Since the Russian invasion in 2022, some of Ukraine’s local leaders and networks of their allies worldwide have discussed rebuilding in what would amount to two phases. First, everyday citizens would use democratic processes — from online tools to deliberative bodies like citizens’ assemblies — to make plans for their own localities. Second, reconstruction money would go directly to local governments, rather than via national governments and international aid groups, to enact those plans.

In a few months, I expect to see headlines about how this all collapses after CIA agents definitely local citizens sabotage their economy stage a successful campaign to liberate them from the evils of communism.

I applaud the commitment to the bit.

I think the purpose of a parachute is so that it can be used in an emergency, yes.

If, like me, you were curious about what “disaster” is referring to, it’s basically this:

The flight attendants are told to prioritize guard orders over prisoner safety (aka keep them in chains). And they have no evacuation protocols. If the plane crashes or people need to parachute out, the prisoners will be left for dead.

Clickbait. They basically say replacing contractors with AI is business as usual for Duolingo and that the real crisis is DOGE.

Here’s the article:

Duolingo announced plans this week to replace contractors with AI and become an “AI-first” company — a move that journalist Brian Merchant pointed to as a sign that the AI jobs crisis “is here, now.”

In fact, Merchant spoke to a former Duolingo contractor who said this isn’t even a new policy. The company cut around 10% of its contractor workforce at the end of 2023, and Merchant said there was another round of cuts in October 2024. In both cases, contractors (first translators, then writers) were replaced with AI.

Merchant also noted reporting in The Atlantic around the unusually high unemployment rate for recent college graduates. One explanation? Companies might be replacing entry-level white collar jobs with AI, or their spending on AI might simply be “crowding out” the spending for new hires.

This crisis, Merchant wrote, is really “a series of management decisions being made by executives seeking to cut labor costs and consolidate control in their organizations,” and it’s manifesting as “attrition in creative industries, the declining income of freelance artists, writers, and illustrators, and in corporations’ inclination to simply hire fewer human workers.”

“The AI jobs crisis is not any sort of SkyNet-esque robot jobs apocalypse — it’s DOGE firing tens of thousands of federal employees while waving the banner of ‘an AI-first strategy,’” he added.

There’s a DreamWorks logo in the bottom left.

I see a lot of well-meaning support for this. I can’t help but think there has to be a way to implement these kinds of controls without taking power away from the user.

Like the Fediverse implementing better mod tools rather than expecting Twitter to effectively moderate the internet.

What movie is this from?

In our world.

I would consider Wheel of Time as an example of fantasy with reskinned real world cultures.

Andor is essentially a landlocked version of England, having a “Lion Throne” and ruled by a queen. Cairhien and Mayene bear similarities to France (Cairhien has the Sun Throne; Mayener names are reminiscent of French). Arad Doman resembles Arabic countries and Iran. (source: TV Tropes)

It’s well-written, but by nature of being fantasy, it sidesteps the challenge of writing meaningful interactions between real world communities.

If I were to check him out, what book should I start with?

Well that’s a rude thing to say to your… girlfriend?

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness. (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)

Culturally sensitive depiction of… what exactly? Knowing nothing, I see a person with a laser sword and a gargoyle.

Fair enough. I get overwhelmed by all the ethical questions that come with being in the real world.

My partner outsourced most of that mental work and focused on trying to be a good person from moment to moment. I think she would’ve broadly agreed with you from a karma standpoint.

It looks you’re coming at this in bad faith, so I’ll ignore you.

For anyone else reading, the CIA version basically revises “brutal dictator” to “brutal ‘captain of a team’.”

As long as they punch down and kiss up to the right people, assholes can usually reduce “tit for tat” to “tit for slap-on-the-wrist”.

I agree you that they are more likely than not to produce a suboptimal future.

I just disagree with the premise that “winning less” is the same as tit for tat.

Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think tit for tat was written from the perspective of nation vs nation decision-making.

It assumes you have roughly equivalent power, i.e. person vs person or business vs business.

I don’t think it applies in person vs boss, or mom 'n pop shop vs international conglomerate.

OP’s saying that neoliberals and the CIA were/are contradicting each other, not that Stalin was a good guy.