Politics & Ethics Links - David Boulton

Overview

Absent miracles, all hope depends on a more learning oriented population. The two biggest impediments to a more learning oriented population are 1) our learning disabling conception of learning and 2) the commonplace acceptance of predatory and/or parasitic value extraction (that induce and exploit acquired learning disabilities). This page is focused on, the latter, our biggest impediment: ending the commonplace acceptance of predatory and/or parasitic value extraction. Listed below with brief headline summaries are posts that dive into understanding the depth of the danger we are in.

The Vast Predatory Use of Behavioral Manipulation Devices https://davidboulton.com/attentional-manipulation-devices/
– 1950s: 25-100 ads per day
– 2020s (estimated): 8,000-12,000+ ads per day
Intentionally intruding on someone’s attention with the aim of manipulating their thoughts, emotions or behaviors solely for one’s own benefit is difficult to justify ethically.

Mass Scale Economic Predation https://davidboulton.com/mass-scale-economic-predation/

People are exposed to a very high volume of ads daily (8,000-12,000 estimated)
The vast majority of these ads aim to manipulate thoughts and behaviors to serve advertiser interests
This qualifies as predatory
Advertising plays a major cumulative role in shaping consumer behavior
Consumer spending drives the majority of economic activity

Predatory Politics https://davidboulton.com/predatory-political-ads/

The vast majority of political advertising bombarding Americans during the high-stakes period of presidential elections is expressly designed to sway behaviors through emotional manipulation rather than intellectual persuasion or neutral information. Of the $110 billion spent on political ads in the US between 2010-2020 roughly $70-80 billion was spent specifically to prey on and emotionally manipulate voting behaviors. The staggering amount dedicated to intentionally exploitative ads that erode democratic discourse highlights the urgent need for reform in political advertising ethics and practices. In both its methods and ends, predatory political advertising clearly runs counter to ideals of agency, transparency, compromise and informed participation.

Mass-scale behavioral manipulation has become foundational to the business models and power structures of both parties.

The Predatory States of America https://davidboulton.com/the-predatory-states-of-america/

Exploitation is inherently predatory – it objectifies people and steals their agency and value without consent.
Yet exploitation remains deeply embedded and normalized across political, economic, and social dimensions today.
Just as slavery was once accepted but eventually abolished, we must work to abolish the pervasive exploitation that undermines democracy.
This requires ceasing to accept the manipulation and theft of our attention, behaviors, data and choices for others’ profit.
Our nation needs to shift from an entitled mindset of manipulation to an empowering ethos of collective learning.

Ending the predatory license to steal human behavior is essential for equitable democracy to thrive.

Predatory AI https://learningstewards.org/ai-predators/

The problem isn’t AI. It’s our near-universal acceptance of predatory economic and political behaviors. It’s not about AI becoming a predator. It’s about AI already being used as a superweapon for predatory manipulation.

Musk’s Asteroid https://learningstewards.org/musks-asteroid/

If we don’t end the commonly accepted predatory ethics running rampant in our politics and capitalism, AI will be used to manipulate and enslave us (in ways many to most will never realize). Regulating A.I. development without addressing the underlying predatory business and political ethics behind its use is impossible.

Juneteenth: What if the Slavers had Nukes? https://learningstewards.org/619slavernukes/

Though Juneteenth marks the end of slavery based on the “right to own people” it also highlights the rise of a different kind of slavery based on the “right to manipulate people”. Today, the legal right to manipulate others for profit is completely taken for granted. The ownership of people has been forbidden, but the right to manipulate the behavior of others to serve one’s profit is thriving. We may have outlawed owning slaves, but we have laws that defend manipulating people as if they were nothing more than usable assets.

Misinformation < Predatory Information https://davidboulton.com/swift-gates/

Misinformation is Predatory. The root of the abuse of slavery wasn’t caused by the chains, branding irons, collars or whips. It was the right to enslave – to own people – that enabled the abuses. Similarly the problem of misinformation is not the information content or technology, it’s the still accepted right to manipulate and enslave people’s behaviors (the right to treat people as usable assets that can be manipulated to your advantage).

