Sure, but whether you're talking about military might or economic might, more people is more leverage. That was my point.

This "too dangerous to exist" argument is seemingly more true for nuclear technology, but the world recognized the threat and came together to manage it.

I will grant you that database and ability to search it lends itself easily to popular oppression, but it still requires thinking, breathing humans to do the oppressing.

Most technology is not dangerous without psychopaths in power, and damn near everything is dangerous with psychopaths in power.

I came here to make this comment less cogently. You have it exactly.

Now, does it violate US law and multiple Executive Orders to search the database to get dirt on US Citizens and use it against their election campaign? Yes. Yes it does. But this administration thinks laws are for sissies.

I think the argument to make space for them is more practical than compassionate. WTF are we going to do if we just refuse to speak to or have any dealings with 1/3 of the working age population. Are we relocating all Trump voters South of Virginia and splitting the Union here?

Setting aside our own authoritarian problems for a second, if you want to have a wealthy country that can oppose authoritarian regimes (like China and Russia), you need all 350 million of us. (And you need Europe, India, and democratic Asia on board, perhaps even some middle eastern countries, all people you may have philosophical differences with that you have to learn to work with).

The US has needed rank choice voting since Nixon at least.

I'm not a Luddite in general, but as for AI I will probably only use it as necessary in the workplace. So far the main LLM AI I have gotten any use out of is Google's Gemini. It lists the citations of its facts when I ask it physics questions, and it seems like there is some kind of filter on the quality of the sources than can be cited. Mostly it cities professional publications, Wikipedia, etc.

I don't think Google is currently winning the AI arms race (not do i think they have stood by their initial mantra of 'Don't be evil'), but it seems like that should be the gold standard. And Google/Alphabet was also the company responsible for Alpha Fold, IMO the most impressive application of learning algorithms to date.

The people that oppose this administration don't want anarchy and guillotines though. They want integrity, law, order, justice, etc. The teeth of the anti-MAGA movement will have to come through at least semi-legitimate means, i.e., I think it will have to come through the authority of state governments.

And we see state governments become increasingly aggressive against this administration. These marches embolden the mayors and governors that oppose MAGA; they say that the people are with them.

The protests are to keep reminding ourselves that we aren't alone and other people are willing to stand with us and back us. If we can engage our neighbors a bit, all the better.

Damn, I was excited about a real life Hermione.

I just took a picture (and subsequently Google lens-ed) one of these for the first time this weekend! I wonder if it's peak season for them or something?

OP your picture is better than mine, but I'm going to force you to look at mine anyway.

I have listened to part of the It Could Happen Here vision for what could go down, but I'm on the fence. In the 2020 election and Jan 6th, I could see that version of things more: militias creating general lawlessness with a weak federal government that can't maintain peace.

But since Trump arrived on the scene, people have been increasingly geographically sorting themselves by political affiliation. Additionally, we are seeing blue state coalitions form around vaccines and climate change. And now we are seeing folks band together at the state-level and pressure their state governments to take stands against the federal government. Additionally, we are seeing more punitive behavior between states (busing of migrants from Texas, financial punishment of blue states, trying to criminally charge ObGyns providing abortion services across state lines, red states offering Trump their national guard to punish blue states, redistricting based on the actions of another state).

Regardless of how people feel about the federal government, they seem to still see legitimacy in their local governments, and are increasingly using those local governments as vehicles for negotiation.

Just because red states have blue cities and blue states have rural red areas doesn't mean we won't divide down red state / blue state lines. States and their respective sides weren't homogenous during the first civil war either. Texas took a vote on whether or not to secede, and something like 1/3 of the state voted to stay in the union. Maryland considered seceding, so the federal government immediately occupied it so that DC wasn't cut off from the union.

We are already seeing balkanization with states forming coalitions on climate change action and vaccination guidance. What I'm still unclear of is whether blue states will secede or whether they will attempt to root out an illegitimate regime.