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I think Justice Barrett is on board that Trump’s immunity argument is a steaming pile of Horseshit.

Yes, is it 'The White Book'?

Anti-Vax conservatives in my area love RFK. Interestingly, they also tend to be pro-Russia.

I have suspected for a while now that Ukraine is setting Russia up for a 'sucker punch with spikes' - and that the Russian commanders are stupid enough to walk right into it.

It is hard to imagine anyone wanting to vote for him on policy grounds. He is running as a protest candidate - "If you hate Trump and Biden, vote for me!" The problem is that if someone feels compelled to come out and vote, they probably have an opinion on whether Biden or Trump is preferable. I'm sure plenty of nonvoters would support Kennedy, but that's not exactly meaningful. It is hard to take any 3rd party candidate for President seriously, but at least the Libertarians and the Greens have an actual platform and could potentially appeal to voters on that basis. Kennedy is essentially running a vanity campaign.

His stance on climate change has flipped, and he's now way to the right of Biden on that issue. Cant imagine many progressives would be compelled to vote for him.

I think the underlying problem is our innate desire to be seen as unique as humans - that our feelings, creativity and "soul" are somehow special and irreplaceable; and our underlying deep discomfort when the rise of artificial intelligence manages to achieve the aforementioned in some way, shape of form. Now we have to accept that e.g. our intelligence is nothing special (AI will reach and then surpass it in the next years/decades), that our emotions are nothing special (e.g. love - people have been known to fall in love with computer programs, robots or dolls) and now we're at our final frontier: art. Surely art is innately human? Surely it requires reaching some elusive creative spark within you, surely it can't be recued to simple algorithms? Well, turns out we're in for an unpleasant surprise. I'm reminded of a story I read in a book, about a programmer who boasted how his computer application managed to not only study and analyze all of Beethoven's (IIRC, it was Beethoven) work, but to even create new compositions in Beethoven's style. So one musician called bullshit and challenged programmer to a competition, which programmer complied to. Professional pianist would play 3 musical pieces, one composed by Beethoven, one by musician in question himself, and one by computer - and trained audience will try to guess which is which. As it turned out: - what audience thought was Beethoven, was actually composed by the computer - what audience thought was musician, was actually composed by Beethoven - what audience thought was computer, was actually composed by the musician It pertains to deep issues of our "human" identity. For time immemorial we thought of several uniquely human things which define us as special: our emotions, our intelligence, our abstract thinking, and our art - especially our art. When we found our computers can do - or at least competently feign doing - all of these, our very core as human being felt under attack, and expectedly so. The other issue is dichotomy of we're affected by art: as creator and as consumer. Because, to its creator, a piece of art is everything. It's materialized piece of their soul, their unique "child" which they, and only they could ever produce. Consumer, on the other hand, doesn't concern much much the process of artistic creation they're not privy to - instead they main mainly evaluate a piece of art by emotional value it had to them. I'm mentioning this because it very much affects the issue of AI art, depending on the viewpoint we approach it from. Because, on one hand, the very thought that AI could match, or surpass, one if e.g. stories, songs or even memes I created would be hell of a lot unsettling to me. I would subconsciously seek every possible reason to devalue said AI art: I would call it unfair, I would call it derivative, I would call it a result of programming rather than any innate artistic expression. It would endanger my identity as a creator, no matter how objectively little artistic value my creations possibly hold. On the other hand, as a consumer, I wouldn't care nearly as much. The discovery that Gabriel Garcia Marquez was not a writer, but brilliant 100-years-ahead-of-his-time programmer whose AI wrote all of supposedly his works, would not diminish my enjoyment or evaluation of Love in the time of Cholera. I wouldn't mind listening to AI-composed music, watching AI-made painting nor visiting AI-designed building - provided that each of the generated some kind of emotional catharsis within me. So is AI-art an art? Well, it depends of who you ask. It depends whether the person is an artist, it depends whether they care about artistic process or just the end-result, it depends on their views on humanism, and it possibly depends on whole lot of other things. Art isn't hard science, it's always been far more subjective and ambiguous - and that subjectivity and ambiguity stretch all the way to the very definition of art itself. And that's fine.

I don't remember who but <pronoun> said that AI or computer generated stuff can never be art since the most fundamental quality inherently required in any creator of a work of art is horniness. Find me a decent asexual artist, let alone great. AI no horny, no artist. After all Freudian theory still holds broadly, the only two urges (boiling down) we have are sex and aggression, procreate and destroy.

In my opinion? There is a big drop off in quality between the first book and the second, and each subsequent book is then a little worse. You can stop reading after the first book, or after the second, or after the fourth to get a coherent ending, so up to you how long you want to keep going..

