AIs gunning for our precious freelancers

[zompist]

Which is awful. I'm a bit surprised, since there must be hundreds of translations of this text online. A better translation: "The Way which can be explained is not the eternal Way. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. Nameless, it is the beginning of heaven and earth. Named, it is the mother of the 10,000 things."

To be fair, translating the Tao te Ching into English is nightmare mode even for humans, so it's hardly surprising it completely flubs it even if it didn't have the handicap that you're using a translation tool for modern standard Mandarin Chinese on Classical Chinese.

It's not much harder than any ancient text... judging from others' efforts, ancient Egyptian is far harder. (That is, the corpus is far smaller so we know much less, and translations can seem a little shaky.) But Google doesn't do great with Mandarin, and really gets confused with Old Chinese.

(I'm a fan of something like "the walk that can be walked is not the eternal walk" for the first line to replicate the effect of using 道 both as a noun "path, road" and a verb "go, travel".)

That's a neat effect but hard to capture. 道 is maybe the most overloaded term in Chinese philosophy, and "Way" is probably the best way to refer to that.

One thing the machine did better than the human here is the handling of 萬物, although Wikisource's translation opts for "myriad" which is even better.

That's a matter of taste... "myriad" is too literary for my tastes. I like the literal meaning and think the metaphor is clear enough. The temptation to overexplain is the major pitfall with the Dao De Jing. Translators these days, I think, are wary of trying to remove all the local color.

[Torco]

Aristocrats are vulnerable to regime change. Dictatorships can survive indefinitely by paying the police and the military. The only way to defeat that is coordinated mass action so all-encompassing that the police and the military side with the people against the regime.

In my opinion, the most optimistic outcome is that scam artists suck an entire generation dry so they stop believing in the possibility of striking it rich.

lmao we can only hope, brother. problem is, their children will be taken in by new and different scams.

it's correct that the Empire is not, itself, identical with the us government or state: however, the Empire is also an empire, and like other empires, it has a core and a periphery: rome-the-empire was not the same as rome-the-city, but events in the city affected the empire disproportionately, and a bunch of decisions were made there. this core can change over time, sure, but these sorts of world systems, while themselves higher-order, have very concrete social infrastructure that supports them: in our case things like the dollar or the central african franc: do we really think, at this point, France could retain it's post-empire in a world that wasn't unipolar? people's anticolonial struggles, as well as the struggle of the working class, are often helped by having many competing poles poles (sometimes very expensively, but let's not delude ourselves, anticolonial struggle *is* struggle) and seldom helped by one unchallenged, class-homogenous hegemon.

[Ares Land]

in our case things like the dollar or the central african franc: do we really think, at this point, France could retain it's post-empire in a world that wasn't unipolar?

There's a good point there, and I think France breaks down the 'US as Empire' model. There is something of an empire/post-empire going on in Africa. As for US foreign interventions; in recent years France was around in most US military operations, plus we have a few of our own.
And France isn't a vassal state either; French foreign policy is usually aligned on the US but not always so. Russia certainly spends considerable energy trying to get us to switch, which means such a thing could happen. (So does China for that matter.)
Really sometimes it's like we do our own small-scale imperial thing.

The interesting part is that the general public (including, importantly, French voters) isn't really aware of these things.
The bleak part; there's little investigation of our motives (why was Sarkozy so keen to get rid of Gaddafi? what were the ulterior motive in refusing the Iraq War) or of what exactly happens in all those foreign ops (probably not that much to be proud of.)

[Raphael]

in our case things like the dollar or the central african franc: do we really think, at this point, France could retain it's post-empire in a world that wasn't unipolar?

Right now, the world is not unipolar: too many disagreements among major powers. Once people like you have achieved your goals, the world will, for all intents and purposes, be unipolar.

[Torco]

so there are more powers that rival the us, but if the us loses power then there won't be? again, this is homefront: first worlders love to imagine poor third worlders as some powerful, scary threat when, in reality, they're living under zinc plates and making a hundred bucks a month. no, iran is not going to take over the world. also what are my goals, again ?

