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Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

The Saker

Indymedia ireland

Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Fraud and mismanagement at University College Cork Thu Aug 28, 2025 18:30 | Calli Morganite
UCC has paid huge sums to a criminal professor
This story is not for republication. I bear responsibility for the things I write. I have read the guidelines and understand that I must not write anything untrue, and I won't.
This is a public interest story about a complete failure of governance and management at UCC.

offsite link Deliberate Design Flaw In ChatGPT-5 Sun Aug 17, 2025 08:04 | Mind Agent
Socratic Dialog Between ChatGPT-5 and Mind Agent Reveals Fatal and Deliberate 'Design by Construction' Flaw
This design flaw in ChatGPT-5's default epistemic mode subverts what the much touted ChatGPT-5 can do... so long as the flaw is not tickled, any usage should be fine---The epistemological question is: how would anyone in the public, includes you reading this (since no one is all knowing), in an unfamiliar domain know whether or not the flaw has been tickled when seeking information or understanding of a domain without prior knowledge of that domain???!

This analysis is a pretty unique and significant contribution to the space of empirical evaluation of LLMs that exist in AI public world... at least thus far, as far as I am aware! For what it's worth--as if anyone in the ChatGPT universe cares as they pile up on using the "PhD level scholar in your pocket".

According to GPT-5, and according to my tests, this flaw exists in all LLMs... What is revealing is the deduction GPT-5 made: Why ?design choice? starts looking like ?deliberate flaw?.

People are paying $200 a month to not just ChatGPT, but all major LLMs have similar Pro pricing! I bet they, like the normal user of free ChatGPT, stay in LLM's default mode where the flaw manifests itself. As it did in this evaluation.

offsite link AI Reach: Gemini Reasoning Question of God Sat Aug 02, 2025 20:00 | Mind Agent
Evaluating Semantic Reasoning Capability of AI Chatbot on Ontologically Deep Abstract (bias neutral) Thought
I have been evaluating AI Chatbot agents for their epistemic limits over the past two months, and have tested all major AI Agents, ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Perplexity, and DeepSeek, for their epistemic limits and their negative impact as information gate-keepers.... Today I decided to test for how AI could be the boon for humanity in other positive areas, such as in completely abstract realms, such as metaphysical thought. Meaning, I wanted to test the LLMs for Positives beyond what most researchers benchmark these for, or have expressed in the approx. 2500 Turing tests in Humanity?s Last Exam.. And I chose as my first candidate, Google DeepMind's Gemini as I had not evaluated it before on anything.

offsite link Israeli Human Rights Group B'Tselem finally Admits It is Genocide releasing Our Genocide report Fri Aug 01, 2025 23:54 | 1 of indy
We have all known it for over 2 years that it is a genocide in Gaza
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has finally admitted what everyone else outside Israel has known for two years is that the Israeli state is carrying out a genocide in Gaza

Western governments like the USA are complicit in it as they have been supplying the huge bombs and missiles used by Israel and dropped on innocent civilians in Gaza. One phone call from the USA regime could have ended it at any point. However many other countries are complicity with their tacit approval and neighboring Arab countries have been pretty spinless too in their support

With the release of this report titled: Our Genocide -there is a good chance this will make it okay for more people within Israel itself to speak out and do something about it despite the fact that many there are actually in support of the Gaza

offsite link China?s CITY WIDE CASH SEIZURES Begin ? ATMs Frozen, Digital Yuan FORCED Overnight Wed Jul 30, 2025 21:40 | 1 of indy
This story is unverified but it is very instructive of what will happen when cash is removed
THIS STORY IS UNVERIFIED BUT PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO OR READ THE TRANSCRIPT AS IT GIVES AN VERY GOOD IDEA OF WHAT A CASHLESS SOCIETY WILL LOOK LIKE. And it ain't pretty

A single video report has come out of China claiming China's biggest cities are now cashless, not by choice, but by force. The report goes on to claim ATMs have gone dark, vaults are being emptied. And overnight (July 20 into 21), the digital yuan is the only currency allowed.

