Israel vs Iran. $70B border bill. Toledo shooting. Gerrymandering. AI taking jobs.nDifferent costumes. Same diagnosis.
The pressure on working people keeps building. Will it release through reform… or rupture.
To a certain extent we’re back in the 1830-1840’s, the Industrial Revolution was taking off, in England, the oligarchs held power & the Working Class was essentially disenfranchised.
The educated Middle Classes looked at Rotten Burroughs & a thoroughly corrupt political landscape controlled by a few wealthy families.
1848 Revolution in Europe. Karl Marx escaped & began writing.
Again, it is NOT AI. It is a Massively Intelligent Computer. It is not a neutral actor. It has been “trained” programmed by various humans. We should suspect their biases & intent.
No Singularity. No AI.
That said, your point about pressure is a very good description of what we are facing.
MAGA is a symptom. Not a cause.
Good instincts.
Wrong targets.
The educated ruling classes, Upper Middle & the 1%, became complacent & the Reactionaries struck. Everybody thought the post WWII Golden Age would never end. Oh it might wobble but it would reap the harvest of IT & deliver greater & greater rewards.
We are actual in the mid-phase of the IT Revolution & we haven’t adjusted.
We need to leash & collar the TechBros & tax the BillionairBros.
We need to re-direct government to the needs of the Citizens. So-called “Private Capital” & Wall St in general need to be leashed & collared also.
& the SCOTUS needs repair. We’re a country of 3,000,000+, a court of 21 Justices is not unreasonable.
I think there's a lot of truth in what you're saying, particularly the historical parallels.
One of the reasons I keep returning to the "pressure cooker" metaphor is because history shows that societies rarely break because of a single issue. They break when enough economic, political, technological, and cultural pressures accumulate simultaneously and institutions stop adapting.
Where I might differ from you is on the question of targets.
I agree that MAGA is more symptom than cause. In many ways, so were Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, Bernie Sanders, Brexit, and other populist movements around the Western world. Different reactions to many of the same underlying pressures.
I also agree that the IT Revolution is still unfolding and that our political, economic, and educational institutions have not kept pace.
Where I become cautious is whenever the solution is framed primarily as "leash this group" or "tax that group." Sometimes that's warranted. Sometimes it isn't. History is also full of ruling classes, governments, corporations, unions, political parties, and revolutionary movements that accumulated power claiming to act on behalf of ordinary people and then became unaccountable themselves.
My concern is less about which tribe holds power and more about concentrated power itself, whether it's in government, corporations, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, political parties, media institutions, or any combination thereof.
The part I think we strongly agree on is that citizens are increasingly feeling disconnected from institutions that are supposed to serve them. That's a dangerous trend regardless of whether you're on the left, right, or somewhere in between.
Appreciate the thoughtful comment and the historical context. Those are exactly the kinds of discussions I'm hoping to encourage.
If I could do three things for the country right now:
Implement 11% Value-Added Tax on all citizens and corporations.
Demand any companies using or selling AI technology, increase their staff as their productivity/profit increases.
Fix the Supreme Court by starting fresh. Like it's impossible to find nine judges that can do their job ethically…
...... I used to really admire the Supreme court….they used to stuck up the little guy. Now they have heads, so far up big business’ ass, they view the world as a giant colon
If I could do three things for the country right now:
Implement 11% Value-Added Tax on all citizens and corporations.
Demand any companies using or selling AI technology, increase their staff as their productivity/profit increases.
Fix the Supreme Court by starting fresh. Like it's impossible to find nine judges that can do their job ethically…
...... I used to really admire the Supreme court….they used to stuck up the little guy. Now they have heads, so far up big business’ ass, they view the world as a giant colon
Well Rxan you nailed it.
To a certain extent we’re back in the 1830-1840’s, the Industrial Revolution was taking off, in England, the oligarchs held power & the Working Class was essentially disenfranchised.
The educated Middle Classes looked at Rotten Burroughs & a thoroughly corrupt political landscape controlled by a few wealthy families.
1848 Revolution in Europe. Karl Marx escaped & began writing.
Again, it is NOT AI. It is a Massively Intelligent Computer. It is not a neutral actor. It has been “trained” programmed by various humans. We should suspect their biases & intent.
No Singularity. No AI.
That said, your point about pressure is a very good description of what we are facing.
MAGA is a symptom. Not a cause.
Good instincts.
Wrong targets.
The educated ruling classes, Upper Middle & the 1%, became complacent & the Reactionaries struck. Everybody thought the post WWII Golden Age would never end. Oh it might wobble but it would reap the harvest of IT & deliver greater & greater rewards.
We are actual in the mid-phase of the IT Revolution & we haven’t adjusted.
We need to leash & collar the TechBros & tax the BillionairBros.
We need to re-direct government to the needs of the Citizens. So-called “Private Capital” & Wall St in general need to be leashed & collared also.
& the SCOTUS needs repair. We’re a country of 3,000,000+, a court of 21 Justices is not unreasonable.
Good article.
Good analysis.
Resist
Avance la Lucha
I think there's a lot of truth in what you're saying, particularly the historical parallels.
One of the reasons I keep returning to the "pressure cooker" metaphor is because history shows that societies rarely break because of a single issue. They break when enough economic, political, technological, and cultural pressures accumulate simultaneously and institutions stop adapting.
Where I might differ from you is on the question of targets.
I agree that MAGA is more symptom than cause. In many ways, so were Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, Bernie Sanders, Brexit, and other populist movements around the Western world. Different reactions to many of the same underlying pressures.
I also agree that the IT Revolution is still unfolding and that our political, economic, and educational institutions have not kept pace.
Where I become cautious is whenever the solution is framed primarily as "leash this group" or "tax that group." Sometimes that's warranted. Sometimes it isn't. History is also full of ruling classes, governments, corporations, unions, political parties, and revolutionary movements that accumulated power claiming to act on behalf of ordinary people and then became unaccountable themselves.
My concern is less about which tribe holds power and more about concentrated power itself, whether it's in government, corporations, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, political parties, media institutions, or any combination thereof.
The part I think we strongly agree on is that citizens are increasingly feeling disconnected from institutions that are supposed to serve them. That's a dangerous trend regardless of whether you're on the left, right, or somewhere in between.
Appreciate the thoughtful comment and the historical context. Those are exactly the kinds of discussions I'm hoping to encourage.
If I could do three things for the country right now:
Implement 11% Value-Added Tax on all citizens and corporations.
Demand any companies using or selling AI technology, increase their staff as their productivity/profit increases.
Fix the Supreme Court by starting fresh. Like it's impossible to find nine judges that can do their job ethically…
...... I used to really admire the Supreme court….they used to stuck up the little guy. Now they have heads, so far up big business’ ass, they view the world as a giant colon
If I could do three things for the country right now:
Implement 11% Value-Added Tax on all citizens and corporations.
Demand any companies using or selling AI technology, increase their staff as their productivity/profit increases.
Fix the Supreme Court by starting fresh. Like it's impossible to find nine judges that can do their job ethically…
...... I used to really admire the Supreme court….they used to stuck up the little guy. Now they have heads, so far up big business’ ass, they view the world as a giant colon