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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.

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 >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Climatism in Europe is Dying Tue Sep 30, 2025 19:00 | Eugyppius
Climatism in Europe is dying as its grassroots support evaporates and Left-wing activists move onto other concerns. Eurocrats are well-insulated from public opinion but they can't ignore it forever, says Eugyppius.
The post Climatism in Europe is Dying appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Blow to Miliband as Reeves Signals Support for North Sea Drilling and Union Boss Calls for Him to Be... Tue Sep 30, 2025 17:36 | Will Jones
Rachel Reeves has signalled support for drilling in the North Sea in a blow to Ed Miliband ? as the boss of the Unite union calls on Keir Starmer to sack the "disastrous" Net Zero Secretary.
The post Blow to Miliband as Reeves Signals Support for North Sea Drilling and Union Boss Calls for Him to Be Sacked appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Wes Streeting Says Nigel Farage is ?Racist? Tue Sep 30, 2025 15:30 | Will Jones
Health Secretary Wes Streeting?has said Nigel Farage is "racist", joining Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson in using the insult of the Reform party and its leader.
The post Wes Streeting Says Nigel Farage is “Racist” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Is the ?Friend-Enemy Distinction? Right-Wing Critical Race Theory? Tue Sep 30, 2025 13:00 | Noah Carl
Perfectly neutral institutions will never be attainable, argues Noah Carl, but that doesn?t mean that reasonably neutral institutions aren?t worth striving for.
The post Is the ‘Friend-Enemy Distinction’ Right-Wing Critical Race Theory? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Europe Has Never Looked More Pathetic Tue Sep 30, 2025 11:27 | Will Jones
With Trump's announcement of a peace plan backed by both Israel and Arab leaders, Europe, with its toothless alternative proposal to reward terror, has never looked more pathetic or weaker on the global stage.
The post Europe Has Never Looked More Pathetic appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

SpunOut.ie chats with Noam Chomsky on Ireland.... (video interview)

category national | miscellaneous | other press author Monday February 22, 2010 13:12author by Volunteer Team - SpunOut.ie Report this post to the editors

Interview at MIT Boston on GAA, Palestine, Ireland, Bolivia, Climate Change and more...

"All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume." - Chomsky

Interview with Prof. Noam Chomsky January 2010

Venue: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Video interviews online at http://www.spunout.ie/action/Be-inspired/SpunOut.ie-cha...omsky

Transcript below
Professor Noam Chomsky
Professor Noam Chomsky


SPUNOUT.IE: So, Professor Chomsky, I understand there is a rumour circulating in Ireland that you may be joining the Gaelic Athletic Association. Is there any merit in that claim?

NOAM CHOMSKY: I’m sure I’m gonna be one of the major players in the next championship, yes.

SPUNOUT.IE: Is this an aspiration that you’ve always held?

NOAM CHOMSKY: (Laughs)

SPUNOUT.IE: Maybe you could give me a little bit of information about how your relationship with the Gaelic Athletic Association has come about through the Palestine work?

NOAM CHOMSKY: I mean, I’ve met people associated with it through common interest in Palestine and ah, that’s about the limits of my association. Some very wonderful people in fact, like t who just got back from the free Gaza experience with quite a story to tell and in fact started a Gaelic Association club in Gaza.

SPUNOUT.IE: And do you see this type of initiative, like sport, as being an interesting way of creating awareness around the situation in Gaza?

NOAM CHOMSKY: I mean, it’s one. If it does so, fine. I mean the fact that there is a connection of that nature is a way of building up consciousness and awareness of the situation there and what we can do about it. Actually, I was in Ireland a couple of months ago and was struck to see substantial popular sympathy for the suffering and horrible oppression of Gaza. Especially I noticed it specifically in Belfast and I was impressed by it.

SPUNOUT.IE: Do you think there is a consciousness in Ireland for international struggles that maybe is different to elsewhere?

NOAM CHOMSKY: There has been sometimes. So, for example during the 1980s, when the U.S. was essentially at war with Central America, the Reagan administration was carrying out and supporting a horrendous terrorist war in Central America and a good deal of the information about it did come through Ireland. Ireland had special connections. The war was to a substantial extent a war against the church. Now there was a tradition of Irish priests in Central America, and through that connection information was coming back. I could read things in the Irish Press that I couldn’t find here and there seemed to be support for it, a popular concern over the atrocities going on there. I mean Ireland itself has had eight hundred years of oppression which I suppose creates some sensitivity to what it means for others.

