I have recently been finding myself on a network (cellular) that blocks access to VPN. I have tried Wireguard on multiple ports using IVPN and Windscribe with no luck. Similarly tried OpenVPN and IKEv2.
I also tried using Windscribe’s “stealth” protocol and IVPN’s obfuscation protocol but again with no luck.
I refuse to rawdog the internet like that and was hoping to get advice on how to work around that nonsense.
I have a Wireguard tunnel running on my home server back home in the US. I am currently outside of the US and that Wireguard tunnel won’t connect if I am on cellular connection for this one specific provider that I am using atm.
I have never attempted to use Tor as a VPN on my iOS device, how is the performance in terms of making Signal calls for example?
Oh, I see. I don't think you can make calls over tor because I think it's TCP only. Not UDP.
Could it be an IP addressing problem by chance where the telecom provider doesn't support say IPv6 while your home network is IPv6? If so, they may not be blocking it, so much as it's not possible to make the connection to begin with.
My home server VPN is IPv4. The VPN provider I have uses both IPv4/6. Neither of those work.
At this point I am inclined to believe the network carrier is performing DPI as I also can’t use OpenVPN on TCP 80 and TCP 443, which are generally hard to block unless provider is intentionally looking into it…at least that’s my understanding.
That very well could be, as I mentioned earlier, you might get yourself a VPS and set up an SSH tunnel or something like that, but otherwise I have no idea.
I do know that you can use signal over tor because I do so, but I only use it for the sending messages and voice messages part. As I said, I think the audio call uses UDP and tor is TCP only to the best of my knowledge.
The only other thing I could think of would be to try a mix net such as Nym.
A VPN isn't rawdogging the Internet. For that you should use stuff like ad blockers. A VPN only protects traffic inspection by on-path attackers like ISPs, though HTTPS mitigates most of that, leaving only metadata. It also changes the apparent origin of your connection.
Honestly, this sounds like a job for Tor. Install Orbot, possibly enable a bridge, and you should be good to go. Onion Browser is recommended for use with Tor, but Safari will work just fine.
I have never tried calling over Tor, but I have never had an issue with the speed before (although it is inherently slower than a VPN).
::: spoiler Tor Bridge Types * obfs4 makes your traffic appear "random" * snowflake disguises your traffic as VoIP * meek-azure makes it look like you're connecting to Microsoft services * meek-amazon makes it look like you're connecting to AWS * meek-google makes it look like you're connecting to Google :::
Cheapest way to not be in this situation is to run an exit node on your home network and route your traffic through when you're travelling (dead simple with Tailscale).
As Silicon Valley’s influence expands, a new belief system is quietly reshaping society. This piece explores how tech elites are redefining power, the risks to human agency, and what it will take to reclaim our collective future
NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Supporting Fairness and Originality in NIH Research Applications NOT-OD-25-132. NIH
Good journalism is making sure that history is actively captured and appropriately described and assessed, and it's accurate to describe things as they currently are as alarming.
And I am alarmed.
Alarm is not a state of weakness, or belligerence, or myopia. My concern does not dull my vision, even though it's convenient to frame it as somehow alarmist, like I have some hidden agenda or bias toward doom. I profoundly dislike the financial waste, the environmental destruction, and, fundamentally, I dislike the attempt to gaslight people into swearing fealty to a sickly and frail psuedo-industry where everybody but NVIDIA and consultancies lose money.
I also dislike the fact that I, and others like me, are held to a remarkably different standard to those who paint themselves as "optimists," which typically means "people that agree with what the market wishes were true." Critics are continually badgered, prodded, poked, mocked, and jeered at for not automatically aligning with the idea that generative AI will be this massive industry, constantly having to prove themselves, as if somehow there's something malevolent or craven about criticism, that critics "do this for clicks" or "to be a contrarian."
I don't do anything for clicks. I don't have any stocks or short positions. My agenda is simple: I like writing, it comes to me naturally, I have a podcast, and it is, on some level, my job to try and understand what the tech industry is doing on a day-to-day basis. It is easy to try and dismiss what I say as going against the grain because "AI is big," but I've been railing against bullshit bubbles since 2021 — the anti-remote work push (and the people behind it), the Clubhouse and audio social networks bubble, the NFT bubble, the made-up quiet quitting panic, and I even, though not as clearly as I wished, called that something was up with FTX several months before it imploded.
This isn't "contrarianism." It's the kind of skepticism of power and capital that's necessary to meet these moments, and if it's necessary to dismiss my work because it makes you feel icky inside, get a therapist or see a priest.
Nevertheless, I am alarmed, and while I have said some of these things separately, based on recent developments, I think it's necessary to say why.
In short, I believe the AI bubble is deeply unstable, built on vibes and blind faith, and when I say "the AI bubble," I mean the entirety of the AI trade.
And it's alarmingly simple, too.
But this isn’t going to be saccharine, or whiny, or simply worrisome. I think at this point it’s become a little ridiculous to not see that we’re in a bubble. We’re in a god damn bubble, it is so obvious we’re in a bubble, it’s been so obvious we’re in a bubble, a bubble that seems strong but is actually very weak, with a central point of failure.
I may not be a contrarian, but I am a hater. I hate the waste, the loss, the destruction, the theft, the damage to our planet and the sheer excitement that some executives and writers have that workers may be replaced by AI — and the bald-faced fucking lie that it’s happening, and that generative AI is capable of doing so.
And so I present to you — the Hater’s Guide to the AI bubble, a comprehensive rundown of arguments I have against the current AI boom’s existence. Send it to your friends, your loved ones, or print it out and eat it.
No, this isn’t gonna be a traditional guide, but something you can look at and say “oh that’s why the AI bubble is so bad.” And at this point, I know I’m tired of being gaslit by guys in gingham shirts who desperately want to curry favour with other guys in gingham shirts but who also have PHDs. I’m tired of reading people talk about how we’re “in the era of agents” that don’t fucking work and will never fucking work. I’m tired of hearing about “powerful AI” that is actually crap, and I’m tired of being told the future is here while having the world’s least-useful most-expensive cloud software shoved down my throat.
Look, the generative AI boom is a mirage, it hasn’t got the revenue or the returns or the product efficacy for it to matter, everything you’re seeing is ridiculous and wasteful, and when it all goes tits up I want you to remember that I wrote this and tried to say something.
Hey! Before we go any further — if you want to support my work, please sign up for the premium version of Where’s Your Ed At, it’s a $7-a-month (or $70-a-year) paid product where every week you get a premium newsletter, all while supporting my free w…
Imagine you live in the western United States and are planning a vacation to Europe, returning with a connecting flight somewhere on the east coast. When you arrive in the U.S., the government may invoke the Border Search Exception to search — and even fully copy — your electronic devices, all without a warrant. But because of the chaotic state of Fourth Amendment law for border searches, you’ll face one rule if you fly into Logan International Airport in Boston, an entirely different rule if you arrive at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta, and a third rule if you land in Dulles Airport outside Washington DC. A fourth rule will govern searches if you land at JFK or LaGuardia Airport in New York City, but if you land just outside New York at Newark International Airport, a fifth rule applies. And if you opt to avoid a connecting flight and land directly on the west coast, a sixth rule will be used.
With the stakes as high as the government being able to copy every sensitive email, photo, and document on your phone — without a warrant— how has the law become so convoluted? It is because each of those airports are located in a different appellate court’s jurisdiction, and those courts have disagreed on the scope of the Border Search Exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.
Warrantless border searches became a feature of U.S. law long ago, well before the digital age. The power of Customs agents to search property entering the United States was established in the late 1700s, and the Supreme Court acknowledged warrantless border search authority in cases in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It formally recognized border searches by Customs agents as an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in the 1977 case U.S. v. Ramsey.
This out-of-date rule, created to help detect dangerous contraband as it is smuggled into the country, is a poor fit for the digital age and dangerously broad when applied to personal electronic devices like smart phones. Now that individuals carry as much sensitive information in their pocket as they could possibly store in their entire home, the Border Search Exception needs an update.
In 2014 the Supreme Court addressed this precise problem for another exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement: searches conducted during arrests. The Court refined the Search Incident To Arrest Exception to the warrant requirement, blocking its application to electronic devices. It noted that “Cell phones differ in both a quantitative and a qualitative sense from other objects” individuals carry and that “[p]rior to the digital age, people did not typically carry a cache of sensitive personal information with them as they went about their day.” Though these same considerations apply at the border, the Supreme Court has not yet stepped in to similarly limit the Border Search Exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Instead, the law has become a complex patchwork, with appellate courts setting out a range of rules.
MOSCOW, July 21 (Sputnik) - Microchips, smart devices, and software developed outside China may contain hidden tools embedded in their architecture designed to steal sensitive information about the People's Republic, the Ministry of State Security ha…
Sadly this is only true on paper. Communist reality is not that good. This is probably why the meme targets the US audience who never experienced any of it.
What exactly makes this a cliche? Is it because a lot of people who experienced communism keep saying it? I wonder why that may be.
This isn't a game. This is reporting personal experience. If you have a better experience with communism - lucky you. A lot of people here also had a positive one. Mostly these were communist party officials. Or people who secretly told the authorities about their neighbor's "subversive" and "anti-regime" activities.
I'd like discourage anybody from trying to use communism as a system in their country. It may seem like a good idea, but it isn't.
The majority of people who lived in the USSR think it was a better system than today. The vast majority of the PRC is happy with their system. Personal anecdotes does not trump actual facts and statistics.
So if I now go through the trouble to find a more recent statistic from the Czech Republic than the one you have from 2011 you will agree that the idea of reviving the communist regime isn't popular here? Right?
If it's something completely different, like the electoral results you've already shown, deleted, then shown again repeatedly, then no, I won't agree. I do agree that it's a comicated subject, especially because a small number of people have benefited massively due to the reintroduction of capitalism, and these people have control of the state and the media. However, even if you were able to prove that about the Czech Republic, there's still all of the other states, plus the fact that the PRC is currently at over 90% approval rates.
Yes sorry about that. I replied on my own comment instead of yours, so I wanted to delete that reply, but deleted the parent comment instead by accident. So I had to repost it and then move the comment reply under your reply again. That was a mess 😀
Other states may have different experiences no doubt. But I will not comment on those because I don't know the background there. I will leave that to residents of those states if you don't mind. I am interested in your own real life experience with communism especially as you go through a lot of trouble to promote the system.
Why I am commenting here is that your statistics just happen to contain a set of data which I do know a lot about and it is used to "prove" a point it can't prove.
The point it tries to prove is that "The majority of people that lived in the Soviet Union want it back." (this is literary the title of your article). However any Czech statistic can't be used to prove this as Czech Republic (or Czechoslovakia back then), was never a part of the USSR. The USSR just occupied our state with its army.
The article linked to that statistic and its poll is from 2011 and talks about the popularity of the past communist regime. I find the results not representative of reality and try to contest them by presenting election results.
Additionally to that I now actually went through the trouble to find a more recent statistic on the subject. It is from 2022. You'll need to auto-translate it: seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/domaci-…
52% of respondents say they are better off than in the past regime vs 24% who say the opposite.
There is an interesting breakdown of the statistics as well (differentiating respondents by sex, occupation, education etc) too if you are interested.
