OpenAI scrapped a promise to disclose key documents to the public

OpenAI: pioneer in the field of fraudulently putting "open" in your name and being anything but.

Similar naming pattern, like North Korea calls itself “ Democratic People's Republic of Korea” … it cannot be further from being democratic.

From Lord of War:

> Every faction in Africa calls themselves by these noble names - Liberation this, Patriotic that, Democratic Republic of something-or-other... I guess they can't own up to what they usually are: the Federation of Worse Oppressors Than the Last Bunch of Oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves Freedom Fighters.

Nice comparison. And also certain political factions in the USA try to hide the shamefulness of laws they propose by giving them names that are directly opposed to what they'll do.

The "Defense of Marriage Act" comes to mind. There was one so bad that a judge ordered the authors to change it, but I can't find it at the moment.

All political factions are guilty of this. Patriot Act, Inflation Reduction Act, Affordable Care Act, etc.

Suppose there was a country where individualism was prioritized. Having your own opinions, avoiding "groupthink", even disagreeing with others, is a point of pride.

Suppose there was a country where collectivism was prioritized. Harmony, conformity and agreeing with others is a point of pride.

Suppose both countries have similar government structures that allow ~everyone to vote. Would it really be surprising that the first country regularly has 50-50 splits, and the second country has virtually unanimous 100-0 voting outcomes? Is that outcome enough basis to judge whether one is "democratic" or not?

This is just a normal practice in the US.

Defense of Marriage Act is actually an exception. The people supporting it honestly thought it was defending marriage, and the supportive public knew exactly what it did.

It passed with a veto proof majority a few weeks before a presidential election, received tons of press, and nobody was confused about what it did.

Whereas the Inflation Reduction Act had absolutely nothing to do with reducing inflation.

USA PATRIOT Act was an acronym, actual name was Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.

Suppose that countries have more than two parties...

It's the same inverse signal in newspaper names too. Russian propaganda Pravda (Truth), Polish tabloid Fakt (Fact), etc. Organisations that practice X every day typically don't have to put X in the name to convince you about it.

Actually, that's my mistake. The examples I was thinking of turned out to be one and the same: It was a California proposition originally titled the "California Marriage Protection Act." That was the one where a judge forced it to be renamed to "Eliminates Rights of Same-Sex Couples to Marry. Initiative Constitutional Amendment"

Eh, the ACA is the only reason I have "affordable" insurance. In the end it might have been more accurate to say, "Marginally Less of a Rip-Off Care Act."

You think they came up with the long name and THEN were astonished to discover that it spells "PATRIOT"?

Yep. That's for sure a revisionist definition.

See also: "Digital Versatile Disc"

The funny thing is that I’m sure NK is very democratic, it’s just that voting wrong probably gets you killed

You can democratically decide to have only two parties, or for that matter only one.

It only takes 51% of the vote to outlaw opposition.

Just recently, the US democratic convention stripped all the voters in New Hampshire from their votes the presidential candidates.

The lib’dems in Europe are anything but liberal or democratic.

Liberal means less intervention from the state, it has literally changed its meaning to soft-socialism.

Democratic is not when you’re elected as part of Boris Johnson on a program to leave the EU, and 16% of elected MPs left his party after the vote and rejoined the Libdems (withouth giving a choice to electors, nor resigning as MP) to fight to stay in EU, coining the phrase “What voters really meant was stay in the EU with conditions.”

I focussed on England, but lib’dems in every EU country have the same betrayal.

OSF predates it by almost four decades (even older than open source) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Foundation

I wonder if anyone that voted "wrong" has ever tried to say the election was rigged, and their votes were changed to avoid their families receiving a bill for a bullet.

Eh?

This didn’t happen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elected_British_politi...

I think what you are referring to is the tory MPs who defied the government and voted with the opposition on a single vote.

At that time literally one of them permanently defected, very visibly crossing the floor. Many of the rest were booted out of the parliamentary party by Boris, only to be readmitted later (including my MP, who I do not vote for).

There were two or three who joined minor parties, and a handful ended up in the Lib Dems afterwards, but there was never a mass defection to the lib dems, who only have 15 MPs now; 15% of the 2019 Tories would be over 50.

Either way I think your summary misunderstands the reasons all of that happened, and the principles behind it.

Orwell would be proud.

> Defense of Marriage Act is actually an exception. The people supporting it honestly thought it was defending marriage

Seems arbitrary. There is nothing about that act that even borders on defending marriage, and people supporting it know that. It's a comic misnomer.

The conservatives are the one true exception these rules. Its right there in the first 3 letters of their party name.

It’s defending when you view gay people as subhuman animals.

Side note of a kinda similar thing happening, forgive me for the sidetrack and side-rant.

PrivatePropery <- was a website in South Africa setup in a market where all real-estate sales was controlled and gate kept by real-estate agents (assisted by Lawyers, various government bodies and even legislation), and its purpose was to allow "Private" individuals to put up their own properties for rent or sale.

Predictably, it eventually got take over by real-estate agents that posed as "private" sellers, and then that caused the entire site to support "Agents" as a concept and here we are. Today, you will hardly ever find a private individual on there and the company makes no effort at all to root them out. The agents just spam all their listings, lie on the metadata for properties, add duplicates, make zero-effort postings and use skew photos, the works.

Another example if you will, AirBnB. Taken over (I exaggerate a bit) by management companies that own many many properties and allocate an "agent" to oversee each property. At least here in South Africa, that is. Might not be that true in other countries, but it's on its way there. Mark my words.

Or more:

Pricecheck <-- Another South African website. Still claims to be a price-comparison website, but is really just like Google shopping, that doesn't do any scraping of prices, but simply "partners" with websites that give it a kickback after a user purchases something.

Even in multi-party systems, it comes down to ruling coalition vs. opposition. DPRK technically has multiple parties, but they are in a tight coalition.

It was, and is, absolutely clear to everyone what this bill was about.

If it had been called the “Support Healthcare for Veterans Act” or even “Interstate Marriage Consistency Act” it would have been dubious.

But the 70% of Americans who opposed gay marriage correctly understood its meaning, as did the gay rights activists who saw gay marriage as unobtainable.

This wasn’t a confusing or misleading title, as is evidenced by the fact that nobody was confused or misled.

Not all people who subscribe to the definition of marriage as put forth in the Defense of Marriage Act also believe that gay people are subhuman animals.

should be added to the Newspeak dictionary

I doubt anyone votes wrong, there's no open counter-culture in NK I've ever read about

Citizens United....

Technically it only requires you view marriage as being between a man and a woman.

I think people weren't confused because its details were covered repeatedly by the news, not because the name was clear. I, for instance, figured a name called "The Defense of Marriage" act would be defending everyone's right to be married. It does the opposite. So count me as someone that considers that name misleading.