The evidence on AI’s effect on those who use it has been coming in, and it’s not good. While it doesn’t effect everyone, it seems to effect most people, and the worst affected, it seems, are the young. Olds have the advantage of growing up in world where they had to learn how to do things themselves. To be sure, phones and social media seem to have had a negative effect on attention span and learning ability, but AI is yet another assault, and it hits the young hardest.
This excerpt comes from a larger piece from a university professor on the inability of his students to read. The whole thing is worth reading, and the decline is truly precipitous: fundamentally most of them can’t read an entire book, and struggle even with long articles, and they can’t pull out the arguments made. The bit on AI follows:
Another reason for the decline in student reading capability is increasing reliance on generative AI. In June 2025, Nataliya Kosmyna and colleagues at the MIT Media Lab released a preprint titled “Your Brain on ChatGPT.” They divided 54 participants into three groups writing SAT-style essays — one using ChatGPT, the second group using a search engine, the last group using nothing — and monitored brain activity with a 32-channel EEG. The ChatGPT group showed the lowest neural connectivity of the three, with up to 55 percent reduced connectivity compared with the brain-only group, and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” Eighty-three percent of LLM users could not quote a single line from essays they had written minutes earlier. When the LLM group was forced to write without AI in a follow-up session, their brain activity did not bounce back to baseline; the researchers coined the term “cognitive debt” for the lingering deficit.
The fundamental strategy of a lot of tech startups has been to degrade pre-existing infrastructure by under-pricing, for years if necessary, until the old methods are so diminished that they can start charging monopoly pricing. Uber is the classic example: Ubers were far cheaper than taxis for about a decade. Now they’re often more expensive, if the taxis exist at all. Certainly where I live in Toronto, the Taxis did somewhat survive, and cost less.
But overall the strategy was a success, taxi companies were devastated and Uber’s doing great now. All it took was years of losses and predatory pricing: their model wasn’t superior, their product wasn’t superior except having a good app, but they had far more access to patient money, willing to take losses for years to get to the oligopoly pricing end-state.
Neither Anthropic nor Open AI are remotely profitable. Every single query costs more to run than is charged, even to paying clients. A recent increase in prices, still far below running costs, has hit users with massive bills. There’s no evidence AI is better than humans at most tasks, and the real cost (and sometimes, even subsidized, the current subsidized price) is higher than just having employees. AI is often faster, but it makes mistakes humans don’t, and needs to be checked.
But if you make your employees use it they’re going to be degraded and lose the ability to do their jobs well. The more you do something, the more your body and brain optimize for it. The less you do it, the worse you get.
AI’s strategy for replacing workers is threefold: first, sell executives on getting rid of pesky workers for AI, because it’s supposedly easier to manage.
Second: Subsidize while companies lay off the workers and replace them with AI. Once the workers are gone, jack up prices; and,
Third: by encouraging companies to force workers to use AI and to replace workers with AI in some cases, make the workers less capable: stupider. Over time as more and more people become dependent on AI to think and work for them, they will lose the ability to do the work themselves. AI may be shitty, but it will be better than the dullards AI makes its users into.
It’s an ingenious strategy, really. Make people stupid, and replace them with a product which costs more and is inferior to them for most tasks before they were made stupid.
The longer term issue will be that AI isn’t creative: it uses the embodied creativity of past humans, in terms of their writing and their discoveries to simulate intelligence. But as humans produce less and less new creative work, AI will be reduced to eating its own results, and indications are that leads to model collapse: AI’s are dependent on human, and by making humans redundant and stupid they will themselves become stupider and less effective over time.
We live in a time where we can’t look ahead, ever, at technology and make even the smallest effort to control the end results, it seem. At least in the West. Or, rather, we refuse to deal with obvious negative issues if doing so means a few people won’t be able to get as filthy rich.
Dumb.
And soon we’ll be even dumber.
What I write here is for the benefit of everyone, but alas, I live in capitalism and I, and the site, take money to keep running. If you value the writing here and can, please subscribe or donate.
Tzimisce
Numerous polls show Gen Z (and I would presume gen Alpha) are fiercely opposed to AI and have actually used AI.