Based on the steady decline of the number of votes for the communist party in the past 35 years and the difference between your statistic from 2011 and the one above from 2022 I believe it is not incorrect to consider the following statement true:
"A majority of Czech citizens do not want the communist regime to return to their country."
Several things are important to acknowlegde here, thanks for providing a new study.
First, there is a stark gender divide:
Most men (62.2%) say yes. But among women, only 44.1% chose the positive answer. Nearly a third of women (30.2%) even think that society is worse off than before the revolution. The other 25.7% of women do not lean either side.
That's not a very good indication for the poll. It seems the Czech Republic is now far more socially regressive, and far harsher towards those without privledge.
Second, there is further proof that the privledged in society have benefited more, while the underprivledged have been held back:
The opinion on whether society was better or worse under socialism is clearly related to the education of respondents. The more schools they have, the better they perceive the post-November development. Two-thirds (65.3%) of undergraduates think that society is better off than before 1989, while 38.8% of people with an apprenticeship certificate (more precisely with a high school education without a high school diploma) think the opposite.
The poll is interesting, in that it reveals that the Czech Republic is now more striated. Not only has time passed, allowing the economy to grow a decent bit and improve from the utter disaster that was the 90s period, but those privledged in society have benefited more while those underprivledged have been thrown under the bus.
Ultimately, this new information reframes our analysis, and if anything leads to pro-communist conclusions. Further still, the arguments for socialism vs capitalism still hold, even if the Czech Republic is currently in a more reactionary phase of its existence.
I too find the gender rift in the study really surprising. I wouldn't immediately draw the conclusion from it that Czech Republic has become more socially regressive than in the past. My feeling is the opposite when it comes to how many women I see in managerial, political etc roles. Although there is still a lot of improvement to be made. Not to rely solely on my feelings i did pull up the newest Gender Gap index which is available here: reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_G…
The index is calculated for individual countries which enables to compare the Czech Republic to China for example. I did this out of curiosity and funnily enough - we have the same exact index down to the decimal. So both china and Czech Republic have a lot of progress to do. The entire study is pretty detailed and allow for comparison in various sectors such as income, education, health etc. One interesting aspect I did notice in the European region is that eastern European (read ex-communist) countries, tend to have a lower index. But enough about gender parity.
The educational aspect of popularity of the communist regime you are mentioning could be explained by a lot of factors. From a blunt "Only uneducated people think communism is a god idea." to a more economical approach such as "People with lower incomes tend to prefer regimes that re-distribute wealth in a significant way". That seems logical and doesn't surprise me at all.
But we really don't throw people under the bus. There are differences in income, privilege, education, etc. The society isn't homogenous and never will be. But these differences aren't extreme compared to countries with "true" capitalism.
What we have here probably isn't the "capitalism" you have in mind. It is a democracy with a mostly free-market, with some regulations and checks, some subsidies, somewhat progressive taxation, free healthcare and education for everyone. There is a decent social security "net" as we call it too. It's actually not bad at all.
As you mention capitalism I would like to declare that I in no means want to defend unchecked capitalism such as we see it in the US. I believe this extreme example is the reason why many people tend to find communism - the other extreme - so attractive. Turns out moderation is key, who would have thought?
Interestingly about the PRC, even though the WEF is a right-wing, pro-imperialist org, it still acknowledges that China is rapidly improving:
China, one of the world’s most populous countries, improves gender parity by +0.2 points since the last edition of the report, with a 2025 score of 68.6% and climbs three ranks since last year to 103rd rank. China has been on a positive trajectory for the past three editions, and on course to approach its highest score to date (69.1%, 2013). This shift results from parity increases in Political Empowerment (+1.2 points) and Health and Survival (+0.7 points) and is achieved despite a slight reduction in economic parity (-1.2 points). In Economic Participation and Opportunity, while income parity rises from 64.2% to 63.9%, it is not sufficient to counter the drop in wage parity, of –0.3 percentage points. However, compared to 2006 China has advanced economic parity by an overall +10.5 percentage points. In Educational Attainment, parity ratios are maintained with the exception of literacy rates, which show the score modestly improved from 96.6% to 96.9% despite a minimal but overall reduction in values. China’s improved sex ratio at birth has a significant effect on its Health and Parity subindex performance, raising the score from 94.0% to 94.7%. Unlike a large share of economies this year, China’s healthy life expectancy remains virtually unchanged. Political parity improves as female ministerial representation nearly doubles in 2025, from 4.7% to 8.3%, and boosts the overall subindex score from 12.3% to 13.5%.
In general, the introduction of capitalism into Eastern-Europe after the dissolution of the USSR was disastrous for equality, so the data checks out there.
As far as education is concerned, being more educated puts one into a more privledged subsection of society, without actually making them "smarter." Those with privledge tend to support the system, even if it isn't as scientifically logical. The fact that less-privledged people prefer more equitable economic formations is indeed natural, I agree with you on that.
As for "true" capitalism, there's no such thing. Capitalism is capitalism, either the large firms and key industries are public, or they are private. There's no such thing as a "checked" capitalism, the system will always adapt to suit its class structure. The reason socialism is appealing is because it's equitable, scientific, and resolves the contradictions and inherent flaws in capitalism. It isn't simply another "extreme," it's shifting from a privately driven economy to a publicly driven economy. There is no "middle ground" in class dynamics, either the bourgeoisie are in charge, or the proletariat is, and in the Czech Republic that class is absolutely the bourgeoisie. It isn't democratic except for the privledged few, the state bans communism and tries to root out its influence.
The changes come following calls from some Czech institutions, including the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, to correct what they said was an imbalance in the legal system.
Of course there is a middle ground. I just posted it as a reply in one of the other comments. This polar view of either or is utter nonsense. It doesn't matter how you change the rules of the system. Being it "capitalism" or "communism" intelligent people will always find ways to navigate thourgh the current mode (whatever it is)l to their advantage - which in the long run will result in an un-equal society. The goal is to set the rules in a way that benefits as many people as possible. You think that in the past regime there weren't any "privileged" individuals? Now people usually say "yes but his family is rich, so he has an advantage". Back then it used to be "yes, but his cousin is the regional secretary of XYZ so of course he won that competition".
Contrary to what you say the current regime here is democratic not just for a privileged few. Everyone can vote.
Although I am not happy about the law you mention, it doesn't ban communism as you say. It just added communism on the list of regimes that threaten human rights and should not be promoted. Which I kind of get given the number of... executions and political prisoners we used to have here a few decades ago.
It isn't perfect what we have, but it is better than it was ten years ago. And that in turn was better than what we had 20 years ago. And that in turn was better... (you get it by now).
I disagree with your erasure of class dynamics as they relate to the state. The class that is in control of the state is the class that controls the large firms and key industries, the economic base of society. There isn't a middle ground, this is a class war, and the one that has supremacy weilds it in their favor and cements it.
Further, the disparity in capitalism is leagues beyond socialism. In the USSR, the difference between the top and the bottom was around 5-10 times, on average. In capitalist countries, that figures in the hundreds to thousands range, to far, far more than that even. These are not equivalent in any way. Privledged individuals exist in socialism, to be sure, but the sheer scale of privledge pales in comparison to capitalism.
Further, everyone being capable of voting makes no analysis of the media, the state, how candidates are selected before coming to the election table, what parties are allowed and which are financially backed by the capitalists, and like I showed, the state is taking an active role in suppressing socialism. This is not democracy for the people, this is bourgeois democracy, and it extends from bourgeois control of the economic base of society.
Now do this meme with any country in Eastern Europe that actually has experienced communism after ww2. Bonus point if you pick one where the USSR has placed their troops to "prevent regime change instigated by foreigh agents and protect the people from a civil war".
Slavic brothers came to aid us with their tanks. Lol.
In what way? You're complaining about me being a communist, so I just responded by saying I'm indeed a communist and I don't hide it, no matter how scary you try to make me seem. If you have issues with what I say, address them directly.
You did, you used a pejorative for communists, like "pinko," "commie," or "red." My views are largely aligned with Marxism-Leninism, by far the largest subsection of Marxism by number and absolutely the most relevant historically and currently. The issues you have with me are issues you'd have with the vast majority of communists today and historically. If you'd like to explain where you believe I diverge from the international communist movement in views then that might better illustrate a point, but as of now you've just called me the equivalent of "dirty commie."
All states are authoritarian, I support the proletariat being in control of that authority, rather than the bourgeoisie. I don't "support authoritarianism" any more or less than the vast majority of the communist movement, because use of authority isn't really something that works on a linear scale. States wield their authority to represent whichever class controls them, and the extent that authority takes depends on the conditions the state finds itself in.
Nazi Germany, for example, has roughly the same mode of production as modern Germany. The difference in use of authority is because the German economy is not in the same conditions of crisis that existed in the 1930s and 1940s. The bourgeoisie was in control the whole time, that never changed, what did change was the decay of conditions leading to a need for the bourgeoisie to violently assert its control. Now, violent crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protestors is done by the state, because the bourgoeisie needs Israel to continue existing and protecting imperialist super-profits. They didn't just decide to crackdown for fun, but because they needed to.
Rather than the bourgeoisie being in control, I support the proletariat. This is bog-standard communism, and I cannot imagine you'll find any communists that want the bourgeoisie to remain in control.
I love how you completely avoided all of my points, only to say that you have a few communist friends so that makes you not an anti-communist. We have no way of knowing if your friends have views in line with the vast majority of communists, what tendency they follow, etc. It's just a way for you to dodge the argument entirely and never need to question your preconcieved biases.
Nico198X (noun): a person who ties themselves in knots so they can feel good about supporting authoritarian despots while wearing a red scarf.
See? I can make lazy ad-hominems too, it doesn't actually address the arguments at hand.
all you've shown is that you lack reading comprehension.
no one needs your approval or vetting, and you don't define what a Leftist, Communist or Socialist is.
yes, i'm "biased" against authoritarian despots.
it's not a lazy ad-hominem, it's exactly what you are. you love despots that gulag ppl. you love that shit. just say it. Stalin, Mao, Kim dynasty, you love them.
The one who lacks reading comprehension is you. No one needs your approval or vetting. I am simply stating that if the broad majority of communists globally agree with me, then the specific issues you take with me that also apply to the broad majority of communists go hand in hand as you being anti-communist. It isn't about definition, nor do I claim a higher authority, I claim that my views are very standard for communists and as such calling me a pejorative for communist makes you to an extent anti-communist.
It is lazy ad-hominem. You're directly trying to undermine my points by attacking my character. That's what you came here to do, attack my character to prevent people from responding. It's childish, and now that it evidently isn't working, you're trying to get in a few quick jabs on your way out.
This is really getting sad, you're starting to mald, cope, and seethe because nobody is agreeing with you. I hold similar views to the majority of Marxist-Leninists on Stalin, Mao, and the Kim family.
I agree, but if at the end of this I can get them to reconsider their position I'll consider it a win. Different strategies work on different people, some genuinely learn after being called out on their bullshit aggressively, others need a gentle hand, I figure if I stick with being patient and others less so the net has fewer holes.
The US literally has a higher incarceration rate than China or than USSR did under Stalin, but do go on. Really highlighting the quality of your intellect here.
