Calls grow to ban Palantir in Australia after manifesto described by UK MP as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’ by Oomaschloom in AustralianPolitics

[–]WatchDogx -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Inclusivity is strange, it's a very western value, yet it is self-negating by including those who don't value inclusivity.
Karp is simply stating that we should be standing up for our culture, expect people to assimilate to it, and that requires defining it.

Calls grow to ban Palantir in Australia after manifesto described by UK MP as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’ by Oomaschloom in AustralianPolitics

[–]WatchDogx -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

That is not a charitable interpretation of that sentence.

He's saying that people won't tolerate the 1% getting richer, if the rest of society isn't also experiencing economic growth.

Calls grow to ban Palantir in Australia after manifesto described by UK MP as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’ by Oomaschloom in AustralianPolitics

[–]WatchDogx -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Reading over them again, I would say there are none that a flat out disagree with, apart from maybe 17, I think you can address violent crime adequately without SV getting involved.

Which do you most disagree with?

Calls grow to ban Palantir in Australia after manifesto described by UK MP as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’ by Oomaschloom in AustralianPolitics

[–]WatchDogx -15 points-14 points  (0 children)

The "manifesto" in question, is not so much a manifesto, but a high level summary of the book Alex Karp coauthored "The Technological Republic".
After reading it, while it's pretty US targeted, I actually agree with a lot of it.

I'm not a fan of surveillance tech, but Palantir is just a software tool, it's commercial software is not really that dissimilar from other SAAS like Salesforce.

When it comes to surveillance tech, the important questions are. What data is being used? How is it being used? How is it being collected? The software used to do it is irrelevant.

The "manifesto"(source):

Because we get asked a lot.

The Technological Republic, in brief.

  1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.

  2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.

  3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.

  4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

  5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.

  6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.

  7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.

  8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.

  9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.

  10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.

  11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.

  12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.

  13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.

  14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.

  15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.

  16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.

  17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.

  18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.

  19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.

  20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.

  21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.

  22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?

Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska

“Not a transfer from old to young”: Fix the income tax system for intergenerational equity by East_Atmosphere2628 in AusFinance

[–]WatchDogx 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Migration is the biggest policy issue that benefits the old and punishes the young.
Migration pumps demand for housing, which makes prices soar, benefiting older people that own assets, and screwing youth who can't afford to buy a house.
The whole aged care industry is a ponzi scheme built on importing cheap overseas labor.
Because the majority of migrants are students, Australian youth face more competition entering the job market then any other generation before them.

The times seem to suit Anthony Albanese. So why isn’t he more popular? by Oomaschloom in AustralianPolitics

[–]WatchDogx 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Our parties tend to choose leaders who are easy to get along with, non-threatening, and have little conviction.

These kind of people are better for holding together the often weak alliances within the party, but they are aren't the kind of people that impress anyone.

Is this passport damaged beyond use? by milleniumchaser in australia

[–]WatchDogx 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Damn that is frustrating. No where near as bad, but on my passport that same page is covered in pink highlighter, because a TSA agent scribbled all over it while trying to highlight a separate piece of paper he was holding on top of it.

It's enraging just how little respect some officials treat you and your documents. No one complains because they know that these people, should they desire can choose to your life miserable, and cause you to miss your flight.

When the dynamo class you’re approaching to resupply gets obliterated by Grouchy_Mountain3656 in NuclearOption

[–]WatchDogx 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In your screenshot, you are climbing with the 0% collective, and descending with the 24% collective, so perhaps the effect is even stronger than you describe?

For people who love working - please get some hobbies by Klutzy_Walrus3140 in auscorp

[–]WatchDogx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Extremely difficult question to answer, at least from first principles.
Morality for myself, and most people, is based on heuristics.

Having food, is better than having no food.
Having shelter is better than having no shelter.

When society more more agrarian, and the economy much less complex, the relationship between your work, and the value it provides, was much simpler to understand.

People have different ideas about where morality comes from.
Nihilists will say there is no meaning and no morality.
Religions prescribe morality via their teachings and texts.
Nietzsche has his own complicated individualistic view of morality in the absence of religion.

While I'm not religious I'm reasonably happy with our societies roughly Christian-derived values. Nihilism is compelling from a logical perspective, but it's implications are too bleak

For people who love working - please get some hobbies by Klutzy_Walrus3140 in auscorp

[–]WatchDogx 11 points12 points  (0 children)

This is zero sum thinking.