I don’t think it’s just the existential threat to the labor market and their future, I think that you can tangibly feel yourself atrophying by using AI. Social media and its effects on the brain are much more subtle, at least initially, but this is the first time in my mind where the downsides were immediate and obvious to the user.
spud
i most likely will not be around to see the final outcome of the road we went down starting in 1993. but i am not surprised that this will be the outcome.
the charter school, evangelical schools unleashed by bill clinton, started to reap results almost immediately.
when your young and you lose months, or a year or more in some nonsense capitalist/religious extremist school, had your ability to work with your hands taken away by crackpot free trade debacles, by the time your out of your teens years, you lose the ability to be creative, critical, innovative, investigative, etc., skills acquired when you are young. its like lead in drinking water or paint. the inevitable outcome is drones.
creating nothing more than S.S. storm troopers and cops. no real critical thinking skills. reduced to nothing more than order takers, a form of retardation.
american troops are beginning to face off against well educated and treated societies, modern well trained and armed military, with capabilities, far beyond the simple slaughter mentality.
and it really shows, just like the ottoman empire in WW I.
i was in my local target the other day. i cannot stand target, but i am locked into the cvs pharmacy:(
they of course have the brilliant capitalist self check out lines, which when i first saw them, i said how dumb can you be, they will be stolen to death, and some idiotic capitalists are slowly beginning to find this out.
the line at the self check out stretched way into the main aisle, and a long line in the main aisle. so long, i had to circle around another way. meanwhile, five manned cash registers were open, no wait lines period.
self checkout was advertised as a speedier way to get on your way. the capitalist is that stupid. so why a line so long, you had to wait ten minutes or more, just to advance, let alone check out, when a manned one will get you on your way pronto?
the real answer is, THEFT, its so easy now. its dawning on the dim witted capitalists, they are increasing humans over seeing the self check out lanes, trying desperately to make their short term debacles work.
i was at a aldi when they set up self checkout, and i heard a a fellow behind me say, good, now i can pay what i want, and steal what i want.
Feral Finster
“Or, rather, we refuse to deal with obvious negative issues if doing so means a few people won’t be able to get as filthy rich.
Dumb.”
Why dumb? The filthy rich get their lucre. To hell with everyone else. As far as they are concerned, that is smart.
Like & Subscribe
I most likely will not be around to see the final outcome of the road we went down starting in 1993.
I put the date at October 12, 1492 versus 1993. It’s a date that lives in infamy (hat tip to FDR and his Nazi tattoo that he didn’t know was a Nazi Tattoo).
Duncan Kinder
Plato, in the Phaedrus, likewise argued that writing degrades the brain.
Ian Welsh
And Plato was in some ways right, though ironically so, since he didn’t follow Socrates and refuse to write anything, rather producing a massive corpus.
All new techs change the brain. Some changes may be positive, some negative. So far it seems like the AI changes are mostly (but not entirely) negative.
Perhaps there will be some way in which they improve us, as was true with writing.
Postman’s Technopoly discusses the Phaedrus’s argument at some length. The entire book is worth reading, if you haven’t already.
david lamy
@spud
The Aldi in my upstate New York city took out every self-check kiosk a few months ago. The end result: I get out more quickly. The cashiers scan at super-human speed and you take your cart and bag your items after paying. I asked if there was less shrinkage and the answer was that yes, a lot less. With self-check they were being robbed blind.
So, I pay just as always, and get out more quickly, and a few more people have a job.
Mark Level
Thanks again to spud for his take on the Clintonite religious and charter schools to undermine public schools, which are EVIL because the teachers have Unions, some professional protection and are not total slaves. Scams like “Teach for America” recruit mostly entirely unqualified people who might not even have a college B.A., know nothing about the subjects they will “teach,” are actually given Scripted Curricula, dumbed down, to simply read aloud in the classes to bored students. Charter Schools underserve Special Education students, either won’t let them in in the first place, or won’t provide the Accomodations that those students need. Which are with few exceptions, not rocket science, I worked in regular classrooms for 20 years before shifting to running Libraries, I could always provide the accomodations, and with few exceptions our Special Education staff were very professional in proactively communicating with us, following through when there were bumps in the road, etc.
The Special Ed credential is among the most valuable & best paid, because the job involves legal training, extensive paperwork, and sometimes dealing with abusive parents who create “disabilities” to make their children’s time in school easier. This kind of relates to Ian’s point about AI; Imagine being those asshole celebrities a decade back who set up fake Sports Scholarships, “Coaches” for their fail-sons and fail-daughters, so they’d get into Elite College Institutions and underperform, just pay others to write their papers, get them the Sheepskin. Then get hired for jobs they’re not in any way remotely qualified for, and either get sniffed out and fired quickly if Admin is at all competent (which they often aren’t) or “Fake It Till They Make It,” rare, it’s at least a strategy.
