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Why new grads are booing commencement speakers: There's an 'ambient anxiety that AI is going to make things dramatically worse' (www.cnbc.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 35 points 5 months ago (11 children)

You don't get to convince a bunch of companies to eliminate job paths by getting rid of entry level positions (even before AI), sell the idea that the AI is basically going to make their degrees useless, and then try to sell them on AI after the fact.

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  • [–] 16 points 5 months ago (9 children)

    Billionaires have bought enough of the media, governmental and legal apparatus that they have repeatedly convinced:

    • the poor to vote for a billionaire business owner who came from wealth
    • religiously fervent to vote for an atheist who regulaly, publicly and aggressively breaks any religious canon
    • "law and order" voters to support him as a convicted felon
    • women to vote for a rapist, misogynist
    • those who want to "protect the children" that his long and personal friendship and association with an aggressive child sex trafficker was benign
    • descendents of slaves to vote for a candidate whose leading campaign contributor is an apartheid supporting white supremacy
    • those with tenuous legal status or those related to those with tenuous legal status to support a platform bent on demonizing immigrants, legal or non, in a country built by immigrants, while his own wife is an immigrant
    • veterans to vote for a candidate who said those who serve for their county are foolish
    • veterans who may have actually fought in WWII to vote for a guy advocating appeasement against a dictator who militarily invaded and is currently occupying Europe
    • rabid Mccarthyists to vote for a candidate who has ongoing ties, financial transactions, security concerns with the Russian dictator
    • corporations who say their most important lobbying need, every single year forever in any industry is "certainty" to give generously to a candidate and administration that has never had a plan for economy other than their own grift, and has unilaterally destroyed their international trade markets, supply chains, competitive edge and the value of their currency

    ...there is so much more. That's just off the top of my head list of getting people to vote against their interests and passions. Getting indebted, youth who you have aggressively cut back government funding for education on to swallow a turd of disempowerment and fascism isn't even difficult compared to some of the above.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago* (8 children)

    All of that falls apart in more ways than one for a lot of people once they can't maintain a quality of life at all. I'm not saying they aren't susceptible to propaganda. I'm saying that propaganda often falls apart when you have to worry about where your next meal is coming from.

    Young people are using AI because they want the shortcuts to the goal society said they need to achieve.

    Pretty much all of the stuff you talk about is stuff a smaller subset of the population fall for. You went through and described a bunch of MAGA voting as if the vast majority of higher education graduates fall into this category.

    In point of fact it's been proven repeatedly that more often than not the reason Conservatives have been trying desperately to fight against higher education and education in general is because they get pushback from educated people more often, even after feeding them a steady diet of religion, conservative propaganda, and racism.

    This is completely ignoring the majority of people to make your point.

    It also ignores the last 70 years of politics and economics which explain how we got here. There's more too it than "we convince them to vote against their own best interest".

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

    All of that falls apart in more ways than one for a lot of people once they can’t maintain a quality of life at all.

    Nailed it.

    You can't gaslight people when they can't put food on the table. The people who get elected this November in the US will largely argue against data centers and for affordability. (Though I'm skeptical that any of them, save Graham Platner, would actually vote for any meaningful change.)

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    All of that falls apart in more ways than one for a lot of people once they can't maintain a quality of life at all.

    Agree with you on this, itsomg been a question of "how bad does it have to get before people stop swallowing bullshit. We still aren't there yet, so it hasn't fallen apart.

    This is completely ignoring the majority of people to make your point. It also ignores the last 70 years of politics and economics which explain how we got here. There's more too it than "we convince them to vote against their own best interest".

    The majority of people, voters anyway, have supported the bullshit and lies which is exactly how we got here.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    This is an oversimplified version of events.

    The majority of voters don't like the current regime and are fighting it in through the avenues they are aware of.

    But here's the main problem.

    The propaganda isn't how we got here. The fact is, the conservative party in this country has been desperately chipping away at public power for decades. They enacted policy and legislation over a period of years (over 100 years if we're gonna be honest about this), in order to defang the public. The main problem with that is that propaganda only works when you can control the discourse and that's the reason the big push is happening now. This is their last ditch attempt to get things they want done and cash out. They do not plan to be here for the aftermath.

    The average MAGA voter is indoctrinated with the propaganda but that's not really why Trump won. He made promises that appealed to their basest/hateful natures and those are the majority of the promises he kept. He won because of complacency on the part of people who opposed him (including voters and voter eligible people who opposed him), and the hatred of the people who supported him. Some of that hatred comes from the propaganda. But some of it just comes from the fact that the problem is a systemic part of our country as an institution and that's the major thing you leave out. Along with the complacency and the hatred, he also won because desperate people trying to cash in and cash out backed him. There's a greed component you also left out.

    The crazy thing is that greed component also exists in the voters.

    Pretending that it's simply a matter of using propaganda to get people to vote against their own self interest is only part of the picture.

    They were voting for things they view as part of their self interest.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    They all starve you then what will you do? I already see so many people saying they can’t travel to dc due to being broke and working. So I’m supposed to believe they still find it in themselves to go when they are broke and unemployed? No, it will turn to… i need to DoorDash 20 hours a day so I can’t. It’s constant “I can’t” in this shit country. I’m not sure where everyone learned how to be pathetic but there’s no fucking eat these rich fucks haven’t figured it out.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    This idea that you have to travel to effect a good protest or effect change is not one I actually understand.

    There are a lot of things you can do just to be an informed voter without traveling at all:

    Track Their Voting Record: Websites like GovTrack.us and Congress.gov allow you to see how your representative or senator has voted on various bills and issues. This can give you insight into whether they are supporting the policies they promised to back.

    Use Fact-Checking Websites: Organizations like PolitiFact and FactCheck.org track politicians' promises and rate their progress. They provide detailed reports on whether promises have been kept, broken, or are still in progress.

    Review Legislation They Sponsored: Check if they have introduced or co-sponsored any bills related to their campaign promises. This can be a good indicator of their commitment to their pledges.

    Follow News and Reports: Stay informed through reputable news sources and watchdog organizations that cover congressional activities and hold politicians accountable.

    Engage with Constituents: Attend town hall meetings, read newsletters, and participate in community forums where you can hear directly from the member of Congress and ask questions about their promises.

    Look at Endorsements and Ratings: Organizations like the League of Conservation Voters, the American Civil Liberties Union, and others often rate politicians based on their performance and alignment with specific issues.

    Even outside that there have been multiple "no kings" protests all over the country.

    There have been local protests.

    There are lobby groups.

    There's still town hall meetings and door to door advocacy.

    The one thing you need for a lot of these things are time. That's at least part of the reason you want to keep the general population employed. So what happens when you have an educated class of people who aren't employed anymore because companies want to pilot AI to do their jobs? Especially entry level jobs?

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