use a duster+generic cleaner to wipe surfaces, and vaccum the floors.
Simulation type intelligence would understand how much dirt / dust there is, how it behaves. For example, instead of a duster, one would realize that you can use a wet towel to gather dust, without ever having seen this used ever before.
Here is the kicker - pattern type intelligence is actually much harder to attain, because it requires really good memorization, which is pretty much genetic.
Simulation type intelligence is actually attainable by anyone - it requires much smaller subset of patterns to memorize. The key factor is changing how you think about the world, which requires realigning your values. If you start to value low level understanding, you naturally develop this intelligence.
For example, what would it take for you to completely take your car apart, figure out how every component works, and put it back together? A lot of you have garages and money to spend on a cheap car to do this and the tools, so doing this in your spare time is practical, and it will give you the ability to buy an older used car, do all the maintenance/repairs on it yourself on it, and have something that works well all for a lower price, while also giving you a monetizable skill.
Futhermore, LLMs can't reason with simulation - you can get close with agentic frameworks, but all of those are manually coded and have limits, and we aren't close to figuring out a generic framework for an agent that can make it do things like look up information, run internal models of how things would work, and so on.
So finally, when it comes to competing, if you chose to stick to pattern based intelligence, and you lose your job to someone who can use llms better, thats your fault.
You may think you are not competing. The people whose money you may want (employers, investors, customers) definitely see you as one of many competitors for their funds.
I know lots of people that smoke heavily and I've watched their trajectory over decades. It's a sad story really. I'm pretty sure if you manage it responsibly the benefits may well outweigh the downsides but over the long term it really adds up.
Of course, everybody ages, and people are not usually as sharp as they were in their twenties or earlier. But given that I also have access to a sizeable control group where I don't see that effect I figure it has to have some factual basis too large to be just handwaved away.
Feel free to correct the fact that we haven't met in person by the way, you & yours are always welcome here.
I started medical cannabis at 38 after leaving the military and it has been completely transformative for my Epilepsy/PTSD/CPTSD/arthritis and all of the other bullshit that came from being in the military for 17 years
100% of my doctors say (incl. Director level at Mt Sinai and orthopedic surgeons for the Washington commnders) are more than delighted with my prescription
The citizens of the U.S. are neither organized enough, sufficiently intelligent and motivated, to keep the various levels of government in check.
As we have seen with the Epstein stuff, even when the evidence is overwhelming and unambiguous there is massive amount of direct support and an accompanying vacuum of response
The only conclusion to be had is: Everyone is ok enough with the state of reality that they will not change it.
Everyone gets the governance they deserve
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