Tea at Trianon: AI Tyranny: Almost Here

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, August 15, 2025

AI Tyranny: Almost Here

From The Vigilant Fox:

At the Defeat the Mandates rally in Washington DC, RFK Jr. warned quite controversially:
“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps to Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did…the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run and none of us can hide.” AI could make permanent, precision tyranny a reality. There’s no more fleeing and no more hiding when AI is in charge. One of the last checks on war is soldiers themselves—most people won’t kill other people without deep justification.
But drones and AI-powered robots are erasing that potential restraint. Wars can be fought without consent and without those pulling the trigger being anywhere near the battlefield. AI-powered war feels more like a video game than actual war—at least for those pulling the trigger. On the ground the consequences are more real than ever. And Ukraine may already be the proving ground for this new era. (Read more.)