I agree that France is not a vassal state: it's more of a partner in the imperial project?

[Travis B.]

so there are more powers that rival the us, but if the us loses power then there won't be? again, this is homefront: first worlders love to imagine poor third worlders as some powerful, scary threat when, in reality, they're living under zinc plates and making a hundred bucks a month. no, iran is not going to take over the world. also what are my goals, again ?

I agree that France is not a vassal state: it's more of a partner in the imperial project?

The matter is not about poor third worlders being a threat per se but rather that this much-vaunted "multipolar world" will actually be a world where one hegemon, the US, is simply replaced by another hegemon, China, and China in the very least is no more benevolent than the US (and if they seem so that is just because they are limited at the present in what they can do, rather than actually being benevolent at all -- just look at China from the perspective of the Uighurs or the Tibetans or the Hong Kongers or the Taiwanese).

[Raphael]

so there are more powers that rival the us, but if the us loses power then there won't be?

If the US turns full-on, permanently Trumpist, then the most likely outcome is that Trump and his counterparts in other major and minor powers form an alliance which then rules the world for the rest of human history, with no chance for anyone who wants to resist them.

again, this is homefront: first worlders love to imagine poor third worlders as some powerful, scary threat when, in reality, they're living under zinc plates and making a hundred bucks a month.

Neither Putin nor Xi, nor Kim, nor Modi, live under zinc plates making a hundred bucks a month.

no, iran is not going to take over the world.

Of course not. No one here said it would.

also what are my goals, again ?

A Trump victory and increased power for Putin and Xi. Leading to the world-dominating alliance I just mentioned.

[Torco]

ah, I think i understand better now. a trump dictatorship -which is not an obvious outcome of this election, though not for lack of desire- would show significant approaches towards russia, that much is true.it's a long jump from there, though, to eternal global dominance by a cohesive and permanent alliance between a fascist washington, beijing and moscow. the zinc is hyperbole but I meant to illustrate how fantastically far china and russia are from being anything like what the us is today, cause I get the feeling you're talking like china-russia (hardly as cohesive an alliance as, say, the us, europe and australia) taking the throne of world hegemon is something that's right around the corner, possibly one election away. leaving aside that, as I like to say, no chinese or russian has ever made my own country fascist for 20 years, it's just not. not even close. not even moderately far away. if the us ceases to be the absolute planetary monarch the likeliest outcome is not that xi and putin immediately come to share that vacant role: rather, it's a world where there is no one absolute planetary monarch, as has been the norm throughout almost all of human history.

Also, let's examine this "trump allies with xi and putin to rule the world" scenario. first, exactly why would he do that? the us already rules the world -as much as anyone does- and leaving aside that he seems to regard chayna as a major rival of the us (which it is) more than as an ally, is he going to trade in his alliance with europe? I think some cardoso and faletto are in order here: not everyone can rule the world. an empire in the normal sense has a core, that gets to decide the policy of the periphery, produce and sell to it the nice high value-added stuff, own the multinational megacorpos, the finance systems etcetera, and a periphery which sells cheap labour and cheap raw materials to that core and buys the computers, the washing machines, the cars etcetera, keeping the core rich and prosperous and the periphery poor (an interesting side effect of this structure is that no country has ever gone from poor to rich using just laissez faire economics, as far as I know, but that's neither here nor there): I don't think there's enough room in the position of core for the us and europe *plus* china and russia. I think it's a lot more likely that a trump crossing of the rubicon, as it were, would result in a failure (i.e. i don't think he can pull it off), and meanwhile europe would end up distancing itself from the us (as has been the trend), we'd see a dramatic drop in the prestige and influence of the us globally (which I think is good), as well as in the cohesion of the Empire, rather than in a thousand year reich with trump at the king and xi and putin as obedient dukes.