SPUNOUT.IE: Ireland, like much of the world is going through some dramatic changes at the moment, particularly in terms of the role of the state, the role of the banks & the role of the church. In your own experiences of coming and going from Ireland, how do you see the country evolving and how do you see the future for Ireland?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, for one thing, there’s a difference between the Republic and Northern Ireland. In the case of Belfast, I hadn’t been there for fifteen years. The last time I was there was 1993. At that time it was a real war-zone as was the whole environment, South Armagh and so on. Today it’s, at least on the surface, at peace. There are tensions and it doesn’t take long to notice their manifestations but it’s more or less peaceful. The major conflicts have been substantially resolved and there’s a lesson there; as long as the British responded to IRA terror by just more violence, it simply stimulated the cycle of violence and retaliation.

As soon as they began with some useful U.S. intervention; George Mitchell and Bill Clinton, they began to pay some attention to the legitimate grievances that lay behind the violence, then it became possible, when there were some moves made, to deal with those (grievances), and they were legitimate. Then the violence subsided and finally it declined, not to nothing but certainly nothing like what it was a few years ago. And that is true generally. Where there is terrorist violence, it comes from something, and quite often it has its roots in legitimate grievances, which should be attended to quite apart from the violence. But when they are addressed seriously, that offers a constructive way to undercut and maybe eliminate the violence and confrontations.

The Republic is a different story. It went through a period of living in a fairy-tale euphoria. There was a moment when Ireland was able to capitalise on the fact that it had an educated, skilled population thanks to substantial state investment and had an entry into the European market so it was a perfect place for American firms to invest, and that led to a false prosperity. The numbers were real, Ireland looked like one of the richest places in the world, but it was all built on sand. The economy was not developing internally. Ireland became one of the main exporters of pharmaceuticals for example, but not because Ireland had developed a pharmaceutical industry or a software industry or so on but it was a convenient place for mostly American firms to invest and enter into the European market. That was clearly a temporary phenomenon.

The opportunity was wasted through a lot of plain robbery if you look at what happened; fake wealth, a housing boom which was based on nothing and yes it collapsed. And now Ireland is in serious financial straits. It’s necessary to live in the real world not a world of illusions and ideology. There are some very good, careful analyses of these; Fintan O’Toole’s recent book ‘Ship of Fools’ which goes through it in detail. He could see it coming, before in fact he himself had written about it, before he saw others worrying about it. Warnings were not attended to and now there is going to be a severe cost to pay.

SPUNOUT.IE: In terms of moving on from the difficulties that Ireland faces, what do you see as potential solutions?

NOAM CHOMSKY: For Ireland? Well, you know, I’m reluctant to talk about what should be done in Ireland because I don’t have a sufficiently intimate knowledge of the problems of the country. That has to be done by people that do. But plainly Ireland is going to have to create a self-sustaining economy. One that cannot just be a launching pad for others, while Ireland tries to live off the booty that comes along with it on the side. I think that those days are probably over. Ireland has opportunities, it has human resources, it has a rich culture and tradition, it’s part of Europe.

It has benefited enormously from the largesse of the European community and again it cannot go on forever being a kind of borrower state, depending on the kindness of strangers. So it will have to build an internally self-sustaining economy which is productive and makes use of the capacities that Ireland indeed does have to create something that is not simply parasitic on the outside. Added that it requires more knowledge of the details than I have.

SPUNOUT.IE: And in terms of...obviously the previous model of development has failed. Looking at your own experience in the U.S. and overseas, what do you see as alternative models for social and economic development? And perhaps where do you see signs of hope?

NOAM CHOMSKY: The main signs of hope today I think are probably in South America. I mean South America, for the first time in 500 years since the European conquests, has begun to confront its fundamental internal problems. The traditional Latin American society has been sharply split, between a wealthy Europeanised, often white elite which is quite wealthy and orientated towards societies abroad rather than the responsibilities for their own society, separated from the other societies of the region, all living in a real mass of misery and oppression. Latin America does have substantial resources internally but it has been a plaything for its wealthy elite since the imperial powers and the United States in recent years and those problems are beginning to be addressed. Other countries are beginning to integrate with one another for the first time which is a prerequisite for independence and they’ve also begun to, in various ways, face some of their internal problems.

Some of the examples are pretty striking like Bolivia where it’s the poorest country in South America but the majority of the population is indigenous. About a decade ago they began to become sufficiently organised so that they were able to take significant steps towards controlling their own society and economy and by 2005 even elect someone from their own ranks as president, Evo Morales. He has just been re-elected with an even higher vote partly because of the remarkably successful economic policies. Bolivia has had a quite impressive growth rate. I think the highest in Latin America. And for the first time, the rights of the indigenous majority are gaining serious attention.