No we are literally talking about that right now because you're braying about gulags here. Also, learn what ad hominem is if you're going to use it. Ad hominem would be me saying your argument is wrong because you're an imbecile. I'm addressing your argument directly on its own merits while highlighting the fact that you are in fact an imbecile. It's perhaps too subtle a difference for you to grasp given the limitations.
It's absolutely an attack on my character, you opened this conversation attacking me with an anti-communist pejorative and have refused to engage with my points, preferring to just call them "divorced from reality" and "vacuous nonsense" as though those rhetorical attacks erase the points raised.
I backed up why I said all states are authoritarian: all are instruments by which the ruling class oppresses others and retains control, and the degree to which it oppresses is aligned with the degree to which it is opposed. I even used Germany as an example, Nazi Germany wasn't more oppressive because they wanted to be, but because the bourgeoisie was responding to a crisis in their mode of production and needed to violently assert itself, but the mode of production fundamentally did not change.
it's not an anti-communist pejorative. it's an anti-authoritarian pejorative. but for you, it's the same, because you're an authoritarian who supports other authoritarians as long as they are red.
look, saying "all states are authoritarian" is something YOU assumed. you'd need to prove that first before we even get to anything else.
socailist thought, political parties, gatherings, etc, can all exist in liberal democracies. that's not the mark of authoritarianism.
i suspect you will say they exist to the extent that they are not a threat to the capitalists, but will be crushed if they were to actually gain power.
then i'd say you'd still need to prove that also, but first, how about getting a populace to actually vote for your views and win elections before crying foul.
whereas in an authoritarian state, straight to the gulag or shot. ie. Stalin, Mao, Kim, your heroes.
"Tankie" is absolutely an anti-communist pejorative, it's used for the same people that have been called "reds," "pinkos," "commies," etc. It's levied at supporters of existing socialist systems, which includes the likes of W.E.B. Dubois, Nelson Mandela, Fanon, Malcolm X, etc.
As for saying all states are authoritarian, I did prove it. Do you disagree with the notion that all states are elements of class oppression, and that whichever class controls the state oppresses the rest? That's the standard Marxist position, which since you're not a Marxist it's understandable that you wouldn't, but it would be best for you to be honest about your anti-communism.
i suspect you will say they exist to the extent that they are not a threat to the capitalists, but will be crushed if they were to actually gain power.
I actually agree with this, yes.
then i’d say you’d still need to prove that also, but first, how about getting a populace to actually vote for your views and win elections before crying foul.
Why would Marxists try to accomplish something proven to never work in theory nor in practice? The principles of Marxism are to unite unity and practice, learn from the past and apply it to the present. Why would we not learn from the failures of electoral socialism learned by the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile? Why would we not learn from the success of revolutionaries?
not that UD is some kind of godly authority, but in my experience this is the common historical meaning, specifically in contrast of other communists. if ppl use it to deride all communists, i can't speak to that, but it would not be accurate. as i've said, i associate with non-tankie and former tankie Commies.
you never acknowledge this and prefer to wash it all away by claiming it's an empty slur against all Commies, which is pretty divorced from the overarching context.
re: authoritarian states
you didn't prove it, you made a claim and presented evidence.
i am not yet convinced of your (Marxist) claim that "all states are elements of class oppression, and that whichever class controls the state oppresses the rest."
if i were anti-communist, i'd just tell you. but you are correct that i am not communist, nor socialist. not yet at least, mostly due to tankies. we've had this discussion before, i don't particularly want to drag this on.
re: practice
then why not learn from the failings of the USSR, DPRK, PRC in their human rights violations? that would make we take your position more to heart, because when you can't do that, it makes everything else you say empty, because you remain inhuman in your willingness to oppress others.
The UD definition outright states that "tankies" are those who are inflexible and incapable of nuance or critique, so I am not a "tankie" according to your UD link. The vast majority of communists are supportive of AES states, while providing genuine critique, which is what I do as well. Your only rhetorical purpose in calling me a "tankie" is to erase the nuanced critique I provide of AES states and replace it with some dogmatic version of myself, one that doesn't exist anywhere except your mind.
You cling to this caricature because it's integral to your points, if it turns out that I am indeed capable of nuance and critique but just disagree with you, then you have to actually engage with my points. You use "tankie" as a thought-terminating cliché and a cover for you being blanketly anti-communist.
As for authoritarianism, you just dismissed my points out of hand and never engaged with them. As far as I know, this is the first time we've had this conversation, unless you've changed your username or something. I don't really remember everyone I talk to. If you have critique or a counter-argument, I'd appreciate that, as of now you just insult me for making a point and backing it with evidence.
You may not want to think of yourself as anti-communist, but if you oppose the vast majority of communists theoretically and in practice, then you're anti-communist. It isn't like you're just ambivalent, you have stances. It seems more likely that you just don't want to take on the label of anti-communist, while being an anti-communist in action.
As for critique, I do. I don't agree with the standard western narratives surrounding AES failures, but I do agree with real critiques based in material reality. Me dismissing bourgeois narratives and doing so with evidence doesn't mean I am incapable of critique, just that I believe the baseline for that critique is different in character. I find that it's usually Marxist-Leninists that are the most critical of AES along genuine lines, as we've done the due dilligence of sepparating fact from fiction so we can learn what went wrong and what went right.
As an example, early revolutionary Cuba was quite homophobic, based on machismo. Homosexuals were persecuted and jailed. Over time, this was seen as an error, and now Cuba has one of the most progressive family codes in the world, with Fidel himself recognizing it as a horrible mistake that needed to be rectified.
You don't see that critique, though. You've already invented a version of me in your head, and are arguing against it. It's dishonest.
i don't do any of that, but that is your go-to response for the term.
this has come of my lived experience of interacting with you. it has been what you have put forth to me in your full-throated support of, as you say, AES states.
NOW, having said that, if you have some examples to show me of your nuanced critique of the human rights abuses of these authoritarian states, i'd actually love to see them. they did not come up in our last interaction. maybe they will change my view of you and of your brand of communism.
re: authoritarianism
we have interacted in the past, and of course you wouldn't recall. no reason you would, and that's totally ok. but you are active enough i'm sure you realize that ppl remember you.
i'm ok with being anti-communist if that is indeed what i am. but because i am actively inquiring into Socialist thought to see if i can be Socialist, it's just not a category i am sure of yet (either pro/anti communism, socialism, insert-Leftist-ideology-here, etc). i do know i am anti-authoritarian, and that will not change.
re: critique
"I find that it's usually Marxist-Leninists that are the most critical of AES along genuine lines, as we've done the due dilligence of sepparating fact from fiction so we can learn what went wrong and what went right."
i've heard you say this before. it strikes me as a bit hubristic and if i were you i'd remain concerned about the accuracy of reports/data from AES states, same as i don't trust the US's opinion of itself.
nevertheless, i remain open and interested in what you can present of this.
I support AES, like the overwhelming majority of Marxist-Leninists, who in turn make up the overwhelming majority of Marxists, to begin with. I don't know what you mean by "full-throated." Do you mean I am loudly supportive, or uncritically supportive? If it's the former, I should hope so! A better world is possible! I refuse to cede ground to those whose stances align more with bourgeois narratives about AES states than proletarian narratives.
If it's the latter, then I disagree vehemontly. Criticism and self-criticism are core principles of Marxism-Leninism. The CPC, the largest Marxist-Leninist party in the world at ~96 million members, paints both Stalin and Mao at "70% good, 30% bad." That's hardly uncritical support. What is opposed is dogmatic rejection of socialist leaders. Critique based on dogma cedes the narrative to the bourgeoisie.
As far as examples, I already noted early Cuba's homophobia, the same applies to the Soviet Union (though some areas like the GDR became more progressive over time, and the USSR in general was extremely progressive from a feminist point of view compared to its peers), and the PRC as well, as an example. Socially, the PRC is behind Cuba and Vietnam, despite having a better economic model. Things are improving steadily, but they have a long way to go.
Does that satisfy, or are you just going to endlessly move the goalposts?
Re: "authoritarianism"
Marxist-Leninists are anti-authoritarian too. Hear it straight from Lenin:
While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State.
Since all states are authoritarian, we need to abolish the state. But, we can only do that once class ceases to exist, and we can only do so once everyone's social relation to production is interchangeable and the same, ie a classless society based on collectivization. The goal of socialism is to accomplish this, and until all property is sublimated there will be class, and as such until then the state will remain, as it must.
If you're actively inquiring into socialist thought, then you owe it to yourself to explore Marxism-Leninism. It's the most significant and largest branch of Marxism, which in turn is the most significant and largest umbrella under the "socialist" banner. Here's an introductory ML reading list I made, check it out if you wish. If you're "anti-authoritarian," then you should explore what that actually means, beyond just supporting systems when they aren't in crisis and going back on that when they are (see the Nazi Germany vs. Modern Germany example for what I mean, both are equally "authoritarian" in that their class structure is the same but the extent of oppression was based on circumstance)
Re: Critique
I don't purely trust data from AES, I trust data that has significant historical evidence. This is hard to prove without specific examples, but in absence of that, here's my critique of the Gang of Four period of the PRC:
It's time to read theory, comrades! As Lenin says, "Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle." Reading theory helps us identify the core contradictions within modern society, analyze their trajectories, and gives us the tools to break free. Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components, as noted by Lenin in his pamphlet The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism: | Audiobook
Dialectical and Historical Materialism
Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx's Law of Value
Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
As such, I created the following list to take you from no knowledge whatsoever of Leftist theory, and leave you with a strong understanding of the critical fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism in an order that builds up as you read. Let's get started!
Section I: Getting Started
What the heck is Communism, anyways? For that matter, what is fascism?
Breaks down fascism and its mortal enemy, Communism, as well as their antagonistic relationship. Understanding what fascism is, where and when it rises, why it does so, and how to banish it forever is critical. Parenti also helps debunk common anti-Communist myths, from both the "left" and the right, in a quick-witted writing style. This is also an excellent time to watch the famous speech.
Section II: Historical and Dialectical Materialism
By far my favorite primer on Marxist philosophy. By understanding Dialectical and Historical Materialism first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism-Leninism. Don't be intimidated!
Further reading on Dialectical and Historical Materialism, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, explaining how Capitalism itself prepares the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates. This is also where Engels talks about the failures of previous "Utopian" Socialists.
Section III: Political Economy
That's right, it's time for the Law of Value and a deep-dive into Imperialism. If we are to defeat Capitalism, we must learn it's mechanisms, tendencies, contradictions, and laws.
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value. Marx is targetting those not trained in economics here, but you might want to keep a pen and some paper to follow along if you are a visual person.
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions. Marxist-Leninists understand that Imperialism is the greatest contradiction in the modern era, which cascades downward into all manner of related contradictions. Knowing what dying Capitalism looks like, and how it behaves, means we can kill it.
Section IV: Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
Can we defeat Capitalism at the ballot box? What about just defeating fascism? What about the role of the state?
If Marxists believed reforming Capitalist society was possible, we would be the first in line for it. Sadly, it isn't possible, which Luxemburg proves in this monumental writing.
