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anotherhue 9 hours ago

I think the real answer is the Overton window shifted to accommodate what was previously scandalous,

nostrademons 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Overton window fragmented such that it is currently non-overlapping. Some fragments consider the behaviors that Snowden reported on abhorrent; others consider them fine; still others think it's a moot point because they are powerless and can't do anything about it anyway; and others think it's a moot point because they're going to overthrow the government and remake it in their image anyway.

We're in the phase where the factions are geographically sorting, identifying allies, and arming. Then we fight it out. Each faction thinks their particular Overton window will win and become dominant afterwards, but likely we'll just end up back in the Stone Age and there won't be much of a society left to have a mainstream.

seer an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Why do we need to go to the Stone Age, maybe we go to Pre-cold war diversity of said windows? Or to Cold War stalemate with just a lot more actors?

I think the cheapening of labour that AI is doing globally will be much more impactful on culture, economy and life in general.

Our whole world order was _built_ on the Black Death making labour expensive which lead to the Industrial Revolution (among other factors, but this was an important one).

If we get to cheap labour - then we go to where South Asia is today - low education (why invest when you have ai?) big stratification of society, populist politics, etc.

India is portraying to its people how it’s racing to overtake the west and China … I think the other way around is more likely, with AI you get everyone closer to India’s case.

Prepare for ultra-ultra-ultra rich - like you have in India - honestly the gap between the wealthy and the poor there is astronomically higher than anything you’ve seen in the west.

Silver lining is though - societies like this end up “high Kinship” and more “stable” - maybe even lower large scale conflict?

ricksunny 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>We're in the phase where the factions are geographically sorting, identifying allies, and arming.

In this framing what are the factions? What does geographically sorting mean - are the factions moving themselves from place to place?

djhn 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Your comment started out well within the Overton window, but in the second paragraph it jumped out.

Can we call that Overton window defenestration?

nostrademons 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I like that terminology.

I'll explain, though, because I know the idea that we're all gonna kill each other is currently outside of the Overton Window. There's a fairly well-known (within the field) concept in history & international relations that wars start when the balance of power is ambiguous. Each side thinks that their in-group is more numerous, more powerful, and more righteous than the other. When groups have an accurate self-assessment of their relative power, the more powerful one gets its way and the less powerful one swallows its pride and does what it's told. But when both groups believe they are the more powerful one, they press their advantage and come into conflict. Rather than backing down, they keep pushing for concessions and escalating, believing that if it comes to a fight, they'll win. Since both groups have the misapprehension that they will be the winner, it actually does come to a fight, even though fighting is not strictly rational for either one. It gets even more ambiguous when the conflict is multi-sided, since the uncertainty in power relations is greater relative to their actual power, and the groups often don't know which way potential allies will break or to what extent an adversary's attention will be taken up by others.

History is full of examples where the news articles were crowing that war was impossible right up until it broke out, usually because it would be irrational. People are not always rational, particularly when they have a false perception of the world.

watwut an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I think this is overly simplified. The other reason people fight is that they feel they have no chance otherwise or they feel like their values are attacked. Small group that fight dont think they are stronger, they think they are right and willing to sacrifice (or feel like they have nothing to loose, or just feel hate so much).

Also, more confident about own power go to war because they want to. See WWII - it does not matter how many concessions would be done to nazi, the ideology itself demanded the war. That is why it happened.

Or look at Iran war. Iran was making concessions, USA attacked anyway because it wanted to. American leadership valued war and lethality and wanted to demonstrate it. Irans strategic appeasement was seen as sign of weakness.

Or look at Canada trade war. Canada does not think it is stronger, it thinks concessions will lead to further bullying from stronger neighborhood.

falserum 17 minutes ago | parent [-]

The parent point still stands. Poland and England and everybody could have just not resisted, and accepted occupation, then there would be no war. (Most probably slavery or something, but not war).