Back to the Clintons (both). When Bill was the Arkansas governor, they’d already planned out their pandering, racist, homophobic, Right-Wing friendly Kick Down strategy. I’ll admit that Arkansas being a knuckle-dragging hillbilly hellhole, they read their voting base well. The Clintons’ top initiative was Bash Arkansas Teachers and especially those with unions, destroy the unions, Right-To-Work (for Less) is patriotic as we all know. Oh, in between the sleazy Land Deals, and mysterious death of Vince Foster (some years later when they were in the big leagues.)
Your comments on creating only Storm Troopers and cops, destroying critical thinking skills etc. are spot-on as well. But I can report on a silver lining in the cloud of US Imperialism. I worked in a little unincorporated “village” to the South of Oakland, majority Latino but very diverse racially, lots of immigrant families. When I started as a Substitute teacher c. 1989, pretty much all the student body were into sports, hopes for upward mobility economically that weren’t widespread but tended to be focused most on certain demographic groups and were somewhat ignored by others. 30 miles away, Rachel Maddow graduated from Castro Valley High, in an upscale district. (She ended up stupid anyhow, but parlayed her stupidity into a hugely succesfull career as a Shit Lib Whisperer.)
Over the 32 years I taught, I saw due to the growing use of first pagers, then cell-phones and social media etc., students become dumber, many couldn’t read much less write coherently in English. The 12 years I ran libraries, graduating students had to sign out with us and 5 or so other departments, books or lab equipment returned, no fines, etc. Many graduating Seniors would write on their cards with the 6 colored stickers “Libary” (sic!!) Pretty pathetic. My final pedagogy for those students was that Library has 2 r’s. Not that it probably mattered.
The real injustice I saw as education tanked in my District (apart from the really driven students, some in AP or philosophy, or good at science, again a fairly small, select group) was that unlike their parents’ generation, our students could not get good-paying blue-collar jobs, which were all destroyed under the Clintonian (and post-) Deindustrialization, caught up with NorCal later than the Rust Belt Midwest, but still accellerated.
But want to end with one GOOD thing I saw happen. I had to work at least 22 Graduation Ceremonies, in my early years, the 1990s, the Forever Wars were barely starting up, so the Military popular, most students and parents propagandized “America is Great,” being sent abroad to kill brown and yellow and other people for “freedum” was fine with them. They give you a good education when you are in there!! Since maybe you didn’t bother in High School and will be a Late Bloomer??
Earlier graduations I worked it, the Senior class might’ve been 280 or so students, big groups went into the Military, as many as the high-30s up to 45 or 50 some years. Post-9/11, esp. by the end of Bush’s 2nd Term and the Iraq debacle, the #s plunged, eventually before I retired in 2021, the #s were in the single digits.
Ordinary, overworked lower-middle class Americans without a lot of Book Learnin’ are not as unsophisticated when it comes to matters of Life and Death as many people think. People knew they didn’t want their children to be cannon-fodder, or for females, possible rape victims before being cannon-fodder. I taught Sociology (alongside Psychology) for 3 years, and was gladdened that from a sociological perspective people knew the score about their childrens’, or their own future safety.
I was 15 when the Vietnamese drove the American Scum out, and quietly celebrated Vietnam’s liberation. I’d seen friends’ older brothers coming home as alcoholics, junkies, or basket-cases, knew I’d never be a sap for Empire. My dad was in ROTC still when I was born, but he was very lucky, he was in between Korea and Vietnam, a right-wing “patriotic” guy, and he was savvy enough to savor his good luck in never having “served” outside of his local community.
In closing, the dumbing down of the Peons is deliberate by TPTB, see a whore like Corey Booker in taking 10s of millions of Bill Gates money when he was New Jersey Governor, worked hard to destroy unions by destroying public schools. As the bumper sticker says, “If you think Education is too expensive, try Ignorance instead”
Bob
I am both anti-technology and an enjoyer and user of it. It’s what I’m used to and I wish I was even a tenth as interested in gardening.
Ultimately it will only lead to hell.
I will not engage with AI at all. Except it’s become interleaved in everything on the computer.
I think people are completely mad to embrace it with such relish. Bring back crappy flyers and rough demos done on a badly tuned guitar.
The stupid humans again fling themselves at the tools of their subjugation.
