Everything Is Extraction Now

Posted on by

This post was first published at Government Cheese – Chronicling the collapse of democracy, because it belonged there.

Extraction

Everything is extraction now. Late-stage capitalism has turned into whatever you call the billionaires (and trillionaire) owning everything and extracting all the wealth from everywhere that’s left.

Their giant multinational monopolies buy up all the businesses. All the businesses extract all the local spending and transfer it to tax havens. The governments have to “borrow” their wealth back to keep running, then extract taxes to pay interest — to the billionaires.

The Final Extraction

There are still a few things left in the world to extract. Some people still have some equity in their homes. There are still some independent farms and businesses (in hock to the billionaires’ banks.)

The billionaires are circling the rest, though.

Until Collapse

Extraction at this extreme level has to lead to collapse.

Far too oil has been extracted, in spite of the warnings. The world has passed a 1.5C temperature increase and looks like 2C is already baked in. (Sorry for that one.) The climate is collapsing in front of our eyes.

Trump’s strategic failure in Iran will collapse the world economy.

That means the stock bubble will collapse.

The AI bubble will collapse.

The world debt bubble will collapse.

What Comes Next?

What comes after collapse? Who knows?

The billionaires will be in their bunkers, their slaves wearing shock collars to keep them in line. The rest of us will be bathing in our billionaire-funded propaganda bath… Will we still blame trans people and non-white migrants for everything? Everyone will BE migrants transitioning to starvation, so who knows?

Since no one will have any wealth left maybe the psychopaths will leave us all alone and everyone will be able to start over somehow. Who knows? (Yes, that’s a Bible reference. Leviticus 25:8-13)

Everything Is Trickle-Down Now

Posted on by

This post was first published at Government Cheese – Chronicling the collapse of democracy, because it belonged there.

“Trickle-down” thinking – the idea that “growth” is driven by the rich, not by regular people with money to spend – led to competition for the crumbs that fall off the table where the wealthy feast. Cut taxes & wages & regulations, then businesses and the wealthy will come to you. So other states/countries cut their taxes & wages & regulations even more to get them back. Soon the wealthy have everything.

Democracies Defunded

Democracies have been defunded by tax cuts and competing “trade” deals, and the .01% have literally all the wealth in the world. So the only way to keep things going is to try to get the rich to park their wealth with you in hope some of it might “trickle down.”

So you set up a tax-dodging haven to “compete’ with other tax-dodging havens. You will make THEM poor so you can get the few crumbs that fall off the table.

If You Tax Them They’ll Leave

Be warned, “If you tax them they’ll leave.” If they leave the crumbs won’t trickle down! Please give us a few crumbs, sir!!!!

Everything is “trickle down” now! Everyone is betting everything on hope “they” will “invest” some of the wealth they took and you’ll be able to have some infrastructure or education or healthcare… (Of course, “they” will be getting their “return” for that. So even more gets drained away. But that’s tomorrow and you are desperate today.)

Now It’s Turkey

Now Turkey is offering special tax dodging “incentives” to “compete” to get those with vast “undeclared” wealth to bring it there because, “Dubai and Abu Dhabi, recent magnets for international wealth, have been tested by the US war in Iran and localized attacks, shaking their status as regional safe havens.”

Turkey seeks to capitalise on strategic location to attract the rich from London & Dubai
Ankara recently announced it’s ushering in a range of tax incentives for monied expats and investors abroad.

“… Turkey is seeking to capitalize on its strategic location to attract more rich residents as instability hits rival wealth hubs from London to Dubai.

The country recently announced it’s ushering in a range of tax incentives for monied expats and investors abroad, ranging from minimal inheritance tax, the chance for 20 years of overseas income free from local levies and an amnesty program to bring in undeclared assets held overseas.

[. . .] The new policies arrive at a sensitive time for some rival finance centers. Dubai and Abu Dhabi, recent magnets for international wealth, have been tested by the US war in Iran and localized attacks, shaking their status as regional safe havens.”

