Ranvier

Ranvier , 11 days ago (edited 11 days ago)

Since everyone is so obsessed with AI and won't listen to real people talking about problems, I asked chat gpt if the new york city Ai should remain online:

If a chatbot AI consistently provides incorrect information about New York laws, it could potentially mislead people and cause harm or legal issues. It would be advisable to either improve the chatbot's accuracy and reliability and suspend its operation until it can provide correct and reliable information. Providing accurate legal information is crucial, especially for those who may rely on it for important decisions.

There, now since AI has said suspend the AI, New York City can suspend the AI.

Ranvier , 6 months ago

The terms for congressman and the president end at slightly different times. The new congress that is elected is sworn in a couple weeks before the new president is. So it wouldn’t be whoever is currently elected deciding on presidential election certification, it’s whoever is elected next November that will be sitting at that point.

In 2021 for example, the new congress was sworn in on January 3rd, three days before the presidential election certification that was interrupted by an attempted coup on January 6th. Biden was sworn into office on January 20th.

Ranvier , 6 months ago

I know most people on here know this, but always bears repeating since this “states’ rights” nonsense always gets repeated so much to this day. Straight from South Carolina’s letter of secession:

But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding states to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the general government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them.

The confederates were anti states’ rights if anything, they were trying to use the federal government to enforce their slave laws in the northern states. If you’re going to take a “states’ rights” is the reason for the war approach, it was the northern states fighting for their right to disregard the slave holding laws of the south and of the federal government if anything. I guess you could maybe go super abstract and say they seceded to assert a right to secede or something, which seems awfully circular to me. But for anyone in doubt, the primary sources are all out there and easily accessible. Feel free to read for yourself and see slavery front and center in every letter of secession as the reason for secession.

Ranvier , 6 months ago

Agreed, I don’t see how anyone could read any of the letters of secession and not instantly see how slavery is the primary reason. South Carolina’s letter (first state to leave) is a nice easy counter argument to the states’ rights crowd, since it goes on and on for pages explicitly denying the northern states rights and whining that the north should be forced to enforce slavery laws there by the federal government, and how dare the northern states disobey federal laws enforcing slave owners “rights.”

Ranvier , 6 months ago

Yes they did fight for the right for slavery to stay legal in their states, but they were totally against state’s rights when it came to other aspects of slavery. The fugitive slave law and other acts by the federal government attempted to impose slavery rights in northern states. It’s not that the southern states had some high minded principle of the autonomy of states or something. Only when it would result in something they wanted, like slavery. Otherwise they were happy to discard “states’ rights.”

Ranvier , 6 months ago

Excellent article. I personally know multiple doctors who have taken significant pay cuts, uprooted everything, and moved across the country to escape red state politics just as the article reports. Doctors just want to treat patients as well as possible, not be thrown in jail for practicing good medicine.

Ranvier , 7 months ago

I like the focus on north star state. The actual designs are kind of meh though. They all still beat the current one, slapping the state seal on a blue field is the laziest of flags.

Ranvier , 7 months ago

Well naturally the police needed to use riot gear, rubber bullets, and pepper spray. The protesters weren’t doing something totally cool and innocent like storming the halls of the capital with guns and zip tie hand cuffs while attempting a coup.

Ranvier , 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

Well there’s a difference between wanting the genocide and apartheid state to stop and supporting Hamas (who aren’t exactly anti genocide themselves, just would prefer a different one to be going on). But I agree with you, I don’t see much in this article about this organization pushing any pro Hamas or anti semitic lines, other than one organizer apparently said something nice about one member of Hamas one time. Maybe they do push anti semitic propaganda? But they should put examples in the article then. Otherwise it’s just more of people using the cover of anti semtitism to attack people that just want genocide to stop. Which is also descipicable to do when there’s actual real anti semitism going on too that this practice distracts from. The article does add that this group pedals propaganda denying the Uyghur genocide, which is definitely problematic though.

Kind of ironic to see China pushing this message though, who usually take a very strict party line that no country should ever interfere with the domestic situation inside another country under any circumstances ever (they don’t want people looking into what is going on with the Uyghur people, and they also consider Taiwan a part of their country and therefore a purely domestic matter other countries should stay out of).

Ranvier , 8 months ago

If they won’t negotiate on the price, then a 95% tax on all sales of that drug will be imposed the next year. So they’ve got a lot of incentive to negotiate.

See aarp.org/…/medicare-drug-price-negotiations.html

I’m guessing they made the penalty a tax, because this was a part of the inflation reduction act passed by democrats, and to evade the filibuster with the reconciliation rules the law has to strictly involve budgets and taxes.

Ranvier , 9 months ago

So yeah we destroyed the world but for a brief period we created great value for the shareholders.

Ranvier , 10 months ago

Hopefully this will stop the companies that just delay delay delay like Starbucks, trying to run out the clock while they force employees out and the union falls apart before being recognized.