We can now talk about composting, the privatisation of our “commons”

The #Thatcher era in the UK pushed #deathcult privatisations, which are now ripe for real and useful contemporary criticism. And this criticism could be used for a useful push for the change and challenge we need.

Water Companies, privatized in 1989 with promises of efficiency and investment, have since faced continuous scandals over sewage spills, underinvestment, and skyrocketing bills. The outcome, profits have been pushed over public service, leading to environmental and infrastructure mess which will coat billions to compost.

Railways, privatized in the 1990s under Major, have led to fragmented operations, high ticket prices, and crap service. Public subsidies have increased dramatically, effectively making it a publicly funded but privately profiting system. The failures of companies like Railtrack highlighted systemic issues. This urgently needs to change, but this is a mess that leads to huge public costs.

The Steel Industry, British Steel, was privatized in 1988 but continued to struggle to compete globally. Subsequent closures and job losses have been crippling to industrial regions. Today, the UK steel industry remains a declining mess, requiring government intervention and subsidies to survive. We don’t have a path out of this mess, in the era of international instability we need a solution.

Energy, the privatisation of electricity and gas led to reduced competition over time, with prices soaring for consumers. Companies have been price gouging and underinvesting in sustainable energy. A mess, to manage the shift to renewables, that we now need to compost.

Telecom, while privatisation of BT (British Telecom) did modernize telecommunications, it created an uneven playing field, with BT retaining dominance and smaller competitors struggling to compete meaningfully. What is the path with this?

The promise of our worshipping of the #deathcult was to reduce costs through privatisation unsurprisingly, this hasn’t materialized; instead, public funds have been used and continue to be used to subsidize failing privatized companies owned by the #nastyfew.

The broader impact has been the pushing of widening social inequality. Essential natural “commons” services and utilities were turned into “profit” drains for the #nastyfew at the expense of affordability and quality for the meany. With privatisation, it transferred wealth from the public to this small group of greedy and nasty people.

The scale of these failures and public dissatisfaction might be a force for the change and challenge we so urgently need. That is, if we can make the more horizontal path actually work for us as a first step #OMN

What is the plan?

Why the pushing of #AI is more #techshit

The #stupidindividualism of the Silicon Valley’s ideology, around tech-driven libertarianism and as our chattering classes say “hyper-individualism”, is spreading social mess and #techshit, we need shovels to compost. It’s now clear that these anti #mainstreaming ‘solutions’ create more problems than they attempt to solve, particularly in terms of social breakdown and environmental damage. The utopian nightmares of tech billionaires collapse under the weight of on rushing real-world challenges. This should make visible to more of us the #geekproblem, the limits of technocratic fixes. The lies under the once-promised technological mediated future of freedom and innovation has been shown to be control and chaos, this should make it obvious that we need to take different paths away from the Silicon Valley’s delusion.

A podcast from of our weak liberals on the subject of #AI https://flex.acast.com/audio.guim.co.uk/2024/07/15-61610-gnl.sci.20240715.eb.ai_climate.mp3 a #mainstreaming view of the mess we are making on this path. The big issue is not the actual “nature” of AI, though that is not without issues. What I am covering here is that #AI is reinforcing existing power structures and socioeconomic realities, #neoliberal ideology and historical bias. This is driven by the goals of enhancing efficiency, reducing costs, and maximizing profits by increased surveillance, this in itself should raise ethical concerns about privacy and freedoms, that the #geekproblem so often justifies under the guise of security.

We need to think about this: AI systems trained on data from the past 40 years are inherently biased by the socio-political context of that period, perpetuating what are now outdated and obsolete beliefs. This historical bias locks in narrow ideological paths, particularly those associated with #neoliberalism and our 40 years worshipping at this #deathcult. This is not only a problem with AI, its a wider issue, we continue to prioritize economic growth over social and environmental paths, with the resent election victory in the UK, the Labour Party’s is pushing the normal #mainstreaming established during the #Thatcher era, in this we see past ideologies continue to shape current #mainstreaming political paths, the tech simply reinforces this.

It’s hard to know what path to take with this mess. Ethical frameworks like the #4opens and regulatory oversight to guide the responsible use of AI might help. By addressing the current mess and challenges, we might be able to work towards an AI path that reflects diverse perspectives and serves a more common good rather than reinforcing narrow #deathcult litany and hard right ideological paths this grows, which is the current default path. Recognizing and addressing the challenges in AI development is the first step towards the change we need to challenge, us, to compost this social mess and heaps of #techshit we have created, that shapes us.

UPDATE: An academic talking about this has just come out https://arxiv.org/pdf/2410.18417