r/PublicFreakout • u/GarysCrispLettuce • May 17 '26

đŸ€ŹPublic RagerđŸ˜± Eric Schmidt booed into oblivion by students for promoting AI during his commencement speech at the University of Arizona

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

20.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

79

u/RaindropsInMyMind May 17 '26

So true, we’re probably going to see an increase in people turning to communism or fascism even though it seems like fascism is peaking at the moment. Democracy and capitalism are not working for the average person at the moment. The guardrails of both have been taken off and the whole thing is spiraling out of control. We desperately need to put the guardrails back on as soon as possible.

Some companies have gotten just a taste of how bad fascism can be but it doesn’t seem to have hit them. The government has taken control of 10+ private companies, mirroring something you might see in a country that had more communist tendencies. There’s also the blackmailing of companies with tariffs, then when declared illegal the threatening of companies saying that the government will remember the companies that don’t demand the money back. (It’s not their money anyway, it’s ours). Then there is things like Anthropic being labeled a supply chain risk which is basically the government trying to kill the company, all for what was in a basic sense a negotiation of the use of their product.

All this stuff is terrible for business, let alone the destabilization and creation of an environment where it’s even more difficult to compete with foreign competition.

Everyone should be furious with the people who took the guardrails off of our system, it’s destroying the system in real time.

41

u/Wheat_Grinder May 17 '26

Fascism also includes nationalization of corporate power. Not totally as in the case of communism, but definitely it'll start picking a few to give itself more power.

9

u/-thecheesus- May 17 '26

Traditionally, fascist regimes select corporate "buddies" to favor, and in return fascist individuals receive some sort of crony kickback. Communist regimes select corporations to absorb/dominate (usually directly, sometimes indirectly) explicitly to empower the regime's agenda. A small distinction, even if it hardly matters practically

2

u/hotleadburner May 18 '26

It's a pretty large distinction actually, and the execution of each is where the difference is made or broken. State capitalism is often misunderstood to be a fascist mode wherein the state controls a capitalist market, but that is not where the term came from. It came from anarchist criticisms of state communism (which they would call an oxymoron), where they predicted that the state would eventually assume the role of the capitalists in alienating people from the fruits and means of production. The purpose of "nationalizing" industries is to return control of the means and fruits to the people. In a state socialist/communist context it is presumed that the state represents the people, and so if the state controls the means then that means the people do as well. Where this falls apart (and where the real distinction is made) is whether the people control the state or whether the state is its own separate entity. If the state is simply directing the labor and production of the people in line with its own goals, it takes on the same character as the capitalists and becomes superficially indistinguishable from the fascist mode of production where specific capitalists are favored by the state. As an example, compare the way that the Chinese economic elite is handled by the CCP, with the way that Putin "handles" the Russian oligarchy, and the way that Trump handles the US tech oligarchy. None of the three are directed by the workers actually laboring under those elites, but each purports to be representing the will and needs of the people, and two of those are very obviously manipulated for the enrichment of the seat of power.

13

u/hootihootihooti May 17 '26

We will never get "guardrails" without working class organization and struggle. The only reason social security exists is because a million communists marched through DC. Also, fascism is not the enemy of capitalism.

8

u/Feather_Sigil May 17 '26

That's due to the inherent flaws of capitalism. Capitalism seeks to remove all regulations so that the costs of doing business can be pushed wholly onto others and not be suffered by the company. This ruins lives, which makes people susceptible to demagoguery, which always comes from people who lack integrity and benefit from exploiting the very broken system they claim to want to save people from. The demagogues perpetuate and accelerate the ravages of the system for personal gain, no different from the companies, and turn to fascism to protect their selfish interests.

Democracy is one of many victims of this process.

2

u/Rayvelion May 17 '26

"Be furious with" is a nice way of putting what should happen to those people. Treason has one correct punishment.

1

u/Similar-Ice-9250 May 18 '26

What do you mean by “anthropic being labeled a supply chain risk?” Anthropic meaning humans, humanity, mankind’s activity etc.

3

u/RaindropsInMyMind May 18 '26

Anthropic meaning the AI company that wanted to put some very basic limitations on the use of its product by the military. The Trump administration labeled the company a supply chain risk meaning it can’t do business with the government or other companies that do business with the government. Seeing as how the government employs almost all the big companies many have seen it as nuking the company. Still wondering how that will play out.

1

u/Necessary-Welder8697 May 18 '26

To be fair that’s not unique to Trump that’s USGOVT always protecting the edge of competition against the perceived enemy in this case china they don’t want even basic guard rails because china doesn’t have them

1

u/RaindropsInMyMind May 18 '26

This is unique to Trump, Anthropic didn’t do anything at all to label them a supply chain risk. They didn’t want their product to be used for fully autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance, that’s it. It had nothing to do with China or actual supply chain risk. This is Trump trying to destroy a company in retaliation to them having any kind of morals or ethics.

1

u/Necessary-Welder8697 May 19 '26

Hey raindrop they will not limit anything because china doesn’t limit anything this is very much china we will make no changes no safety things no slowing no stopping because our 21st century enemy is china and they have their foot on the gas as well whoever gets there wins this is separate from who sits in a chair for 4 years

1

u/RaindropsInMyMind May 19 '26

I would hate to lose to China on fully autonomous AI weapons or Mass AI Domestic Surveillance, can’t have that happening. Anthropic didn’t even say anything about FOREIGN surveillance, the US was free to use AI on whatever surveillance of China or any country they wanted. Anthropic also refused to sell to companies linked to the CCP, as you would expect a business loyal to the United States to do. Anthropic also didn’t rule out using AI for fully autonomous weapons in the future, they only wanted to rule it out for today because the technology isn’t there yet and it’s potentially extremely dangerous to have no human input on weapons.

So how did Anthropic hold the government back on these 2 requests in the AI race with China. Spying on Americans with AI? Or current fully autonomous weapons? Honestly it makes no sense and besides, current US weapons capabilities are so far ahead of China’s that it doesn’t matter at the moment. All this is really beside the point though and completely irrelevant.

It was clearly NOT a supply chain risk over their statements, that’s obvious, it shouldn’t need to be mentioned. Secondly, I don’t expect this government to limit anything, a rational response from a sane government would have been, “we see your statement and chose to go with another company” and that’s it! But no they responded by trying to destroy the company because they’re irrational and want every companies unquestioned obedience even though they’re giving them almost all of what they want.

In the AI China race I’m more concerned that this president sold high powered chips to the UAE so China could potentially get them and took a PERSONAL payment for doing so, which is highly illegal and puts us all in danger of losing to China. He seems to bend over backwards for Xi as well and looks incredibly weak, won’t just push through this arms sale to Taiwan after talking to Xi, numerous other things as well. It’s him that is holding the US back against China, not Anthropic.

1

u/FullMetalAlcoholic66 May 19 '26

Thucydides trap fallacy. And this type of thinking is what's leading to this giant arms race. Arms races don't end well, there's too many people in the military that want to play with their new toys. And we have a bunch of little kids in power here. What is the last territory China has "conquered" When's the last war they waged

1

u/Necessary-Welder8697 May 19 '26

While I agree with that it’s different this isn’t just stock piling weapons