DeepSeek just proved Lina Khan right

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There's something to be said that bitcoin and other crypto like it have no intrinsic value but can represent value we give and be used as a decentralized form of currency not controlled by one entity. It's not how it's used, but there's an argument for it.

NFTs were a shitty cash grab because showing you have the token that you "own" a thing, regardless of what it is, only matters if there is some kind of enforcement. It had nothing to do with rights for property and anyone could copy your crappy generated image as many times as they wanted. You can't do that with bitcoin.

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Honestly, not really. Colonialism made Western Europe wealthier for the time period, but it was investment in science and technology that gave the West the industrial and technological advantage that sets them aside from the rest of the world (other than China) today. There are very few non-Western non-China countries where appreciable heavy industry takes place that isn't resource extraction-parallel like oil refinement. There are also very few non-Western non-China countries with the industrial capital and technological knowhow to, for example, make smartphones.

You'll notice that I keep including China as an exception here, which is because China noticed the importance of these things and went ahead to develop/steal these, and it's because it was able to obtain these things that China is the global giant that it is today.

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That's late stage capitalism, which only really started in the 80s. Early to middle capitalism is a mix of both panels. I'll just link my other comment here.

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I mean yes, true, but it was capitalists who made smartphones and computers. I'll just link my other reply here.

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Certainly. But very few people really do value investing anymore. Even professionals.

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Those poor little hothouse flowers.

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Even someone as far back as Adam Smith knew that businesses hate competition and will do anything they can to avoid it. The broligarchy was speed-running the construction of an oligopoly and lobbying the government to erect barriers to entry so they could take their sweet time milking us dry. Now I'm not sure about what the real backstory of DeepSeek might be, but it is still satisfying to see Altman get his ass handed to him.

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Wow, we could have been talking about Jacquard mills and running essentially the same narrative.

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Yeah, they seem to have sped up the process. But something else to keep in mind is that we don't know what the saturation point is with current AI technology. It's most likely far less that what has been hyped, and if our governments had any sense, they should be getting a sensible regulatory framework in place right now rather than being overtaken by events as they usually are.

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I'll be honest, I'm just hoping this AI shit calms down. Every 5-6 new papers published in the Journal of Computer Science is some AI slop. Like we get it, it's fun filling a big ass matrix with weights which then inadvertently solve a problem you have. Could I please have some novel research that probably won't go anywhere anytime soon but is kind of fun to think about and tinker with?

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it's a shame the US will likely not see another lina khan in the foreseeable future.

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It sometimes happens like that. And sometimes a big player will emerge early in the proceedings and stay on top for an extended period: General Motors, Boeing, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Google. Sometimes there's even a bit of innovation before they settle into stealing all the light from the smaller trees.

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Two sides of the same coin. Colonialism is an implementation of the capitalist notion of comparative advantage, stabilized and enforced with guns.

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In other news, today's leopards are better at eating your face than you thought.

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but it was capitalists who made smartphones and computers

Lately, capitalists of a very mercanitlist kind.

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'Investment' is a nice way to put it. A more apt description would be that the developing world invested in the West's industrialization (or the West stole it, whatever floats your boat) and the Western world chose to give essentially nothing back to its investors, directly contradicting the new capitalist world it had created.

Which is why many in the developing world feel that China's rise to prominence is the West's chickens coming home to roost.

A Kenyan official once said: 'When China visits we get a hospital. When Britain visits we get a lecture'

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Again, I won't argue that colonial wealth didn't contribute to the rise of Western Europe, but it was Europeans who invented the steam engine, developed thermodynamics as a science and put half a continent's worth of resources and intellect into the industrial revolution. Colonialism is only a contributing factor that came after the start of the industrial revolution. Hell, France for example barely had any colonies during the early industrial revolution and that didn't at all impede its industrialization or rise to power. If you look at, say, Ottoman history you'll see that the thing European countries had and the Ottomans didn't wasn't wealth but rather ideas.

Which is why many in the developing world feel that China's rise to prominence is the West's chickens coming home to roost.

As someone from the developing world (specifically the Middle East), we are salty about colonialism, but many of us also recognize that if we don't learn from the history of colonialism and what allowed Europe to conquer half the world (including us) we'll always be on the bottom rung of the world. There's a lot more to learn from the rise of Europe than "fuck colonialism".

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You can always get into 3d printing.

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We didn't deserve her, but I am honored and grateful to have had her working for my interests. What she was or wasn't able to accomplish wasn't for lack of trying.

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DeepSeek just proved Lina Khan right