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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.
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.
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.
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
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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
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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 >>
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
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Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony
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Waiting for SIPO Anthony Public Inquiry >>
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EU-US competitiveness pact: time for action!
international |
eu |
opinion/analysis
Saturday December 21, 2013 16:39 by O. O'C. - The People's Movement

Discourse is really about boosting corporate profits at the expense of the welfare of the population and of the environment.
The competitiveness dogma will not solve the present euro-zone crisis, as it is downward pressure on wages (and therefore consumer demand) and on government spending that has locked European economies into spirals of decline.
EU competitiveness pact: time for action!
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership,competitiveness,us eu pact,european council
Our politicians regularly tell us that we must work harder and longer, and for less pay, in order to be more “competitive.” We must reduce or give up our hard-earned social protections, pensions and unemployment benefits in order to be more competitive. We must be more “flexible,” which means we must sacrifice job security for ever more precarious and demanding work practices—in order to be more competitive.
Governments must observe “fiscal discipline,” rather than stimulating economies out of
recession, because such discipline makes us more competitive. Peripheral EU countries must surrender their sovereignty to the Troika in order to “regain competitiveness.” We must sign free-trade deals, such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the United States, because that will make us more competitive. We must not “over-regulate” the financial sector, or impose “excessive” environmental restrictions on businesses, because to do so would be to make us less competitive.
The competitiveness dogma will not solve the present euro-zone crisis, as it is downward pressure on wages (and therefore consumer demand) and on government spending that has locked European economies into spirals of decline.
More fundamentally, this discourse is really about boosting corporate profits at the expense of the welfare of the population and of the environment. We have the option of distributing work and income more fairly, so that everyone has access to a decent wage and fulfilling work, as well as high-quality public services; but to do so requires that we redistribute income away from financial capital and corporate profits more generally and towards the mass of the population, towards public services and towards environmental protection.
The true agenda behind this talk of “competitiveness” will be evident at the European Council meeting on 19 December, which will debate a proposed new competitiveness pact. To help draft this pact the chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel,
invited the president of France, François Hollande, and the president of the EU Commission, José Manuel Barroso, to a meeting in Berlin in March with fifteen members of the European Round Table of Industrialists, all of them chief executive officers of large corporations, two of whom were asked to chair a “working group on competitiveness.”
The report of that group called for, among other things, reduced taxes, a rolling back of (limited) bank regulation, further erosion of labour protection, the streamlined facilitation of mergers and acquisitions, and privatisation. As Corporate Europe Observatory, put it, “the demands of the ERT appear to amount to nothing less than putting the European Union entirely at the service of corporations.”
The TTIP, if adopted, would constitute another contractual arrangement between member- states and the Commission—a form of “troika for all”—that would see the further weakening of national labour laws, downward pressure on wages, and more ERT-style “business-friendly” regulation (or the lack of it).
This last element will increase the likelihood of another economic crisis erupting in the future. To avert such a crisis we need more, not less, regulation, especially of the financial sector.
The TTIP also features yet more intrusive mandatory rules on the economic policies of member-states, building on the Austerity Treaty and related measures that serve to reduce democratic control over vital areas of economic governance.
The pact must be rejected, for three main reasons. Firstly, it would deepen the European economic crisis by further depressing domestic demand and government spending at a time when stimulus measures are desperately needed for recovery. Secondly, it would take still more economic policy tools out of the hands of national governments and transfer them to unelected technocrats. And thirdly, in line with the aggressive “competitiveness” agenda long pursued, it would further degrade the quality of life of workers by forcing them to work longer hours for less pay in conditions of ever greater insecurity while simultaneously cutting the public services on which they depend. This is being done in the name of “competitiveness,” but in reality it is for boosting corporate profits at the expense of ordinary people’s rights to a decent life.
More at http://www.people.ie/news/PN-95.pdf
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