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, without needing to be replaced with one that is run by the workers, in their own interests.
Section V: Intersectionality and Solidarity
The revolution will not be fought by atomized individuals, but by an intersectional, international working class movement. Intersectionality is critical, because it allows different marginalized groups to work together in collective interest, unifying into a broad movement.
Critical reading on understanding misogyny, transphobia, enbyphobia, pluralphobia, and homophobia, as well as how to move beyond the base subject of "gender." Uses the foundations built up in the previous works to analyze gender theory from a Historical Materialist perspective.
De-colonialism is essential to Marxism. Without having a strong, de-colonial, internationalist stance, we have no path to victory nor a path to justice. Fanon analyzes Colonialism's dehumanizing effects, and lays out how to form a de-colonial movement, as well as its necessity.
Solidarity and intersectionality are the key to any social movement. When different social groups fight for liberation together along intersectional lines, the movements are emboldened and empowered ever-further.
Section VI: Putting it into Practice!
It's not enough to endlessly read, you must put theory to practice. That is how you can improve yourself and the movements you support. Touch grass!
Mao wrote simply and directly, targeting peasant soldiers during the Revolutionary War in China. This pair of essays equip the reader with the ability to apply the analytical tools of Dialectical Materialism to their every day practice, and better understand problems.
Congratulations, you completed your introductory reading course!
With your new understanding and knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, here is a mini What is to be Done? of your own to follow, and take with you as practical advice.
Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to us to protect ourselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there's an org you like more near you and join it.
Read theory. Don't think that you are done now! Just because you have the basics, doesn't mean you know more than you do. If you have not investigated a subject, don't speak on it! Don't speak nonsense, but listen!
Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground, let nobody be forgotten or left behind. There is strength in numbers, when one marginalized group is targeted, many more are sure to follow.
Be industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well.
Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. Liberals will not save us, we must save each other.
Be persistent. If you feel like a single water droplet against a mountain, think of canyons and valleys. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
"Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent."
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is a national organization of revolutionaries fighting for socialism in the United States. Our home is in the working class.
"Does that satisfy, or are you just going to endlessly move the goalposts?"
don't do this. do you want to de-escalate or not? stay on topic.
is it satisfactory? not really, but i don't expect you to dump a treatise on a chat board.
i want particular looks into political persecutions in these states, cults of personalities, corruption and abuse of powers, imbalanced relationships between Russia and other USSR states, treatment of Uyghurs, China's social cred system, these kinds of items.
i do NOT expect you to address any of these items here, and i'm not asking you to.
you will say that my views are tainted by biased capitalist propaganda. if that's true, where would you suggest i go to get information on these topics? mind you, i will look very askance at anything that is coming from a socialist echo chamber, since they will also have their own biases.
I'm not really trying to escalate or de-escalate. My goal is to either get you to walk away with a more nuanced understanding, one that adheres closer to reality, or to give onlookers good information. That's why I usually include a good amount of links and resources, even if I don't expect everyone I talk to to go in and read them. I've been directly thanked by other users for doing what I do and giving them new perspective or changing their minds, including users I have never spoken with previously, so I know my strategy has teeth to it. I may stumble in some conversations or do well in others, but as a net result, I can take pride in knowing thay my strategy is sound.
Either way, I would certainly hope you look at Marxist sources critically. All sources are biased, so it's better to be honest about it. One of Mao's more important texts that absolutely holds up today is Oppose Book Worship. A dogmatic comrade is more of an enemy than an ally, dogmatism leads to errors in judgement, and these errors in judgement lead to taking those who aren't actually enemies and are in fact potential allies as enemies.
Read them critically, but check the cited sources, look for holes and gaps, don't just blindly reject or accept them. Critical reading is important for everyone, not just leftists. Any reading where you aren't engaging with the text and just uncritically absorbing it is book worship, and should be opposed strongly.
Fair enough. As of the time I write this comment, I have actually expanded the comment and fleshed it out more with good articles to explain some nuances I left hanging that can be confusing without a background in Marxism, so I recommend re-checking it.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
The poll is not wrong. Electoral results in a parliamentary system do not reflect whether people feel that the system is working better or worse than before. Even if the communist party won full seats, it still would not be able to bring back the Soviet Union.
This is just you refusing to grapple with real statistics, saying they must be faked because an entirely different set of circumstances had a different set of results. I just hope you tried to mislead people accidentally.
Here's the original poll, taken by a Czech firm. Specifically, 28% said they were better off under socialism, and only 23% said they are better off now. This is simple, direct, and irrefutable.
Electoral results in a parliamentary system are complex. People don't just vote for what they agree with, they vote for whichever party they believe has the best chance of winning and representing their interests to an okay degree. Additionally, as a capitalist state, pro-communist media is censored and minimized.
The evidence of the electoral results do not change the fact that more people said they were better off under socialism than those who said they are better off now. These are not contradictory facts, yet they claimed it as a definitive proof of the Czech poll being falsified, despite not at all being the same question or conditions.
what we can say is that in reality, ppl aren't voting for the communists, even if a poll from 2011 shows that 28% of 623 Czechs said they preferred it under Communism. A very similar 23% say the exact opposite, and 17% aren't sure. the rest don't answer.
the poll doesn't really show anything of substance, but you USE IT as a way to try and manipulate ppl into thinking Eastern Europe wants Communism back.
The poll absolutely shows substance, it shows that of a large sample size, more said they were better off under socialism than those that said they are better off now. Further, Czechoslovakia is one former socialist state. Across the board, results are similar or even more in favor of socialism. This makes sense, with the dissolution of socialism, 7 million people died around the world. Poverty, disparity, drug abuse, prostitution, human trafficking, and more skyrocketed, while life expectancy, literacy rates, and quality of life in general fell, for the vast majority of society while a scarce few benefited massively.
It isn't at all disingenuous. Using results from complex parliamentary elections as a way to disprove straightforward polls that ask very simple questions is disingenuous.
Am I wrong that the vast majority of the communist movement internationally largely has similar views to mine?
Am I wrong that electoral results are far more complex than a clear-cut "are you doing better or worse under capitalism than under socialism?"
Is there some fourth thing you think is divorced from reality?
I'm not going to just let this go, you came here specifically to discredit and insult me, I'm going to defend myself. You don't just get to show your ass, claim I'm the one divorced from reality, then leave when it's clear that your comments aren't having the intended effects. If you want to stop responding, that's your right, just like it's mine to clear my name from baseless accusations and generic anti-communism.
they are having the intended effect. you reveal the thinness of your position, and the absurdity of how you cling deriving large claims from a tiny poll from 2011 rather than the repeatable, impactful, society-wide "polls" that happen regularly called elections.
THAT'S how you're divorced from reality, JUST TO START.
the fact that you can't see that, and consider your position even remotely serious, is why this conversation isn't worth the time.
ppl who are the fence should know what kind of a crackpot you are, and it's not because you're a communist.
Elections are not polls. Elections are more complex, driven by which party has a greater chance of making an impact. Smaller parties tend to get fewer votes not because their positions are unpopular, but because their capacity to make change is smaller. Furthermore, Marxists are, in general, against electoralism. This is fundamental to Marxism.
sample size of 400 will give you a confidence interval of +/-5% 19 times out of 20 (95%)
A sample size of 1000 will give you a confidence interval of +/-3% 19 times out of 20 (95%)
This is basic statistics. If you aren't familiar enough with polling to understand degrees of confidence, then you aren't in a position to argue against the validity of polling based on sample size.
Finally, if you check the up/downvote ratios, it seems pretty much nobody is agreeing with you and everyone is agreeing with me. Your comments are having the opposite effect, they are legitimizing me. People on the fence seem to be siding with me.
lol they're not on the fence, mate. XD you know that. it's your tankie buddies. you live in an echo chamber. me popping by is me popping into that bubble.
listen man, again, you're just gonna keep carrying on. the point was made, for anyone new to your sell.
you support authoritarians and draw specious conclusions from old, small, cherry-picked data while ignoring the real world happening around you.
If everyone here is a communist, then again, which bystanders are you trying to convert? The rest of your comment is more dodging, and calling polls "cherry picked" even after proving that the data is actually towards the median sample size for high-confidence data. This is silly.
All of the readers who have popped by seem to be siding with me, that's why I question your strategy here. Your arguments have fallen so flat they've legitimized me, if that's not a strategic failure I'm not sure what is.
I've already got my stances all clear and out in the open, from my stances on the Soviet prison system to what "authoritarian" even means in practice. I'm a Marxist-Leninist, again my opinons are fairly standard for Marxist-Leninists. Again, who are you doing this for?
If it's for yourself, then you would do well to engage more with the arguments, rather than dismiss them outright. The point of the dialectical method is to come to a higher understanding by engaging with opposition, not avoiding it.
I mean, I've made it clear that I think those have all applied to you thus far, yet I've still played my part in the game because I know it's more useful for onlookers to see the arguments than just dismissing the opportunity. If you truly believe me to be deluded and full of shit, bad-faith, etc, and know you're on a thread where more people will agree with me than disagree, then the only way your strategy works is if you engage with the arguments and win so thoroughly that they have to be acknowledged.
In the absence of pushing back against my arguments, all you've done thus far is give me a free platform to share my views, and good sources for those who wish to see them.
Both of us are ideological, whether that ideology be easily labeled or not. The truth is coming out, in my opinion, my point is that it's better accomplished when both sides engage equally.
See this is why I didn’t want to throw polls at each other. Now I made you click one link deeper into your article and suddenly the graphic in the first poll where it says 45% people say they are better off now and 39% say they are worse now turned into a statistic where 28% say they were better off in the past regime and 23% say they are better off now.
Which one is the irrefutable one you are talking about. I’m confused.
Maybe its better to stick with the election results they aren’t as easily misrepresented.
Only really naive people from countries that never experienced the “beauty” of communism can support it.
What of the soviet union? We were never part of the Soviet Union. We were just occupied by it's soldiers. (Oh no, did they really do that? That was not nice.)
There is no Soviet Union to bring back for Czech people. The poll is refering to the communist regime in Czech Republic.
Turns out only ca 3% of the voters wanted the communist party to have a say in how the country should be run and didnt win any seats.
Here's the original poll, taken by a Czech firm. Specifically, 28% said they were better off under socialism, and only 23% said they are better off now. This is simple, direct, and irrefutable.
Electoral results in a parliamentary system are complex. People don't just vote for what they agree with, they vote for whichever party they believe has the best chance of winning and representing their interests to an okay degree. Additionally, as a capitalist state, pro-communist media is censored and minimized.
The evidence of the electoral results do not change the fact that more people said they were better off under socialism than those who said they are better off now. These are not contradictory facts, yet they claimed it as a definitive proof of the Czech poll being falsified, despite not at all being the same question or conditions.
See this is why I didn't want to throw polls at each other. Now I made you click one link deeper into your article and suddenly the graphic in the first poll where it says 45% people say they are better off now and 39% say they are worse now turned into a statistic where 28% say they were better off in the past regime and 23% say they are better off now.
Which one is the irrefutable one you are talking about. I'm confused.
Maybe its better to stick with the election results they aren't as easily misrepresented.
Only really naive people from countries that never experienced the "beauty" of communism can support it.
