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nostrademonstoday at 4:47 AM5 repliesview on HN

Overton window fragmented such that it is currently non-overlapping. Some fragments consider the behaviors that Snowden reported on abhorrent; others consider them fine; still others think it's a moot point because they are powerless and can't do anything about it anyway; and others think it's a moot point because they're going to overthrow the government and remake it in their image anyway.

We're in the phase where the factions are geographically sorting, identifying allies, and arming. Then we fight it out. Each faction thinks their particular Overton window will win and become dominant afterwards, but likely we'll just end up back in the Stone Age and there won't be much of a society left to have a mainstream.


Replies

pjc50today at 9:24 AM

You can see this in the framing over ICE, and before that the response to BLM: a lot of Americans want an unaccountable paramilitary police force.

You're not going to get serious opposition to mass surveillance until you kill the desire of curtain twitchers to report their neighbors to the Gestapo. People will even install their own mass surveillance cameras linked to the police! (Ring etc)

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ricksunnytoday at 6:14 AM

>We're in the phase where the factions are geographically sorting, identifying allies, and arming.

In this framing what are the factions? What does geographically sorting mean - are the factions moving themselves from place to place?

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djhntoday at 4:56 AM

Your comment started out well within the Overton window, but in the second paragraph it jumped out.

Can we call that Overton window defenestration?

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seertoday at 7:21 AM

Why do we need to go to the Stone Age, maybe we go to Pre-cold war diversity of said windows? Or to Cold War stalemate with just a lot more actors?

I think the cheapening of labour that AI is doing globally will be much more impactful on culture, economy and life in general.

Our whole world order was _built_ on the Black Death making labour expensive which lead to the Industrial Revolution (among other factors, but this was an important one).

If we get to cheap labour - then we go to where South Asia is today - low education (why invest when you have ai?) big stratification of society, populist politics, etc.

India is portraying to its people how it’s racing to overtake the west and China … I think the other way around is more likely, with AI you get everyone closer to India’s case.

Prepare for ultra-ultra-ultra rich - like you have in India - honestly the gap between the wealthy and the poor there is astronomically higher than anything you’ve seen in the west.

Silver lining is though - societies like this end up “high Kinship” and more “stable” - maybe even lower large scale conflict?

flirtoday at 8:59 AM

That's still a single window. Otherwise what are the radical, unthinkable positions between abhorrent, fine and moot?

(TL;DR: It's just a metaphor).