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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 >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

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 >>

Submission to Right 2 Water Campaign

category national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis author Saturday May 02, 2015 19:40author by Pat Waine Report this post to the editors

Democratic Input and a left policy platform

The piece deals with how an initiative by R2W should be addressed. It argues for a left alternative to be clearly presented in any initative that is democratic broad and open.

Democratic Input and a left policy platform are key to any new initiative coming out of the Water charges movement.

The recent initiative by “Right 2 Water” could represent a real move to form a fighting working class alternative to the right wing parties that have dominated Irish political life for decades.
However a conference of handpicked people who were deemed to “represent” us all was a poor attempt to start off the initiative. The Union leadership within “Right to water” invited the three pillars along on may day
1. The unions involved had their representatives
2. The Political parties who support R2W had their representatives.
3. The community sector including water charges campaigns had their “representatives”.
The local water charges campaigns had no input into who represented them at this conference , It could be argued that the unions and the political parties were at least able to select who represented their organisations at the conference but local water charges campaigns were not given that opportunity.
Democracy
Democratic input is vital as is a democratic structure in any political initiative if we hope to build a mass movement out of it. The key question that all activists should ask about the democracy in this initiative is.
Should the water charges campaigns select who represents them? The answer is clearly yes.
We as a movement need to see more democracy brought into the decision making mechanism if our movement is to thrive. Hopefully for the second conference this will be corrected.
Need for left initiative
Before deciding on a political policy platform I think that it is vital that we start at the beginning. We need first to agree what brought us to where we are and then set about fixing it.
In Ireland since the formation of the state we have been governed by right wing free market economics.
The main parties of established Ireland have opened the economy to spivs and speculators both national and international and these have fed off our people and our national resources .Witness how shell was treated in Ireland and how nearly all our national utilities are now in private hands. The recent move by Government with regard to the transport service is a continuation of that privatisation policy. We must clearly stand against that philosophy of Neo liberalism.
No to Privatisation and no to the neo liberal agenda!
Water Charges
We should all support the scrapping of Irish water and water charges but we must also clearly call for non payment if that movement is to succeed in achieving our goals. No Government will take any of our demands seriously if we cannot deliver a mass boycott of the water bills. Holding a conference based around the water charges campaign without making a call for people not to pay the water bills is an incredible mistake by our movement.

Wages and workers rights
We should ensure that under any Government supported by our movement that workers are treated fairly with not just a statutory minimum wage but a living wage. To assist workers achieving this we need to remove Industrial relations law that prohibits effective industrial action. We only have to look at the recent dispute at Greyhound where the unionised workers would still be standing outside their place of employment if they had remained within the strict Industrial relations law.
We demand that the industrial relations act be repealed to ensure that workers have a right to effectively defend their living and working conditions.
Housing and building in Ireland
We should demand a mass campaign of house building by the state to clear the housing list and provide employment to building workers also. We should also address the need to change the building regulations to have water harvesting and conservation mechanisms included by law. These were also demands we made way back in the original water charges campaign in the 1990’s. We need also to address the price of land and initiate law to cut across land speculation which was one of the drivers in the property bubble that later crashed our economy.
Health services
All health services should be provided free at the point of use including GP services. Nowhere in the public services is it more clear where private operators are lining their pockets out of human misery than in our health service/and related areas.
The “Voluntary” health Insurance scam should be made voluntary ie in private hospitals and should not be included in our public services. All should be able to access services based on medical need and no other criteria.
Police services
Our police service should be democratically controlled and really answerable to public scrutiny. Structures should be put in place to ensure that this is the case and that local communities decide the policing that is enacted in their areas.

Politics and coalitions
We should clearly set ourselves to the left of the political spectrum. Not for any macho reasons but because we believe in left economic solutions. The right have failed the Irish people , the middle have moved to the right. We have to give people a clear perspective for change. Change that can answer the needs of the people and show a way out of the mess that is Ireland today. I believe that a movement showing a left perspective would achieve a huge response from working people if it was backed up by unions and fought for in a real way within the working class. I believe that any movement we support should refuse entry into any coalition with the parties of the right .This should be fundamental to our thinking and guard against the mistakes made by Labour down through the decades.

Wealth tax
A wealth tax should be introduced and a cap imposed on Corporation tax that ensures that we at a very minimum achieve full compliance with any rate that we decide on. By this I mean if we have a corporation tax at 18% all pay 18%.

Conclusion
These are my early views and I have tried to cover some of the issues covered in the Document by Right 2 Water “Policy Principles for a progressive Irish Government”. The fundamentals for me are that we should have a democratic forum to debate the way forward that includes the campaigns nominating delegates going forward etc. That we clearly map out a left perspective opposing the rule of the parties of the right, ruling out coalitions ,defending workers rights and supporting people with a progressive taxation system that ensures all pay according to their means.

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