Only really naive people from countries that never experienced the “beauty” of communism can support it.
People already showed you several polls, of people who currently or previously experienced communism, which say otherwise, so why are you still posting nonsense like this?
It is not nonsense. I am merely saying that a gradual 35 years long decline in the number of people voting for communists in my country since the fall of the previous regime indicates that the claim "a majority of the people want the USSR back" is false in my country.
Also that this steady decline of 35 years which resulted in 0 seats in the parliament for the communist party is more indicative of the feelings that the poeple hold towards communism than a 14 years old poll conducted on 600 residents.
Is that too far fetched?
It is even weird to include the poll in an article about the people wanting the USSR back because (drumroll) we were never part of the USSR. We were just occupied by it.
People here seem to enjoy being able to travel again. They do not experience shortages of goods. And no one is sacking them from their jobs or preventing them from studying because they arent members of the communist party. The above mentioned phenomena were common in the last regime.
I have the benefit to compare both the communist era in my country as well as what came after the revolution. And so has my entire generation. Which is the reason why communists have 0 seats in parliament here.
Polls shows that 71% of Brazilian population wants 5 day work week instead of 6, Brazilian people voted for a bunch of centrist/right wing fuckers that doesn't want to end the 6 day work week. What people wants and what people vote is not always the same for a bunch of reasons.
What of the soviet union? We were never part of the Soviet Union. We were just occupied by it's soldiers. (Oh no, did they really do that? That was not nice.)
There is no Soviet Union to bring back for Czech people. The poll is refering to the communist regime in Czech Republic.
Turns out only ca 3% of the voters wanted the communist party to have a say in how the country should be run and didnt win any seats.
The poll is not wrong. Electoral results in a parliamentary system do not reflect whether people feel that the system is working better or worse than before. Even if the communist party won full seats, it still would not be able to bring back the Soviet Union.
This is just you refusing to grapple with real statistics, saying they must be faked because an entirely different set of circumstances had a different set of results. I just hope you tried to mislead people accidentally.
Here's the original poll, taken by a Czech firm. Specifically, 28% said they were better off under socialism, and only 23% said they are better off now. This is simple, direct, and irrefutable.
Electoral results in a parliamentary system are complex. People don't just vote for what they agree with, they vote for whichever party they believe has the best chance of winning and representing their interests to an okay degree. Additionally, as a capitalist state, pro-communist media is censored and minimized.
The evidence of the electoral results do not change the fact that more people said they were better off under socialism than those who said they are better off now. These are not contradictory facts, yet they claimed it as a definitive proof of the Czech poll being falsified, despite not at all being the same question or conditions.
As the 22nd anniversary of the Soviet Union's collapse approaches next week, residents in seven out of 11 former Soviet republics are more likely to say the breakup harmed their countries than benefited them.
I do think the us has an unhealthy obsession with communism but I don't think any radicalism is good. A bit of capitalism with a lot of social policies and laws focused in keeping everyone in line would be better
Why is radicalism bad? A viewpoint being closer or fartger from the median viewpoint in society has no bearing on its correctness or incorrectness. At one point, heliocentrism was radical, most people used to see the Earth as the center of the solar system. At one point, abolition of slavery was radical. Radicalism isn't bad in and of itself.
As for the system you describe, it's just not possible. In a capitalist economy, ie one where the large firms and key industries are privately owned, through ownership of the economic base the bourgeoisie has control of the political arms of society, the state. As such, regulation will only be with the explicit consent and approval of the bourgeoisie, including at the expense of lesser capitalists and of course the working class. The system cannot genuinely be tweaked into working better, even the Nordic countries are decaying, and they already depend on imperialism to function.
What works is socialism, ie public ownership of the large firms and key industries, with the working class in control. Rather than the ruthless nature of monopolized markets, we should work towards collectivizing and planning the economy. Humanity can become the masters of its destiny, rather than profit. In time, this results in gradual sublimation of all property, until all of production is collectivized and classes cease to exist, ie communism.
Imperialism is the highest stage of the capitalist mode of production, in which monopolies and cartels become the prevalent economic force of society. Lenin synthesized...
Im not sure how to properly quote here (pls educate me) but regarding this:
"A viewpoint being closer or fartger from the median viewpoint in society has no bearing on its correctness or incorrectness."
This is inherrently correct. This of course applies to both the middle or the edges of the political and economic spectrum. I think what they and I are arguing is that the "median" tends to be more acceptable for a majority, which is sort of the point.
I for one think that the state should own and exercise control over necessities or "key" industries as you describe them. But I also think it has no business sticking it's ugly nose in the property I own. Sure - tax the shit out of me if I'm super rich, but that is it.
I'm a materialist, not an idealist. If a stance is correct, then it should be pushed for, regardless of its acceptability. In tine, through testing theory to practice, acceptability will rise. Commandism and tailism are wrong, but pushing for the correct line is correct.
As for the state owning the large firms and key industries, and allowing the bourgeoisie only small and medium firms (and siezing them if they grow to be large), is socialism, which is the path to communism. The state does not need your toothbrush, but if you own a large company? Too bad.
This is the way in my opinion. Proper anti-monopoly laws, solid progressive taxation, public (state) control of the "necessities" such as electricity and water, a working social security system, free education and healthcare while maintaining private medical practicioners and schools as an co-existing paid alternative.
There is no chance of genuine "anti-monopoly laws" in an economy where the bourgeoisie is in control of the large firms. Even if necessities are publicly owned, the proletariat and even lesser bourgeoisie lose out in influence over the state, lacking the political control to enact such laws that directly go against the most powerful in society. The only way is socialism, which requires that not just the necessities, but also the large firms be publicly owned, and the medium firms tightly controlled by the state.
I've tried using all three methods to access the web interface and none of them work. When I try using the https:///admin/ I get search results to access my router login. (I obviously replace the link with my pihole's IP address but I still get router login results)
Accessing through pi.hole/admin or pi.hole usually works but I keep having trouble connecting to the site. Checked downforeveryoneorjustme.com and it looks like pi.hole is down. Has this happened to anyone before? Do I just wait for the site to go back up?
Aside from trying to reboot the pi-hole, you can also try plugging a monitor, and keyboard and mouse directly. You'll get a better answer. Just waiting is not usually helpful.
downforeveryoneorjustme.com would not help as your pihole is a local service accessible only within your network.
That's how I used to access the raspberry pi before learning of the web interface. Was a huge pain in the butt to do though. Another comment said to try using http instead of https and that did the trick!
1. Install a supported operating system
You can run Pi-hole in a container, or deploy it directly to a supported operating system via our automated installer.
D
pi.hole is the domain to access the web interface whereas pi-hole.net is the official website for pi-hole to view documentation and download the client.
I realized I forgot to remove the <> from the url. Unfortunately I'm still unable to connect to that IP address though so I'm thinking I may have to restart my raspberry pi
Regà, aiuto. Io vorrei ogni giorno arrivare a fine giornata senza bestemmiare, ma purtroppo non è fottutamente mai possibile, perché c’è sempre qualcosa che non funziona!!! E boh, ultimamente allora non capisco se sono io che sto diventando sempre di più una calamita per gli insetti digitali di merda, o se tra le tante cose […]
la volpe e la finestra fanno insieme il grande spacc (glitch Firefox coi freeze a caso)
Regà, aiuto. Io vorrei ogni giorno arrivare a fine giornata senza bestemmiare, ma purtroppo non è fottutamente mai possibile, perché c’è sempre qualcosa che non funziona!!! E boh, ultimamente allora non capisco se sono io che sto diventando sempre di più una calamita per gli insetti digitali di merda, o se tra le tante cose è Firefox che è sempre più rotto… e stasera lui ha deciso di fare il seguente. 💩 Stavo facendomi i benedettissimi cazzi miei, quando così, dal nulla botto, noto che il merdardo inizia a laggare malissimamente… e noto anche che uno dei tanti processi del programma stava prendendo circa 2 GB di RAM — per fare cosa, non si sa bene, visto che ho anche l’estensione che scarica dalla memoria le schede inattive. Nel task manager di #Firefox appariva come “GPU”, e infatti, quando ho cliccato sulla X per ucciderlo, la finestra ha flashato un attimo… ma invece per Windows il processo era rimasto, e qui escono le rogne. 💔
A questo punto (ovviamente, perché l’utente vittima sono io) ha iniziato a peggiorare sempre di più, a tratti freezandosi per interi secondi mentre cercavo di navigare o scrivere… addirittura, nel fare Alt+Tab da finestre di altre app ad una del browser, sembrava non accadesse nulla, perché a schermo la finestra non appariva subito, impiegava secondi. Tutto questo, però, nel mentre che il video di YouTube in riproduzione sull’altro schermo (sempre in Firefox) filava liscio… il che rende tutto ancora più insensato. 😭
Quindi (e menomale, così tutti possono vedere la schifezza!) ho filmato la cacca, e si vede bene come in certi momenti prende e si blocca — cosa che si riflette in quel processo scassato che prende un intero core della CPU e diventa irresponsivo agli occhi di #Windows — poi appena si riprende digita in un colpo solo tutto quello che avevo scritto o esegue tutti i click che avevo cercato di inviare… fa schifo alla merda, e che cazzo! E alla fine si è pure incazzato di quanti click stavo facendo, perché ha preso ed è crashato completamente, senza permesso, cosa che mi avrebbe pure fatto perdere le schede in incognito aperte se non le avessi salvate in tempo (e questo non so se sia un crash interno o se è stato Windows che lo ha ucciso, ma qualunque sia la causa non si può continuare così… Non ce la faccio più!!! 😫😣)
Hodeida (Yemen) (AFP) – Israel pounded Yemen's Huthi-held port of Hodeida with air strikes on Monday for the second time in a month, stoking fears of escalation as it warned Yemen could face the same fate as Iran.
In its latest raids, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel struck "targets of the Huthi terror regime at the port of Hodeida" and aimed to prevent any attempt to restore infrastructure previously hit.
The renewed strikes on Yemen are part of a year-long Israeli bombing campaign against the Huthis, but the latest threats have raised fears of a wider conflict in the poverty-stricken Arabian Peninsula country.
"Yemen's fate will be the same as Tehran's," Katz said.
His warning was a reference to the wave of suprise strikes Israel launched on Iran on June 13, targeting key military and nuclear facilities.
A Gulf official told AFP there were "serious concerns in Riyadh... that the Israeli strikes on the Huthis could turn into a large, sustained campaign to oust the movement's leaders".
The Huthis withstood more a decade of war against a well-armed, Saudi-led international coalition, though fighting has died down in the past few years.
Any Israeli escalation could "plunge the region into utter chaos", said the official, requesting anonymity because he cannot brief the media.
The Huthis' Al-Masirah television reported "a series of Israeli air strikes on the Hodeida port".
A Huthi security official, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, told AFP that "the bombing destroyed the port's dock, which had been rebuilt following previous strikes."
On July 7, Israeli strikes hit Hodeida and two nearby locations on the coast, with targets including the Galaxy Leader cargo ship, captured in November 2023, which the Israelis said had been outfitted with a radar system to track shipping in the Red Sea.
