tanteFeb 21

"Capable LLMs require a logic of dominance and of disregarding consent of the people producing the artifacts that are the raw material for the system. LLMs are based on extraction, exploitation and subjugation. Their politics is violence. How does one “liberate” that? What’s the case for open source violence?"

(Original title: Acting ethically in an imperfect world)

https://tante.cc/2026/02/20/acting-ethical-in-an-imperfect-world/

Acting ethically in an imperfect world

Life is complicated. Regardless of what your beliefs or politics or ethics are, the way that we set up our society and economy will often force you to act against them: You might not want to fly somewhere but your employer will not accept another mode of transportation, you want to eat vegan but are […]

Smashing Frames
Show threadRussell

@tante

> politics based on values as “neoliberal ideology” that reduces “all politics to personal consumption choices”.

It's also ironic: Libertarians are the ones that believe everything is a personal consumption choice. "The markets" will decide; who are these markets? Libertarian ideas for regulation depend on "the markets" policing themselves, but if privileged personal politics don't define bad then what's left is scarier; it's a slippery slope toward nihilism.

Feb 21 at 3:09pmPhanpy
Show threadRussellFeb 21
@tante A secondary thought I've had swirling in my head lately is the connection between LLMs and a colonizer / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization attitude. As you've mentioned, it's rarely through good will or mutual benefit but instead through force and violence and displacement, something akin to the racist/fascist view of purity. And we see a lot of it from the pro-LLM crowd: Get on board or you'll get left behind, which is more a point of purity (with us or against us) than it is utility.
Colonization - Wikipedia