"Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic."
This is authoritarian behavior. You're having trouble negotiating a contract, so instead of just canceling it - you basically ban all of F500 from doing business with that firm.
The US is currently an autocracy/idiocracy. A staggeringly corrupt, busted nation.
Soon enough the midterms will be effectively cancelled.
Americans remain blissfully unaware.
> The US is currently an autocracy/idiocracy. A staggeringly corrupt, busted nation.
We are in a bad place right now, that is for certain.
> Soon enough the midterms will be effectively cancelled.
That would be a pretty big leap from where we are. I think it is important to pay attention, and very important to vote, but there is not a particularly plausible route to cancelling any elections. But they can certainly make enough noise that a lot of people may become confused or scared to vote. So we need to remain laser focused on getting everybody to the polls. Like, this should be priority #1 for every citizen who wants to see democracy continue.
They won't outright cancel the elections but they will do things like send ICE to contested districts to harass law-abiding voters; pressure states to remove people from voter rolls and make it difficult if not impossible for them to re-register in time to be able to vote; and otherwise just scream fraud and cheating and stolen when they lose the House.
Exactly this.
Belarus has elections, technically. Are they legitimate and free from coercion? Not really…
It is a really big stretch to compare the US voting system with Belarus.
Well, orders for both come from the same place
The midterms are not going to go according to anything like historical precedent. If allowed to function normally, Trump loses, and the whole stack of cards collapses. They know that, and will do literally anything and everything to prevent it. If allowed to get away with it, the US is never coming back.
Civil unrest very likely in November.
I don't normally think people would accuse me of being an optimist, but I feel like Trump's influence has lower limits than many people think, and the opposition seems pretty strong. If there are any serious attempts at shenanigans during the midterm elections I think you are right that there would be widespread civil unrest. There are plenty of people willing to fight, especially when the stakes are as high as an actual election.
I think it is actually plausible that in the end, nothing too interesting happens and the elections go off as normal. Trump is a lame duck already, will not be on any future ballots, and I'm certain that GOP politicians know how badly they do on ballots that do not include his name. By the time November rolls around they will be in full CYA mode trying to ensure their own reelection and strategizing on how to mitigate the expected damage in 2028. At the rate Trump is going, we could see a super majority Dem Congress in 2028 and that would be a catastrophe for the GOP. I think they're going to start reining him in. His primary threats for 2028 will not be that convincing.
No, it's pretty obvious what these ******s are about to pull. "We'Re NeVeR gOiNg BaCk" --Trump
This certainly isn't going to attract foreign investment. Business isn't big on governments that capriciously threaten to seize control of or financially harm them.
[flagged]
The word you are searching for is not authoritarian, but liberty.
Is Anthropic required to sell to the government even if doesn't want to, and is willing to give up its government contracts rather than change its terms of use?
Anthropic is free to not sell to the government.
Yes, in the same way a rape victim is "free" to not be raped if they instead opt to get shot by the rapist holding a gun to their head.
Does nobody understand simple words like "free" or "voluntary" anymore? Is coersion no longer a concept that the human brain is able to understand? Or, are some people collectively choosing to act so unbelievably stupid they're falling below the intelligence of an average second grader?
Just because the US government is extremely lucrative to work with, that doesn't mean that you are forced to work with them.
That's not the situation and you know it. Why are you playing stupid? The negotiation isn't work with us or don't - you know what supply chain risk means.
That is apparently false given this situation
So what I'm hearing is, having trampled every other amendment in the Bill of Rights, the Trump administration is now turning its sights to the Third.
>No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
We are not talking about soldiers living in Anthropic's offices. We are talking about an office employee being able to generate a PowerPoint about autonomous weapon systems.
Addressed elsewhere in the thread. I could easily envision a Supreme Court decision based on reasoning such as, "Clearly the intent of the framers was that American citizens should not be forced to provide goods or services to the military against their will."
Dumber stretches of logic have certainly emerged from SCOTUS. If Wickard v. Filburn makes sense to them, so could this.
Maybe not from the present bench, but perhaps from a hypothetically less-partisan one.
[flagged]
To be clear, the sovereign is generally considered to be vested in Congress as representatives of the true sovereign, the people.
That’s not true at all. The people selected an executive.
Sorry, do you think Congress just like appears? Remember that the people do NOT select the executive, the electoral college does. And the electoral college is in turn selected by states.
What does being sovereign have to do with anything in this case?
The sovereign is the ultimate authority. In the USA “we the people” delegate the sovereign power to our elected officials.
They are now exercising that power in the interest of the people (they believe) that grant that power.
You don't actually believe in the core tenets of the USA if you think that the government should have or should exercise unchecked, abusive power.
The power should be checked by the people and the government we have established. It shouldn't have its power checked by private corporations.
The government wants to use AI to decide who to kill. Fuck that.
1. The restriction applies to even writing documentation, adding comments, scanning for bugs, or even scanning for security vulnerabilities in systems for fully autonomous weapons. As automated vulnerability discovery gets stronger and stronger it is critical that have the ability to have a strong defense.
2. It is a principled take on that private companies shouldn't be making the decisions what their tools can and can't be used for in such an important sector.
Corporations are people my friend.
A small group of people who may hold views that conflict with the citizens of a country.
You're not American so it might be hard to wrap your head around, but here the "sovereign" leadership is not the ultimate authority.
Ever heard of the Constitution?
What part of the constitution is being violated here? Genuine question.
5A taking without compensation, for one thing. The government can't unilaterally change the terms of a contract to seize more value for itself, at least not without following processes that don't play out on Twitter.
You could even make a Third Amendment case if you stretched the logic far enough. Does "you can't be forced to quarter soldiers" extend to being forced to provide other forms of support?
That’s a stretch. They’re saying that they are cancelling their contract and anyone that you can’t do business with both parties.
California literally does this all the time.
California literally does this all the time.
Does what? Place companies on a list of businesses that no supplier to the state government of California is allowed to do business with? I'm unfamiliar with such a list but I suppose anything is possible these days.