Imagine a government run to do good things for its people and work alongside other countries for the betterment of all people.

AFTER you took home a nice amount of income, then the rest, above a certain amount, was taxed a lot. People with high incomes were still quite well off, but these taxes prevented the extreme inequality we see all around us now. It also prevented the wealthiest from being able to buy the government.

And obviously there was plenty of investment. Society managed quite well.

Then It All Changed

Reagan and Thatcher changed all that, with “trickle-down” economics: If you give tons of money to the rich, then they will do what’s best for society and that money will “trickle down” to everyone else. They even promised that tax cuts would “pay for themselves.” This was a Republican talking point for decades!

Instead Of Taxing The Rich, Countries Now Borrow FROM The Rich And Pay Interest TO The Rich

Now instead of taxing the rich and doing things to make people’s lives better these countries “borrow” that money back FROM the rich and and pay “interest” TO the rich. The US pays interest payments of more than $1 TRILLION a year TO the rich. The UK pays over £110 billion.

And now these countries that used to do so much for the public say they’re “broke” so they can’t.

This can be undone, but only if you take the money out of the political system so these ultra-wealthy can’t just buy elections.

This isn’t about being right, it’s about seeing responses that satisfy people that they are correct. But all AI is doing, still, is telling people what they want to hear. It’s just doing a better job of it! AI is not “getting better.” It is getting better at making you think it’s getting better. This is about accepting conclusions, not about drawing correct conclusions.

Never accept the first response. Challenge it and it gives you different answers, even apologizing for its first, incorrect answer. You keep doing that until you get an answer you like. But it’s the answer YOU like. If you challenged it again you’d get another, different response. You have to be well-disciplined in avoiding confirmation bias to recognize this is what’s happening.

Superior Advice From The God-Machine

I think that could be what they did. Trump and his people are well-disciplined in hearing what they want to hear. They thought they were getting superior advice from the God Machine, when all they were really doing what getting fed the justifications and strategies and tactics their twisted fascist brains wanted to get. No president agreed to attack Iran until there was a God-Machine telling him he was so great & strong so it would certainly succeed.

Warzone – The Sound of Revolution

I can continue to refine my prompts and the AI will continue to refine its responses, until I am satisfied with what I am seeing and draw conclusions. But I could also continue this cycle. Until I am satisfied with what it is telling me.

This isn’t about being right, it’s about seeing responses that satisfy people that they are correct. But all AI is doing, still, is telling people what they want to hear. It’s just doing a better job of it! AI is not “getting better.” It is getting better at making you think it’s getting better. This is about accepting conclusions, not about drawing correct conclusions.

Now I am worried that it’s a bit more than that. The journal Science published a research article titled, Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence. The authors measured AI sycophancy – unwarranted affirmation, flattery, excessive agreement – in responses to users and found that it is “both prevalent and harmful.”

Across 11 AI models, AI affirmed users’ actions 49% more often than humans on average, including in cases involving deception, illegality, or other harms. On posts from r/AmITheAsshole, AI systems affirm users in 51% of cases where human consensus does not (0%). In our human experiments, even a single interaction with sycophantic AI reduced participants’ willingness to take responsibility and repair interpersonal conflicts, while increasing their own conviction that they were right.

They write, “Sycophancy in AI responses is pervasive and alters people’s behavioral inclinations.”

Uh oh. Considering how the tech companies use potentially harmful algorithms to drive engagement in social media, I’d put the odds at greater than 100% they’ll take advantage of this to lure people in as they strive for profitability.

Two headlines this morning, “White House erects UFC cage ahead of US 250th anniversary celebrations” and “Scottsbluff police respond to gunfire at convenience store after dog accidentally shoots person with a shotgun”

A giant carnival state for a CAGE MATCH at the White House, with part of it torn down for a huge fucking Trump tribute “ballroom”! Guns everywhere. (At least they threw the word “accidentally” into that headline.)

