Mettaben @mettaben@qoto.org

Remote work is described to be so dangerous that it could disrupt nation states. When ppl have the power to choose their own jurisdiction, they can sculpt their lives to live in the most favorable location possible, and that includes paying the least taxes.

Sound familiar? This is what the 1% has been doing all along. The uproar against remote work corresponds with working class ppl starting to enjoy the exact same perks that the ultra-rich have enjoyed all along.

Now that working class ppl might start figuring out how to avoid paying taxes in the sane way the rich already have, suddenly we start finding remote described "dangerously disruptive" and billionaires going all out on information warfare against it.

#RemoteWork #WorkFromHome #BackToOffice

https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/digital-nomadism-disrupting-nation-states?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

AI doomerism has some similarity to Abrahamic God worship: AI is a vengeful God, who will doom all humans with catastrophe if the instructions of the high priests are not followed. Our original sin is recklessly allowing AI to get this far, and our salvation is to follow the instructions of the priests and their written proscriptions to stop AI, before it smites all of humanity with robot locusts or some such.

The priesthood must carefully manage or "worship" AI in secret chambers only for the chosen few). AI, if it is to exist at all, must be carefully studied or placated by the priesthood, and most importantly the priesthood must be entrusted to keep it secure with the urgency of the eternal fate of humanity.

#ai #aiDoomerism #doomerism #cult

I feel like there is systematic information warfare being directed against remote working. Business managers are citing paywall articles to justify return to office policies and many of these studies these articles cite do not support the conclusions being drawn. As one example, a paywalled Economist article states:

"Teleconferencing is a pale imitation of in-the-flesh meetings: researchers at Harvard Business School, for example, concluded that “virtual water coolers”—rolled out by many companies during the pandemic—often encroached on crowded schedules with limited benefits."

But these particular "virtual water coolers" (mixing senior and junior employees together in an informal onboarding meeting) are just one single form of teleconferencing! The study says nothing about "Teleconferencing is a pale imitation of in-the-flesh meetings" that is a made up opinion invented the the article writer! Read it for yourself. Especially the study's conclusion: https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/21-125_bbb49345-38ea-4c04-9d56-4f6ef72dd7f7.pdf

Really intellectually dishonest Economist article. Sucks that crap like this is actually being cited to justify the upheaval of thousands of ppl's lives in Return to Office policies.

#WorkFromHome #RemoteWork #ReturnToOffice

"Patient dumping" is the unholy combination of for-profit hospitals and homelessness. In the worst cases, a patient is dumped like garbage on the street, just outside of hospital grounds, sometimes still wearing soiled hospital gown and slippers. Or sometimes the patient is dumped in the form of being dropped off at a shelter that is known not to be able to take the person. Homeless people who seek care at hospitals do so sometimes to escape searing heat or freezing cold. But sometimes they have legitimate medical needs that are ignored or undetected. And sometimes they die of these untreated issues not too long after they were dumped. Like garbage.

#healthcare #hospital #homeless

https://www.wave3.com/2023/06/29/its-like-im-worthless-troubleshooters-investigate-patient-dumping-allegations/

Amazon is famous (or maybe infamous) for always making data driven decisions. So it's curious... and very telling... this Amazon exec admits he has no data to back up return to office policies.

Either

(1) there is no data, or

(2) there is data, but employees won't like it, so therefore Amazon won't share it. E.g. data indicating it's easier to control employees who are in office, and location dependent, and much harder for them to quit, for example.

Number (2) is the most likely scenario, in my opinion.

#amazon #wfh #ReturnToOffice

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-executive-no-data-to-support-return-to-office-mandate-2023-8

In the old days, price fixing used to require economic competitors to secretly negotiate and often illegally collude with each each other. Nowadays, all it requires is that they use the same AI software tool. In this case YieldStar software for setting rents.

"One of the algorithm’s developers told ProPublica that leasing agents had “too much empathy” compared to computer generated pricing."

[...]

"“Find out how YieldStar can help you outperform the market 3% to 7%,” RealPage urges potential clients on its website.

Few tenants know that such software, owned by a privately held company, has had a hand in rent increases across the country"

#rent #RentControl #ai #PriceFixing

https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent

I agree with Mike Masnick @mmasnick: copyright law is the wrong way to deal with the challenges posed by AI. Copyright law should properly only address the reproduction of content, such as writing. Not the ideas that underlie the content. Putting something in your own words has always been allowed, and always should be allowed whether the agent is human or AI.

So long as AI does that, and safeguards are taken to make sure original wording is not merely spit back out verbatim, the fact that AI is trained on copyright material is not itself a violation in the same way our own bio-brains have been trained on copyright material.

That being said, there is the idea of compensation. Shouldn't the owners of AI systems compensate the content creators? To which I would answer, yes, absolutely. And I would add that all of us, all members of the human race, have been collectively training AI without any compensation whatsoever. And that's unfair.

Which is one of the important reasons why I support UBI.

#copyright #ai #ubi

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/19/stop-rushing-to-copyright-as-a-tool-to-solve-the-problems-of-ai/​

Green Party folks seem to be fired up. Cornel West is the best candidate they've had in several election cycles, maybe ever. He is a spiritual man, a moral Christian, in a way that both major parties wandered away from long ago. Unlike the duopoly candidates, he is a genuine scholar and an intellectual. Most importantly, he is driven by the context of a struggle in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr. Cornel West wants to continue down the path laid forth by MLK Jr before he was assassinated, particularly issues revolving around economic justice.

