> Do the politicians have these fantasies and are in denial? Think they can 'control their urges' but others can't?
These days it feels like: yes, they have them. No, they are not in denial, they just feel like indulging them is for people like them and not people like you.
As a last resort when all other options have failed? Yeah, if you value democracy and don't want to bend the knee and live under an authoritarian state. Ammo box is listed last for a reason, of course, all other avenues should be pursued first.
But that doesn't change the fact that the government isn't going to stop itself from overstepping the constitution, that duty falls with the people via protest, voting, lawsuits, and as a last resort, use of force.
This sounds great... in theory. And just sort of assumes that large casualties are acceptable. Or, even worse, that a lone individual can impart change via a well aimed shot, or something.
Both of which are wild and not something the average person should want or expect to happen. Which makes it even stranger that so many people say it all the time.
Have you stopped renegade cops in your community? Or are you only suggesting that other people do, knowing that anyone who attempts it will die?
It just seems insane to seriously suggest fighting a force that has tanks, drones, etc and has full info on where you are at any moment should they decide to take you out with a sniper, and the willingness to use all of those against you while calling you a terrorist.
There is nothing "insane" about it, it is in fact quite simple and straightforward.
It is far more honest to just say "I don't have the stomach for it/I don't want to die" (and there's nothing inherently wrong with that! most humans feel that way) than to pretend that the very well established precedent across history of violence being the only thing that can oust certain forms of tyranny/injustice is somehow beyond your understanding.
I'm not suggesting it, but taking a look at history, a couple notables are the Battle of Athens and Cliven Bundy standoff. Bundy is still grazing his cattle on that land to this day.
Ammon Bundy has held relatively libertarian opinions on immigration for a long long time. Since at least the days of the standoffs. His political ideals are closer to the old time westy classical liberalism (something like founding era anti-federalists with a view of the law that essentially mirrors Bastiat) than they are to neo-conservatism.
We've had a significant breakdown in process here. Congress is deadlocked. The Supreme Court is corrupt. The only thing left are The People (protest / vote < civil disobedience < escalation beyond).
You’ve got the first two backwards. The real accountability mechanism in the constitution for a rogue president/administration is impeachment by congress (which is a proxy for the people in theory). Unfortunately neither enough of congress nor enough of the electorate cares if the administration breaks the law.
In theory, yes. Any supreme court interpretation can be overruled by a congress that is truly in lockstep.
Reality, is disappointing. Where we have a dealocked congress we try to switch around every 2 years while 9 people in the courts can re-interpret how they wish with basically zero reprecussions, for life.
Maybe the SCOTUS also needs terms limits thanks to modern medical advances. I don't think the founding fathers intended for courts to remain the same people for decades on end. It can be a very long term like the Federal Reserve, but we definitely need something.
The issue lies in who enforces it. In theory, that's congress with the ability to impeach and convict members of SCOTUS.
I've also thrown around ideas in my head of state SC's chief justices having a channel to court marshal a SCOTUS and eject them with a supermajority ruling. Or a band of federal judges. But there's so much more involved there I haven't begun to consider.
I am in this boat. My employer tracks daily copilot usage, and has gamified it across teams.
I ask SME's questions, and I get AI generated responses. The message it sends is this: don't bother me; I can't be bothered, just use AI. People are sending these low-effort Copilot writeups to our customers too - I can't imagine what they think of it.
The reason we pay SME's is because they can be trusted to provide correct answers that we don't have to be skeptical about. The people doing this haven't figured out yet they are undermining their own credibility and optics on willingness to help out the team by doing so.
Just this week, I had several people suggest, "Hey, have you asked copilot about [esoteric networking thing]?". Indeed, I have, and in the absence of documentation, it gave me 5 convincing theories - none of which actually checked out when I dug into them. It just made wrong shit up.
Most frustrating is the integration with our tenant. I try and ask questions about things I need deeper information on.
Me: Hey Copilot, can you dig me up more information on X thing?
Copilot: Have you considered (waves hand in sweeping motion), everything you yourself have written on the topic?
If I want real answers I turn to the free ChatGPT, or my personally paid Claude subscription. Then I copy-pasta the stuff which is useful, and maintain my own writing style, and present the information in a way which I think works best for who I am talking to.
Have you tried calling them out on it? I mean, use AI all you want, but dialogue with your coworkers still needs to be respectable. Pasting a "let me google that for you" link was always a no-no.
We've kicked the can down the road. Stuff used to cost more; now we make everything out of plastic overseas. Once all of those economies are wealthy enough to start caring about the environment (and I'm convinced we'll get there), pollution will have to be dealt with globally.
Maybe by then we'll have returned to building products which last (although I'm not holding my breath).
I've seen a lot of people sharing similar sentiments just because it's Microsoft executives.
These executives came up through engineering. These are not MBA's. Russinovich famously founded Winternals (now Sysinternals), and got bought by Microsoft. Building tools for the OS that the OS vendor didn't think to:
Wasn't the execs sentiment to replace the workforce as soon as possible with ai? But I get it, you get to get a face when you're an exec but no face when you're a jobless junior CS graduate.
These days it feels like: yes, they have them. No, they are not in denial, they just feel like indulging them is for people like them and not people like you.
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