@Cernovich@Selkis_2028@ggreenwald wanted to make sure everyone it make no sense for the *checks notes* national socials democratic candidate to want to exploit these glaring security gaps because she might win…?
I've waited a few days to say anything about the recent Department of War (DoW) decision to not list The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a Christian religion. I wanted to make sure my opinion wasn't being driven by an emotional response.
I think it's a good thing. Initially, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was listed as a Protestant Christian religion when it was recognized by the US Military. The way that religions are listed have a few second and third order of effects, specifically manning requirements for Chaplains and Chaplain assistants across the force.
When The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was listed as a Protestant Christian religion then, from the DoW standpoint, any Protestant Chaplain can meet the religious needs of LDS Service members. When it comes to manning requirements, an LDS Chaplain and a Protestant Chaplain become interchangeable, meaning that if an LDS service member is in an area that has the required number of Protestant Chaplains then there is no need and potentially no positions for LDS Chaplains at that location. Even if the majority of Christian-affiliated service members are LDS, as far as the DoW is concerned, their religious needs are being met by the Chaplains already assigned to that location.
Listing the LDS Church as a non-Christian religion means that the DoW now needs to ensure that they have a minimum number of LDS Chaplains among their ranks to meet specific religious needs. This opens up opportunities for promotion and advancement for LDS Chaplains currently serving, as well as a potential increased need for LDS Chaplains across the force.
Plus, and this is my opinion, Church leadership probably also had a say in how the LDS Church was listed by the DoW. The Government would have consulted Salt Lake, just like they would have consulted the Vatican and major Protestant associations, in ensuring their religion was accurately listed with the DoW. Otherwise it opens the government and DoW to lawsuits related to religious freedoms.
Last night, I read the entirety of C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. It's a novel told in the form of letters written by a demon to another demon instructing him on ways to manipulate his "patient" to do evil.
This one quote sounded familiar.
While I’m no fan of socialism or arbitrary confiscations of wealth, I can see why Bernie Sanders’ proposal (for the government to take a 50% stake in AI companies) resonates, including with many on the right.
The CEOs of the leading AI labs have told us repeatedly that they will cause massive job loss. This is not a story that I believe, nor does the data bear it out, but this is what they have told us. Similarly, they have hyped the risks of AI without putting an equal or greater emphasis on the benefits or readily available mitigations.
Conservatives have another fear. The employees of the leading labs claim to be philanthropic, but what we’ve seen is massive enrichment of NGOs advancing an agenda at odds with traditional values, fueling a revolution against our cities and communities. Soros-maxxing is not charity in our book.
Anthropic and OpenAI have established themselves as Public Benefit Corporations. What could be more in the public benefit than using half the wealth generated by these companies (which trained for free on the collective knowledge of humanity) to pay down the national debt? There is no ideological bias in that philanthropy.
Dario and Sam have begun to walk back their claims of massive job loss, but the damage to public trust is done, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. I could almost support the Sanders proposal as a stupidity tax.
There’s just one problem. Nationalization of AI will accelerate the corporate-government fusion we’re already sliding toward. Conservatives rightly fear a Central Bank Digital Currency. They ought to be even more concerned about Central Government AI — a system with even more totalistic power over information, decision-making, and human behavior.
We saw how social media was weaponized to censor conservatives (including President Trump) in the last Democrat administration. The definition of “trust & safety” expanded to mean protecting the public from supposed psychological harms, micro-aggressions, and disinformation (you know, like hearing conservative ideas or true facts about Covid).
That “safety” agenda as applied to AI will be vastly more powerful and Orwellian. AI won’t just moderate posts; it will curate reality — with the ability to rewrite history, enforce ideological conformity, influence policy at scale, mass surveil Americans, and condition the benefits of the many systems it controls on approved behavior.
America won’t win the AI race if we beat China but end up with a CCP-style social credit system in the U.S. — and that is the danger as the government becomes more deeply involved in AI development and assumes direct ownership and control.
Conservatives are right to fear where this is all headed but ought to think more carefully about how regulations they are flirting with now (that are widely celebrated among those with a long history of lust for Big Government) will be used against them the next time a Democrat administration is in power.
In America, a stranger will rename you in a single breath, and you are simply expected to come when called.
