Comment by dylan604
19 hours ago
> The trump administration by refusing to admit the superior metrics of solar, they're just burying their heads in sand.
I don't think I agree with this as it suggests they are doing it because they can't be bothered about it. Instead, they are doing it specifically because their (and/or their friend's) pockets are getting filled. To me, the latter is much more sinister.
I have a theory that corruption+nepotism are unstoppable forces of nature.
Advanced governments only force corruption to distribute and obfuscate.
I think this is why there appears to be some correlation between unpopular behavior and financial success.
Government essentially erects artificial barriers to entry on behalf of the incumbent businesses that fund it.
I don’t know if it is “unstoppable” or a “force,” but nepotism is a natural behavior, selected for in humans by kin selection.
Likewise, I think public choice theory would probably argue that corruption is a predictable outcome in politics that has to be constantly guarded against.
> corruption+nepotism are unstoppable forces of nature
History suggests it's the other way round. They're awfully prevalent - what is a hereditary monarchy but nepotism - but the value of meritocracy over nepotism enables such better governance that it tends to win handily in proxy or actual conflicts. Similarly, if your society is too corrupt when you go to war you discover that someone has sold the tyres off all your stored vehicles, or suchlike.
You also can't have a complex society without a complex government. This goes all the way back to Qin dynasty vs. "barbarians".
That's why I see AI (with a clear set of provided objectives and guidelines, i.e., a constitution) as the future of government.
As dystopian as that sounds, it's the only way I see to truly rid ourselves of corruption.
Why would AI at that scale not have the exact corruptible inclination humans have?
I don't know how any AI system would not eventually determine that humans are the problem. Sci-fi uses this as a plot numerous times for a reason. What humans are doing is not logical, and better choices can be made if it weren't so damn profitable for some to keep going as is.
It such obvious corruption. Trump ordered the pentagon to buy coal power specifically.
The crazy thing is coal mining is 40,000 jobs. I have never seen such a tiny industry given such preferential/oversized treatment.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES1021210001
Lyft is 10% of the size of big coal and Amazon is over 20x larger.
The UK fishing industry was cited a lot as a reason for Brexit, despite being just over 10k jobs ( https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-sea-fisheries-an... ) and less economically significant than Warhammer.
(see the "everything is gender now" thesis: fishing and coal mining are "manly" industries, which is why they get this preferential treatment from the right-wing)
Meanwhile the areas where the coal jobs used to exist (or still do) just had their food stamps removed or reduced. It's such a charade.
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While they say it’s about the jobs, it is so very clearly about who is making how much money by propping up coal ( and other industries)