The policies of the government involve control over resources, problems of cultural rights, which are very significant in a highly multi-cultural society, indigenous rights, problems of justice and the initiative for dealing with them is coming from substantial popular movements. These are democratic achievements which are hard to match elsewhere. There’s plenty wrong with it, and of course the traditional elite is bitter and angry and backed by the United States of course so there’s plenty of conflict. For example, one of the farces that goes on in the world is called the drug war, and it is a farce, it has very little to do with drugs but the Obama administration recently de-certified two Latin American countries claiming that they don’t cooperate sufficiently in the drug war; Bolivia and Venezuela, clearly on political and ideological grounds.

That’s one illustration of the hostility of the traditional elites and their traditional backer, the United States in the face of popular movements that are really making substantial gains. Similar things are happening in Ecuador, and in different ways in Brazil and Argentina. These are important moves. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of setbacks. The problems are enormous but it’s substantial progress. Latin America was one of the most rigorous adherents to the neo-liberal programs dictated by the United States, the IMF and the World Bank and suffered tremendously from them but it has pretty much overthrown that and is moving towards independent development. It could be successful. That’s not a radical model by any means.

That’s a very moderate model and I think there are things that can go much farther. Take, say, the United States; the richest country in the world with incomparable advantages. It’s been through 30 years of, from some points of view, the worst economic period in its history. There’s plenty of wealth, but it’s concentrated in very few pockets. For the majority of the population ever since the Reagan years, real wages have pretty much stagnated, in recent years even declined. Their benefits have declined, working hours have increased. Infrastructure is collapsing while the economy is being financialised. Around 1970 maybe 3% of GDP was produced by the financial industries.

By now it’s over a third. The corollary of that is that productive manufacturing is hollowed out, sent abroad or just eliminated which means decent jobs, decent work opportunities, reasonable life for families and communities. First of all this has led to (a) tremendous economic crisis, that we’re right in the middle of and also real anger, populist anger which is very understandable. While the population is suffering, not suffering by third world standards but suffering relative to what ought to happen in a rich country, the financial industries are just booming. Profits are bigger than ever after a huge public bailout, they’re giving away huge bonuses to their executives and that of course that creates a justified anger and it could be very dangerous.

SPUNOUT.IE: There’s a similar anger in Ireland I would say and I’m just curious as to, when you look at that anger and the situation in the U.S. and the situation in Ireland, and reference that to the experience in Latin America what do you think that ordinary people in both our countries can learn from those experiences and how can we organise and think differently?

NOAM CHOMSKY: It’s strange to say but I think we can learn a lot from the poorest and most repressed population in the hemisphere, namely the indigenous population of the poorest country in South America, Bolivia. They took their fate into their own hands and have succeeded. We’re not Bolivia obviously but similar things can be done here. So take for example the manufacturing industry.

A functioning manufacturing industry is going to be the basis for any successful, advanced society. People think of manufacturing as kind of old fashioned & not high tech. That’s not true. Manufacturing is a very high tech industry in fact. But it does offer employment, it develops wealth, it creates the basis for communities to survive and flourish. Does it have to be displaced abroad in the interest of bankers? No, that’s not a law of nature. That’s a special form of neo-liberal capitalism. And it would be possible, certainly, for say, working people in Michigan, in the mid-west to take over those industries, run them themselves, run them profitably and produce what is needed. In fact, what you observe in the United States today is almost surreal. I mean the country’s infrastructure is terrible. Just compare U.S. railroads to European continental railroads.

One thing that is very seriously needed, because of the energy crisis, the climate crisis, the infrastructure crisis is high-speed transit. Now, Obama’s transportation secretary is in Europe trying to use federal stimulus money for contracts with Spanish companies to produce high-speed rail technology and equipment for the United States. That’s outlandish. At the same time they’re dismantling the industrial capacity at home which could very well produce it. Well, you know, it’s not necessary to sit and watch that happen any more than it was necessary for Bolivian peasants to watch the World Bank privatise water so that some economists could be happy and Bechtel Company could make plenty of money but they wouldn’t have water to drink. They kicked the company out and took the system over themselves and that could be done here.