I went to eat at a busy restaurant. A young man at the front asked for my name, to mark my place in line. I gave it the weight it has carried for eight hundred years.
"Nobunaga."
He smiled, nodded, and wrote it down with great confidence. Then he read it back to me, to be sure he had honored it correctly.
"Perfect. Banana, party of one."
Banana. He had heard my name, held it a moment, and returned to me something rounder and more cheerful. To refuse the name a host gives is to refuse his welcome. I bowed. I was Banana now.
Then he handed me a small black disc, said it would "light up and buzz" when my table was ready, and turned to the next guest as though he had not just placed a living thing in my hands.
I held it in both palms, the way one holds a small sleeping beast that may wake. I found a place to stand. I waited, ready.
It woke.
It screamed. It flashed red. It leapt and shook in my hands like a captured spirit demanding release. A lesser man would have dropped it. I did not. I gripped it, steady, looked into its blinking lights, and told it, in a low voice, that its time had come. Then I carried it back to the host with both hands, the way one returns a hawk to its master.
He took it without looking and shouted across the entire room.
"BANANA! Party of one, your table's ready!"
A hundred strangers turned. I rose. I crossed that floor as Banana, spine straight, chin level, a man answering to his name. A child pointed at me. I gave the child a small bow. He had recognized me.
All through the meal they kept me. "How's it tasting, Banana?" "More water, Banana?" The check, when it came, said Banana, and thanked me for visiting. By the end the whole staff knew me. They waved as I left. "Night, Banana!"
So tell me honestly.
For eight hundred years my clan answered to one name. Tonight I answered to a fruit, calmed a screaming relic in my bare hands, and ate among people who were glad I came.
When the little disc lights up, is the table truly mine, or am I only keeping it warm for the next Banana?
Because I have already decided to return on Friday, and to ask, very humbly, for the same disc.
I see. He was a 96% with heritage Action but because he doesn’t support foreign aid to anyone (yes including Israel and Ukraine) and he believes we should actually get an authorization for war from congress before being dragged into a conflict, he had his score drop to 84%. Many other groups have him in the high 90’s fwiw. Many very conservative people were and are disgusted with the BBB. It has only continued the post Covid elevated spending that is destroying the younger generations buying power. This is why you see your generation split by wide margins from the younger generation. They’d like for a change to feel like domestic policy was the priority over foreign countries that have minimal direct impact on their lives.
I’m afraid the elderly who watch TV most of the day are the biggest demographic that votes in primaries (exit polls show Massie took the under 50 vote by a wide margin). Miriam along with 2 others duel citizens of Israel voiced their strong opposition to Massies and spent millions on ads insinuating massies cheated on his wife before she passed and had a thresome with square at some hotel in DC including AI video with a filter as if it was a real hidden camera. These were ads heavily pushed which to the uninformed would lead you to believe massies had indeed put himself over his voters. The reality is he hadn’t and simply refused to be a yes boy for the uniparty of Washington. Plan trusters cope by saying he’s a democratic
To be fair, Miriam Adelson didn’t put him in office. Thomas was the only member of congress to force a vote on the ridiculous lock downs and covid spending. He’s one of a hand full of congressmen who actually cares about spending. Elon gave him props for that last year and committed to support his reelection. This wasn’t a matter of him betraying constituents.
I don’t know why data centers have become this generations nuclear power.
Unlike nuclear power, there is a 0% chance that a data center can lead to any sort of disaster scenario.
This project in Utah is:
- in an uninhabited area
- bought and repurposed water already in use
- is bringing its own power, so it won’t cost citizens anything
It’s like being against building a nuclear power plant in the middle of Nevada, except there is no radioactive waste. No fall out. No risk of anything.
It’s a big computer in the middle of nowhere, that is self sufficient in all resources.
There are a million real problems in America.
Data centers just aren’t one.
But you’ve been saying this over and over and can’t actually articulate what surveillance state a data center enables? The NSA has spying powers under the Patriot act already and they have a huge data center in Bluffdale. This would actually bring revenue to the state (the data centers are going to be built somewhere).
John Curtis hates America and blocked one of the last people Charlie Kirk recommended for the State Department. It would be great for him to leave the Senate but I feel bad for Utah. This guy will open the floodgates to mass migration. He wants to DESTROY Utah.