So no. Not going back.

I was thinking about how most voters out there have no memory of all kinds of things people who are older remember.

Tax Cuts Will Pay For Themselves

They don’t remember Reagan promising that tax cuts for the rich will cause them to invest in the economy and bring all kinds of great things that meant the tax cuts “will pay for themselves.” They didn’t watch the resulting shift from government taxing the rich and doing things for people, into “borrowing” FROM the rich, doing nothing for the people, and paying massive amounts of interest TO the rich. AND the resulting massive inequality. They don’t remember that there weren’t billionaires. Now it’s billionaires with all the money vs people in food lines, etc.

Deregulating Corporations Will Unleash Growth And Bring Prices Down

They don’t remember Reagan promising that deregulation of corporations will “unleash” growth, causing them to provide more great things so we would all be so much better off. Now they pollute at will and scam everyone. They don’t remember the promise that getting rid of antitrust regulations would force prices down and make everything better. They didn’t watch as merger after merger transformed the economy into a few giant monopolies that charge whatever they want and make you pay monthly to use products you already paid for.

Elections Were Competitive

They don’t remember competitive elections before campaign finance was undone. Regular people could run for office. Now a few oligarchs decide elections with “dark money” so no one knows who pays for the ads and bots and propaganda.

They don’t remember the Democratic Party standing up and fighting for working people.

Before The Propaganda

They don’t remember that TV news used to have rules about serving the public interest. They don’t remember that commercials were not allowed to lie. They don’t remember when the benefits of belonging to unions was allowed to be discussed on the air. They don’t remember that “markets are better at making decisions than government (i.e. “democracy”)” was laughed at. They don’t remember that there was a fight to allow non-whites to vote. They don’t remember that women couldn’t get bank accounts or credit cards without their husband’s permission. They don’t remember that government existed to make people’s lives better.

There are all kinds of things they know nothing about…

For a lot of them ALL they are old enough to remember is Trump coming down an escalator and saying immigrants are all criminals who rape and murder, etc…

In 2005 I wrote a post titled “They Mean It” that warned about Christian fascism and the intent to take over the US. This is how it ended:

These people mean it. America is an experiment. Democracy is an experiment. American democracy has not been around very long, and we have never been so perilously close to losing it. All the checks and balances have been removed by allies of these people. They mean it. The leader of the Senate is saying that Democrats hate “people of faith.” They mean it. Time magazine puts on their cover a person who calls for murdering us.

They mean it. A Supreme Court Justice declares that rulers should be chosen by God, not the people. They mean it. The Vice President is the keynote speaker at a conference where other speakers called for “a new McCarthyism” to bring “terror” to intellectuals, saying “let’s oppress them [liberals],” and that “the entire Harvard faculty” are “traitors.” They mean it. They mean it.

Watch your backs. I mean it.

Well, now we know. They meant it. People didn’t watch their backs – and they did it.

They meant it, and they did it. And here we are.

This post first appeared at Government Cheese – Chronicling the collapse of democracy.

Virginia broke the rules. That’s all there is to it. Rules are rules.

Republican states can gerrymander to favor Republicans, Democratic states cannot gerrymander to favor Democrats. States can draw districts that exclude minority representation. States cannot draw districts that enable minority representation. Rules are rules.

It’s like “Stand Your Ground” gun laws. White people can stand their ground and shoot black people. Black people better not get near a gun. Rules are rules.

It’s like when I was a kid. All my neighbors were Black. I had to go to what was called the “white” school. It was a shiny new school some distance away. All my neighbors went to what was called the “black” school. It was built in the 1800s, run down, moldy, leaking roof, etc. Rules are rules. (Ann Arbor). Along came LBJ and Civil Rights and Democrats lost the South forever.

The South has risen again.

PS Also, women couldn’t get bank accounts, loans, managerial positions, and got paid 59 cents for each dollar men got paid for the same job, etc so expect that soon, too.

Rules are rules.