Thanks for sharing, quite an interesting read especially considering it was published in 1984. "We are all supposed to keep tranquil and allow it to go on, even though, because of the data revolution, it becomes every day less possible to fool any of the people any of the time. If our world survives, the next great challenge to watch out for will come - you heard it here first - when the curves of research and development in artificial intelligence, molecular biology and robotics all converge." Man I wish the first sentence was true- not sure they anticipated that too much data would lead to the truth being more easily obscured. We seem to be on track with AI and molecular biology, but those robotists are really letting us down. (Just wrapping up Excession by Banks, so this whole thread was serendipitous for me)

For sure. It was this part you quoted (and the distinction you've made above) that led me to say "maybe a Luddite" and to recommend this. I am less concerned with technology itself than about using it responsibly to improve the world rather than to create more or new or exciting types of suffering because of profit.

Emma Vigelund of The Majority Report takes this point of view, and although I don't agree with it, it is a point of view that is coherent and understandable. If one thinks inclusion trumps competitive fairness, well, then the answer is clear. I think that gets complicated when scholarships, money and career advancement are on the line, but it's clear.

Does Dune Messiah get better? I loved the first book and I am shocked at how much less interesting this book is. I'm 70 pages in and we've had: - A meeting of conspirators to kill Paul - Paul and Chani having a discussion about whether he should impregnate Irulan - A second meeting of conspirators, this time on Arrakis - A meeting of Paul's inner circle in which...nothing much is decided. I haven't finished this chapter, so maybe they actually do something later. I can slog on for a bit longer, but WTF? I was really impressed with how tight Dune was, almost every scene had a bunch of worldbuilding, character development and plot movement woven together. Thus far everything is stagnant and dull.

Sad news, Laurence Fox loses libel trial and has to pay 180 grand in damages.

Yes, but I'd like to unerline this passage: I think this points out that it's the specific combination of technology and capitalism that is so dangerous. So it depends how you want to define "Luddism." If we're talking about the historical movement, then yes, we should all be Luddites, because neoliberalism threatens to make any technology terrifying. But if we're using a more common sense of the word, I think it would be better to direct the rage at socio-economic structures instead of technology itself. I'd say Iain Banks had an interesting view of what AIs could provide humanity in a socialist perspective. One could argue that it's a rather paternalistic view, but I think such a view is warranted given history, and I'd rather take that than the absolutely moronic idea that "the market" will allow for the proper development and use of technology. Another way to put it is that I'm a bit reluctant to embrace Luddism, because the early days of computer science and IT offered incredible promises for humanity, that were only betrayed once massive corporations took over and redirected the entire enterprise toward maximizing profit. We still have remnants of the potential though, like wikipedia, and as I said earlier, communication really can be said to be a good in itself, so I'd rather target our corporate overlords than the machines.

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Empire of Black and Gold and The Tiger and the Wolf are 3.99$ on Kindle.

Sorry about the random post. I was bored at work and scanning some stuff I had on my iPad and came across that. Thought I’d share.

I've been offered a vasectomy on my son's birthday, which is ironic as he's the reason i want one.

Today the cardiologist, the sweetest female doctor I have ever met, asked me what I do for a living. I told her I worked in leadership development. Ah so what kinda software do I develop? It’s not software, basically we train the management. Ah and whatever does one develop on them? Well… Ah is it like communication and the like? Yep, communication and the like. Ah. Imagine, this poor woman with her vast knowledge that she applies every day to save lives must have never heard anything so dumb, insignificant and meaningless to make a livelihood as developing managers in communication and the like. The sheer dumb corporate hubris to spend 50 hours of several people every week on these things.

Thank you Chats, DMC, Toth, and Liffguard. I just need to say it again outloud, it really sucks to feel a deep and meaningful connection with someone and think you found the one, but they are with someone else (it was all just emotional, nothing physical). She worked from home and I would sit with her when I was able and we'd talk for 8hrs+ every day. Frankly it's made me seriously doubt myself and my ability to discern how I'm seen by the people around me. Like am I even capable of having someone reciprocate these feelings? I had convinced myself many years ago I was happy alone, and then I met this person. Now all I want is someone to love me and care about me, and it's just like I'm putting too much pressure on any new woman I potentially meet. I think it's only fair to myself and others to not be trying to meet anyone right now, but I hate the loneliness so so much.

Is that a question?

See also Blood in the Machine, Brian Merchant's latest book.

I completed the main story in Horizon Forbidden West and now I've started the Burning Shores DLC story. I'm 63 hours in the game. At one point I got bored with all the side quests and just shot for finishing the main story. I found the last act of the main story less challenging than in HZD.

Imo, the show did a good enough showing that John loved Mariko. OTOH it's less clear how much Mariko loved John, because she certainly didn't put their love ahead of duty or even her desire to die.

I certainly hope so.