Eat the rich.
not only are large enterprises also inefficient in ways, but they must seek profit.
This deserves repeating.
A government job often requires highly skilled union workers, thus higher pay for the workers. A corporation can find the cheapest labor, but it’s not always the best. The savings are then pocketed as profit, essentially giving shareholders a free government check while labor is poorly compensated.
Government contracts out everything to the lowest builder.
This is not always the case. In reality, the bid often goes to the company with political connections.
They might also look at things like timeframe and job creation. So, supposing that all other things are equal: One company plans to use robotic labor, one is using human labor. There’s going to be a lot of pressure from unions to hire the human labor. Or one company is using imported materials and the other is using local materials.
That’s not to say that the system isn’t biased and flawed. It most definitely is. But this idea that the “lowest bidder” always gets the job is just not true.
It’s intentional, ofc.
Horace Mann, the father of public education, was a Puritan. An exerpt from a little article about Horace Mann here:
"It’s worth reminding ourselves now about the key characteristics of the industrial era, and how we can see them manifested in the education system that continues to operate across America to this day:
Notice how these reinforce each other. You enter the system one way, and are crammed through an extended molding process. The result? A “good enough” cog to jam into an industrial machine."
But school isn’t just preparation the “industrial machine”. It also serves as a propaganda machine. The master of Nazi propaganda, Joeseph Goebbels, saw schools as a place to indoctrinate the youth. That’s the purpose of history class in public education. To build the mythos, to encourage loyalty, to tell stories of brave soldiers fighting the ever-present enemies of the state.
In a country where military service is mandatory for everyone over 18, are there really any “civilians”?
Depends on the job, but elected members of Congress get an incredible amount of support staff.
First, they have a full team of staffers who can guide them through the legislative processes/procedures. Communications, press, scheduling, admin, secretarial - all provided.
Second, they have support from their own party. Campaign offices, re-election staff, community outreach, all that sort of thing.
Of course, they still don’t have time to read every single bill and understand the complexities. But the length of term doesn’t help for things like that. The length of term is more to let your constituents decide whether you are doing your job. A vote of confidence/no confidence.
And, an underlying reason for short term limits is balance of power. One chamber of Congress (the House) is filled with an ever-changing cast of “average Joes”. The other, more prestigious house (the Senate) is filled with power brokers and career politicians.
One of life’s great ironies is that people rarely get what they deserve.
Yes, the initiative failed. They have guns and all the money. We have memes. Game over.
You can watch some videos on YouTube, if you really want to learn. It’s interesting, sometimes in a full-dystopian nightmare fuel kind of way. Yes, we are at the point where some of these robots can climb and jump.
It’s a gimmick, though, for sure. Just like human-mimicking androids are a gimmick. The money for robotics is in manufacturing.
But I’ll bet there will always be an obscenely wealthy person who is willing to pay for a cool looking robot prototype.
There are plenty of leaders to follow, plenty of groups to join, plenty of events to attend.
This type of information isn’t broadcast on the local news. You have to go looking for like-minded people.
Gee, if only we’d tried that before.
Remember the “1%” protests against the billionaire class?
It didn’t matter, because every time people contribute to a 401k or go shopping at a chain box store, they add power to the 1%. People say they want to fight the ultra-rich, but they don’t really want to fight. Nobody wants to sacrifice their comfort or security. We know from history how this ends…
Giggle. We’ve been playing “wait and see” for a decade now.
Elections don’t solve this. We’ve seen that high-level Democrats are no different than high-level Republicans. Biden refused to investigate the Epstein files, he refused to prosecute Trump, and he refused to target gerrymandering/election interference.
There’s no version of this where the old America magically returns. That’s the same logic trap that ushered in this entire mess. There are plenty of MAGA who truly believe that they are shaking up the system and that just one more election will solve everything.
THIS. IS. THE. FUTURE.
We are living in it. The trajectory is set. We didn’t stop militarization of the police when they stepped on our rights. We didn’t stop data collection when we were warned. We didn’t stop gross financial mismanagement, corporate influence, gerrymandering and all the other things that make a democracy work.
We aren’t living in a fascist takeover. That happened years ago. We are living in its aftermath. We are frogs in a simmering pot, watching the bubbles float past us and wondering how to turn off the heat. It doesn’t matter now, the damage is done. The momentum takes control.
WWII changed everything about the USA. Everywhere else in the world, manufacturing was bombed to oblivion, the populace unable to rebuild without a coordinated effort from governments and NGOs.
The US became a hub of manufacturing. We exported our culture, and our products, all over the world. Our currency and our language became the standard in business.
Everything since then has been a slow walk backwards, so that the ultrawealthy could exert more control and line their pockets. A return to the “real” American values of exploitation.
I think he’s just trying to further normalize the outsourcing/underpaying/devaluing of programmers.
I think the rank and file Democrats would LOVE to see this happen.
But it’s pretty obvious that Congress is mostly there to do the bidding of their corporate donors. Time and again, they’ve shown an unwillingness to go after corruption, because they know they live in a glass house.
You just described everyone in DC
By all means, let’s you and I decide to hate each other, instead of trying to reclaim our country back from our corporate overlords.
Dunno what to tell ya. The process is what it is. What we are seeing is a failure of of the entire system of checks and balances. The legislative and judicial branches refuse to reign in the executive branch. IMHO, our Congress members and Supreme Court are more culpable for those girls’ deaths than the soldier who fired that missile.
I can’t speak for what actually happens, or what even what SOP in the armed forces might be in this situation.
SO…I googled it. Here’s the levels of complexity involved in a Tomahawk missle strike:
Command and Authorization (Top-Down Flow)
Authorization: The process starts with a decision by the President, often passed through the National Security Council to the Secretary of Defense, and then to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Command Channel: The Joint Chiefs convey the order to a regional commander (e.g., U.S. Central Command or Indo-Pacific Command). Execution Order: The regional commander transmits the target information and engagement requirements to the specific launch platforms (ships or submarines).
Transmitting the Order to the Specialist
Secure Communications: The order is sent via secured, encrypted digital communications to the vessel’s Tomahawk Strike Coordinator (TSC) or equivalent senior operator. TTWCS Integration: The data is directly integrated into the Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System (TTWCS) on board. Mission Planning: The TTWCS allows the crew to plan the route or receive pre-planned, digital target coordinates, known as a Missile Sequence Number (MSN) task.
Action by the Specialized Operator (Launch Team)
Mission Assignment: The firing platform’s operators receive a digital tasker, which includes primary and sometimes backup assignments. Validation: Specialists on the bridge/combat center verify the target and launch authorization. Targeting Data Entry: The TTWCS is updated with the new target data, which may include GPS coordinates. Block IV missiles can be reprogrammed in-flight, but the launch command requires pre-defined parameters. Launch Sequence: The operators execute the final launch sequence, which involves the missile being ejected by a solid-fuel booster from the Vertical Launching System (VLS).
SO, at which point should the crew have refused the order? Where does the blame lay?
Poorly executed military action is 100% an American institution. We expect it - from the Bay of Pigs to “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq to the twenty year campaign in Afghanistan, our executive branch has a habit of making itself look incompetent.
But guess what? Nobody’s asking about Epstein, so VICTORY!
I think you would need to first make the case that software is making the world a better place. So far, it’s got a spotty record…