A Yemeni port employee in Hodeida said the strikes targeted "heavy equipment brought in for construction and repair work after Israeli airstrikes on July 7... and areas around the port and fishing boats".
An Israeli military statement said that the targets included "engineering vehicles... fuel containers, naval vessels used for military activities" against Israel and "additional terror infrastructure used by the Huthi terrorist regime".
It said the port had been used to transfer weapons from Iran, which were then used by the Huthi rebels against Israel.
Which civilians are you speaking about? All "israelis" are reservists in the military from 18-40. Quit defending an occupying force committing genocide, it's cringe
The Houthi armed group that controls part of Yemen has targeted several commercial ships carrying civilian crews in the Red Sea over the last few weeks.
Civilian ships sending weapons? Oh brother u smell like poopoo. They announced the blockade, blame the countries sending them to isntreal anyways. They've also been rescuing the passengers.
By their own admission they are not targeting only military cargo.
That same day, a Houthi spokesperson, Yahya Saree, posted on X, formerly Twitter, stating that the Houthis would target ships carrying the Israeli flag and ships operated or owned by Israeli companies, regardless of whether the ships contained any military targets.
Though the Houthis have said that the ship is Israeli, the ship is British-owned and Japanese-operated and was bound for India when it was captured.
It's also interesting that you failed to point to a comment where I defended the genocidal Israeli state.
Stop embarrassing yourself and move on or source your claims.
Considering you're calling an arab nation acting according to international law "terrorists" speaks volumes about you. Stop replying, you're a racist embarrassment
This article describes what ive been thinking about for the last week. How will these billions of investments by big tech actually create something that is significantly better than what we have today already?
There are major issues ahead and im not sure they can be solved. Read the article.
As I previously warned, artificial intelligence companies are running out of data. A Wall Street Journal piece from this week has sounded the alarm that some believe AI models will run out of "high-quality text-based data" within the next two years i…
My company is in AI. One of our customers pays for systems capable of the hard computational work to design the drugs to treat Parkinson's. This is the only newly possible with the newest technology.
This is acutally one of the most promising applications - AI can screen millions of potential drug compounds and predict protein interactions in hours instead of months, which is why we're seeing breakthroughs in neurodegenerative disease research.
That's probably Machine Learning, the root category of tools and the origin of LLMs, not Large Language Models themselves we call 'AI'. These have many applications they are efficient at gradually explored from the 80s I believe, while the AI boom involving Google, Meta, OpenAI and others is about generalistic chatbots that are bad in just about everything they used in. I'm putting that distinction not because I'm an ass, but because I don't want the hype wave to get more credibility on the back of real scientifical and technological progress.
It depends, if they're use a transformer or diffusion based archetecture I think it would be fair to include it in the same "AI wave" thats been breaking since the release of chat gpt publicly.
tl;dr AI companies are slowly running out of data to train their models; synthetic data is not a viable alternative.
I can't remember where I saw it, but someone somewhere on YouTube suspected the next step for OpanAI and such would be to collect user data directly; recording conversations of users and using that data to train models further.
Learned about it thanks to the Fireside Fedi Podcast. Might just end up becoming a new way to find solutions/perspectives by real people, just as looking for reddit results has been in the past for many people.
It's pointless; you can have both sides download PeaZip (which, FYI, is superior to 7-Zip because it's cross-platform instead of being Windows-only) and run part splicers; easy workaround. This only adds to the problem of yet another non-E2E service in the running.
Free file archiver utility for Windows, macOS, Linux, Open Source file compression and encryption software. Open, extract RAR TAR ZIP archives, 200+ formats supported
p7zip has been around since early 2000’s I think, and the official version from early 2020’s, so I wonder why that kind of info has been floating around…
I keep seeing posts about wetransfer alternatives and so far haven't seen wormhole.app mentioned. Does it have bad juju I don't know about?
We built Wormhole with end-to-end encryption. When you use Wormhole, a key is generated on your device and used to encrypt your files. In transit, your data is unreadable to Wormhole and service providers like your ISP. The key never leaves your device and you're the only one who has it – unless you decide to share it. With Wormhole, you're in control of who has access to your files.
When you share a Wormhole link, the key is automatically included in the link so it's easy to share with the exact people you want, and no one else. Wormhole never sees the key. And we don't want to see it.
Every design decision in Wormhole begins with the safety and privacy of your data in mind. We can't read your files, and no one else can either. Privacy isn’t an optional mode — it’s just the way that Wormhole works.
Glad to see more alternatives around. I have been using pairdrop.net, but it fails pretty readily on large transfers since it needs a constant connection. I've also tried transfer.sh in the past (lets you set an expiry and password if using with commandline) but I don't think that encrypts automatically and it stays on their server.
I think there is a place for both end-to-end encrypted file uploaders and non end-to-end encrypted file uploaders but the speed is going to be a lot slower for end-to-end encrypted file uploaders.
I think the only reason you haven't seen wormhole.app recommended much is because it's not open source (not that it matters for browser-based senders). There is also send.vis.ee witch is open source and recommend by privacyguides.org.
Its also worth noting that the service skips end-to-end encryption "to improve speed and compatibility across browsers", … according to MEGA, files stay encrypted while stored and are only decrypted temporarily in server memory … this model may not meet the needs of users who require strict zero-access encryption.
There's enough front page politics right now about conservatives all being and protecting child rapists, that I missed the title as "MAGA launches file host with no limits"
Free Gui: Guilherme “Gui” Silva, a Brazilian immigrant, lawyer, and muralist, was detained by ICE earlier this month on San Juan Island in Washington state. Silva was a lawyer in Brazil, and moved to the US about eight years ago to pursue his art. He has a four-year-old daughter with his now ex-wife, and is expecting a child in just a few months with his wife Rachel Leidig. Two Fridays ago, masked ICE agents followed Silva from his home in unmarked vehicles, pulled him from his car, confiscated his cellphone, and detained him. When he asked to see an arrest warrant, they refused. Silva is married to an American citizen and is currently in legal proceedings to apply for a green card. The only blemish on his record that the Seattle Times was able to find was a $100 speeding ticket. The Department of Homeland Security said they detained him because he overstayed his tourist visa, which, let’s say it again together: is a civil violation.
At least not as bad as that one that let some LLM to control the server then get pissed at it when it deleted the production database theregister.com/2025/07/21/rep…
showed it to senior folks who said the results looked fine
Did anyone look at the code?
Also, what's a "multi-type"? Does he mean he needed to check a different field? Or are they doing something unholy without real schemas and got burned because they're mess confused someone! Also, why is a junior being moved between teams and touching production immediately?
I have so many questions.
The second one makes a ton more sense, and is pretty hilarious.
How do you know we’re not remotely close to AGI? Do you have any expertise on the issue? And expertise is not “I can download Python libraries and use them” it is “I can explain the mathematics behind what is going on, and understand the technical and theoretical challenges”.
I hold a PhD in probabilistic machine learning and advise businesses on how to use AI effectively for a living so yes.
IMHO, there is simply nothing indicating that it's close. Sure LLMs can do some incredibly clever sounding word-extrapolation, but the current "reasoning models" still don't actually reason. They are just LLMs with some extra steps.
There is lots of information out there on the topic so I'm not going to write a long justification here. Gary Marcus has some good points if you want to learn more about what the skeptics say.
So, how would you define AGI, and what sorts of tasks require reasoning? I would have thought earning the gold medal on the IMO would have been a reasoning task, but I’m happy to learn why I’m wrong.
I definitely think that's remarkable. But I don't think scoring high on an external measure like a test is enough to prove the ability to reason. For reasoning, the process matters, IMO.
Reasoning models work by Chain-of-Thought which has been shown to provide some false reassurances about their process arxiv.org/abs/2305.04388 .
Maybe passing some math test is enough evidence for you but I think it matters what's inside the box. For me it's only proved that tests are a poor measure of the ability to reason.
Large Language Models (LLMs) can achieve strong performance on many tasks by producing step-by-step reasoning before giving a final output, often referred to as chain-of-thought reasoning (CoT).
I’m sorry, but this reads to me like “I am certain I am right, so evidence that implies I’m wrong must be wrong.” And while sometimes that really is the right approach to take, more often than not you really should update the confidence in your hypothesis rather than discarding contradictory data.
But, there must be SOMETHING which is a good measure of the ability to reason, yes? If reasoning is an actual thing that actually exists, then it must be detectable, and there must be a way to detect it. What benchmark do you purpose?
You don’t have to seriously answer, but I hope you see where I’m coming from. I assume you’ve read Searle, and I cannot express to you the contempt in which I hold him. I think, if we are to be scientists and not philosophers (and good philosophers should be scientists too) we have to look to the external world to test our theories.
For me, what goes on inside does matter, but what goes on inside everyone everywhere is just math, and I haven’t formed an opinion about what math is really most efficient at instantiating reasoning, or thinking, or whatever you want to talk about.
To be honest, the other day I was convinced it was actually derivatives and integrals, and, because of this, that analog computers would make much better AIs than digital computers. (But Hava Siegelmann’s book is expensive, and, while I had briefly lifted my book buying moratorium, I think I have to impose it again).
Hell, maybe Penrose is right and we need quantum effects (I really really really doubt it, but, to the extent that it is possible for me, I try to keep an open mind).
I'm not sure I can give a satisfying answer. There are a lot of moving parts here, and a big issue here is definitions which you also touch upon with your reference to Searle.
I agree with the sentiment that there must be some objective measure of reasoning ability. To me, reasoning is more than following logical rules. It's also about interpreting the intent of the task. The reasoning models are very sensitive to initial conditions and tend to drift when the question is not super precise or if they don't have sufficient context.
The AI models are in a sense very fragile to the input. Organic intelligence on the other hand is resilient and also heuristic. I don't have any specific idea for the test, but it should test the ability to solve a very ill-posed problem.
I think we also should require to set some energy limits to those tests. Before it was assumed that those tests are done by humans, that can do those tests after eating some crackers and a bit of water.
Now we are comparing that to massive data centers that need nuclear reactors to have enough power to work through these problems...
Gary Marcus is certainly good. It’s not as if I think say, LeCun, or any of the many people who think that LLMs aren’t the way are morons. I don’t think anyone thinks all the problems are currently solved. And I think long time lines are still plausible, but, I think dismissing short time line out of hand is thoughtless.
My main gripe is how certain people are about things they know virtually nothing about. And how slap dashed their reasoning is. It seems to me most people’s reasoning goes something like “there is no little man in the box, it’s just math, and math can’t think.” Of course, they say it with a lot fancier words, like “it’s just gradient decent” as if human brains couldn’t have gradient decent baked in anywhere.
But, out of interest what is your take on the Stochastic Parrot? I find the arguments deeply implausible.
I'm not saying that we can't ever build a machine that can think. You can do some remarkable things with math. I personally don't think our brains have baked in gradient descent, and I don't think neural networks are a lot like brains at all.
The stochastic parrot is a useful vehicle for criticism and I think there is some truth to it. But I also think LMMs display some super impressive emergent features. But I still think they are really far from AGI.
Engineer here with a CS minor in case you care about ethos: We are not remotely close to AGI.
I loathe python irrationally (and I guess I’m masochist who likes to reinvent the wheel programming wise lol) so I’ve written my own neural nets from scratch a few times.
