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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Why Did Democrats Campaign for Trump?

BitterEpic writes: This isn’t a conspiracy theory—it’s been covered by outlets like NPR, Newsweek, and USA Today: Democratic organizations actually spent money to promote Trump-aligned Republicans in GOP primaries. Why? The idea was to elevate “unelectable” opponents who’d be easier to beat in general elections. Sounds clever—unless the plan backfires. And with Trump winning in 2016 and still holding serious political sway, it’s worth asking: Did Democrats help create the very threat they claim to fear?

If Democrats truly believe Trump is an existential threat to democracy, why play with fire? Promoting candidates they think are too extreme to win assumes voters will always choose “correctly.” That’s not only arrogant—it’s dangerous. If he wins again, that strategy looks more like sabotage than strategy. Let’s also be honest: a lot of people who voted for Trump probably didn’t even like him. They just saw a bad system and chose the person they thought might shake it up. If Democrats helped make him the only viable alternative, that’s not just a Republican problem. It’s an American one.

I'm a big fan of ranked-choice voting. It gives people more options and weakens the two-party death grip that lets tactics like this work in the first place. If voters weren’t so locked into “lesser of two evils” thinking, parties wouldn’t be able to rig the system this way.

Serious question for Slashdotters: If you donated to the DNC or supported these tactics, do you think it was worth it? Do you think boosting Trump-aligned candidates was a responsible strategy? There are a lot of political comments here and I'm genuinely curious.

Comment Re:Standard hype strategy (Score 1) 135

This isn't boolean however. It's not like the only two options are "perfect at complete software" AI versus useless AI. The most likely outcome given LLMs' historic trajectory is that they gradually become better at getting closer to perfect over time, where the number of human engineers required to make complete solutions approaches zero the more time passes. What is the basis for the argument that the gains LLMs have made will not continue to push toward that end? I know the post here is particularly focused on the end destination, but that seems less important than the fact that it's rapidly and consistently moving toward complete solutions with less input from human engineers. Yes, there's a lot of hype around AI, but this matter seems to be less about hype so much as it is simple extrapolation.

Comment This only proves the guy used false pretenses... (Score 3, Insightful) 71

...and they're certainly foreign. This doesn't prove they're actually North Korean, nor a spy. There's all sorts of fake job cartels, and individual actors, extracting money out of larger companies through salary. They're often based out of India, China, South America, etc. This doesn't have to be a Clancy novel.

Comment Treat AI with respect... (Score 1) 103

...not because the robot revolution is inevitable, machines have long memories, and you could be against the wall. Though that certainly would be a practical concern.

Treat anything that has an interaction loop with you with respect (if properly reciprocated of course), because you are a part of the feedback loop. Pets. Internet strangers. Roombas. ChatGPT. Any suffiiciently anthropomorphized inanimate object even. Whatever.

Garbage in, garbage out, and it's cyclical.

Being a shitbag for no good reason is not only hurting others, but it is also punishing yourself.

Comment Re:Saving cinema? Look who's talking (Score 1) 68

It's an easily parroted catchphrase, but is there any actual support for the assertion of "go woke, go broke" in bottom line results? Pretty much ever instance I've seen right wing boycotts are blips, and shafting progressives leaves a company on the shit list for much longer, if not forever. Interested in actual data, not anecdotes. Every analysis I've come across in the past says, on a long-term time scale, progressivism on the part of a company is usually beneficial and at the worst neutral... and if harm is done it's usually botched PR blowback rather than the original "woke" itself. I'm willing to consider being wrong here, but I don't think I am.

Comment Re:It's not a production value problem (Score 1) 68

Clever avoidance of directly using right-wing catchphrase of "go woke, go broke" by just focusing on your opinion of quality and not on the market results. Disney is the most "woke" and they're making money hand over fist and likely will continue to in relation to peers... In fiscal year 2024, they reported a 21% increase in total segment operating income and a 32% rise in adjusted earnings per share (EPS) compared to the previous year... and the company overall raised its annual dividend by 33%. How the world actually receives entertainment properties that are not made by a bunch of old white dudes is pretty enthusiastic in the place where it counts, the bottom line.

Comment Reality has a bias... (Score 1, Insightful) 396

In the context of ideological divides, empirically verifiable claims tend to challenge right-wing orthodoxy more than left-wing. This is consistently demonstrable across domains. In order words, reality has a left-wing bias, when viewed in comparison to media and political statements. As such, "correcting" this is intentionally creating a right-wing bias.

Comment So strange (Score -1) 56

I used to be such a huge Google fan. My businesses spent tens of thousands a month on Google.

But now, I think I spend $19.99 a month on Google. Maybe. I need to cut that off.

I don't use gmail anymore. I haven't used google search in forever. I am using Chrome right now but need to replace it.

Who uses Google anymore? For anything?

Comment Re:A question for AI crazy management. (Score 1) 121

This matches how I use it. I’ll add a few other points:

4. Writing the first core version of a service or UI. I’ll typically use close to 100% of those generated lines, and then continue building with LLM assistance where it makes sense. It makes a big difference to development velocity.
5. Finding bugs. If some bug isn’t obvious to me, provide the code to an LLM and describe the problem. Its success rate is high.
6. Working with tech I’m not particularly familiar with (an extension of your #3, i.e. learning)
7. Writing documentation.
8. Reverse engineering existing code, i.e. describe some code to me so I don’t have to dig through it in detail.
9. Writing unit tests.

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