leicsmac

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?

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.