Madness.
spud
david lamy:
BRAVO, glad the dim wits figured it out, when it was obvious to anyone with even the slightest ability to critically think in the first place, its a invitation to steal!
spud
Mark Level:
all well said. i almost got roped into Vietnam, i was three numbers higher than they needed.
my father came back from korea, a violent alcoholic. my uncle told me when i was young, my father was the nicest guy he knew before korea.
so he told me if you can stay out of the military, do it. i got lucky! a friend who i graduated with, was killed by agent orange.
yep lots of damage done to america and the west, but the real damage was 1993 on wards.
charter schools and HMO’S were enbled by naive elites in minnesota. i argued vehemently against them in the democratic party, stating that the rich will immediately capture them, and bleed us dry.
it was one of the episodes that helped to get me branded for expulsion.
the elites that were outraged that i pointed this out back then, would never look me in the face ever again.
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bill clintons charter school system is imploding: what did bill clinton think would happen when he unleashed wall street wolves onto public education: new orleans is a mess and a disaster, but the wall street parasites are doing well.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/25/major-challenges-of-new-orleans-charter-schools-exposed-at-naacp-hearing/
…
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meet the black servant of the white entitled, white supremacist free trading nafta democrats: Atlanta Prosector Fani Willis Sent Black Educators to Jail for daring to criticize bill clintons charter school disasters
https://blackagendareport.com/atlanta-prosector-fani-willis-sent-black-educators-jail
Atlanta Prosector Fani Willis Sent Black Educators to Jail
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
23 Aug 2023
“Atlanta is no mecca for Black people. It is a political plantation where the white overseers rule. Fani Willis’ prosecution of Black teachers was an awful example of the power dynamic in that city.
“Our children have been cheated by those who have willfully torn apart black communities through displacement and gentrification, underfunded and privatized public schools, and then have criminalized black educators for a dysfunctional system that was designed to fail.” – Shani Robinson , Atlanta teacher prosecuted by Fani Willis
Willis is now in the news as the person who charged Donald Trump and 18 other people in a 41-count indictment charging them with a conspiracy meant to overturn the 2020 election. But she and other prosecutors must be scrutinized. One must always assume that defendants are being overcharged, and that the RICO statute is being misused so that the state can act with nefarious intent. All skin folk aren’t kinfolk, and the prosecution of Black Atlanta educators is Exhibit A which proves the case.
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley(at)blackagendareport.com.”
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remember it was bill clinton that not only unleashed these monsters on us, he also showered them with tax payer money: A spokesperson for New York City’s largest charter network resigned in protest, stating she can no longer defend Success Academy’s “racist and abusive practices”
remember, bill clinton unleashed these monsters onto us: Nearly half of New Orleans’ all-charter district schools got D or F grades; what happens next?
bill clinton vowed to create 1000’s of charter schools, 1 reason: the Clinton-era Community Tax Relief Act of 2000 made it possible for funds that invested in charter schools to double their money in 7 years.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2018/08/13/how-to-profit-from-your-non-profit-charter-school/#553c67aa3354
its bill clintons polices period: Who Is Profiting From Charters? The Big Bucks Behind Charter School Secrecy, Financial Scandal and Corruption: Hedge Fund Managers and Real Estate Developers
https://www.alternet.org/2013/05/who-profiting-charters-big-bucks-behind-charter-school-secrecy-financial-scandal-and/
bill clintons polices were the ultimate stock scams: Getting rich on Charter Schools with the Clintons’ New Markets Tax Credit, everything bill clinton did was to goose stock prices
https://medium.com/@NYArteacher/getting-rich-on-charter-schools-with-the-clintons-new-markets-tax-credit-5a830390fe9f
https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2020/6/23/21300811/success-academy-liz-baker-pr-staffer-leaves-amid-turmoil-over-race
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how we got charter schools: Milton Friedman sided with the segregationists citing their prejudice and racism as merely market forces, bill clinton agreed and unleashed charter schools onto america
Common Dreams
Charter Schools Were Never a Good Idea. They Were a Corporate Plot All Along
The concept always was about privatizing schools to make money.
by
Steven Singer
…
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the charter school boom was prominent under President Bill Clinton. Former President Clinton publicly praised charter schools and vowed to see 2000 more charter schools opened before he stepped down as president. Because of his efforts, he received a lifetime achievement award from the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/15/a-devos-by-any-other-name-clintons-neoliberal-education-policy/
February 15, 2017
A DeVos By Any Other Name: Clinton’s Neoliberal Education Policy
by Melissa Garriga
…
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just one of many fascists scourges bill clinton unleashed on america, charter schools: In Ohio charters were deemed inferior to traditional schools in all grade/subject combinations. Texas charters had a much lower graduation rate in 2012 than traditional schools.
privatization, the nazi libertarian scourge on democracy: In Ohio charters were deemed inferior to traditional schools in all grade/subject combinations. Texas charters had a much lower graduation rate in 2012 than traditional schools.