You're not wrong that I want china and russia (and india, and vietnam, and brazil and so on and so on) to have more power in the global system, and that's for many reasons. I wish they weren't ran by autocrats, definitely, but at least the rest of the world gets to be a field where different superpowers compete: last time this happened (after WW2) this gave us the welfare state, a lot of countries going from miserable feudal hellholes to decent places to live, an economics field not totally dominated by market fundamentalists... as I've said often on this issue, what's the alternative? washington consensus eternal?

[WeepingElf]

so there are more powers that rival the us, but if the us loses power then there won't be?

If the US turns full-on, permanently Trumpist, then the most likely outcome is that Trump and his counterparts in other major and minor powers form an alliance which then rules the world for the rest of human history, with no chance for anyone who wants to resist them.

I am less pessimistic about that. I see the danger, but it is not a given that, for instance, the EU will follow suit and also turn fascist. What we'd get is essentially the US changing sides in the Cold War between democracies and autocracies, which is of course bad enough, but Trump has enough issues to disagree upon with Putin and Xi, such as Taiwan and trace balances. Things looked much worse in 1941, and the world overcame it, although with a huge blood toll.

[zompist]

as I like to say, no chinese or russian has ever made my own country fascist for 20 years,

Russia has made Russia fascist, and is trying to make Ukraine fascist with an actual major war, plus vindictive bombings of civilian areas, bodies of victims left on the ground in the few areas they've been pushed out of, children deported to Russia to be Russified. That's your pal Putin who you think is going to improve the world along with Trump. And China is chomping at the bit to destroy Taiwan.

if the us ceases to be the absolute planetary monarch

You gotta return the 1950s Comintern propaganda to the library, man. The US is not the absolute planetary monarch.

Also, let's examine this "trump allies with xi and putin to rule the world" scenario. first, exactly why would he do that? the us already rules the world -as much as anyone does- and leaving aside that he seems to regard chayna as a major rival of the us (which it is) more than as an ally, is he going to trade in his alliance with europe?

Yes he absolutely is. You should investigate your fascist friends more closely. Trump has already said he wants to exit NATO and let Russia take over Ukraine.

trump at the king and xi and putin as obedient dukes.

So somehow Trump is going to make the "absolute empire" weaker, but also if he does ally with other fascists, he would be in charge? Can you make up your mind whether your fascist friends are powerful or weak?

at least the rest of the world gets to be a field where different superpowers compete: last time this happened (after WW2) this gave us the welfare state, a lot of countries going from miserable feudal hellholes to decent places to live, an economics field not totally dominated by market fundamentalists...

Now the Sith Empire didn't exist in the 1950s, but it does exist today? If there was any period when the US had a near-world hegemony, it was the postwar period. (China was poor and weak. The Soviets certainly had their own domain, but it was not better to be a Soviet than an American client state.)

as I've said often on this issue, what's the alternative? washington consensus eternal?

The alternative you are arguing for is fascists triumphant in the major countries, which somehow translates into Freedom For Chile. How you think Latin America escapes the resurgence of fascism, when you've already seen Bolsonaro in Brazil, is baffling. Somehow fascism succeeding all over will make your local fascists drop dead instead of getting a second wind?

By the way, if your dream is that Trump just sits there leaving Latin America alone... as it happens, Trump and other top Republicans have a dream of invading Mexico. The fact that it's a dumb idea does not lessen the danger.

Again, you're stuck in the 1950s with the US as the only villain in the world. I suggest you look at the 1800s instead— the history of Africa is very educational about what happens in a multipolar world where authoritarian rule and land grabs are normal.

an interesting side effect of this structure is that no country has ever gone from poor to rich using just laissez faire economics, as far as I know

This right after you praise the postwar world for "a lot of countries going from miserable feudal hellholes to decent places to live"?

If you're actually talking about laissez-faire and the Washington Consensus, I agree with you: that stuff was a load of bullshit, made by the same Republicans that brutalized your country and which you idolize today.

Finally... you've discovered, like a 1990s Internet edgelord, that you can rile people up by advocating fascist ideas. I think you're better than that. Fascism is no way to live, man, give it up.

