lynn / clarissaI'm deadly serious when I say that in response to fascists wanting technology fueled corporates states we cannot cede progress in science and technology as an inherently right wing goal
Thommy March15 
🏴 🏳️⚧️@left_adjoint we also shouldn't allow their framing that they're broadly pro-science and technology to stand. They hate discovery because they don't know the outcome in advance.
Philippa Cowderoy@pinkboi @left_adjoint yeah, they're entirely pro what they can weaponise and anti what removes power from them
they'd do it all with scribes and abacuses and bows and slingshots and spears if they had to
Alexis, ENDLESS HORNETS@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint They wouldn't because they can't. Their need for technology also clashes with their need for control.
@alexis @pinkboi @left_adjoint they really would take the time making sure someone learned how to do it with that tech, though
and they naturally end up clashing with the nature of control, as it's inherently impossible for one person to truly control an entire country instead of delegating it until they're in the nominal top seat of a much larger system-of-people doing it
@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint The technology they use to solve those problems is one of fear, not any more tangible material. That one is the same every time, I think, or differs no more than do the humans involved.
@alexis @pinkboi @left_adjoint in a world where those items are what's available, those scared of not holding power will still join up with those looking for larger quantities unfortunately
you know I listed things (deliberately not swords) that have actually kept an empire running before, right?
@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint As well as you know the swords are always also necessary. Or I hope about as well.
How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm? - Judy Garland
@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint It's a joke except in the sense it isn't, which is the same sense in which it captures the early history of agriculture. The answer then was the same as now. Society changes. Technology changes. Fascism doesn't.
@alexis @pinkboi @left_adjoint I think we both agree that they'll use whatever material technologies they have to hand (thus the point about new developments being a risk to the extent they might not control them), yes.
@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint That's trivial, but if you need to believe we were having an argument so you can feel that you won, then sure. It radically misunderstands a fascist approach to technology, but I doubt that matters here.
@alexis @pinkboi @left_adjoint You literally walked in out of the blue with a statement contradicting one I'd made without adequate explanation. Walks like an argument etc etc and "won" isn't always applicable.
There's always been a range of fascist approaches to technology-in-general, with the c.WW2 lot living in a notably "this is how we make ourself strong against other nations" era. The core technologies of fascism per se remain much the same, but I think without the ability to create and distort written-or-stored records you're looking at a related but different form of power. Not that they care about the error rate of course.
@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint Oh, I see. No, I would say the distortion followed and was provoked by the creation, and what predated both must have been just fascism with so few extra steps it might not have had or needed a name. It isn't that you were inaccurate to observe the fear and risk, but that to focus only on that to total exclusion of the countervailing lust produces analysis that at best struggles to be useful. As with a woman, if they didn't want so badly to fuck it and make it love them, they would simply murder it and have done.
@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint Not an equivalent but an identical mindset in both cases, I mean to say, when a fascist looks upon a woman or upon a medium of expression that he doesn't own.
@alexis @pinkboi @left_adjoint You're not going to find anyone disagreeing with the idea that fascists are dangerously horny in all kinds of fucked up ways here, certainly.
But it also wasn't the conversation we were having before you joined in: nobody really cares if they go sexually harass a few LLMs, so long as they're not hooked up to nuclear launch codes.
I take it you do actually recognise at least one historical empire that ran on the kind of physical technologies I listed, and did so at least partly out of necessity-for-the-era?
@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint The conversation before I joined in was agreeing around the idea they hate discovery because they can't control it, and that is inaccurate.
@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint They adore discovery precisely because it both gratifies their need to be in on a secret and gives them the chance to be in at the start, which is why they love making Silicon Valley friends so much.
@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint I was talking about people I've known whom I could but will not name. Now I'm finished doing that.
@alexis @pinkboi @left_adjoint I recognise the pattern you're describing, but would note there's an important conditional in it.
Others might adore discovery for discovery's sake, even if they're the 5 billionth person to make that discovery. A fascist who's late to the discovery won't adore it but seek to destroy it if it can't be co-opted.
@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint Sure, but I would call that a case of the animating narcissism and insecurity. If he can't use it to force someone else to convince him that he's real then he has no use for it, no matter what it is.
@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint Or if it doesn't get his rocks off for its own sake, of course, which you're right anything so "cerebral" and "ethereal" would not.
@alexis @pinkboi @left_adjoint And if they can (fascism may involve a lot of macho shite but there are always women joining in), it doesn't matter much what it is.
Again not naming names, but guns and dogs come to mind.
@alexis @pinkboi @left_adjoint Then you replied in the wrong place, because I didn't entirely agree with that statement: from where I'm standing they hate things they can't control and some discoveries may prove uncontrollable, which isn't the same statement.
"They don't need the latest shiny to be active fash" was my point within that.
@flippac @pinkboi @left_adjoint Oh, I see. Yeah, I replied one post after I might have, fair enough.
@alexis @pinkboi @left_adjoint Technical point on that one: they're a nice-to-have (and you're probably looking at short swords where they're appropriate, which is to say things that still look more like knives) because as soon as there's enough space a spear's more effective and there are nastier ways to deal with an enclosed space full of people you want rid of that are certainly older than iron swords
We've ended up with a reverence for the sword because adequate spear usage could be taught to peasants, but step outside of a model where a few guys get to wear carefully designed plate and you get spears as the way to actually get things done in an awful lot of places - and warrior classes who made damn sure they at least understood polearms even if they used swords for guard duty inside a large building.
@pinkboi an interesting example of this is the way elon is constantly publicly fighting with and complaining about grok
the pattern recognition engine made from real world information, it turns out, doesn't easily validate fascist worldviews that have no basis in reality
either it directly contradicts him or the attempts to force it to regurgitate his views are transparent or broken
the need for control directly slams against experimental technology