Most common models are trained by gradient descent, but this only works when you have a specific response in mind for certain inputs. You use the difference between the desired outcome and actual outcome to calculate a change in weights that would minimize that error.
This has two major preventative issues for AGI: input size limits, and determinism.
The weight matrices are set for a certain number of inputs. Unfortunately you can’t just add a new unit of input and assume the weights will be nearly the same. Instead you have to retrain the entire network. (This problem is called transfer learning if you want to learn more)
This input constraint is preventative of AGI because it means a network trained like this cannot have an input larger than a certain size. Problematic since the illusion of memory that LLMs like ChatGPT have comes from the fact they run the entire conversation through the net. Also just problematic from a size and training time perspective as increasing the input size exponentially increases basically everything else.
Point is, current models are only able to simulate memory by literally holding onto all the information and processing all of it for each new word which means there is a limit to its memory unless you retrain the entire net to know the answers you want. (And it’s slow af) Doesn’t sound like a mind to me…
Now determinism is the real problem for AGI from a cognitive standpoint. The neural nets you’ve probably used are not thinking… at all. They literally are just a complicated predictive algorithm like linear regression. I’m dead serious. It’s basically regression just in a very high dimensional vector space.
ChatGPT does not think about its answer. It doesn’t have any sort of object identification or thought delineation because it doesn’t have thoughts. You train it on a bunch of text and have it attempt to predict the next word. If it’s off, you do some math to figure out what weight modifications would have lead it to a better answer.
All these models do is what they were trained to do. Now they were trained to be able to predict human responses so yeah it sounds pretty human. They were trained to reproduce answers on stack overflow and Reddit etc. so they can answer those questions relatively well. And hey it is kind of cool that they can even answer some questions they weren’t trained on because it’s similar enough to the questions they weren’t trained on… but it’s not thinking. It isn’t doing anything. The program is just multiplying numbers that were previously set by an input to find the most likely next word.
This is why LLMs can’t do math. Because they don’t actually see the numbers, they don’t know what numbers are. They don’t know anything at all because they’re incapable of thought. Instead there are simply patterns in which certain numbers show up and the model gets trained on some of them but you can get it to make incredibly simple math mistakes by phrasing the math slightly differently or just by surrounding it with different words because the model was never trained for that scenario.
Models can only “know” as much as what was fed into them and hey sometimes those patterns extend, but a lot of the time they don’t. And you can’t just say “you were wrong” because the model isn’t transient (capable of changing from inputs alone). You have to train it with the correct response in mind to get it to “learn” which again takes time and really isn’t learning or intelligence at all.
Now there are some more exotic neural networks architectures that could surpass these limitations.
Currently I’m experimenting with Spiking Neural Nets which are much more capable of transfer learning and more closely model biological neurons along with other cool features like being good with temporal changes in input.
However, there are significant obstacles with these networks and not as much research because they only run well on specialized hardware (because they are meant to mimic biological neurons who run simultaneously) and you kind of have to train them slowly.
You can do some tricks to use gradient descent but doing so brings back the problems of typical ANNs (though this is still possibly useful for speeding up ANNs by converting them to SNNs and then building the neuromorphic hardware for them).
SNNs with time based learning rules (typically some form of STDP which mimics Hebbian learning as per biological neurons) are basically the only kinds of neural nets that are even remotely capable of having thoughts and learning (changing weights) in real time. Capable as in “this could have discrete time dependent waves of continuous self modifying spike patterns which could theoretically be thoughts” not as in “we can make something that thinks.”
Like these neural nets are good with sensory input and that’s about as far as we’ve gotten (hyperbole but not by that much). But these networks are still fascinating, and they do help us test theories about how the human brain works so eventually maybe we’ll make a real intelligent being with them, but that day isn’t even on the horizon currently
In conclusion, we are not remotely close to AGI. Current models that seem to think are verifiably not thinking and are incapable of it from a structural standpoint. You cannot make an actual thinking machine using the current mainstream model architectures.
The closest alternative that might be able to do this (as far as I’m aware) is relatively untested and difficult to prototype (trust me I’m trying). Furthermore the requirements of learning and thinking largely prohibit the use of gradient descent or similar algorithms meaning training must be done on a much more rigorous and time consuming basis that is not economically favorable. Ergo, we’re not even all that motivated to move towards AGI territory.
Lying to say we are close to AGI when we aren’t at all close, however, is economically favorable which is why you get headlines like this.
I have been trying to separate the truth from the hype, and learn more about how LLMs work, and this explanation has been one of the best one I’ve read on the topic. You strike a very good balance by going deep enough, but still keeping it understandable.
A question: I remember using Wolfram Alpha a lot back in university 15+ years ago. From a user perspective, it seems very similar to LLMs, but it was very accurate with math. From this, I take that modern LLMs are not the evolution of that model, but WA still appeared to be ahead of it’s time. What is/was the difference?
Thanks, I almost didn’t post because it was an essay of a comment lol, glad you found it insightful
As for Wolfram Alpha, I’m definitely not an expert but I’d guess the reason it was good at math was that it would simply translate your problem from natural language into commands that could be sent to a math engine that would do the actual calculation.
So basically act like a language translator but for typed out math to a programming language for some advanced calculation program (like wolfram Mathematica)
Again, this is just speculation because I’m a bit too tired to look into it rn, but it seems plausible since we had basic language translators online back then (I think…) and I’d imagine parsing written math is probably easier than natural language translation
That’s just the other side of the same coin whose flip side claims AGI is right around the corner. The truth is, you couldn’t possibly know either way.
The truth is, you couldn’t possibly know either way.
I think the argument is we're not remotely close when considering the specific techniques used by current generation of AI tools. Of course people can make new discovery any day and achieve AGI but it's a different discussion.
That's true in a somewhat abstract way, but I just don't see any evidence of the claim that it is just around the corner. I don't see what currently existing technology can facilitate it. Faster-than-light travel could also theoretically be just around the corner, but it would surprise me if it was, because we just don't have the technology.
On the other hand, the people who push the claim that AGI is just around the corner usually have huge vested interests.
In some dimensions, current day LLMs are already superintelligent. They are extremely good knowledge retrieval engines that can far outperform traditional search engines, once you learn how properly to use them. No, they are not AGIs, because they're not sentient or self-motivated, but I'm not sure those are desirable or useful dimensions of intellect to work towards anyway.
I think that's a very generous use of the word "superintelligent". They aren't anything like what I associate with that word anyhow.
I also don't really think they are knowledge retrieval engines. I use them extensively in my daily work, for example to write emails and generate ideas. But when it comes to facts they are flaky at best. It's more of a free association game than knowledge retrieval IMO.
"Dude trust me, just give me 40 billion more dollars, lobby for complete deregulation of the industry, and get me 50 more petabytes of data, then we will have a little human in the computer! RealshitGPT will have human level intelligence!"
Ummm no? If moneyed interests want it then it happens. We have absolutely no control over whether it happens. Did we stop Recall from being forced down our throats with windows 11? Did we stop Gemini from being forced down our throats?
Capitalism is just an economic system, I'm not sure what nukes has to do with it. It's not like billionaires directly own them, and we have to distribute the "nuke wealth" to the people or anything lol
The path to AGI seems inevitable - not because it’s around the corner, but because of the nature of technological progress itself. Unless one of two things stops us, we’ll get there eventually:
Either there’s something fundamentally unique about how the biological brain processes information - something that cannot, even in principle, be replicated in silicon,
Or we wipe ourselves out before we get the chance.
Barring those, the outcome is just a matter of time. This argument makes no claim about timelines - only trajectory. Even if we stopped AI research for a thousand years, it’s hard to imagine a future where we wouldn’t eventually resume it. That's what humans do; improve our technology.
The article points to cloning as a counterexample but that’s not a technological dead end, that’s a moral boundary. If one thinks we’ll hold that line forever, I’d call that naïve. When it comes to AGI, there’s no moral firewall strong enough to hold back the drive toward it. Not permanently.
Did you genuinely not understand the point I was making, or are you just being pedantic? "Silicon" obviously refers to current computing substrates, not a literal constraint on all future hardware. If you’d prefer I rewrite it as "in non-biological substrates," I’m happy to oblige - but I have a feeling you already knew that.
I haven’t claimed that it is. The point is, the only two plausible scenarios I can think of where we don’t eventually reach AGI are: either we destroy ourselves before we get there, or there’s something fundamentally mysterious about the biological computer that is the human brain - something that allows it to process information in a way we simply can’t replicate any other way.
I don’t think that’s the case, since both the brain and computers are made of matter, and matter obeys the laws of physics. But it’s at least conceivable that there could be more to it.
I personally think that the additional component (suppose it's energy) that modern approaches miss is the sheer amount of entropy a human brain gets - plenty of many times duplicated sensory signals with pseudo-random fluctuations. I don't know how one can use lots of entropy to replace lots of computation (OK, I know what Monte-Carlo method is, just how it applies to AI), but superficially this seems to be the way that will be taken at some point.
On your point - I agree.
I'd say we might reach AGI soon enough, but it will be impractical to use as compared to a human.
While the matching efficiency is something very far away, because a human brain has undergone, so to say, an optimization\compression taking the energy of evolution since the beginning of life on Earth.
Don't confuse AGI with LLMs. Both being AI systems is the only thing they have in common. They couldn't be further apart when it comes to cognitive capabilities.
A lot of people making baseless claims about it being inevitable...i mean it could happen but the hard problem of consciousness is not inevitable to solve
AI will not threaten humans due to sadism or boredom, but because it takes jobs and makes people jobless.
When there is lower demand for human labor, according to the rule of supply and demand, prices (aka. wages) for human labor go down.
The real crisis is one of sinking wages, lack of social safety nets, and lack of future perspective for workers. That's what should actually be discussed.
Not sure if we will even really notice that in our lifetime, it is taking decades to get things like invoice processing to automate. Heck in the US they can't even get proper bank connections made.
Also, tractors have replaced a lot of workers on the land, computers have both lost a lot of jobs in offices and created a lot at the same time.
Jobs will change, that's for sure and I think most of the heavy labour jobs will become more expensive since they are harder to replace.
Why would we want to? 99% of the issues people have with "AI" are just problems with society more broadly that AI didn't really cause, only exacerbated. I think it's absurd to just reject this entire field because of a bunch of shitty fads going on right now with LLMs and image generators.
According to the suit, Ramacciotti was in need of money, and had a friend named Ethan Lipnik who worked at Apple as a software engineer on the Photos team – two facts that Prosser was aware of when he allegedly offered to pay Ramacciotti to break into Lipnik's development iPhone and show Prosser what the version of iOS running on the device looked like.
Ramacciotti, who frequently stayed at Lipnik's home, allegedly used location-tracking software to determine when Lipnik was far enough from home to be gone for an extended period. During such windows, he allegedly used the opportunity to obtain the passcode and access the device.
Apple isn’t a very pro WFH or remote work company from what I learned when I was job hunting, I’m honestly surprised they let a dev iPhone leave their campus.