In Louisiana, where Governor Bobby Jindal proudly announced that “we’re doing something about [failing schools],” about two-thirds of charters received a D or an F from the Louisiana State Department of Education in 2013
https://www.alternet.org/2014/02/4-most-profound-ways-privatization-perverts-education
The 4 Most Profound Ways Privatization Perverts Education
Paul Buchheit
andAlterNet
February 16, 2014 | 07:13PM ET
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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/10/24/scho-o24.html
it was Bill Clinton who created the federal grant initiative, Charter Schools Program (CSP), which was expanded by the Obama administration. The CSP has handed out $3 billion in federal funds to charter school chains.
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https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Charter+for+controversy%3a+often+touted+as+a+breakthrough+in…-a0103674130
Charter For Controversy
Often Touted As A Breakthrough In ‘Educational Choice,’ Charter Schools Instead Are Raising Church-State Problems Around The Country
June 2003 Featured By Jeremy Leaming
Debra Snell thought she had found the perfect school to challenge and prepare her young son for the future.
A Waldorf charter school promised an innovative approach to learning. Students, Snell was told, would paint, reenact plays and fairy tales and rely less on computers and rigid timetables for learning how to read.
Snell was impressed, and she encouraged her local school district in California to open a publicly funded Waldorf charter school in the district, where she and many other parents would enroll their children.
It did not take long for Snell to realize that something was wrong. The curriculum seemed limited, and her son wasn’t learning to read. Snell started investigating Waldorf schools and was shocked by what she found out: Waldorf education is based on a little-known, early 19th-century religion called Anthrodposophy.
…
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Purple Library Guy
@Bob: Switch to Linux. No bleedin’ Copilot on Linux. I recommend Linux Mint, very user friendly.
mago
Ah yeah, the AI slop. I’ve been railing against it so long I’ve got nothing left to say except people I know who should know better keep on their cheerleading ways. It’s the same with all the mass insanity. I practice silence now, except for here—a place where I feel I can keep on talking.
Cheers brothers and sisters.
David Harrison
The fetish for cashier check outs and hatred for self checkouts is something to behold. I was a cashier (and every other job in retail for 12.5 years) so I know something about this issue. Also I’m a customer. When Super Walmarts started they had 30-40 checkout lines(no self checkouts) and within a short period of time only 3 or 4 might be open(I’ve seen Super Kroger shut down almost all their self checkouts and have 1 cashier). First of all the retailers don’t won’t to hire more cashiers and secondly they want to have employees doing all jobs in the store so they don’t have to hire more workers. I have stocked,cleaned,unloaded the stock truck, received,cleaned the bathrooms,and did customer service all while being the only cashier in the building(all this on a cashiers crappy wages). The majority of retailers operate this way. So the commenters on this site and on Naked Capitalism really are practising Magical and Wishful thinking if they think that a bunch of greedy,sociopathic,medocrities, and incompetents are going to do the right thing. And on a last note cashiering is a terrible job. It is monotonous,hard on your body from all the standing and reaching, and stress from the aggressively mean customers.
DMC
Waldorf education was founded by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)based on classical Western Esotericism and a hands on pedagogy. Anthroposophy was an organization he also founded, as a Western reply to Theosophy. But the one isn’t based on the other as such and from what I understand from my ex( a teacher) Waldorf education is generally well considered among alternative pedagogies(like Montessori). But that assumes its well taught by qualified instructors, which is highly unlikely in the charter school context. As you point out, the whole charter school movement is a scam from top to bottom, so its hardly surprising the results were not good.
Dan Kelly
Thank you David Harrison.
I too have worked many a cashier-retail job.
By the way, does any one look up at all the cameras in all the stores now? They are everywhere and god knows what all they are doing besides what we already know and what our ‘conspiratorial’ brains might imagine.