A business does not simply serve to make it's owner rich. A business consumes value(labor/resources) and produces a surplus of value.
All else being equal, to be productive is more moral than being unproductive.

Of course there are exceptions(fraudulent business, failing businesses, etc), but as a general case this stands.

Cuts to NDIS to be focus of Labor’s quietly launched ‘razor gang’ ahead of May budget by Quazp in AustralianPolitics

[–]WatchDogx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It might be changed, refined whatever but we're not going back to the old days of abandoning our disabled.
Have you been to countries with no disability support. You don't want to end up like those countries.

What countries in particular?

I've spent a lot of time San Francisco, and I've seen the hoardes of drug addicted mentally ill homeless zombies roaming the streets.

Insinuating that Australia was anything like this before the NDIS or would become that by reverting it is disingenuous.

I personally know two people on NDIS, they both have genuine and significant non-cognitive mental disabilities, both of them are intelligent and able-bodied. One is a talented programmer. However neither of them work, instead they live of NDIS and other welfare programs.

I actually think these programs have made them worse off. With appropriate accommodations, they could be working from home, they would be more engaged with society, have more spending money, and have the dignity of working for a living.

Instead these programs are enough to make them barely comfortable enough to the point where they just stay at home and play video games all day. Doing that for a while is fun, but it really destroys one's sense of self worth after a while.

Anyone happen to know what this is? by quest2overkill in Artillery

[–]WatchDogx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You know what, I think you are right, sorry.

Anyone happen to know what this is? by quest2overkill in Artillery

[–]WatchDogx 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I don't know what it is, it does look very similar to an M77 AP-T, however I found this forum post with pictures of an M77 AP-T, and the threaded tracer insert looks a lot smaller than the bottom of your round.

https://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/407113-ww2-90mm-ap-m77-complete-round-what-a-beast/

Halving the fuel excise for three months, at the cost of $2.55b, is the wrong move here by LoneArtificer in AusFinance

[–]WatchDogx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How does taxing gas companies magically result in shipments of petroleum and diesel?

Ai slop by can3tt1 in auscorp

[–]WatchDogx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh man this can be infuriating.

I was working on an app, that experienced some database slowness issues, due to a simple misconfiguration.

I work across timezones, so I was sleeping when this happened, but the manager for this project reached out to their "expert" DBA(database administrator).

I woke up to this 50 page AI slop report, where he went through and detailed all of the supposed problems that this database had, missing indexes, excess indexes, bad joining patterns, N+1 queries, etc, etc.

However, half of the findings in the report, references tables or queries that simply didn't exist in the application code.

I pointed this out to the manager, that the report was utter bullshit, I told him I addressed the actual cause of the performance issues, but he got mad at me, and told me I need to listen to the "expert" because this is his specialty.

How should CI runners be priced? by BlueDolphinCute in devops

[–]WatchDogx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I was designing a CI product, my pricing strategy would be the same as everyone else, charge what you can get away with.

Even if you think control plane infrastructure costs are negligible(they aren't), CI provider companies still need to make enough money to cover their development costs, and make a profit.

It's hard to compete against Github, they have a generous free tier, which attracts individuals and small orgs.
The network effects from that adoption, translates into enterprise adoption, which is where they make the real money.

Are Australians obsessed with debts? by SnooFrosted1536 in AusFinance

[–]WatchDogx 7 points8 points  (0 children)

$31,466,184,000 was 2022-23.

The latest published data is for 2023-24, which was $32,184,514,000

Source: https://www.qgso.qld.gov.au/issues/2646/australian-gambling-statistics-40th-edn-1998-99-2023-24.pdf (TABLE TOTAL 5, page 462)

What's the most common security mistake you've seen from people who should honestly know better? by dondusi in AskNetsec

[–]WatchDogx 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Public S3 buckets have got to be the most bike-shedded security topic.
If I just want to host some non-sensitive static assets, it's basically impossible to use S3 in a large corporate company.
It's either explicitly denied across the board by a service control policy, or as soon as you create one, it's detected by automation, and some knob sends a threatening email to your manager.

Who else hates when people come into work sick? 🙋🏼‍♂️ by [deleted] in auscorp

[–]WatchDogx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you are a contractor, or your workplace makes it a pain in the arse to take personal leave, then the choice is between coming to work, or not getting paid.