Iran didn’t agree to all US/Israel points. Iran felt that they have leverage and can resist. (On the other side, Iran’s leverage/power was not obvious enough to US administration, so US started the war hoping to win quickly).

Guerrilla groups fight because they believe they can win / make s difference, not necessarily in military sense. e.g. Vietnam didn’t win the war on the battle field, US got politically exhausted/tired and retreated (non-military victory is still a victory)

In all cases groups that fight believe they can win somehow eventually. Brainwashed suicide bombers, also believe (less due to ambiguity, more due to brainwashing part)

ai_critic 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The current success of red team and Trump in the US is an excellent example of this from the last decade--one can make the argument that blue team failed to recognize the actual pecking order, and pushed too far and too hard, and now have gotten their teeth kicked in as a result.

(Which is bad, because red team under Trump has no actual talent for boring, effective governance at a time when it is sorely needed. Near inarguably, they're actively bad at it.)

mitxela an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Not really... the blue team pushed hardly anything at all, and people got tired of things gradually getting worse while the government did nothing, so they voted for the other guys (who made things worse more quickly). Same story as the AfD. Seems like the only guys in politics who have remembered the government is supposed to help people are the bad guys (who also don't help people, but realise they have to look like they will)

nostrademons 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I was certainly think of U.S. red vs. blue politics. I think it's bidirectional though: blue team doesn't realize how unpopular some of their key policy agendas are with red-team America, which is why they keep getting their teeth kicked in during elections. But red team doesn't realize the extent to which urban America has moved on from the cultural values of the 1980s, and both how numerous and how devoted their opposition is to their ideals. In reality, the teams are fairly evenly matched in both numbers and strength of conviction. But neither team will admit that, thinking that it's just a few errant radicals that are being manipulated by shadowy forces (Bill Gates, George Soros, and the NYTimes are the bogeyman for the reds; Trump, Miller, Bannon, and Fox News are the bogeyman for the blues). It seems inconceivable to each side that tens of millions of Americans might have sincere beliefs that differ from their own.

The mismatch between perception and reality makes me quite worried for the future of the country.

There are plenty of global examples as well, eg. everybody thought Russia would absolutely steamroll Ukraine and that hasn't happened, both Iran and the US think they have the upper hand and just need to mop up in the Persian Gulf. That's why those conflicts are still going on.

SamInTheShell 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You can probably div up some factions just based off voting data. Red team made it in with just about 1/3rd of the voting population. About 1/3rd of the voting population didn't vote. Just if we're trying to put some numbers to something, those should be verifiable at least. Doesn't say why 1/3rd didn't vote, so it's just 1/3rd unknown faction.

tosapple an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

here's a bogeyman for you, accepting money in a representative democracy for political action is maybe mere nanometers from the definition of bribery.

ai_critic 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Perhaps a bit ahistorical, but I'm put in mind of the quote "Not even Masada began as a suicide attempt."

Interesting times indeed.

watwut an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Blue team played appeasing centrists, tepidly allowing to move the politics to the right. Forever suppressing less centrist parts. That is why they lost. They acted like being lower at the pecking order and lost.

Also, electorally the difference was small. The real big problem was the "they go low we go high" ideology, in allowing supreme court be biased so much to the right, reacting too late to gerrymandering, forever trying to be accommodating to republicans.

fantasizr 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

thats the tough thing about investigative journalism / whistleblowers. You have to hope there's an audience who will care.

rightnutwingjob 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Plenty of people care.

Empathy is, after all, free.

Action has a price.

rexpop 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It's a figure of speech. It's short for "care enough to to take action."

motionlessveloc 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is part of it. Previously governments felt the need to hide skullduggery, but the Trump admin doesn't even bother to pay lip service to this, so to the public revelationa about whatever the Obama admin was up top don't really register. And the political polarization where the mere word "Obama" gets half the population for thing at the mouth doesn't help.

All that said, it doesn't explain the total radio silence we've seen for years now.