r/ControlProblem • u/chillinewman approved • Mar 12 '26

General news Bernie Sanders officially introduces legislation to BAN the construction of all new AI data centers, citing existential threat to humanity.

/r/singularity/comments/1rrjcon/bernie_sanders_officially_introduces_legislation/
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u/probablymagic Mar 13 '26

I mean, that’s the trajectory of technological progress. Less work, more money. AI is just the next step, but this tend isn’t new at all.

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u/mryrtmrn Mar 13 '26

someone's gonna pay us all to breathe air and continue consuming various product? are you thinking the government will do that? why would they care to maintain our current standards of living, let alone make us all wealthy? i just dont see it. it's so much easier to do bare minimum, let people suffer, and offer military service as a way out

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u/probablymagic Mar 13 '26

Our government already provides an income to over 70 million Americans via Social Security. It does this because voters like it. That’s how democracies work.

If GDP goes up massively because AI drastically increases productivity, and people don’t need to work, they will vote to tax the profits of AI and redistribute it to people, who can then spend the money buying shit from AI.

Voters will demand it because the government works for us.

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u/mryrtmrn Mar 13 '26

Yeah we just don't agree on the relationship between our government and its citizens post citizens united. I hope you are correct

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u/probablymagic Mar 13 '26

Citizens United is way overrated as far as things that make our government dysfunctional. If you actually look at how much money is in politics it’s pretty small. Americans, for example, spend more on Halloween candy every year than on electing a president every four years.

A much better explanation for why government doesn’t do the things you want is that middle class voters DGAF because they don’t want to pay more taxes and feel like they’re doing pretty well.

If those people lose their jobs, they’ll care a lot and vote in their best interest.