Ray of Infamy

I woke up this morning, checked my newsfeed, and saw this gobsmacking absurdity from Marco Rubio:

“We can’t let China take the lead in dystopian surveillance-statism.” Or, to be as charitable as possible, Rubio somehow, despite nearly nineteen years in elected office and a seat on the goddamned Senate Intelligence Committee, still believes that the United States government is a non-authoritarian force for good.

This man ran for President. Sure, he got whomped — Trump got about eight times as many primary delegates and four times as many votes — but enough of the political establishment took him seriously that he was able to get on the 2016 primary ballot.

P.S. The Axios article Rubio linked to approvingly paraphrases techie courtier Ed Felten saying that AI researchers should “[f]ight to be in the room with political deciders.” Not recommended reading if you already have nausea or high blood pressure.