#duopoly #trump #biden #CornelWest #GreenParty #election2024

https://www.wsj.com/articles/presidential-election-2024-biden-trump-2c1e9bcc?mod=hp_lead_pos1

As the powers that be get closer to seriously considering UBI, it's crucial that the public come up to speed on this topic as quickly as possible. This is a reasonably well produced video that could serve as an intro to the topic, but I wish it didn't open with citing the World Bank, and more or less conclude with Sam Altman. If we the people are going to see UBI implemented well we need to get involved and not just make it a debate amongst rich people, the AI ownership class.

#ai #ubi

https://youtu.be/suNBENzW3Gg

As nearly the entirety of the continental US broils under a heat dome and the grim reality sets in that this is climate change, not weather, of course Hawai'i is going to look better and better. Why would you want to live anywhere where you have to be trapped in your air-conditioned house for days, weeks, maybe someday even months, barely able to go outside, even in the shade.

Watch out Hawai'i. The climate change refugees are coming.

#hawaii #ClimateChange #HeatDome #refugees

https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/07/naka-nathaniel-we-need-to-imagine-what-happens-to-hawaii-if-climate-change-gets-worse/?fbclid=IwAR3Menjud8B-gH1gE4ewXKQ-98o2yhPzlKkNUrMjH2vKd83AsuhwpqVmbBc

Surprising nobody, if you are rich, you are significantly more likely to get in elite schools. If you are very poor, you have an extremely slight advantage. If you are between very poor and very rich.... tough luck kid, roll the dice better next time. Somebody has to pay the price for other people's advantages.

I really hope stats like these really put to bed the notion that getting into elite schools are even remotely close to meritocracy.

#EliteSchools #university #admissions #ClassWarfare #meritocracy

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/24/upshot/ivy-league-elite-college-admissions.html

Democrats are playing a dangerous game if they avoid debates. A significant number of Dem leaning voters are clearly not satisfied with Biden. With no debates, these voters will not feel heard, and even if a miniscule fraction of them in the end break ranks and vote third party, that could indeed swing the election into Trump's favor.

Democrats need to welcome more perspectives. Make a bigger tent. Allow left and right wings of their party to engage in an open and public exchange of ideas. And hopefully find a new unifying synthesis.

A debate within the minds of dem leaning voters will happen regardless.

The more RFK Jr and Marianne Williamson get suppressed by the party power brokers, the better Cornel West does and more likely Trump will ultimately win.

#democrats #debate #primary #biden #trump #CornelWest

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/dems-republicans-are-open-third-party-presidential-candidate-rcna91368

Emad Mostaque is a thoughtful guy and clearly has had enough vision of the future to build a successful AI company, but his prediction seems badly off the mark in this case.

The idea is that low level or junior programmers will soon be out of a job because of AI. He is not alone in making such predictions.

But reports of the death of junior programming profession or outsourced coders from India, etc, are greatly exaggerated.

(1) younger and more junior programmers typically embrace AI tools and methodologies. It's the older and more senior programmers who are more set in their ways and probably more at risk of obsolescence. I will also mention Indian coders I know are also eager and enthusiastic to integrate AI into their workflow.

(2) AI is helpful as a tool but circa 2023 it is not a full replacement for a human. Not even close. I use AI tools a lot in my job. If AI truly could replace humans we would have been doing it by now. To think it will suddenly get human level coding intelligence in just two years seems extremely "optimistic."

(3) again, I have to point out that folks who own AI companies have a financial incentive to over hype the future progress of AI. It helps drive attention and capital to the industry and their company in particular.

(4) just because I am *highly* skeptical of a 2 year time frame does not mean I don't think AI will ever catch up. It took decades of AI research before AlphaGo defeated humans in the game of go. In the longest time frames, I think most human professions as we know them are doomed and humanity needs to figure out an equitable and humane economic model like UBI sooner rather than later.

#AI #jobs

https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-replace-most-outsourced-coders-india-stability-ceo-predicts-2023-7?fbclid=IwAR0EpBt0YBdQb2ozg-25-d1VLXY842rnPx2OsZaAHFdghZC8SooXepCspYQ

Only a small handful of offices have been successfully converted to housing even though there is a clear market demand for such a conversion on both the supply and demand side. The major hindrances cited:

(1) deep floor plans mean lack of natural light
(2) centralized plumbing and other utilities so retrofitting is very expensive

are exactly why offices are literally not fit for human habitation. Offices buildings were designed to help executives monitor and control cube farms at the absolute lowest cost possible. No sane person would want to live there, even taking into account the massive housing shortage. It'd be like living in a former dungeon.

https://slate.com/business/2022/12/office-housing-conversion-downtown-twitter-beds.html?fbclid=IwAR3VmqgubH6_KFSnhR7hCX6bbuc6IGRTfxdMOf9vQIZ-lZPPskkifwKOsI0#:~:text=One%20problem%20is%20simply%20with,and%20HVAC%20into%20new%20apartments