The cameras are most abundant in the cashier areas where allegedly people are going to abby hoffman their way out of the matrix as if we are living in even the remotely same atmosphere as then.
different clue
@spud,
If disgruntled customers are stealing in/from the self-checkout lines, that means they are not so dumm. So the dummdownization did not work on them. And stealing is a good way to get revenge on the Lords of SelfCheckout.
People who don’t feel like stealing showed their distaste for self-check in other ways . . . leaving a full cart behind, etc.
I was more passive than even that. I would/will see if there is at least one human-manned checkout line open and ask the cashier how long he/she will be open. If they will be open long enough for me to do my shopping, I will get something. If there is no line open, I will tell the “customer service area” personnel that I WOULD have shopped here but there were no cashier lines and I won’t use self-check.
Apparently there was enough sullen customer rebellion against Krogers’s self-checkout lines that they reversed course from trying to make everything self-check and shut down all the real cashier lines . . . and have gone back to real cashiers and almost no self-check.
different clue
@Dave Harrison,
I have seen several cashiers at a time in Krogers lately. And at other stores. I don’t go shopping that often so I don’t have a chance to see much, but I have neither seen nor done customer nastiness to cashiers. And all I can say is that at the few Krogers in my area, I saw the attempt to force all customers onto self-check and over the last year or so have seen my area Krogers retreat from the self-check initiative. So something had a non-magical real-world effect.
On the rare times when I said to a cashier that I hate self-check, they have said they hate self-check also and hated to see it arrive.
different clue
. . . ” David Harrison” , I should have typed . . .
different clue
The more of Spud’s entries I read about Clinton, the more I understand the transformative depth of Clinton’s personal and political evil.
If Trump had been a Rhodes Scholar like Clinton, Trump would be as cleverly and deceptively evil as Clinton or Obama.
Instead, Trump is a poorly educated low-IQ stupid person who is also a Malignant Narcissitice Personality Disorder practitioner, transmitter, and vector. And a Trojan Horse’s Ass full of project 2025 , Republicanfederates, KlanMAGAs and Libernazitarians . . . a different sort of threat.
The Clintons worked very hard and carefully to spread millions of malignant metastatic Clintonoma daughter cells throughout the DemParty and many other institutions in America. It would be hard to find and kill them all.
Dan Kelly
I should add here that it depends on the location. Convenience store cashiering is the worst and that is where you get the worst customers and the most indifference. Supermarkets are different. We have unionized shop-rites (wakefern) here in NJ which I am most familiar with.
Unionized supermarkets are tough because you pay the dues but you don’t get a very good wage. Benefits are okay I guess. It’s not like Teamsters UPS where you do get a very good wage and benefits but the hours are grueling particularly between Thanksgiving-New Year.
That’s why it was easy for Whole Foods and Trader Joes to move into that ‘space’ although Trader Joes doesn’t pay nearly the starting wage that it did years ago, let alone what it did when it was just starting out and growing in CA way back when.
Walton was actually supposed to be a decent guy to work for back in the day. As with supermarkets, it really depends which wal mart you go to to see how the personnel fare. the cashiers at the one i go to are generally outwardly ‘content’ as are most of the workers.
lots of pretty young women, spanish, black, white and yes, that is a reason to go
of course at wal mart you walk around the entire store being watched by cameras including the aforementioned abundance of cameras at the checkout, whether self-checkout or not, and at self-checkout there’s always someone there to ‘direct’ people to the next open register and to help if needed and then after all that you can’t leave without someone looking at your receipt as if you are a criminal even after having gone through the entire surveillance process I just outlined.
These customer receipt checkers were fomerly ‘greeters’ just a few short years ago.
I am glad that shop rites in particular hire – or at least do a good job retaining – older people. Many of the cashiers are older and while it is a tough job standing for inordinate amounts of time and everything else, it at least keeps the cognitive faculties going. The people at my shop rite are local and generally seem happy if not somewhat haggard but then so am I.
Depends on the day too of course.
John Mackey dared to suggest that not all business should be about bottom-line shareholder profit and he was loudly reproached by Milton Friedman and some other dude. But Mackey himself was very economically libertarian when it came to wages, in fact he said so himself. He was atttempting to introduce the idea in the alleged interest of the environment and farmers but we can talk about how that has actually manifested (I think it was actually part of the plan for farm consolidation under cover of helping some perhaps mid-sized farms by blasting ‘MEET YOUR FARMER!!!’ all over the milk and vegetables).
sorry for the rambling…
https://reason.com/2005/10/01/rethinking-the-social-responsi-2/
Mark Level
Breaking news: Keir Starmer soon delenda est, in a matter of days.