SPUNOUT.IE: What is your key message to people in terms of how they can solve these problems and take things back into their own hands?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well in this particular case, workers and communities can take over the industrial facilities that are being dismantled and just run them themselves. They’ll need popular support for that and maybe federal support too but that probably wouldn’t even be a fraction of what’s being given away to big bankers. Those are all feasible tasks and if the populist anger goes in that direction and in many similar things elsewhere, it could be meaningful. On the other hand, if it turns into a right-wing rage; a Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh style rage it could be extremely dangerous. It’s the task of serious organisers and activists to try to help direct these understandable currents into constructive directions rather than those that might have very ominous consequences. And I presume similar things can be said about Ireland with different circumstances. The same is true in many other things. Take, say, healthcare. The main issue that congress has been struggling with in recent months is a healthcare bill.

The U.S. healthcare system is a complete scandal. It has about twice the per-capita costs of other industrial societies. It has some of the worst outcomes. 50 million people have no insurance at all. It is also the only healthcare system in the industrial world that’s based on, essentially unregulated private insurance companies and a powerful drug industry. This is the only country in the world that I know of where the government is barred by law from negotiating drug prices with the big pharmaceutical industries. Well, you know, when you have an unregulated insurance system, a huge pharmaceutical industry that is free to do what it wants and of course benefits from enormous government support in research & development, in monopoly pricing rights and so on, it’s not a not a free-market system. As long as you have that you’re going to have an extremely expensive, wasteful and inefficient healthcare system. Now the public has views on this.

For years, decades, the public has been in favour of some sort of a national healthcare system. Well that’s not even on the agenda. Private financial institutions and the pharmaceutical industry won’t permit it. They basically own Congress and the White House so they get their way. Now there was an attempt in the current bills to deal with the public concern by allowing what was called a public option, that is, among the options that would be available for healthcare there would be a public one. Sort of like Medicare, the program for the elderly. And there was also an option to allow ‘buy-in’ to Medicare. So instead of (having the option) at 65, you could buy in at 55.

The public was and still is pretty strongly in favour of these choices. If you look at the polls it’s kind of like 2:1. They are not going to be enacted because of the power of the insurance companies and the financial institutions. Are the private insurance companies going to be regulated? Well the latest poll just came out about two days ago, and by a large margin, people think something should be done about it and are in favour of regulation. It’s not going to happen. In fact what you read in the press says that the public are opposed to the healthcare reform.

That’s true, because they want it to go farther, not because they don’t want to have it. But the power of private capital is so extraordinary and Congress and the White House are so subordinate to it that we are going to end up with, at best, some minor improvement over a system that is so fiscally out of control that it’s going to practically destroy the budget. Well, those are signs of serious failures of democracy and of organising and of activism. That has to be dealt with. You see that everywhere. Take say global warming. If nothing is done about that, nothing serious, it’s going to be, maybe not a death knell for the species, but it’s going to lead to a catastrophe sooner or later.

The energy industries in the United States are strongly opposed to doing anything about it because it will cut into their short term profits and they have launched a huge propaganda campaign, which the media are fairly receptive to, to try to convince the public that it’s not a significant issue. And that has been successful. In the past year, if you look at polls, the proportion of people who think that global warming is a serious problem has dropped sharply. In fact it has dropped to the point where barely a third of the population thinks that human activity has an effect on global warming. Well that’s a great victory for the energy corporations. It’s a huge defeat for our grandchildren who are going to live with the consequences of this and here’s a task where organisers and activists have their work cut out for them on an issue that’s basically one of species survival.

SPUNOUT.IE: Can they do it?

NOAM CHOMSKY: We don’t know but it’s not going to happen by itself. And there are many other issues.

_______________________________________________________________

About SpunOut.ie >>>>

SpunOut.ie is an independent youth powered national charity empowering young people to create personal and social change. SpunOut.ie combines an interactive online community providing health and lifestyle information, signposting to help services, an alternative youth media space, dynamic discussion forums, and a platform for youth engagement, participation and advocacy. SpunOut.ie reaches nearly half a million users online each year, millions more through the media and has won numerous awards including a Golden Spider Award for 'Best Charity Website' in Ireland.

Related Link: http://www.spunout.ie/action/Be-inspired/SpunOut.ie-chats-with-Noam-Chomsky

Caption: Video Id: fy69-u4rcHU Type: Youtube Video
Noam Chomsky interview part 1


Caption: Video Id: 4vGc0xdZsf4 Type: Youtube Video
Noam Chomsky interview part 2


Caption: Video Id: K_Gym829MIM Type: Youtube Video
Noam Chomsky interview part 3


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