leicsmac

Sadly not so much, I think, in this digital era of rumour and confirmation bias.

Damn shame. Still, no choice. March (hopefully) then it is.

As other people have said, there is no doubt a reason for the secrecy. I guess we'll all find out in due course, again as per above.

And considering that he's likely known a very great deal of the world's very worst powermongers... That being said, given who Epstein was it might not be best to take his words simply at face value, as confirming as they might be.

The Sil is infamous for how dense and convoluted it is. It's really written more like a straight encyclopedia than the fiction work The Lord of The Rings or The Hobbit is. That being said, try to stick with it as the scale of things is so much more massive than either of the above and the story of the Akallabêth is one of the best such stories written, imo.

That's an argument I've heard a few times before and tbh I can't offer much compelling evidence to the contrary - the amount of bad stuff that a person hears about (and being cranked up to 11 in this digital era) often clearly has a negative impact on their mental health. But at the same time, these issues do matter because they can and do affect everybody in the long term. No idea how you square that particular circle. Perhaps just by everyone doing their best, at the same time, to make sure just "their" patch is well looked after (Tolkien could well be right on that one).

I'm not sure, I'm thinking that perhaps an international nonce ring of unspeakably gargantuan depth involving a fair few people whose decision-making does affect most everyone on the planet would be everyone's problem? Perhaps not, though.

Is it much of a stretch to say that the current Epstein discoveries would have at least killed the political career of any previous President, and that they haven't shows the massive depth of cult of personality still present in the US at the present time preventing exactly that?

You're absolutely correct. It's understandable, it's definitely not right, and it directly allows for some pretty grotesque stuff to happen. Perhaps because that particular dividing line has been drawn already, for perhaps over a decade now, and so that perspective is the one from which this must be examined, as much as folks like you or I would like to make it just about humans?

Think this is important:

Oh, don't get me wrong, there's still so many ways this can go horribly wrong and so few it can go right, I'm just thinking even though that is the case, it might still give better chances than humans being in total control, given how humans often act when in control.

Congratulations to Alcaraz. Completing the Career Slam at that age is remarkable.

Looks like it isn't. You would expect that tbh. You would think it will be reasonably straightforward for Alcaraz from here.

And you know the really terrifying thing? Taking the risks of freewheeling AI here might actually be less risky than at least some humans controlling it and/or leading us into a future where tech is going to become more and more important. An AI might (key word there) not be self interested enough to be straight destructive. We know that far too many powerful humans are that self interested.

Nole rolling back the years for one last effort here.

Fair enough - I guess I see centuries, if not millenia, of historical division, tribalism, and the most grotesque oppression and atrocities carried about because of them and it's very difficult to view it all as an overall positive element and want to take many examples from it, even when weighed in with the many examples of grace, compassion and togetherness the past has shown as well. But I know this is a matter of opinion.

Only if the link isn't made that people being motivated by nostalgia (and acting upon that motivation) is one of the chief reasons that everything is fvcked, and why it may get even more so in the future. Guaranteeing the future isn't going to come from attempting to relive the past, no matter how tempting that might be.

Will likely come down to the England match in Paris.

Nah, miss me with that fatalism, it just makes that disaster self fulfilling. The way to avoid it may be difficult, it may be a long shot, but it exists and any decent human should be looking to work in taking that shot, as much of a long shot it may be. Spare me the ones who failed because they were too lazy or self interested to at least try to make a better world than the one they came into.

It is obvious. But encouraging that sentiment leads only to disaster.

And now we are seeing just how powerful and destructive a sentiment denial can be.

The very idea of such stasis runs counter to the facts of evolutionary history concerning survival that Darwin codified and have only been expanded on since anyway. "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change." This has been shown to be true time and time again. Could possibly be why a lot of people who value such stasis often wrap themselves in the denial of such fact offered by organised religious or other sources. It's just unfortunate that such denial affects often far more than just them.

Because enough people like the idea of inbuilt hierarchy and social Darwinism, and social media has given those people extensive reach. Enough reach to be able for it to appear as things are now. Quite apart from it being morally abhorrent (which they might have an counterargument for), such ideas based on division will, inevitably, doom us all. So it's death-worship dressed up in some self-serving idea of demographic supremacy. It's darkly funny how most often they choose not to see that, though.

Additionally, it's interesting how the ideas of Nixons "counter government" and Trump's "deep state" are so alike. It's almost as if they are alike in thinking being President means absolutely zero accountability except from those who support them.

A thought experiment, to gauge just how robust the system of "checks and balances" is right now: If a matter akin to Watergate in its style and execution were to be carried out by the current US administration, would events play out in the same way as they did 50 years ago? And why or why not?