[malloc]

I am less pessimistic about that. I see the danger, but it is not a given that, for instance, the EU will follow suit and also turn fascist. What we'd get is essentially the US changing sides in the Cold War between democracies and autocracies, which is of course bad enough, but Trump has enough issues to disagree upon with Putin and Xi, such as Taiwan and trace balances. Things looked much worse in 1941, and the world overcame it, although with a huge blood toll.

Considering the wealth and power of the US, switching sides to the autocratic side of this conflict would give the autocracies an overwhelming advantage I would say. Apart from the EU, how many major powers would that leave on the side of democracy?

[Ares Land]

You're not wrong that I want china and russia (and india, and vietnam, and brazil and so on and so on) to have more power in the global system, and that's for many reasons. I wish they weren't ran by autocrats, definitely, but at least the rest of the world gets to be a field where different superpowers compete: last time this happened (after WW2) this gave us the welfare state, a lot of countries going from miserable feudal hellholes to decent places to live, an economics field not totally dominated by market fundamentalists... as I've said often on this issue, what's the alternative? washington consensus eternal?

Having competing superpowers worked... Sometimes. The Cold War also led to far more brutal regime change: Pinochet's regime was at the height of the Cold War.
It also led to the insane nuclear stockpiles, still a problem to this day.

Besides...I've gone on at some length on how the Soviet Union was awful -- either Orwellian totalitarianism led by sociopaths or grim bureaucracy preserved in rancid pickled juice, but it was orders of magnitude better than either Putin's Russia or Xi's China.

When the West competed with the East, both sides at least nominally had to compete over scientific advances, or higher standards of living for everyone. The East being at least theoretically socialist meant the West had to figure out ways they were in favor of workers too. Also, when the Soviet Union funded parties abroad, it meant funding communist parties. In Western Europe, these were misguided but decent people, a useful counterpower when in the opposition and often decent and competent when in the government. On the international thing, they also had to give at least token support to doing the right thing, as with decolonization.

Where's all that with Putin? On the ideological side, he's just a reactionary plutocrat, the one difference being that he's more brutal than most. What's to be gained with plutocrats competing against other plutocrats? A contest of who can tread on faces with heavy boots more efficiently? There's nothing to save on the international scene. Russia kept the tradition of funding the opposition abroad, except this time they fund ignorant fascist thugs.

I'd love to see the end of the Washington consensus, and to have different poles and different models.
But a competition between various degrees of half-fascist plutocracy? What's the point? If anything, zompist it's right -- it's just the 19th century all over again.

abstention increases the odds of trump winning more than voting for biden, sure, but rallying cries aside, they're not the same thing: if they were, why is abstention not a vote for biden? what's the asymmetry? is trump the default? is abstention both? the us system is wack, but it's not that wack... that reminds me of an electoral myth from here, though: it is said that "blank (or null) votes are added to the majority"

You kind of answer your own question here Abstention increases the odds of Trump winning, that's why.

Abstention is not a vote for Biden, because reactionaries vote.

Other things to consider: the Overton window, and the fact that the voters, the media and electoral sides can only handle two sides tops. A Trump victory means far-right ideas go from acceptable to just normal options, and the debate switched to center-right versus far-right. You can forget about socialism being an option for a generation.
Perhaps we can let the US go to hell in their own way, but on the other hand we can't. The American political scene has its way of setting the stage for political debate worldwide.

[Raphael]

Russia kept the tradition of funding the opposition abroad, except this time they fund ignorant fascist thugs.

Putin recently said in public that there were "no signs of neo-nazism" in Germany's AfD. Just in case anyone has any doubts about where he stands, or where his supporters stand.

[WeepingElf]

I am less pessimistic about that. I see the danger, but it is not a given that, for instance, the EU will follow suit and also turn fascist. What we'd get is essentially the US changing sides in the Cold War between democracies and autocracies, which is of course bad enough, but Trump has enough issues to disagree upon with Putin and Xi, such as Taiwan and trace balances. Things looked much worse in 1941, and the world overcame it, although with a huge blood toll.

