Ah yes, the US government forcing private companies to stop selling their products is totally a sign of Anthropic's drama and not our paranoiac fascist regime.
Anthropic spent months going on about how incredibly powerful and dangerous their models are and how access to them needs to be restricted. Now they are getting what they seemingly wanted.
Clearly they've assessed that the models they released are safe enough to release. Without a clear regulatory framework and Constitutional basis to overrule them, that is Anthropic's decision to make, and not the US government's.
It's disheartening how many people think the use of government power is justified or not based on the WWE smackdown drama they concoct in their own brain instead of, you know, the laws of our nation.
It is very dangerous for the government to be able to shut off services, regardless of whether their owners wrote some blog posts that rubbed you the wrong way.
You fear monger and tell everyone you’re the next Oppenheimer and maybe you eventually catch someone’s ear, whether it’s bullshit or not.
Last I checked I can’t buy a tactical nuke at Walmart. Clearly the government and all states have some power to control private enterprise for the betterment of their citizenry.
For the record I don’t support this ban, but you cry wolf as a marketing tactic and this is what you get…
Yeah just like if Volvo complained about automobile safety, imploring regulators to require safety belts, then one valid response would be the government just seizing all of Volvo's manufacturing equipment: problem solved!
You: "For the record I don’t support this theft of manufacturing equipment, but you cry wolf as a marketing tactic and this is what you get…"
Very wise. We're blessed to have you sitting above the fray where you can smugly approve of abuse of government power, which is much better and more superior than the simple-minded folks who merely approve of abuse of government power without the "I don't support this" caveat.
I don’t think the seatbelt analogy holds up when you have people saying they’re working on the next Manhattan Project.
Also no need for ad-hominem remarks referring to me as smug. I’m not smug about it and as I said I don’t agree with it.
However to my original point can you provide an analogy that showcases a private entity in this country that has previously told the public they’re essentially working on something akin to a doomsday device, whereby the government simply took a laissez faire attitude to it?
To me this just feels like Silicon Valley wants to use awful optics to their advantage and it’s backfired in a very predictable way. We don’t live in a perfect libertarian society that many in the valley wish we did, we never have. Not to mention many of the valley’s most prominent libertarians have backed the current administration, which is not one that believes in the philosophy, just like their counterparts don’t either.
I used to work with lobbyists. Watching as these guys go from telling the public what they’re making is dangerous, needs guardrails, will displace huge amounts of service workers, etc. is woefully shortsighted and only forces the hands of politicians to do something as they represent a populace that has started to poll negatively about it and no longer trust it. They only have themselves to blame. If you want that perfect libertarian society, then a good start would be realizing that they need to win over the public that controls the giant entity that can ruin them, and then maybe their representatives won’t do such things.
Here’s to hoping this is a nothing burger and access is restored soon.
Was Bill Clinton fascist when 128-bit SSL was on export controls? Can’t government be simply bad or dumb anymore without having to slap the “F” word on it?
We’re gonna apply it to so many things it’ll have lost its meaning soon.
Hello. I live in St. Paul, Minnesota. In January of this year my city was under hostile armed occupation. I volunteered for weeks packing boxes of food for people who were afraid to leave their houses because the masked secret police were ripping people off the streets with little regard for legality. Two of my neighbors were murdered by the secret police; a hundred of us sang hymns outside the local elementary school in 20 below weather. One of those murdered was my friend's coworker. The secret police agency has so far successfully opposed any attempt to bring the murderers to justice, and indeed was trying to bring legal charges against the families of the murder victims.
Which 'F' word do you think is appropriate to describe all this? Or has meaning already been lost?
You realize that creating fear in the public, especially your political opposition (i.e. blue cities), using lawful or arguably-lawful means is absolutely a hallmark of fascism, correct?
I disagree. I think that is more of a hallmark of news media or influencer culture where irrational fears can be fanned and spread throughout a populace.
It's hard to take that seriously, given how obviously it's written by someone with a specific leftist agenda. For instance: "The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated." By this logic, I think every government is "fascist."
Also, the World Cup brings out a ton of patriotic songs and flags. Does everybody get fascist at World Cup time?
> "The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe"
Here's another really nice one: it cannot be falsified, as by this definition, as it takes for granted that we don't have any common threats or foes. All threats are presumed to be fake and ginned up by the fascists.
> "Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts: Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested."
What about if a party disdains academia because (apart from just being a scam to get students indebted) it's become an echo chamber where only leftist discourse is welcome, and professors get fired for disagreeing with that. Which side is fascist here, now I've lost track.
What I've learned from this list is basically what I was implying in my original assertion: "Fascism" = "Anything leftists don't like"