I think it should be noted that the current government, which did this silly thing, belongs to a party that is pretty much advertising on wanting to be a smaller government that gets involved less. That is a large part of why people vote for them.

Reductionist "if only the government didn't get involved" doesn't work unless you presume no government is beneficial (it is not since you just recreate all the bad parts of government anyway)

You can be critical of the policy of export controls and the meaning of them in modern day but saying it is a problem with the government in general is nonsensical.

I’m pretty certain that most of my issues are with a specific kind of government, not with government in general.

Government is fine if it’s done by people that aren’t in it only for themselves. Actually it is often still fine if it’s done by people only in it for themselves. It’s just that the people in it right now will burn the world down to enrich themselves.

This government is corrupt to the core, with individuals in it wanting a piece of the pie for themselves. Anthropic wouldn't share, hence the reprecussions.

It is an extreme edge case and the argument for a sane government oversight is still perfectly valid. No oversight makes corporations dump waste into the water supply and market asbestos-lined cigarettes. It's naive to think that no oversight is needed.

I agree. This situation was created in the first place because both parties and their constituents have been OK giving the executive branch more and more power as long as it benefits “their team”.

But in democracy you do get to say which government you want.

I agree with the point, but I think it's fair to acknowledge that the current US government is not a "normal" one in any sense.

It’s actually ok to be more critical of a government that’s capricious than one that merely advances polices one disagrees with

Of course the tired follow-up: “But if the government was functioning properly it would only do the things I want”.

> I'm sorry, but when you cry out for government involvement, it's not always going to be coming from the government you personally wanted.

I've pointed this out so many times when enforced DEI and cancellation culture was rife, and was asked, basically, why I wanted to be a nazi :-/

Each government just adds shit on the previous, with small optics differences, anyway.

Like, in the US, Trump might do the ICE show for his voters, but Obama's deportated 3 million just fine in his time.

If no government ever got involved we would all be slaves to a family of inbred kings.

> I'm sorry, but when you cry out for government involvement, it's not always going to be coming from the government you personally wanted. This is the whole problem with government involvement!

That is not the problem with government involvement, it is the problem with bad governments.

Nonsense. That's like saying that the concept of government in general is bad because a particular government might be bad.

It's perfectly reasonable to want government involvement that for sane governments is OK, even when you don't like that government. The current US government is a completely insane outlier. You cannot expect everything to adjust for the most insane outlier.

American hostility to the whole concept of government has led you to Trump’s brand of gangster capitalism (which will lead you to fascism if you let it).

Government intervention is good and useful and keeps a markets free and society fair, preventing things like monopolies, robber barons and insider trading.

When those constraints are removed, when government becomes the source of corruption, we end up wheee the US has arrived today - where companies that bribe government officials get preferred treatment and the law is used selectively as a weapon.

This is a very dangerous moment for the US.

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When you get big enough, the govt is always going to want to get involved.

We've seen how social media sites have always been in contention with govs regarding free speech even tho theyre fundamentally a way for other people to socialize with one another