Considering the wealth and power of the US, switching sides to the autocratic side of this conflict would give the autocracies an overwhelming advantage I would say. Apart from the EU, how many major powers would that leave on the side of democracy?

Indeed, the EU would be the leading democracy and have to take over the role the US no longer fulfill. The UK (where the Tories are about to be tarred and feathered in the upcoming election) is not big enough and still licking the wounds self-afflicted by Brexit. We can of course forget about India, which is bigger than the EU but rather poor, and democracy is on its way out there, too.

[malloc]

Indeed, the EU would be the leading democracy and have to take over the role the US no longer fulfill. The UK (where the Tories are about to be tarred and feathered in the upcoming election) is not big enough and still licking the wounds self-afflicted by Brexit. We can of course forget about India, which is bigger than the EU but rather poor, and democracy is on its way out there, too.

I keep hearing that the far right has been gaining ground in Europe with far right parties already in government in several countries. It feels like democracy is closer to collapse now than pretty much ever.

[Ares Land]

I keep hearing that the far right has been gaining ground in Europe with far right parties already in government in several countries. It feels like democracy is closer to collapse now than pretty much ever.

The European far right does a lot of damage, but I really have no idea what their future might be.

So far it looks like they will just... sort of sit there indefinitely and capture all public debate.
The good news is, I don't see them really bringing democracy close to collapse. The bad news: I feel democracy is already damaged since any kind of political discussion has to revolve around far-right ideas.

One thing that seems improbable right now is the EU being any kind of world leader, especially not when it comes to democracy.
Right now, getting EU institutions moving is next to impossible, because of, among other factors, Orbán's Hungary and the various far-right groups.
Also, again, the public debate is all about far-right ideas. Right now the European elections revolve around the far right, how strong a force they'll be in the European parliament, what they'll do once they get there -- and nothing else is discussed.
(BTW, the answers are: a) very strong and: b) do nothing and collect paychecks.)

[WeepingElf]

I keep hearing that the far right has been gaining ground in Europe with far right parties already in government in several countries. It feels like democracy is closer to collapse now than pretty much ever.

The European far right does a lot of damage, but I really have no idea what their future might be.

So far it looks like they will just... sort of sit there indefinitely and capture all public debate.
The good news is, I don't see them really bringing democracy close to collapse. The bad news: I feel democracy is already damaged since any kind of political discussion has to revolve around far-right ideas.

One thing that seems improbable right now is the EU being any kind of world leader, especially not when it comes to democracy.
Right now, getting EU institutions moving is next to impossible, because of, among other factors, Orbán's Hungary and the various far-right groups.
Also, again, the public debate is all about far-right ideas. Right now the European elections revolve around the far right, how strong a force they'll be in the European parliament, what they'll do once they get there -- and nothing else is discussed.
(BTW, the answers are: a) very strong and: b) do nothing and collect paychecks.)

Yes. I am very aware of these problems, and surely the EU just can't project the kind of power the US project worldwide. But I don't see the automatism that when the US go fascist, the countries of western Europe will go fascist, too.

[alice]

Maybe it's time to start a new thread or something; we've long since stopped discussing "AI".

Anyway, how possible is it that "the USA will go full fascist"? There'll be some resistance somewhere, surely?

[WeepingElf]

Maybe it's time to start a new thread or something; we've long since stopped discussing "AI".

Yes.

Anyway, how possible is it that "the USA will go full fascist"? There'll be some resistance somewhere, surely?

Indeed, I don't really expect a full-fledged totalitarian one-party state. Rather, election rigging to secure a Republican majority, terror from non-governmental entities such as militias, and the like. The Constitution won't be abolished. The Democratic Party and other opposition parties won't be banned, only heavily didsadvantaged; and there will be resistance. In the solarpunk near-future novel I am currently working on, such resistance succeeds in the end (and not only in the US).

[Raphael]

See:

https://journalofdemocracy.org/articles ... tarianism/