Kereru [he/him]

  • 17 Posts
  • 247 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: July 29th, 2020

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  • I've seen this comment a few times now and I'm pretty conflicted, especially as I'm the white coloniser and can't speak for Māori.

    I think it's important to point out that Māori have worked incredibly hard to reclaim and preserve their language, culture and this particular Haka seems to have resonated with a lot of Māori. It's not a land acknowledgement from a blackrock CEO, or the Democrats kneeling for George Floyd.

    But.. The cynic in me says: It is performative. As are all parliamentary speeches and rituals. As is the bill itself which is right-wing virtue signalling. The lib in me: It has brought a lot of attention to the bill, and made it clear to "well meaning anglos" that it's fucked up. The materialist in me: The treaty barely impacts capital's ability to make profit, so overturning it seems quite far down the list (for now) for the local borg.







  • Kereru [he/him]tothe_dunk_tank*Permanently Deleted*
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    4 months ago

    If businesses could pay women less to do the same job they would preferentially hire women and the pay gap would disappear.

    Yes I think perfectly rational actors is a valid assumption to base my whole field of study on why do you ask?





  • Kereru [he/him]totechnologyPop Culture (AI discussion)
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    6 months ago

    That certainly seems like the idea most techbros have, turn white-collar workers into quality checkers rather than producers. The thing is I'm not sure the output of a lot of white collar jobs can be treated the same as manufacturing output.

    If you replace half your labour in manufacturing a TV, the value of a TV drops and with competition between firms prices & profits tend to drop too. But you can slow down this profit loss due to competition with anti-competitive behaviour: patents, cartels etc.

    If you replace your graphic designers with AI, the value of graphic design drops but what you were really trying to "produce" with your fancy branding and packaging was a sense of perceived quality (value). Now that this is lower, consumers adjust their perceptions quickly and you have to demonstrate your product quality by spending money on things AI can't replicate yet e.g. in-person experiences, or even just video promotion (in the short term at least).


  • Kereru [he/him]totechnologyPop Culture (AI discussion)
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    edit-2
    6 months ago

    I quite like Ed's writing for a cathartic rant against the stupidity of AI.

    Has anyone got any reading recommendations on the LLM insanity from a marxist perspective though? Assuming AI can replace labour in some industries, it immediately comes up against the LTV, with the value of the output immediately going to almost zero. Companies therefore have to maintain monopolistic false scarcity, which of course tech companies are already trying to do, but it seems to have wider implications for the economy - technofeudalism I guess.




  • Sorry to hear that meow-hug

    So far in my tech bubble I haven't seen lay-offs explicitly due to AI, but there's been increasing usage of it to produce more content. So it's reducing the demand for contract writers and producers.

    Tech does seem cooked at the moment, but I assume that's mostly due to no more free money.

    I really wish Graeber was still here, I need the Bullshit Jobs vs AI synthesis.