Or maybe not, he’s being replaced by another racist, upper class Twit of the Year, Andrew Burnham. George Galloway reports it. Also “London’s Burning”, not the Clash hit of my youth, but the citizens are revolting (yes, that’s a pun. Both their state of being but also a verb, it’s all happening now.)
He seems to think that Ireland and the other satrapies will soon Irexit from Perfidious Albion. That at least would be a big step forward.
The Collective West is rotten to its empty core. At least the Collapse is close, thank Dog.
Mark Level
Diff Clue, kudos to you, someone has made you “Woke” and I am not in the least using that as an insult, rather the highest compliment. You seem to be beyond the Vote Blue No Matter Who scam, glad spud (who as I’ve said should write a book, I’d buy it) has opened your eyes.
spud
Feral Finster:
true, the capitalist parasite could care less if the company made money, as long as they get to feed. once the feeding has stopped, onto the next host for the parasite to drain.
Roslyn Ross
While it doesn’t effect everyone, it seems to effect most people,
CORRECTION. The word is affect not effect.
We are affected and the result is the effect of that change.
While it does not affect everyone, it seems to produce an effect in most people would be correct.
spud
David Harrison:
we know that the capitalist parasites will not do the right thing, that’s for sure.
but here is the real situation. lots of people are satisfied with a job like you described, as long as they are paid a living wage.
one of the many many disasters that came out of the clinton reign of terror that has sent us back to the robber baron era, is the idea of a meritocracy and implied eugenics.
both are completely false. and we should recognize what people are capable of, and how they should be treated, because the fewer who can add to the economy, the worse the economy gets.
the current form of the self licking capitalism with no real foundation, will fail.
all one has to do is look at pickettys graph, and now steve keens graph, proving there has been “0” wage growth since 1993.
we saw who were the real carriers of capitalism were during covid, the grunts that stocked shelf’s, etc.
there is no such a thing as a meritocracy, and eugenics is simply a excuse for genocide.
here is clintons psychopathy,
Bill Clinton’s political philosophy, known as Clintonism, emphasized meritocracy as part of its focus on equal opportunity and the belief that hard work leads to success. However, critics argue that this meritocratic approach can overlook systemic inequalities that affect individuals’ opportunities.
journalofdemocracy.org ebsco.com
Bill Clinton’s political philosophy, known as Clintonism, prominently featured the concept of meritocracy. This ideology emphasized the belief that hard work and talent should determine success, aligning with the broader focus on equal opportunity.
Key Aspects of Clintonism
Equal Opportunity: Clintonism advocated for policies that aimed to provide everyone with a fair chance to succeed, reinforcing the idea that effort and ability are rewarded.
Meritocratic Beliefs: The philosophy suggested that individuals could achieve success through their own efforts, which resonated with many Americans seeking upward mobility.
Despite its appeal, Clinton’s meritocratic approach faced criticism:
Overlooking Systemic Inequalities: Critics argue that a strict focus on meritocracy can ignore the systemic barriers that affect individuals’ opportunities, such as socioeconomic status, race, and education.
Impact on Policy: This criticism suggests that while promoting meritocracy, policies may inadvertently perpetuate existing inequalities rather than address them.
In summary, while Bill Clinton’s belief in meritocracy was a central tenet of his political philosophy, it also sparked debate about the effectiveness and fairness of such an approach in addressing deeper societal issues.
Wikipedia journalofdemocracy.org
Meritocracy in Clinton-era policies emphasized standardized testing and educational achievement as tools to expand opportunity, but critics argued it masked systemic advantages by treating unequal starting points as equal competition.
ebsco.com tomvranas.com
Critics argue that meritocracy, as emphasized in Bill Clinton’s policies, can mask underlying discrimination based on race, gender, and class, leading to increased inequality. Additionally, Clinton’s focus on equal opportunity and meritocratic ideals has been seen as contributing to a societal divide, where the prosperous believe they deserve their success, fostering a condescending attitude towards those less fortunate.
Encyclopedia Britannica journalofdemocracy.org
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The idea of meritocracy is widely debated, with scholars arguing that systemic barriers and inherited wealth prevent true merit-based mobility despite its promotion as fair and open.
Wikipedia
Meritocracy is often described as a system where individuals achieve success based on their abilities and efforts. However, many scholars argue that this concept is more of a myth than a reality.
