Aidan Lean @aidanlean

When we were little our parents said "If your friend told you to jump of a bridge, would you?" It turns out millions of people would.

@EssexPR Yes. We HAVE TO vote Labour out at any upcoming elections. Makerfield is very important. We can't hope our way out of decline and a descent into totalitarianism. The despots depend on public ignorance and apathy. x.com/aidanlean/stat…

Aidan Lean @aidanlean

a day ago

Given today's announcement by the UK government to ban under 16s from social media, I asked AI how democratic countries prevented the rise of totalitarian regimes in the past once they'd begun rising. The answer isn't encouraging. I thought this bit was particularly relevant.

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People say "We could take Elon's money and feed the world." What a load of bollocks. But what WOULD be a great use of a little bit of that trillion, is funding legal cases to prosecute the criminal traitors of the West and building prisons or buying a penal colony to house them! The renaissance the West would experience would be golden if we got rid of the majority of the criminals! Much like El Salvador. Maybe Musk could be El Savlador of the West.

@policylaila "Here in England we have free speech, so you'd better shut up!"

Given today's announcement by the UK government to ban under 16s from social media, I asked AI how democratic countries prevented the rise of totalitarian regimes in the past once they'd begun rising. The answer isn't encouraging. I thought this bit was particularly relevant. "Regimes established total control over media, education, and culture, promoting cults of personality and eliminating independent information sources." Anyway, here's the whole answer: "Historically, the general population did not actively remove authoritarian or totalitarian regimes before they became complete dictatorships. In the cases of Italy, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany, democratic institutions failed to resist, and the populations were either complicit, paralyzed by economic despair, or coerced into submission rather than rising up to stop the transition. The collapse of democracy was driven by specific structural and social factors rather than a lack of public effort to stop it: Economic Desperation and Disillusionment: Post-World War I devastation, hyperinflation, and the Great Depression created widespread economic despair. Citizens turned to radical leaders who promised order and greatness, viewing authoritarianism as a necessary solution to chaos rather than a threat to be resisted. Weaponization of Democratic Mechanisms: Authoritarian leaders like Mussolini and Hitler used elections and mass mobilization to gain legal power. Once in office, they dismantled checks and balances, making it difficult for opponents to organize effectively without facing immediate repression. Violence and Terror: Paramilitary groups (like the Blackshirts in Italy) and state secret police (like the NKVD in the USSR) used systematic terror against political opponents, labor leaders, and dissenters. This created a climate of fear that suppressed opposition and made organized resistance nearly impossible. Propaganda and Control: Regimes established total control over media, education, and culture, promoting cults of personality and eliminating independent information sources. This indoctrination and censorship prevented the public from forming a unified opposition narrative. In summary, the transition to totalitarianism occurred because democratic institutions were too weak to withstand the combined pressure of economic crisis, political violence, and sophisticated propaganda, while the public was either manipulated into support or intimidated into silence."

@AllisonPearson Where there is a will there is a way. And where there is no will there are excuses.

Need to fire out a net, old school gladiator style. Or, more sensibly, a wide beam electronic signal to disrupt the drones signal, essentially jamming it. Then they'll make AI drones that are autonomous without signal. Then you'll need some kind of wide beam ray gun. x.com/aidanlean/stat…

Aidan Lean @aidanlean

2 years ago

@elonmusk Future wars will essentially be robot wars. And then if people still don't agree on the outcome, they'll actually fight. War and fighting is basically a gradient scale of defenses and distance from the outer ranks to the inner core of the decision maker.

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@elonmusk Fuckin' legend 😆

@TaraBull Lol, wait until you go to Japan, China or Taiwan. Then you'll see what safety and cleanliness is.

@Timcast She's still an actress.

@CynicalPublius Just like the depopulation zealots. They want others to die, not themselves.

@DarrenPlymouth Not having a way to definitively know if something is AI or not is a disaster. It just leaves the door wide open for a false reality. x.com/aidanlean/stat…

Aidan Lean @aidanlean

6 months ago

You should't unleash AI on the world without also having the ability to recognise it. Otherwise it becomes impossible to believe anything. You shouldn't release a bioweapon unless you hold the antidote - the winds may change direction. You shouldn't build a bomb without knowing

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@VladTheInflator Broadly speaking the people are waking up. It's the politicial leaders who refuse to wake up. In countries like the UK and in Europe, there is an obvious political shift to the right. And the existing leaders are doing everything they can to stop this.

@AlistairCarns T'was ever thus. Whether it's making spears or swords or shields and armour, gunpowder, guns, bullets, tanks, supplies. What the group makes changes over time but the coordinated efforts of the group to create and use what is needed is what wins.

Indeed. The world's problems are CREATED by essentially all the people's collective actions. The more destructive, harmful, stupid and criminal and all sorts of other negative adjectives a person is, the more they create problems for themselves and everyone. As has been done, you can spend trillions on solving the problems but by the next day the problems will be created again. They are constantly created. Until, in some Utopian ideal, everyone aligns their actions in harmony and co-action, there will always be problems. But that's a theoretical fantasy. Besides, you can't really have no problems. Even in a fun game you have problems, you have the problem of the opposition. Without the opposition, without the problem you fundamentally can't have a game. So the pursuit of no problems is futile. But on the more practical level, in simplistic terms, problematic people cause problems. Give them all the money you like, they'll still cause problems, even if it's just stealing the other guys share of the money, which is essentially what corrupt governments do. So what you have to do is not give people money but help them to become less problematic. It's an ethics, education and ability issue, not a financial one.

@DrHoenderkamp All she's doing is causing confusion and creating complexity in an incredibly simple field. She's harmful. x.com/aidanlean/stat…

Aidan Lean @aidanlean

5 days ago

@soniasodha How are we still spending time on this as a civilisation!? It is unbearably inefficient because what is a man and woman is absolutely simple and obvious to everyone. In terms of things that mankind needs to spend its collective time on to survive, this is near bottom of any

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@heyshrutimishra This is how you should run any business or even a country. Give the people working in it a vested interest in the success of the company. The better they work the more they're rewarded.

@jk_rowling He's a true believer! Blind faith. To all of us that can see, it's the blind leading the blind.

@triffic_stuff_ Iain's argument is "once you've created a law you can't change the law or else people will have to change." Yes, Iain, you can. It's done ALL THE TIME, in every aspect of our lives laws are changed and we have to adapt to them. It's not always "fair" but it is life.

It's a sad irony that the internet and social media let's everyone communicate and therefore every voice can be heard but it also means that every stupid voice can be heard and all the stupid people can communicate far and wide, whereas previously their communication wouldn't get far because it would be ignored and not passed on. It wouldn't reach the next stupid person a village away, it would be damped out within a few people's distance - like sound travelling through air, it only goes so far. But now we've given the stupid person an absolute megaphone and their voice can be heard across the whole planet. And that voice resonates with another idiot and excites them to communicate and so we have a massive amount of stupidity broadcast around the world. I mean, it's democratic and all that and who's to say what's stupid or not, there shouldn't be ONE judge but there are 8 billion judges and each person has a right to think what is stupid or not and general agreements can be made but without wandering off into philosophy about this the simple fact is, having a lot of stupid people being able to communicate widely is not good. It keeps stupidity alive, stupid ideas persist and spread and cause trouble and these are obstacles to good ideas and effective progress.