leicsmac

Not sure I agree it can lead there given how deep the downfall would be, but who knows?

And there's still time for the possibility of Mad Max, too.

I'm sorry, but this has been covered on the thread for it before. No such claims have been made by the scientific consensus itself, rather by people looking to sell fear for papers and clicks. And even if it were the case? The people researching the matter only have to be right once. At the end of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, the village starves, and it doesn't matter to the dead, not one bit, that the boy was wrong the times before. People get that parable so wrong - it's a morality tale against the danger presumption and profiling behaviour, not in favour of mistrust of people simply because they might have been wrong before. Edit: there's a reason a lot of disaster movies, including those regarding AI, pivot on an expert being disbelieved and ignored.

Given the way the tech is maturing, you'll get no disagreement from me on the immediacy if the threat. However, they both need the requisite effort devoted to dealing with them or the kak will hit the fan - and likely on a shorter timeline than a few decades.

I think it's foolhardy to suggest the way we're changing the Earth and the way it will lead to critical resource shortages in short order is something that isn't worthy of every bit of attention it is getting, if not much more. That being said, AI is another threat of similar degree of consequence and does have to be looked at carefully, for all the reasons described in the posts above and more.

I hear that, and I'm sure it's obvious I'm hardly one to shy away from looking at how bad things are and how bad they can get and making that very apparent. But if that's all there is, then the void is all there is, so just to maintain sanity I think someone has to look at how things can turn out better and do their best there, even if the odds are long and the threats both very apparent and very dreadful.

There appear to be so many ways for this to go wrong, and only a few - or perhaps only one - for it to go right. But that right way, or right ways, do exist, and let's not abandon hope on the matter.

It's possible, but then it's possible there are other causes as well. It's telling, however, that even Farage and whoever was speaking for him recently has had to go out and directly tell Trump that he's wrong on a thing or two. That's damaging for them.

As per above, I've no idea what a workable solution would look like tbh mate - I have solutions but I'm not sure any of them are workable. However, I do believe that a workable solution exists purely because this is a problem of resource management (and therefore at least possibly under human control) than that of direct vital resource scarcity (which would offer much fewer choices in terms of dealing with and all of them are bad).

I actually think that Reform might have a rough couple of years solely because, and if, they are unable to decouple their political style from that of the current US administration. That Trump and co are being utterly outrageous means any kind of association with them is so poisonous it can be damaging, which imo gives Farage a headache about how best to address that right now. That one matter might be enough to at least deny them a straight majority.

There is definitely going to have to be a massive change in the working paradigm in a lot of first world nations because of AI. But, that being said, again it's a problem of inequality of resources instead of actual, genuine scarcity of them, and is therefore at least theoretically solvable.

No, but it is easier on the eyes. My eyes, anyway.

Potentially another source of increased inequality, that can lead to increased conflict, that can lead to catastrophe. Not sure what the solution is on that one, but someone smart needs to come up with it and have the power to apply it. Same as other big issues of similar type.

The discussion between Starmer and Xi boringly diplomatic, then. Good. A little more boring might not be a bad thing considering what "interesting" has led us to recently.

Also:

It will only upset people short sighted and self interested enough to think that doing things only the way the other power bloc to China does things will end any way other than badly for our species. It wouldn't be a "war" from a pitched battle perspective, but I could easily see civil guerilla action that the US military has had issues with totally quelling in the past (see Vietnam and Afghanistan). It was said at the time that he took charge that the Chinese could simply piss themselves laughing at what democracy has spun in their biggest rival and then work the kind of long game they've been playing for a while for better geopolitical results even faster.

I noticed that gap as well. It's like Federer and Nadal cleaning up all over again.

In more local news, Starmer and a delegation are headed for China today. It will be interesting to see what angle is played by both parties given the current geopolitical situation.

Very.

Or puts in play measures beforehand that clearly and obviously seek to ensure he doesn't lose. Either one is a possibility. The hopeful thing is, however, recent and other events have shown that when things go really in his face and a situation is truly untenable, he does often back down. Presumably for reasons of self preservation.

I think civil war could only be brought about by that genuine threat or actual act of secession. And those themselves would only likely be brought about if enough people in those states knew, or it was proven, that the current administration had rigged things so that the electoral route to get rid of them would no longer work. And that, scarily enough, is enough of a nonzero possibility to at least think about. But we'll only know more about that later this year when the midterms come up.

Slow bowlers have done enough to turn the screw here. If we'd scored 30 or 40 less it might have been more tricky, though.

350+ was always going to put a lot of scoreboard pressure on. Just need to wait for the errors or moments of skill.

In other news, the more Trump goes on about impeachment proceedings opening against him if the Repubs lose the Senate in the mid-terms in November, the more you wonder if the mid-terms will actually be free and fair.

The laws and rules regarding leaseholds and charges seem utterly unfit for purpose, unless the purpose is to further enrich the rich.