> The proponents of liberal democracy should have sold it better.
That sounds an awful lot like victim-blaming.
What's worse is that your blend of comments somehow omits the fact that fascism is not being openly pushed onto people. Instead, fascists frame their intentions as granting them the authority to impose populist policies within the framework of liberal democracies. The problem is that, as Nazi Germany proved, once these fascists are in power they pull a bait-and-switch onto their own supporters.
To be fair, German Nazi were openly against democracy. It was not bait and switch, it was you get what you was promised.
Contemporary fascists pay lit service to it and like to accuse opponents of not being democratic. Tho, to large extend, conservatives lead by Trump are also doing what was known they will do.
Things like freedom of speech or political organizations which are not subservient to the state?
Of course unrestricted freedom of speech can devolve into whatever has been happening in the US for quite a while but still... don't see how "enlightened totalitarianism" is an answer to that.
authoritarian state that restricts basic individual freedoms = bad
Not sure sure how could you have inferred anything else from my comment.
> Other countries have a far larger mistrust of corporations
Grass is always greener and such. Corporations in Europe have massive amounts of political influence. They are just not as good at making money as American corporations so have less resources to spend on stuff like that.
At least you admit you want a communist revolution rather than using euphemisms like "aligning governmental policy with science and reason" or "programs informed by a root-cause analysis".
Yeah in that regard they are more honest than the cryptofascists on HN who yammer on about rational self-interest and the inviability of demographically heterogenous populations.
I think what the person meant when he commented to you about Terry Davis is that you came accross as Terry had much control. It's schizophrenia; you can't just "take the meds" or have some sort of routine. So he was not putting words in your mouth. Own up to the "condensation".
I think it's fucking weird to create a sock account to pore through a person's comment history and respond to one from eight years ago in a completely unrelated context.
By the way, I share the worry you express in your profile. Imo, eco-socialism is the only way out, there's no way capital interests will give up on burning our planet in their attempt to finally become fully independent of labor. Do you have any better ideas?
Although I don't think communism is a good idea, we find ourselves facing a danger and a menace much more potent than communism IMHO, so I would warmly welcome a communist takeover of my country (the US) if it would reliably stop AI research in my country and keep it stopped. (I'm OK with people's continuing to use models that have already seen widespread usage: it's the training of large new models I want to stop -- that and any attempts to improve human understanding of the fundamentals of machine learning.)
But I tend to think that most communists are neutral or positive in their attitude toward AI research. For example, according to a credible China expert, Xi Jinping has directed China to pursue AI research very aggressively.
In my ideal world, the main priority post-revolution would be to freeze development and prioritize saving our climate so we keep having a livable planet - green energy, public transport, etc etc.
Once that monumental task is done (and this is where we might disagree, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts - my position there is not very firm!) I feel like looking at AI again - while keeping environmental constraints in mind, might be worth a try. The end goal would be utopian star trek post-resource-constraint society, a classless, socialist society in the humanistic sense - where everyone's needs are met and conflicts around resource allocation are a thing of the past.
Re your last edit - ask three socialists and you will get five conflicting takes, I definitely disagree with Xi on most things, though I do think he's doing a good job in things like building the Chinese high speed rail network.
If some bright young person (or more realistically some sequence of bright young people building on each other's work) were to devise a plausible method to control an AI such that it stays under human control even if it become much more cognitively capable than the most capable people, then I would be OK with going ahead with AI research.
I don't think most readers here realize just how little control the AI labs have over their creations and how reliant they are on trial and error for implementing what control they do have. Of course, as soon as it becomes critical to keep an AI under control (namely, when its capabilities start to exceed human capabilities) is exactly when a lab will stop being able to rely on trial and error: specifically, the next time the lab makes an unsuccessful try, the AI will tend to arrange things so that the lab doesn't get any more tries.
As Rosa Luxemburg said, it's socialism or barbarism. It is unfortunate we seem to be going down the path of the latter. To me, it proves the non-viability of electoralism.
The biggest thing that makes communism just completely non-viable is the simultaneous demand for socialism/democracy and internationalism.
Different people just aren't going to agree on social norms and some groups are going to abuse certain things more than other groups. In the past between freedom of association and low levels of migration people could kind of work that out but when you force people to use public services for everything that's completely impossible.
You get one or the other at most. Both at the same time is an immediate non-starter for pretty much everyone.