The Saker >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Kemi?s Pledge to Repeal the Climate Change Act Must Be Just the Start Fri Oct 03, 2025 09:00 | Ben Pile
Kemi Badenoch's pledge to repeal the Climate Change Act ? which commits the UK to Net Zero ? must be just the start of the dismantling of the Westminster Uniparty consensus on climate catastrophism, says Ben Pile.
The post Kemi’s Pledge to Repeal the Climate Change Act Must Be Just the Start appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The Sceptic | Episode 53: Starmer?s Bizarre Bid to Brand Reform Racist, the Real Danger Posed by Lab... Fri Oct 03, 2025 07:00 | Richard Eldred
In Episode 53 of the Sceptic: Tom Jones on Keir Starmer's bizarre bid to brand Reform racist, Andrew Orlowski on the real danger posed by Labour's digital ID and Kathryn Porter on the colossal cost of Net Zero.
The post The Sceptic | Episode 53: Starmer?s Bizarre Bid to Brand Reform Racist, the Real Danger Posed by Labour?s Digital ID and the True Cost of Net Zero appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Fri Oct 03, 2025 01:58 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The WHO Pandemic Accords Consolidate the Power of the Covid Clerisy on a Global Scale Thu Oct 02, 2025 19:07 | Ramesh Thakur
The WHO Pandemic Accords, the first part of which came into effect last month, consolidate the power of the Covid clerisy on a global scale, warns Professor Ramesh Thakur. Expect more of the same.
The post The WHO Pandemic Accords Consolidate the Power of the Covid Clerisy on a Global Scale appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Teaching Assistant Sacked for ?Manhandling? Pupil to Stop Him Running into Road Thu Oct 02, 2025 17:27 | Will Jones
A teaching assistant was fired after grabbing a special needs pupil to stop him from running out of school and into a busy road.
The post Teaching Assistant Sacked for “Manhandling” Pupil to Stop Him Running into Road appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Referenda: A Strategy for Success?

category national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis author Wednesday January 18, 2012 10:22author by Andrew Report this post to the editors

The idea that calling for a referendum is a good strategy for winning significant reforms often crops up in campaigns. It seems logical, as a referendum is a chance for the population to directly make a decision on the issue to hand. But the reality is that the demand for a referendum is seldom, if ever, the best way to build a struggle for a reform. Here are five reasons why:

Lobbying


Under the Irish constitution a referendum can only be held after a bill has been passed by the Dail and the Seanad setting out the proposed amendment to the constitution. In other countries and some US states a referendum can be called if enough people sign a petition. That is not the case in Ireland. So in Ireland a referendum will only happen if you convince the government parties to call one while allowing them control over the wording that will be voted on.


Influence


The nature of a referendum debate is such that it will be almost completely dominated by those with money, power and influence. Independent media group, which owns the Evening Herald, Irish Independent, Sunday Independent, Sunday World and the Irish Daily Star, as well as 14 regional titles and two free newspapers, has been dominated by the O’Reilly family since 1973 and has the ability to put the equivalent of a long leaflet in everyone’s hand every day.


Isolation


The nature of referenda is that we make our decisions in the isolation of the ballot box, an isolation designed to amplify the influences of the political parties and media. Outside of family & pub arguments there is no process of collective debate and discussion. We observe the opinions of the wealthy 1% and their hirelings and then choose between them.


Result


The nature of a referendum is that once the vote has happened the vast majority of people will consider that issue to have been settled for a number of years. That means referenda are not good ways of building a struggle because if you fail to win them many will see it as being all over. From that point of view, there is no point in a referendum being called unless there is reasonable confidence of winning.


Power


A referendum is only another state process by which we face the power of the 1% and, like all the other processes of that type from court cases to elections, has been designed to maximize the influence of those who have power and money over the results. All these processes are designed to give the impression that all are equal before them but in all cases this is not true.


Our struggles for change that are based around using tools designed by the masters will be weak and powerless. We need to develop and use tools that do the opposite, that build on our strength and make us powerful. These are the sort of tools that are based on mass collective discussion and action rather than either listening to or following the actions of the few.


Our tools are the strike, mass demonstrations, assemblies and mass organisations that we build and have some control over. When we fight for reforms it may well be that when we show our strength, the state will seek to compromise and diffuse that through offering referenda but, if so, that is something we have won not through seeking a referendum but by frightening them into calling one.

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