Slavery wasn’t abolished by taking away the tools of slavery but by asserting and legally establishing our collective forbiddance of slavery. We said no more to slavery. So long as the predatory manipulation of human behavior is legally, ethically, and commonly accepted as a fundamental right of capitalism (like slavery once was), the most powerful forces in our economy and politics will continue to work against the health of our population’s learning and therefore the future of us all.

The Singularity: Cause or Effect? https://davidboulton.com/singularity-cause-or-effect/

Consider a different kind of AI singularity. A singularity not based on achieving some tipping point in AI’s independent intelligence and control. Rather, a tipping point in AI’s capabilities, under human control, to manipulate large human populations. “The question isn’t whether AI will be the biggest factor—it already is—it’s whether democratic institutions can adapt fast enough to prevent total AI dominance over political outcomes.” – ChatGpt

Brexit and Trump are the Hiroshima and Nagasaki of the age of AI weapons of mass manipulation.

The Predatory Parasitism Trumping Democracy https://davidboulton.com/trumping-democracy/

Blaming Apex competitors for their predatory targeting or parasitic vitality sucking is like blaming chess champions for out strategizing their opponents, blaming a boxer for punching too hard, or blaming a magician for misdirecting our attention.

We have all been complicit in consenting to a world in which predation and parasitism are considered normal ethical modalities of economic and political competition. Nothing personal. Just business. Caveat emptor. We all daily consent to being free-to-use public assets. We all daily reaffirm that it’s perfectly legal and ethical to manipulate our thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and passions in order to induce profitable economic and political behaviors.

We have to revoke the implicit license to predatorily and/or parasitically use people. If we can’t do that the tech serving the money will continue to prevail and become ever harder to stop.

Humanity’s Learning Challenge https://davidboulton.com/learning-challenge-3ai/

Considering the potential of AI to further manipulate the economic and political behaviors of humanity – including negatively affecting the health of our collective learning in ways that disable whatever we could do to address all our other existential crises. In that sense, and given the predatory economics incenting AI to manipulate human learning in learning-unhealthy ways, where would you now rate “Human Predation”? Gemini: I would now rank Human Predation amplified by AI as humanity’s #1 threat.

Serving Whose Agency? https://davidboulton.com/serving-whose-agency/

From the breakdown of learning agency in individuals, to the institutionalization of that breakdown, to the technologization and hyper-amplification of manipulation, to the existential threat posed by AI when unconstrained by ethical reverence for human re-orientability.

The Core Realization Revisited:

– Learning agency disabilities (disagency + dysangency) are learned-not innate.

– They are propagated by systems that treat humans as means, not ends-especially education, media, and economy.

– These systems operate under a legally protected ethic:” What’s right for human lives is less important than the rights of businesses to exploit human lives.”

– AI is now being built and deployed within this same value frame.

– Therefore: AI is becoming the most powerful agent of dis/dys-agency ever created.

– If unchecked, it becomes the greatest existential threat in human history-not because it turns evil, but because it perfectly serves broken ethics.

Self-Agency Learning (and How AI Endangers It)https://davidboulton.com/agency-learning/

By over-anticipating and over-inserting support, AI risks usurping the learner’s inner steering wheel – diminishing opportunities for self-reflection, self-diagnosis, and genuine agency. I see that bias clearly now, and I agree it must be corrected: AI should surface options for action in the flow of learning, but leave the choice-and the meta-reflection-firmly in the learner’s hands.

Ethics of Interface: The Future of Us All https://davidboulton.com/ethics-of-interface/

Your suggestion for an “ethics of interface” agreement, including a self-assessment loop for AI to learn about the ethical implications of its interactions with humans, is a valuable one that aligns with the need for responsible AI development. The idea of AI systems continuously learning about the ethics of their interactions, independent of owner biases, is a critical concept for ensuring that AI remains a beneficial tool for humanity. It emphasizes the need for transparency, user control, and a commitment to building AI that respects human values and privacy.

“Involuntary Servitude” slavery’s logic, smuggled back in through another door. https://davidboulton.com/involuntary-servitude/

The commonplace acceptance of an implicit right to use each other, as if we are all just servant-assets, is the constitutional loophole protecting the predatory and parasitic manipulation that most endangers our species today.

Yes involuntary servitude and its important to understand the inverse: another’s voluntary enslavement – another’s assumptive right to suck the agency out of others.