Systemic Barriers: Many people face structural obstacles that hinder their ability to succeed, regardless of their talent or hard work. This includes limited access to quality education and job opportunities.
Inherited Wealth: Wealth and social status are frequently passed down through generations, making it difficult for individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to achieve upward mobility. In the U.S., for example, about 50% of a father’s income position is inherited by his son.
Class Mobility Statistics: The U.S. has one of the lowest rates of class mobility among industrialized nations. Only 8% of children from the bottom income quintile manage to reach the top quintile as adults.
Cultural Beliefs: Many Americans are conditioned to believe in meritocracy, often due to the hope of one day joining the elite class. This belief can obscure the reality of systemic inequality.
Examples of Success: The few individuals who do manage to rise above their circumstances are often cited as proof of meritocracy, despite the fact that their success does not reflect the experiences of the majority.
While meritocracy is promoted as a fair system, the evidence suggests that it is undermined by systemic inequalities and inherited advantages. This challenges the notion that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed based solely on merit.
Wikipedia
Systemic barriers that challenge the concept of meritocracy include socioeconomic disparities, discrimination based on race and gender, and unequal access to quality education. These factors create an uneven playing field, making it difficult for individuals from marginalized backgrounds to achieve success solely based on merit.
holtz.com tomvranas.com
Inherited wealth can significantly limit opportunities in a meritocratic society by creating disparities where individuals’ chances of success are heavily influenced by their family’s wealth rather than their own merit or effort. This can lead to a society where wealth concentration hinders social mobility and reinforces inequality.
The City University of New York aeon.co
different clue
Here is a relevant article on reddit for now which could disappear any old time.
“College students are rapidly losing the ability to read — “There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing”: professor”
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1u2i8zx/college_students_are_rapidly_losing_the_ability/
One wonders if there are still some outside-the-mainstream sector-loads of young and youngish people who have not been carefully antiliteratized in America’s War On Reading.
spud
DMC:
yep, charter schools are exactly why the founders wanted public education.
National Archives and Records Administration. Office of Presidential Libraries. Harry S. Truman Library. / Public domain
Harry S. Truman emphasized the importance of education in strengthening democracy and proposed significant reforms in higher education, including the establishment of community colleges and the expansion of adult education programs. His administration’s efforts led to the creation of the Truman Scholarship Foundation, which supports students pursuing careers in public service.
Wikipedia UC Santa Barbara
Harry S. Truman recognized the critical role of education in fostering democracy and civic responsibility. His administration proposed significant reforms aimed at improving higher education in the United States.
Community Colleges: Truman advocated for the establishment of community colleges to provide accessible education to a broader population.
Adult Education Programs: His administration emphasized the expansion of adult education programs to ensure lifelong learning opportunities for citizens.
Curriculum Development: Truman’s proposals included the development of a curriculum that aligned with democratic values, moving away from traditional European educational models.
In 1975, the Truman Scholarship Foundation was created as a living memorial to Truman’s commitment to education and public service. This foundation:
Awards Scholarships: It provides scholarships to students demonstrating outstanding potential for careers in public service.
Promotes Leadership: The foundation encourages educated citizenship and political responsibility among young leaders.
Truman’s legacy in education reflects his belief that a well-educated populace is essential for the health of democracy and society.
Wikipedia truman.gov
Harry S. Truman proposed reforms aimed at strengthening higher education and ensuring it played a vital role in supporting democracy, which included increasing college attendance, integrating vocational and liberal education, and extending free public education through the first two years of college for all youth who could benefit from it. He also emphasized the need to eliminate racial and religious discrimination in education.
UC Santa Barbara
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https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/harry-s-truman-and-civil-rights
“To the astonishment of many, including many in his own party, on July 26, 1948 Harry Truman made one of the biggest contributions to date for racial integration and equality. In issuing Executive Order 9981 Truman ordered the desegregation of the armed forces. These documents trace what some call the beginning of the Civil Rights movement.”
spud
different clue:
true, and revolutions start out with some of the smallest things. that’s why the parasitical capitalist fever for data centers to watch every move we make, everything we say, and the corporate prisons where we will go, if we mutter or do something that’s deemed unacceptable no matter how small it is.
spud
different clue:
yep, i watched this unfold in real time and went oh oh, this is what led up to fascism last time, and plunged the world into a massive war.
its why i say, what bill clinton did, can’t be reversed, at least by conventional means. i have a hunch, unconventional means are heading our way, via from outside forces.
as the central Europeon fascists found that out by 1945.