Just read the rest. It’s disgusting. This has been going on so long that even imagining democracy and the idea that the public can be in charge of things is gone.

Free Speech

Posted on by

Here’s a free speech question. Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and his “Libtards” and “Econazis” were part of an organized, strategic effort to dismantle American democracy and replace it with whatever you call what the country has now. We were all blasted with this evil, lying propaganda for decades. Civil society was destroyed. Good leaders were smeared with lies. Important public institutions were dismantled. Rule of law was removed. Etc etc etc. We all saw it happen. We all live in the world that created.

At the same time, related propaganda prevented us from dealing with the CO2 problem. Even as scientists warned us oil and coal companies pumped millions and millions into propaganda convincing people there was no problem, discrediting scientists, and fueling an increase in CO2 emissions.

Now corruption is endemic. A few wealthy people are ending up with all the wealth and lower for themselves and the country is an autocracy rules by one of the worst people in our history. We have oligarchs soaking up all the wealth. War is spreading across the world. And the climate crisis is upon us and growing in severity each year.

And all that is accelerating.

So does freedom of speech cover what was done to us? If so, can there ever be functioning democracy run for the good of the people?

24 Years of Seeing the Forest

Posted on by

Seeing the Forest’s first post was on July 16, 2002.

That was the “Welcome” post. The next post was a real post.

Ralph Nader is a Scab
Posted on July 16, 2002 by Dave Johnson
In the union movement we learned the hard way that the only way to fight the moneyed interests is to stick together. It’s called SOLIDARITY. It’s what “union” MEANS.

When unions are in a fight the members stick together, and those crossing the lines are called “scabs”.

In the 2000 election it was the usual fragile Democratic coalition fighting the usual moneyed interests. Ralph Nader broke the solidarity, divided the coalition, and lost us the election. Ralph Nader is a scab.

The right always uses divide-and-conqueer to win. Sun Tzu wrote about it around 2500 years ago. “If his forces are united, separate them.” “If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them.” etc.

Imagine if Nader hadn’t divided the forces we now understand as anti-fascist. Gore would have won Florida and a few other states. The Iraq war would not have happened. The country would have started to fight the climate crisis. The Supreme Court (and everything else) would not be far right and corrupt…

Smiling Politicians With Kennedy Haircuts Issue Focus-Group Words

Posted on by

This is a Seeing the Forest 24-year-anniversary poem. First published at Government Cheese – Chronicling the collapse of democracy because it belonged there.

Fossil-fueled psychopathic planetary pollution. Sew dependence reap profit and power. Smiling politicians with Kennedy haircuts and earnest, rolled-up sleeves issue focus-group words and wet their beaks.

Temperatures ever more extreme. The land becomes brown not green. Smoke from fires clogs our lungs. Species go extinct. Crops won’t grow.

It’s OK both sides do it radical terrorists say it’s wrong. Divisions are stoked and they are conquered.

It will trickle down.

Give Wind & Solar Electricity To The Public For Free

Posted on by

This post was first published at Imagine Democracy – Imagining government of the people, by the people and for the people.

If we had a functioning democracy we would own our energy supply. We would build publicly-owned solar & wind and provide the electricity to each other and our businesses for free. Our economy would BOOM.

We would tax & redistribute the highest incomes & profits that result from this. Healthcare, education, transportation…

Australia is starting to do this.

People Don’t Even Remember That Countries Used To Tax The Rich

Posted on by

Here is something that has been erased from people’s memories: The top income tax rate used to be 90%+ and the corporate tax rate was 52%. This was in both the US and UK. The inheritance tax on the rich was 77% in the US, 85% in the UK.

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.

The First AI War

Posted on by

This could be the first AI war. My experience with AI is it’s a confirmation bias machine.

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.

Can Tech Companies Be Trusted Not To Promote Addictive AI?

Posted on by

A while back I wrote about AI as a confirmation bias machine.

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.