There was a big scandal some years back because an Apple employee left a prototype phone at the bar/restaurant next to the campus, so they definitely do it. I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t crack down harder after that incident, but to be fair to this guy, he didn’t take it out and about and just took it home. I can’t say I’d be overly worried about something happening to it if it was just at my house, but I also don’t have people crashing with me frequently…
Former Apple employee here, hardware is almost never let off campus but software alone can be. For example software engineers working on iOS, like this guy, would probably have development builds installed on their personal devices. It's allowed but you're obviously not supposed to let anyone else see or use the new features.
Incoming OpenAI executive Fidji Simo, who will start Aug. 18 as its “CEO of Applications” and report directly to CEO Sam Altman, sent a memo to employees Monday.
The Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Germany set a record with 43 seconds of plasma, marking a major step toward clean, sustainable nuclear fusion energy.
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They wouldn't have to. They just release a ToS update, that no one reads, that gives them the right to look at all of the data sent for "optimization", or some other nonsense.
My basic understanding is that the concept of homomorphically encrypted data allows for processing of said encrypted data without the need for prior decryption.
Hence, it enables computations and processing on encrypted data (ciphertext) that yield results matching those from the original data (plaintext) without the data needing to be decrypted at any point.
The idea is that you could have your data stored encrypted, such that the entity that is storing your data can't read any of your data, but can still make calculations or updates to your data without ever learning anything about your data.
The use cases seems rather narrow to me, but there are probably many that I just can't think of at the moment.
One idea could be something like a VPN service that wants to store as little data about the customer as possible. They could keep the account balance in an encrypted format. When you then add money to the balance, they can increment your balance by however much you paid, without knowing what your old balance was or what the new balance is. And they could then have another homomorphic function that can check whether your balance is positive. If your balance is positive you are allowed onto the service, if it's not positive you don't get access. And the company wouldn't be able to know whether you had $5 in your account or $5000, just that your balance is currently positive.
So yeah fundamentally it's just being able to store and update some data, while the data is fully encrypted, never decrypting the data, to ensure some form of privacy or confidentiality
I understand that this is an analogy, but I feel this also weakens the encryption somewhat, as now a potential attacker could do a simple binary search on the encrypted data to deduce the absolute balance.
Why would any company use this in the first place?
The general public is not going to pay a subscription (ew another subscription?) they’re just going to use the free services. “I already pay for internet”
There is no reason for anyone to use this, as amazing as it is. That ship sailed long ago and the moment an MBA gets wind of what this’ll mean for the data broker industry, it will be lobbied into illegality, at least here in the US.
I don't believe this will work? I would have to see an actually working example though. With actual data, not matrix vector multiplications those are trivial.
Doing math on garbled numbers and then reverse garbling it? Easy. Doing text parsing on garbled text? Probably impossible, but I'd loveto be proven wrong. I also think you have to reveal what kind of functions you want used?
The homomorphism in category theory is often shown by a commutative diagram, where you can go from a point to another by interchanging the order of operations. In the below diagram for FHE, you can go from (a, b) to E(a*b) in two separate ways.
It works in the sense that the operations are performed on binary numbers, so text handling works the same way it normally does assuming the handler function is encrypted to match. Once you have multiplication and addition, you can make logic gates and general computing follows from there - although with the noise being amplified thru each logic gate, the more complex the functions the more bootstrapping is required and the less I see this being doable in the short term.
For a working example, check out apple’s homomorphic encryption page, they use it for landmark identification and afaik will be using it for siri whenever they get to that update. It’s slow but it’s already usable - I’m not personally convinced it’ll be used everywhere, but the technology is super cool and I hope it shows up more
assuming the handler function is encrypted to match.
Yeah, this is the thing I'm doubting / don't understand how that would work.
E.g. A* / navigation problems.
You send private start and goal points.
Either the stuff is truly private, then the program can't read it.
Or the program can read it, but then the owner of the machine the program runs on can just read it from memory.
It doesn't matter if it says "45124x5234234fgasdgf" or "Paris", because the program state will identify that. Even if you encrypt the entire location database (with stuff that's then fully known to the server) and it will still look up "45124x5234234fgasdgf" and the server can trivially decrypt that.
check out apple’s homomorphic encryption page
Interesting, but I'm more leaning on "they have a vested interest to lie about this" rather than "surely this is correctly working tech that keeps me safe". Like Amazons "AI supermarket" that was just a bunch of indians doing video surveillance.
And their explanation makes the same amount of sense as the blog post. I have no doubt that it can work for simple commutative math operations, over "smooth" domains. Where my doubt comes in is functions where the encryption would cause the operation to take place outside of the domain bounds.
How does an encrypted asin or acos work?
Anyway, thanks for the answer, I was recently impressed by GNU Taler, which also did something cryptographic stuff I didn't think was possible. So I'm not saying this is heresy and can't be done and trying to say it will work is forbidden, I just don't think the explanations so far are detailed enough.
The process as explained in this article has nothing to do with privacy. The problem with privacy is not that I send Google a query, it's they Google is scanning my machine, gathering cookie data, recording every move I make, mixing and matching my data with data from other sites, data from data brokers, also using third party cookies, etc etc etc...
Encrypting the query I make with Google isn't going to change much of that.
Staying safe whilst dating online should not be the responsibility of users—dating apps should be prioritizing our privacy by default, and laws should require companies to prioritize user privacy over their profit.
India has one of the highest rates of (desktop) Linux usages in the world - hovering around 10% according to StatCounter. Why is this? One reason is concerns over software controlled by foreign countries - particularly the US and China. But another is cost.
The first major boost for Linux and other free software in India came in 2006, when VS Achuthanandan - who passed away today - was elected Chief Minister of the state of Kerala. His government came up with a policy to shift all government computers to free software, starting with schools and colleges.
This is the first release where RISC-V 64-bit is officially supported by Debian Linux albeit with limited board support and the Debian RISC-V build process is handicapped by slow hardware.
With the Debian 13.0 release planned for 9 August, one of the notable fundamental features with this Debian 'Trixie' release is now supporting RISC-V as an official CPU architecture
In tests involving the Prisoner's Dilemma, researchers found that Google’s Gemini is “strategically ruthless,” while OpenAI is collaborative to a “catastrophic” degree.
Flash never got in the way the same like js. My main take from the whole piece is how it has changed the way websites are developed, to match that of traditional software development. Like the need to deploy to change some text in the footer of our website
Ow my dear, you never used flash did you? We didn't even have 'deploys' back then, we needed to re-upload the entire container file, to change some text in the footer
Oh yeah, it's totally JavaScript that's the reason that news and magazine websites suck. It's totally not the financial incentives of advertising that cause them to only care about the user experience so far as they get clicks. This totally wouldn't have been the exact same result if new media did everything on the backend and underfunded their backend dev teams. /S
Jesus Christ, why do these inane articles keep coming up? The authors have the reasoning skills of "when I look into the sun my eyes hurt, therefor the sun is bad".
To be fair, there are a lot of inane articles saying this exact same thing about javascript. If its true, its ancient history, and I'm tired of it. I learned javascript when it was a babe, and watched many other platforms fall by the wayside. I'm not defending anything about it, but javascript works. Still.
Client-side scripting is a hack. HTML didn't have all the tags people wanted or needed, so instead of carefully updating it to include new features, they demanded that browsers just execute arbitrary code on the user's computer, and with that comes security vulnerabilities, excessive bandwidth use and a barrier-to-entry that makes it difficult to develop new browsers, giving one company a near-monopoly.
Cerebra AI is an artificial intelligence platform primarily used in emergency medicine for analyzing CT scans, particularly in stroke and critical care scenarios.
![💖💣, [21/07/2025 20:00]ci sta firefox che sta laggando perché sta consumando 2 GB di RAM... e stranamente non è nessuna scheda, è il processo GPU. WHAT💖💣, [21/07/2025 20:01]ho killato, è sparito dalla lista ma non ha liberato RAM, e infatti appare ancora in taskmgr di windows... wtf](https://poliverso.org/photo/link/326949 "💖💣, [21/07/2025 20:00]ci sta firefox che sta laggando perché sta consumando 2 GB di RAM... e stranamente non è nessuna scheda, è il processo GPU. WHAT💖💣, [21/07/2025 20:01]ho killato, è sparito dalla lista ma non ha liberato RAM, e infatti appare ancora in taskmgr di windows... wtf")
shortwavesurfer
in reply to moe93 • • •You could potentially get your own VPS server and set that up as a VPN server that way you're not connecting to a known VPN.
Edit: You might also try using Tor.
moe93
in reply to shortwavesurfer • • •I have a Wireguard tunnel running on my home server back home in the US. I am currently outside of the US and that Wireguard tunnel won’t connect if I am on cellular connection for this one specific provider that I am using atm.
I have never attempted to use Tor as a VPN on my iOS device, how is the performance in terms of making Signal calls for example?
shortwavesurfer
in reply to moe93 • • •Oh, I see. I don't think you can make calls over tor because I think it's TCP only. Not UDP.
Could it be an IP addressing problem by chance where the telecom provider doesn't support say IPv6 while your home network is IPv6? If so, they may not be blocking it, so much as it's not possible to make the connection to begin with.
moe93
in reply to shortwavesurfer • • •My home server VPN is IPv4. The VPN provider I have uses both IPv4/6. Neither of those work.
At this point I am inclined to believe the network carrier is performing DPI as I also can’t use OpenVPN on TCP 80 and TCP 443, which are generally hard to block unless provider is intentionally looking into it…at least that’s my understanding.
shortwavesurfer
in reply to moe93 • • •That very well could be, as I mentioned earlier, you might get yourself a VPS and set up an SSH tunnel or something like that, but otherwise I have no idea.
I do know that you can use signal over tor because I do so, but I only use it for the sending messages and voice messages part. As I said, I think the audio call uses UDP and tor is TCP only to the best of my knowledge.
The only other thing I could think of would be to try a mix net such as Nym.
flatbield
in reply to moe93 • • •u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)
in reply to flatbield • • •SheeEttin
in reply to moe93 • • •A VPN isn't rawdogging the Internet. For that you should use stuff like ad blockers. A VPN only protects traffic inspection by on-path attackers like ISPs, though HTTPS mitigates most of that, leaving only metadata. It also changes the apparent origin of your connection.
If possible, I'd change providers.
Geodad
in reply to moe93 • • •moe93
in reply to Geodad • • •med
in reply to moe93 • • •Melody Fwygon
in reply to med • • •Hellfire103
in reply to moe93 • • •Honestly, this sounds like a job for Tor. Install Orbot, possibly enable a bridge, and you should be good to go. Onion Browser is recommended for use with Tor, but Safari will work just fine.
I have never tried calling over Tor, but I have never had an issue with the speed before (although it is inherently slower than a VPN).
::: spoiler Tor Bridge Types
* obfs4 makes your traffic appear "random"
* snowflake disguises your traffic as VoIP
* meek-azure makes it look like you're connecting to Microsoft services
* meek-amazon makes it look like you're connecting to AWS
* meek-google makes it look like you're connecting to Google
:::
slackness
in reply to moe93 • • •You can use Tor: orbot.app/
Cheapest way to not be in this situation is to run an exit node on your home network and route your traffic through when you're travelling (dead simple with Tailscale).
Also try Mullvad's circumvention methods.
dajoho
in reply to moe93 • • •like this
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