[–] 5 points 1 day ago (1 child)

You're right that only a minority of inmates are held in private facilities:

In fact, less than 9% of all incarcerated people are held in private prisons; the vast majority are in publicly-owned prisons and jails. Some states have more people in private prisons than others, of course, and the industry has lobbied to maintain high levels of incarceration, but private prisons are essentially a parasite on the massive publicly-owned system — not the root of it. Nevertheless, a range of private industries and even some public agencies continue to profit from mass incarceration. Many city and county jails rent space to other agencies, including state prison systems, the U.S. Marshals Service, and ICE. Private companies are frequently granted contracts to operate prison food and health services (often so bad they result in major lawsuits), and prison and jail telecom and commissary functions have spawned multi-billion dollar private industries. By privatizing services like phone calls, medical care, and commissary, prisons and jails are offloading the costs of incarceration onto incarcerated people and their families, trimming their budgets at an unconscionable social cost.

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However, this does nothing to make the fact that private individuals profit from the incarceration of people any better. This practice could hardly be more unethical or counterproductive, as it creates a financial incentive to incarcerate as many people as possible—and it is obvious that this runs counter to the social purpose of prisons.

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    Artist: Juan Gris

    Year: 1917

    Medium: Oil on panel

    Like many European artists before them, Cubists often depicted Harlequin, a stock character in the Italian commedia dell’arte, a form of masked theater dating back to the sixteenth century. Easily recognized in his checkered costume, Harlequin is a trickster with a tendency to act on whim and passion. For this reason, several modern artists adopted the character as an alter ego. Gris was particularly fond of the subject; he portrayed Harlequin in approximately forty works made between 1917 and 1925. In this painting, caricature softens the Cubist fracturing of the figure, while bands of light illuminate Harlequin’s costume.

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    [–] 10 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Nor is the fact mentioned that most prisons in the U.S. are run by and as for-profit private companies.

    That is why so many people are incarcerated in the U.S., and unpaid slave labor is part of this multibillion-dollar business.

    It is a business that, for entirely obvious reasons, no other democracy in the world allows in this absurd form—only the U.S., the "Land of the Free."

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  • [–] -4 points 3 days ago

    What I'm getting at is this: People have been using it for a long time now, whether you like it or not. I don't like it, but it's still the reality. Pretending it isn't helps no one—in this case, it's even counterproductive for the reasons I mentioned.

    That's why I called it "Panora's box": This technology is out there—there's no changing that, even if we'd like to.

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  • [–] -5 points 3 days ago (7 children)

    This is a side effect that the billionaires who run the AI models are counting on: that people no longer pay attention to the message itself, but instead waste their time speculating about whether someone used a proper app or image generation.

    You’ll never be able to close Pandora’s box. So....

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    This explains why this promising technology can’t be put to good use, why there can’t be a compensation model similar to YouTube’s, why it’s called artificial intelligence, and all that.

    It’s an ideological issue, and it’s dominated by those who are used to their work being worth an absurd amount of money per hour— it's promoted by the combined power of all those vultures who have never accomplished even the slightest thing in their lives. It’s the wet dream of Wall Street hedge fund managers and CEOs who keep moving on after they’ve ruined yet another company.

    That’s why it’s so incredibly fitting that the U.S. regime is betting so heavily on LLMs—they’re the prime example of the very actors preventing humanity from benefiting from this technological achievement. They epitomize what happens when egregious incompetence, criminal energy, and utter unscrupulousness are given opportunities and power that they should never have.

     

    Gepostet von Martin Sonneborn mit folgender Beschreibung:

    Dieser Auszug aus der Rede von Navid Kermani beim feierlichen Rekrutengelöbnis im Bendlerblock lohnt sich nicht nur wegen des dummen Gesichts, das Verteidigungsminister Pistolius dabei macht... Smiley!

    "Zu sagen, was ist, bleibt die revolutionärste Tat." R.L.

    Zusammenfassung:

    Kermani kritisiert die Unterstützung der Bundesregierung, insbesondere des Bundeskanzlers, für den völkerrechtswidrigen Krieg der US und Israels gegen den Iran.

    Er verweist auf den Wert des internationalen Rechts für die Aufrechterhaltung eines ordnungsbasierten, friedlichen Zusammenlebens und fordert die Rekruten, zu denen er bei diesem Anlass spricht, dazu auf, einen möglichen Befehl zur Teilnahme an einem völkerrechtswidrigen Krieg zu verweigern.

    Kermani begründet dies, indem er die Verantwortung betont, die insbesondere Deutschland für die Verteidigung des internationalen Rechts schon aufgrund seiner historischen Verantwortung trägt.

    Subjektive Einordnung:

    Meine Ermessens sind es dieser Tage leider viel zu selten gehörte, offene Worte, die deutlich machen, wie absurd das Verhalten der Bundesregierung ist, und wie konträr deren Duckmäusertum gegenüber den US jenen Werten entgegensteht, für die Deutschland auf internationaler Ebene einstehen sollte, zu deren Bewahrung und Verteidigung wir sogar verpflichtet sind.

    Es ist ein unaufgeregtes, gut begründetes Plädoyer gegen eine Beteiligung an illegalen Kriegen, Kriegsverbrechen und Völkermord.

     

    Am 2. Juli haben die Spitzen von CDU, CSU und SPD beschlossen, das Informationsfreiheitsgesetz (IFG) faktisch abzuschaffen – ein Frontalangriff auf unsere Informationsfreiheit und Demokratie. Dabei versprach die Bundesregierung im Koalitionsvertrag noch das Gegenteil: eine Reform des IFG „mit einem Mehrwert für Bürgerinnen und Bürger". Diesen Angriff müssen wir stoppen. (...)

    Link zur Petition

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