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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 Muslim Who Attacked Koran Burner Hamit Coskun With Knife Spared Jail as Judge Says He ?Lost His Temp... Tue Sep 23, 2025 17:08 | Will Jones
The Muslim man who attacked Koran-burning protester Hamit Coskun with a knife has been spared jail after the judge said he "lost his temper". Hamit, meanwhile, remains in hiding, as concerns about two-tier justice grow.
The post Muslim Who Attacked Koran Burner Hamit Coskun With Knife Spared Jail as Judge Says He “Lost His Temper” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The Exaltation of the Cross Tue Sep 23, 2025 15:00 | Chris Larkin
Church leaders are too quick to condemn Tommy Robinson and the Unite the Kingdom march, says Chris Larkin. We don't know what Jesus would have made of our politics, but we can?t just assume he?d have been a Lib Dem voter.
The post The Exaltation of the Cross appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Council Insists Women Be Called ?People With Ovaries? Tue Sep 23, 2025 13:27 | Will Jones
Bristol City Council has been accused of offending women with "virtue-signalling madness" after insisting that women be called "people with ovaries" and claiming that defining sex as biological "misgenders trans people".
The post Council Insists Women Be Called “People With Ovaries” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Jimmy Kimmel?s Comeback Derailed as Major ABC Affiliate Refuses to Air Show After Charlie Kirk Comme... Tue Sep 23, 2025 11:04 | Will Jones
Jimmy Kimmel's comeback after his Charlie Kirk comments has been dealt a massive blow with ABC affiliates refusing to air it in nearly 40 major markets after Disney announced the liberal talk host will return Tuesday.
The post Jimmy Kimmel’s Comeback Derailed as Major ABC Affiliate Refuses to Air Show After Charlie Kirk Comments appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Labour Will Regret Defending the Boriswave Tue Sep 23, 2025 09:00 | Laurie Wastell
When Nigel Farage announced on Monday that Reform would end benefits for migrants and abolish settled status, Left-wing MPs rushed to denounce him. Labour will regret defending the Boriswave, says Laurie Wastell.
The post Labour Will Regret Defending the Boriswave 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 >>

"Why aren’t the middle classes revolting?" - The phones3U scandal and the UK telegraph's "road to damascus" conversion

category international | anti-capitalism | other press author Saturday September 27, 2014 19:04author by fred Report this post to the editors

The Phones4U scandal has a serious lesson for us all
about how completely amoral capitalism has become
and how at risk we all are from it's predations.
phones4u.gif

The Phones4U scandal has a serious lesson for us all
about how completely amoral capitalism has become
and how at risk we all are from it's predations.

Many of us have been shrieking about this for years
in true Cassandra fashion but we were laughed at and told to go commit suicide or live in North Korea amongst other witty epithets by dyed-in-the wool capitalists.

However when the right wing daily telegraph comes out with a headline like this:
Why aren't the British middle-classes staging a revolution?
Then even hardened capitalists have to finally sit up and take note.

For those of you not familiar with what went down with Phones4U here's a quote:

Why aren’t the middle classes revolting?

Words you probably never thought you’d read in the Telegraph. Words which, as a Gladstonian Liberal, I never thought I’d write. But seriously, why aren’t we seeing scenes reminiscent of Paris in 1968? Moscow in 1917? Boston in 1773?

My current fury is occasioned the Phones4U scandal (and it really is a scandal).

Phones4U was bought by the private equity house, BC Partners, in 2011 for £200m. BC then borrowed £205m and, having saddled the company with vast amounts of debt, paid themselves a dividend of £223m. Crippled by debt, the company has now collapsed into administration.

The people who crippled it have walked away with nearly £20m million, while 5,600 people face losing their jobs. The taxman may also be stiffed on £90m in unpaid VAT and PAYE. It’s like a version of 1987’s Wall Street on steroids, the difference being that Gordon Gecko wins at the end and everyone shrugs and says, “Well, it’s not ideal, but really we need guys like him.”

I’m not financially sophisticated enough to understand the labyrinthine ins and outs of private equity deals. But I don’t think I need to be. Here, my relative ignorance is actually a plus. You took a viable company, ran up ridiculous levels of debt, paid yourselves millions and then walked away, leaving unemployment and unpaid tax bills in your wake. What’s to understand? We should be calling for your heads on a plate.


Now this is from Alex Proud, a right wing UK telegraph journalist and oft defender of the status quo, and not some pinko anarchist radical. Proud even goes further and confesses that "plenty of us" may have been "useful idiots":

if there’s a buck to made jacking up your mortgage, or asset-stripping the company you work for, privatising some local service you rely on or selling a publicly-owned amenity you enjoy, they won’t think twice. In fact, they won’t even think once. If they could figure out a way to sell your body from under you, they would. Then they’d get some business school shill to write an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about how this was inevitable – and how, really, you should be grateful.

If I were a member of the working classes who’d been laid off in the '80s or '90s, I might be laughing at the middle classes right now. Because we’ve duped and screwed by the elite just as the lower orders were. The only differences are that, with us, the con was longer, and in many places we played an active part in our downfall; plenty of us were “useful idiots.”


What can those in control of the Irish economy learn from this. These "financial locusts" will buy up, debt load and sink any vulnerable businesses that they can get their hands on. They will grab up any utility put up for privatisation such as (potentially) parts of the ESB and Irish water, destroy it for their own gain, leaving joblessness and sociialised debt in their wake. And they also love buying up big lots of cheap property, losses on which have been socialised to taxpayers, which they can pay for with 0% interest money printed for them in QE programs by compliant governments, which they can then sell back to those very same citizens at inflated prices in yet another property bubble.

Or for that matter thousands of packaged mortgages. Example here:
The Government is about to throw 13,000 Irish families to the vultures.- Stephen Donnelly

More from Alex Proud:
We thought the elite had our interests at heart. The 0.1% must have found this pretty cute. They knew the truth. We weren’t their pals, we were just at the end of the line for the financial blood-letting.

We had plenty of other distractions too. Booming house prices meant we felt rich while our incomes stagnated. Ditto easy credit and cheap consumer goods.

And the super-rich are much cleverer than they once were. No longer are they Mr Burns types. Rather, they have an army of people doing PR for them in various guises. Perhaps you’re one of them. For years there have been plenty of well-paying middle class jobs, helping the rich asset strip the world while pretending this is for everyone’s benefit.

The reckoning has been a long time coming too. And even now, when we can see the swarm of financial locusts on the horizon, the sun is still shining and we can still (just about) afford the nanny. But for how much longer? The locusts are already well into the middle middle classes – you know, those poor schmucks who make, say, 40K a year. They may not have reached you yet, in your tastefully decorated detached Victorian house, but they will.


Is this the point where those on the right who support the failed ideology of neoliberalism realise that they have been had and that they are on the menu too.

Is it finally time now to begin the process of remoulding our morally bankrupt capitalist society into something more humane where the needs of the people outweigh the profit motive of financial locusts?

Full Article here:
Why aren't the British middle-classes staging a revolution? - Telegraph

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