Posted by slowin 12 hours ago
The one thing he always said is, they have always been watching and know who is who, what these things do is allow it to be entered into the court of law. Now they can act on these things.
You’ll also notice that Anduril is quickly being accepted now that we’re expending munitions faster than our replacement rate.
Put in a less polite way, they're preparing for the metaphorical pitchforks and torches held by mobs of the common people which might manifest themselves in a more kinetic format.
Military's, intelligence agencies and actuaries have been warning about this for decades now and their language is getting very direct on this and the time lines nowadays.
If you have ever been caught in a rip while swimming, there is a moment when you suddenly getting a sucking sensation as you transition from stable waters into an outward flow. I am starting to think we are in that transitional phase on global stability, that the 2030's are not going to be a comfortable time for many.
They are ensuring that potential disruptors can be reigned in if needed. To try and stop things from being even more unpredictable, for better or worse. Buckle up.
You don't build long term surveillance systems and billionaires don't build bunkers for what they think of as a temporary tough situation.
I really wish I had kept all the others from the US, Europe, Aus/NZ etc. It is a very common theme but they are largely kept quiet and only typically (partially) released through freedom of information requests.
This one from Actuaries UK was one that set off alarm bells. As they advise the insurance industry, they are structured to be politically neutral. The key takeaway is the impacts of 3c temperature rise by 2050 on page 9. The reason this is an issue, we are currently on target to hit that with us likely to pass 2c mid next decade with the rate of warming increasing.
https://actuaries.org.uk/media/r3cporjb/planetary-solvency-c...
This one from the UK government is all about addressing national security regarding this issue. Typically they are advising that they secure their food supplies and hardened up boarders in the next 5 years. Funnily enough Brexit may have given them the power to enforce this much more than they would have otherwise had. But that just means they have built a unique flavor of oppression.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nature-security-a...
I have said it for years now about a lot of countries. They will welcome immigrants with open arms, those arms being machine guns, rockets and drones.
They also pass my personal test of not advocating for dumb feel-good ideas. Recently they published a well-sourced article on why the US rail system isn’t a good candidate for electrification.
Was all about just doing the math on energy transitions. He wasn't anti renewable technology but did want to point out how scale is a problem that few understand.
My favorite number of his is, that at 3% growth year over year, we would need all the energy of the Milky way galaxy by the year 13,000. As the galaxy is 100,000 light years across, this would defy physics itself.
"We need the plebs to want to mock people who work from home, to reduce the reticence in coming back to work in the office"
"We need our commercial property values to go back up"
Edited to add:
"Our managers need to _feel_ as if they're actually managing people"
https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
The threat from COVID (and more importantly, long COVID) never went away, but they sure convinced the average person that it did.
Today you can see an N95 in the wild once in awhile, so some people are paying attention, but they are less than 1%. Many others are suffering brain damage, unexplained heart issues, taxed immune systems, etc and have no idea why (nor does their doctor).
A cursory google suggests that the return-to-office movement is primarily driven by management's desire for voluntary turnover, avoiding the bad press of mass layoffs. But certainly doesn't show that it's 'been debunked 100 times'.
In my own experience, it's been 50/50 a desire for voluntary turnover, and also a control tactic. Employees are easier to strong-arm when they're immersed in the idea that company culture actually matters.
I haven't come across much of the debunking of the commercial property issue. I would say it's undeniably factor, but we can argue about the scale.
A total of $800 billion—in real terms—of value is at stake by 2030, and, on average, the total value of office space is expected to decline by 26 percent from 2019 to 2030.
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/real-estate/our-insights...
I think those kinds of numbers can have more fundamental implications.
firstly the amount of money that the "UK lobby" are pushing is a drop of sand in the ocean.[1]
secondly, and most importantly, the USA has no (federally robust) legal protection for citizens to guard against data collection and aggregation. So whist this is being presented as a war on anonymity lead by the dirty British, this is basically "think of the children" play for protecting anonymity. There is nothing wrong with this, its a good argument, even though its obviously flawed.
If you want to dox someone, you just need to pay the right broker. That is, in the UK really difficult. (for example flock cameras are largely illegal in the UK, certainly no council or HOA can just install them. sure you can put in CCTV, but you cannot process that CCTV to track bystanders)
There are no useful controls for citizens to limit the collection and processing of personal information. so whilst in theory you can be anonymous in america, as soon as you use a phone, or any ISP you are effectively de anonymised. I can as a company, buy your location data, tie it to your IP, then cross check with various ad networks to get usernames. (the civil legal route here is file a john doe and ask for metadata in discovery. Higher legal bar, but I don't think thats something that can be done simply in the UK)
TLDR: Contrary to popular belief there are greater protections to anonymous behaviour in the UK. Yes they have been greatly eroded, but the difference here is that there are no legal ways for companies to unmask you for money[2]. In the USA there is no legal protection for someone to share your ID for money.
[1]musk is currently spending millions propping up convicted criminals.
[2] not without your permission, or without a robust legal proceeding.
They want the OS to report the user's age. People will use this to claim whatever age they want. For instance, if companies cannot advertise to children, they might find that almost every computer is reporting that the user is a child--turns out adults want the protections kids receive as well--sometimes.
Eventually they will have to enforce a system intrusive enough that no lying or abuse of the system is possible. We might even approach "Verification Can" levels of verification.
Can also just lie about your age, "I am as old as the fjords, as young as a newborn lamb" - Thor - GTA Vice City radio ;)
This is something I have noted with Trump, he seems to be one of the last names that made it really big in pre-social media era and had a somewhat unified presence in peoples minds.
Making it to that level nowadays is actually really difficult, heck I would argue that even people like Mr Beast hasn't hit that level of awareness due to the fragmented nature of media and fame.
You can build movement in an echo chamber, it just depends if that is enough.
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/prot...
This is simply a risk that I am willing to make. Just fuck off already.
Like, pick a side: are we the tiny backwater micro state on the verge of bankruptcy with no standing in the world, or are we a hugely influencial world power directing US law?