Dave Beatty

A likely #HamOnt lifer. Currently work in education. Formerly: writer/videog in news, & counsellor social services. Interested in politics, ideas, and stories.

[Dave Beatty @dbeatty]

I have finally ascended to the cool kids' table. https://t.co/BNburFBppu

[Prof Zenkus @anthonyzenkus]

The problem with Jeff Bezos' ideology is that it's based on a false premise. The idea that "six thousand years ago someone invented the plow" is based on a faulty belief that ancient humans functioned as individuals. They did not.

Ancient humans were collectivist. The likelihood that one individual invented anything is slim to none.

This is the myth of the genius.

Archeological evidence demonstrates that for hundreds of thousands of years, early humans congregated around communal gathering places, like the fire, and engaged in problem solving and passing on of shared learning down through generations.

Additionally, the plow (and tools like it) were developed by humans in Mesopotamia, Europe, Egypt, East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa as well as other places - not in one place by one person. This is known as parallel development.

Believing that the plow was invented by one genius is like believing language was invented by one person. It is a silly myth and represents the projection of current moral standards onto past events.

This is called 'presentism' and it is both an uncritical and ignorant way to view history.

Social learning was the main driver of human evolution. Collectivism is how we both survived and progressed as a species.

The myth of the genius is an example of uncritical analysis and a flawed lens used to justify the grotesque hoarding of wealth and obscene inequality that is currently tearing at the social fabric our species.

It needs to be thrown on the trash heap of history.

[Back On This App and It’s Still Hell @wickdchiq]

This should tell y’all something

[The Breach @TheBreachMedia]

The Liberal Party has a secret to ruling Canada: campaign on the left, then govern on the right.

From Mackenzie King to the Trudeaus to Carney, @Martin_Lukacs breaks down a century of Liberals posturing as progressives—only to serve as faithful servants of the corporate elite.

[Chris @Kramburglar]

Carney's admin is turning out to be one of the most authoritarian in living memory, but no one is paying attention because it's happening under a Liberal banner

[mike ☭ 🇵🇸🔻 @__mike91]

i watched every single major western news outlet deny the most obvious genocide in history

[Avi Lewis @avilewis]

Prime Minister Carney says the war in Iran was "worth it".

I want to know who he thinks it was worth it for.

[Luke Savage @LukewSavage]

This is honestly a national shame and what happens when successive governments have stripped down a public institution like CBC and sold it for parts. We should just nationalize Hockey Night in Canada.

[Dave Beatty @dbeatty]

@goldenintifada @alexxstation No. He is 100% for land back, and has clearly advocated for this 1000s of times. You're reading the above statement "in its current formation" in the most cynical light possible.

[Dave Beatty @dbeatty]

@Marcodmeatball Netrunner. Use netrunnerDB and jinteki dot net to play online.

[Dave Beatty @dbeatty]

@alexxstation "No he hasn't" - ok?? We're looking at 2 different realities my guy. The most powerful & influential Zs view him as a major threat and do everything possible to make his life difficult. Fine to take issue with some wording here & there but your conclusion is wild

[David Moscrop @David_Moscrop]

A national disgrace.

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

There you have it. Anthropic's CEO said it: The murder of more than 100 schoolgirls in Minab targeted by Anthropic's CLAUDE "is a use case that doesn't even violate our red lines." Time to rise up against these technofeudal war criminals.

[Dave Beatty @dbeatty]

@EvanLSolomon

[Dave Beatty @dbeatty]

@TaliesinEvitel My list is the same as yours minus EverQuest. Play Expedition 33 if you haven't. Another modern miracle.

[Avi Lewis @avilewis]

The Liberal government might as well have called its AI strategy “All in for AI”.

This is a document that is heavy on hype, but light on the right guardrails that we need to protect people – and to ensure that the benefits of the technology don’t just flow to a handful of tech giants and investors.

It proposes a massive boost to business adoption of AI, with no concern for the consequences this will have for workers, especially young workers who are already watching careers vanish before their eyes.

This government is imposing a world-changing technology on all of us without any public debate. Instead of putting in place strong regulations to safeguard workers, youth, privacy, and our water and energy supply, they prefer to “move fast and break things” as the Silicon Valley motto goes.

That’s why before rushing ahead, with no brakes, we need a robust regulatory framework. Every other industry in this country, from forestry to banking, is regulated. Yet somehow, when it comes to generative AI that is controlled by MAGA-aligned billionaires, the usual rules don’t apply.

New Democrats support the development of cutting edge technology. For AI, that looks like responsible machine learning with small, contained datasets and targeted applications.

We’re calling for a humans-first AI strategy. One that protects Canadian jobs, data and natural resources. Not a strategy that mimics the worst tendencies of AI chatbots: hallucinating benefits and flattering big tech CEOs by telling them exactly what they want to hear.

[Dave Beatty @dbeatty]

@EvanLSolomon Thanks, we hate it.

[Alex Veremeyenko @alex_verem]

Let me trace the timeline here because nobody's connecting it.

Step 1: Scrape the entire internet. Every book, every article, every conversation, every piece of art, every forum post. Do it without asking. Do it without paying.

Step 2: Train a model on all of it. Call it "artificial intelligence."

Step 3: Go to BlackRock's Infrastructure Summit and announce: "We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter."

Step 3 is where you sell people's own knowledge back to them. On a meter.

They took the collective output of human thought, compressed it into a model, and now they want to charge you by the token to access a version of what you and everyone you know already created.

One Reddit user put it perfectly: "They stole all this data from us, the people, our life's work, creativity, art, by devouring the internet and blowing through all copyright laws. Now they want to sell it back to us in the form of a utility."

Imagine if someone photocopied every book in the public library, burned the library down, and then opened a subscription service for the copies.

That's the metered intelligence business model.

And they're pitching it to infrastructure investors as though they invented water.

[Diana Chan McNally @DianaCMcNally]

BIG news out of Kitchener-Waterloo: the Ontario Superior Court has ruled that homelessness is an analogous ground for discrimination under s.15 of the Charter. This is a BIG step toward recognizing homeless people as an equity-seeking group under the law. Governments take note!