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New executive order puts all grants under political control

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    Is there a similar poll for political decisions and outcomes ? Not that I know of. That's why I'm transferring by analogy from other walks of life. Outside of hyperbolous scenarios i think honesty is not the default in a situation where it doesn’t have a social/survival impact. All the research I am aware of - including what I referenced in the previous comment, is that people are honest by default, except for a few people who lie a lot. Boris Johnson is a serial liar and clearly falls into that camp. If honesty were not the default, why would we believe what anyone has to say in situations where they have an incentive to lie, which is often? Why are such a small proportion of people criminals and fraudsters when for a lot of crimes, someone smart and cautious has a very low chance of being caught? The evolutionary argument goes like this: social animals have selection pressure for traits that help the social group, because the social group contains related individuals, as well as carrying memetically inheritable behaviours. This means that the most successful groups are the ones that work well together. A group first of all has an incentive to punish individuals who act selfishly to harm the group - this will mean the group contains mostly individuals who, through self interest, will not betray the group. But a group which doesn't have to spend energy finding and punishing traitorous individuals because it doesn't contain as many in the first place will do even better. This creates a selection pressure behind mere self interest. In practice i think that only happens in the lower stakes, once you start pointing at people with wealth and power that rule quickly changes from “call it out and we’ll punish the offender” to “call it out and we’ll punish you for pointing it out and as a deterrent to others who might do the same”. Powerful grifters try to protect themselves yes, but who got punished for pointing out that Boris is a serial liar? Have you read what the current government has said about the previous one? As a society we generally hate that kind of behaviour. Society as a whole does not protect wealth and power; wealth and power forms its own group which tries to protect itself. I can say with full confidence i absolutely do not care if they believe it, or if they don’t, makes zero difference to me. If a politician(or politicians) wants to run some shenanigans on PPE contracts, netting their friends x millions of pounds, it care not a whit if they believe in the general correctness of conservatism. You should care because it entirely colours how you interact with political life. "Shady behaviour" is about intent as well as outcome, and we are talking in this thread about shady behaviour, and hence about intent.
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  • OpenAI Announces Massive US Government Partnership

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    If its a repeating pattern is there ever a winner or a loser? Except for us, of course, who always lose.
  • TikTok appoints ex-IDF solider as its 'hate speech manager'

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    I’m not charging them, but you’re right
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    adespoton@lemmy.caA
    The one thing I’m continually annoyed about though is battery management. Why, in this day and age, do we not have a smartphone that can last on a single charge for a week? Instead, after a year or two of use, the devices with a glued in battery can barely last 8 hours on a charge. Doesn’t seem all that smart.
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  • Google is Using AI to Censor Independent Websites

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    demonsword@lemmy.worldD
    You can go to communism Island if you want Despite all the propaganda, there is no place right now on the face of our planet that is under communism. bit [sic] I’d rather have capitalism, thank you Well, aren't you fortunate, you already have all the capitalism you want, anywhere you go. Choke on it.
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    Here's how you know it's not ready: AI hasn't replaced a single CEO.