runarberg

A group of 80 academics sounds like the level of dysfunction that can only be superseded by a group of 80 politicians.

I think speed to market and revenue of the company are nonsensical measures of successful consumer products. Like did Theranos have a successful consumer product? How about Juul?

Self evidently so, I suppose.

Perhaps I am just blind to consumer markets, but it is not self evident for me, at least. When I think of successful consumer products, I think of stuff like Coca Cola, the light bulb, the CD, acrylic paint. Are you saying that Claude is as successful consumer products as the Ford model T, and Nike sneakers? I am not buying it.

Really? The most successful consumer product? of all time?

They were. Or rather they were all friends/family/the same people. Iceland is one of the most corrupt countries in Northern Europe. What happened is due to how small the economy is, the country simply could not afford to bail out the banks. The money required to do so simply did not exist, so they had exactly one option.

Note also that since then, all the nationalized banks are back on the public market with the state only holding plurality or even minority shares. Investment/retirement funds and private investors together hold bigger share then the state. These shares were more often then not released on a steep discount allowing investors (many of whom responsible for the 2008 crash) essentially free money from the state.

Icelander here. The banks were only temporarily nationalized, the plan was always to privatize them as soon as possible. Only a handful of bankers went to jail, their sentences were extremely light, and every single one of them returned to investing as soon as they were able (or even kept investing via family members while in prison). Today they are still the richest people in Iceland and own the majority of all assets.

I think the only reason Iceland nationalized the failed banks in the first place was because they had no other option, the economy is too small, and they simply could not afford to bail them out, the money literally did not exist.

Also, today’s Iceland is extremely troubled by austerity. Schools and healthcare is extremely underfunded. Teachers- and nurses strike almost every 2 years. The city of Reykjavík just started their biggest round of mass-layoff ever.

Everybody hates AI, even Republicans hate AI. Republican members of congress might not want to explain to their constituents why they are going to vote against an anti-bailout bill for AI, so some of them might opt to support such bill, fearing their constituents may vote them out of office.

> people aren't only using AI because they're being forced to.

I‘d like to counter that. Those of us that don‘t use AI are loosing our jobs, fast. The industry is artificially selecting for AI users. Use AI or loose your job, sounds like a forced choice to me.

And the Soviet Union only fulfills 7 of these points. Crucially missing includes:

>> 1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

>> 8. Religion and Government are Intertwined

>> 9. Corporate Power is Protected

>> 10. Labor Power is Suppressed

Saying that any of these points applied to the Soviet Union at any point in its history is ahistorical.

In addition we have nuanced points like:

>> 2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights

This was true for a small period during Stalin’s purges but under Khrushchev the human rights record of the Soviet Union was on par with other (non fascist) European colonizers like France. If we were to consider this true for the Soviet Union we must also include France under Charles de Gaulle to be fascist. But again we have another name for the ideology behind these atrocities: colonizer.

Note also that there was a Fascist colonizer in Western Europe for most of Soviet Union’s history. And that was Portugal. Are you telling me that what made Portugal fascist, could equally apply to the Soviet Union? Nobody thinks so, probably not even you.

Also note this point:

>> 3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause

This was true throughout the history of the Soviet Union, but an important distinction/nuance is the unifying enemy of the Soviet Union was Fascism and Western Imperialism, and not The Jews, Feminists, or Collage Campuses. The latter three are indication of fascism, the former two are indication of most centralized states.

How so?

> we no longer have to worry about looking for a missing semicolon, typo, or off by 1 error,

These are all things that static analysis tools do very well. I have been using linters and type-checkers for almost my entire career that caught these things. For the past 10 years at least these tools have been integrated in my editor such that they highlight a typo, a missing semicolon, etc. as soon as I type them. This was never a real problem for me, and I assume most experienced software developers.

This post comes across as a carpenter who rejoices in the fact they no longer have to sharpen their tools because now finally, they can buy all their interiors from IKEA.

So basically the kid bought into exactly the corporate propaganda which has littered almost every workplace for the past two decades. I am not gonna blame the kid here but rather a culture of hyper-capitalism which is creating this illusion seemingly on purpose in order to get workers who are more loyal to their exploiter over their own material conditions as workers.

We can also just ditch the AI. It is more trouble then it’s worth.

I have issue with it. Fascism is explicitly and by definition a right wing ideology. It is explicitly anti-communist. Communist cannot, by definition, be fascists. If they were, then we need to redefine the meaning of either fascism or communism.

The word you are looking for is authoritarianism. Tankies and the USSR were and are both authoritarians (the former also by definition). Note also that modern Tankies share a lot more with fascists (both historical and modern) then the USSR did, most notably nationalism, the belief in strict social hierarchy, conspiracy theories (mostly of an enemy that is weak enough to squash like a bug, but at the same time strong enough to end civilization), and general bigotry.

Note that on the left we also have Nazbols who, in addition to all the crap tankies belief, they are also racist ethno-nationalists. However just because the left also has racist bigots (albeit not nearly as many as the right) that still doesn’t make them fascists. To become fascists they would need to become pro-business capitalists and start blaming communism for everything what is wrong with the world.