Tech bros hype military AI

That anyone regards this with terminology like "promise" and "game-changing" is despicable.

Since the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, scholars have speculated about the technology’s implications for the character, if not nature, of war. The promise of AI on battlefields and in war rooms has beguiled scholars. They characterize AI as “game-changing,” “revolutionary,” and “perilous,” especially given the potential of great power war involving the United States and China or Russia...

While experts caution that militaries are confronting a “eureka” or “Oppenheimer” moment, harkening back to the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, this characterization distorts the merits and limits of AI for warfighting. It encourages policymakers and defense officials to follow what can be called a “primrose path of AI-enabled warfare,” which is codified in the US military’s “third offset” strategy. This vision of AI-enabled warfare is fueled by gross prognostications and over-determination of emerging capabilities enhanced with some form of AI, rather than rigorous empirical analysis of its implications across all (tactical, operational, and strategic) levels of war.

The current debate on military AI is largely driven by “tech bros” and other entrepreneurs who stand to profit immensely from militaries’ uptake of AI-enabled capabilities. - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Do online lie-spreaders always believe themselves?

No, they don't. This is a good discussion. I personally believe, though, that in the bigger picture it's the true believers who are most effective.

There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a number of people sharing conspiracies online who don’t believe their own content.

They are opportunists. These people share conspiracy theories to promote conflict, cause chaos, recruit and radicalize potential followers, make money, harass, or even just to get attention.

There are several types of this sort of conspiracy-spreader trying to influence you. - The Conversation

Apparently antimicrobial resistance isn't that big a deal

Talk about Big Ag capture

Last May, the United Nations (U.N.) released the first draft of a global plan to tackle antibiotic resistance that aligned with a call from world leaders’ expert advisors to take “bold and specific action.” That included a commitment to reduce the use of antibiotics used in the food and agriculture system by 30 percent by 2030.

But when those leaders (met at the U.N. in September) to adopt the Political Declaration on Antimicrobial Resistance, that concrete goal and others (were) missing from the latest draft.

After months of negotiations and edits to the proposal, these ambitious—and likely effective—commitments have been replaced with a toothless target: to “strive to meaningfully reduce” antibiotic use in agriculture. Now, experts and advocates are concerned that this new, vague provision, among other weakened commitments, will be included in the final declaration…

U.S. officials were at least partially responsible for weakening the U.N. declaration’s commitments on animal agriculture. - Civil Eats

Chicago public school teachers have great ideas

But they still face massive opposition from, among others, corporate Dems.

There was an ironic moment in former President Barack Obama’s speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago when he brought up the passing of his wife Michelle’s mother Marian Robinson who, he noted, was raised in the South Side of Chicago and attended Englewood High School.

He likely brought up the details of Robinson’s upbringing as bona fides of her roots in a big city Black community. But the irony was that Englewood High School was closed in 2005 by Obama’s basketball friend—who later served as his secretary of education—Arne Duncan when he was the CEO of Chicago Public Schools from 2001 to 2008. That moment, as obscure as it was, came across as yet another signal—not lost to other astute observers—of how the Democratic Party is struggling to turn from its love affair with neoliberal policy to embrace a new politics of progressive populism that claims to care about families and workers.

That struggle is especially tricky in the education policy arena where Democrats have a lengthy history of imposing neoliberal policy ideas such as charter schools, vouchers, and standardized testing that led to labeling public schools as failures, closing them down, and ramping up charter school industry corruption. - Nation of Change

U.S. still brings up the rear on healthcare

Among "developed" nations. I have yet to see a more apt phrase than "profits over people" to descibe what's wrong.

A report out Thursday shows that the United States' for-profit healthcare system still ranks dead last among peer nations on key metrics, including access to care and health outcomes such as life expectancy at birth.

The new analysis from the Commonwealth Fund is the latest indictment of a corporate-dominated system that leaves tens of millions of people uninsured or underinsured and unable to afford life-saving medications without rationing doses or going into debt.

"Despite spending a lot on healthcare, the United States is not meeting one of the principal obligations of a nation: to protect the health and welfare of its residents," the report states. "Most of the countries we compared are providing this protection, even though each can learn a good deal from its peers. The U.S., in failing this ultimate test of a successful nation, remains an outlier." - Common Dreams

New Orleans finally starts moving away from its failed all-charter approach

On a related note, believe it or not the Minnesota Star Tribune, of all outlets, has been publishing articles about how the charter industry/grifting con is failing this state.

In August, more than 300 students started the school year in the first traditional school run directly by the New Orleans school district since 2019. It’s the first time the district has opened its own school since Hurricane Katrina swept through the city nearly two decades ago.

The pre-K-8 school, named after New Orleans cultural and civil rights icon Leah Chase, came together in just a handful of months. Its opening ends the city’s five-year run as the only all-charter school district in the nation. Charter schools receive public funding, but are independently run…

(Superintendent Avis) Williams said the decision to open the school was what the board, and community, wanted.

“That was just something the community has impressed upon our board members, and they did vote unanimously for us to direct-run the Leah Chase School and for us to direct-run more schools,” Williams said.

Both the Recovery School District – a special statewide district created to manage underperforming schools – and New Orleans Public Schools had poured money into renovating and abating asbestos in the building that housed Lafayette Academy that is now the site of the Leah Chase School. That was one factor in wanting to keep this particular building open. But more than anything, the decision stemmed from a growing sentiment in the community, and among newer board members, that it’s time for the district to have a traditional school again, said Carlos Zervigon, a member of the Orleans Parish School Board whose district includes the Leah Chase School. - The Hechinger Report

The Border Patrol's rescue program is being run by the wrong people

It should be turned over to people without massive conflicts of interest, and who lack a very spotty record in general.

Many local officials and residents believe that the Border Patrol should bear primary responsibility for migrant rescues and recoveries. The agency is part of CBP, which is itself part of the Department of Homeland Security, and its resources dwarf those of local emergency teams and nonprofits. But some aid workers and border researchers see a conflict of interest between the agency’s primary mandate, which is to detain and deport migrants, and the humanitarian goal of saving lives. Both outside critics and Border Patrol agents acknowledge that the two goals are intertwined, but only the former see this as a problem.

Type Investigations and High Country News looked into the complicated relationship between the Border Patrol’s law enforcement and rescue operations, using internal documents, data logs, congressional reports, migrant accounts and the testimony of agents. These records reveal how the agency’s dogged pursuit of migrants can increase the danger for those same migrants, occasionally ending in tragedy. Migrants drown or fall off cliffs; they die in car crashes and from the direct use of force by Border Patrol agents. While the agency does appear to pick up thousands of migrant callers alive, those rescues often end in arrest and deportation. So far, there has been little public accountability for the program’s failures, while the data shows that hundreds of migrants who reach out for help fall through the cracks and are never seen again. - High Country News