The Democrat cities are urine-soaked hellholes that reek of pot where criminals stalk unmolested while the full fury of what is supposed to be the law hangs over the head of any citizen who dares do something about it, and that’s good. The idiots who live there voted for turning their urban landscapes into petri dishes of social pathologies, and they should enjoy the full benefits of their decisions. We normal people should avoid these socialist wastelands and elect legislators to Congress who will starve them of the federal funds that enable their decline. In red states, our legislators should wage warfare on the blue tumors in their midst lest they metastasize outside the city limits. And we should ruthlessly point to them as the future Democrats want, which they are, a vision of a psychotic hobo taking a dump on the sidewalk out in front of your house forever.
To put it very simply—we’re going to be living among digital minds of all shapes and sizes. So how do you determine who gets a vote? How do you deal with the fact that to reproduce, it takes a human 9 months to make 1 copy of itself, while it takes a digital mind 1 second to make 100,000 copies of itself? Can we have a democracy when the AI population grows to 300 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑜𝑛 while the human population stagnates at 300 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑜𝑛?
Moreover, how do you deal with 10000x intelligence differences? We don’t give frogs a vote over human affairs; are we supposed to give 100 IQ beings a vote when it affects those with 1000 IQ’s? What if a single mind ends up with 99% of the intelligence/compute (which seems likely)?
Above all, everyone is failing to think about the downstream consequences of this new world we are entering and just how weird and different it’ll be.
A new paper by two bioethicists at the University of Toronto makes the case that euthanizing the poor should be socially acceptable. Kayla Wiebe, a PhD candidate in philosophy, and bioethicist Amy Mullin, a philosophy professor, wrote in the Journal of Medical Ethics that:
To force people who are already in unjust social circumstances to have to wait until those social circumstances improve, or for the possibility of public charity but unreliably occurs when particularly distressing cases become public, is unacceptable. A harm reduction approach acknowledges that the recommended solution is necessarily an imperfect one: a ‘lesser evil’ between two or more less than ideal options.
The horror stories of Canadians seeking assisted suicide because they cannot get the social assistance they need are “worst-case scenarios,” the bioethicists write. “One way of responding to these cases is, ‘Well, clearly then, medical aid in dying should not be available to them,’” Mullin said in an interview. “We just don’t think the fact that social conditions are contributing to make their lives intolerable means that they don’t have the wherewithal to make that choice. People can make their own determination about whether their lives are worth living, and we should respect that.”
Wiebe and Mullin reject the idea that the circumstances driving Canadians to suicide are coercive, and that refusing to kill them upon request “amounts to perpetuating their suffering, hoping that this will ultimately lead to a better, more ‘just’ world.” In their view, the best “harm reduction approach” would mean that “the least harmful way forward is to allow MAiD to be available.”
1. The Earth’s core undergoes extreme exothermic change – sloughing high-latent-energy hexagonal closepack (HCP) iron from its H-layer and into the mantle where it converts to face centered cubic (FCC) iron plus kinetic energy (heat). Core magnetic permeability weakens and its geographic dipole wanders. Earth’s rotation slows from the mass exchange from core to mantle.
2. The exothermic heat content from this eventually reaches Earth’s asthenosphere. Deep crude acyclic alkane pockets are heated and accelerate methane release into atmosphere. Methane ppms far outpace model predictions. Carbon-rich oceans and now-warmer tundra each spring solar warming, both release proportionally more carbon.
3. Abyssal ocean conveyance belts pull novel heat content from small-footprint yet now much hotter contribution points exposed to the asthenosphere – and convey (not conduct, convect, nor radiate) this novel heat content through oceanic advection and upwelling systems to the surface of the ocean. Abyssal ocean currents (and consequently surface ones as well) speed up from the discrete addition of kinetic energy. Arctic and Antarctic polar ice sheets melt from the bottom up.
4. Ocean heats atmosphere (or fails to cool it as well as it once did) much more readily than atmosphere heats ocean. This exothermic core-to-mantle equilibrium is cyclic, and can and will eventually reverse.
Ppl tend to think about AI through very very narrow frames
Obviously, there’s many who default to AI=unemployment issue
Or the tech folks who see it as crypto 2.0 or merely as big as the internet
But it goes way deeper.
(1/3)
Even EA’s will think about AI primarily in terms of “is it an X-risk? yes or no” and then go back to debating the ‘moral worth’ of animals, totally ignoring the prospect of digital minds that will shortly have arbitrarily large amounts of whatever they define as ‘moral worth’
Everyone is trying to map AI onto some familiar ontology, but the reality will be so unfamiliar, foreign, & incomprehensible that it will tear to shreds the assumptions which we didn’t even know we made
We are going to live through this and are only seeing glimpses of it now
The reason I do not find VB compelling is I am mainly convinced that the variant narrative is bogus. So anything propping the variant narrative I find is disinfo. I think his stuff is subtle and pernicious, in that it will seem to be true under many circumstances where it is not.
There is very good proof that there wasn’t any sort of new pandemic virus. The UK data shows that only 10k people died of Covid as primary cause – and even then it may have been the treatment that killed them, not the disease. People are getting sick who were vaccinated – not for some evolved variant but likely because of vaccine complications.
VB thesis is a precursor to greater lockdowns. We had regular covid before – but now we have super-covid etc. etc.
But most everyone they tested after vaccination had memory antibodies show up, demonstrating they already had natural immunity and Covid was not novel. So VB’s theory cannot work. A) because there was a previous virus and no new virus and B) if people already had natural immunity the vaccine can’t then drive evolution and likely C) corona virus creates so many variants on it’s own evolution can’t be driven in the way he says.
You can believe it if you want – I think he is a disinfo agent.
This is an email sent by a friend with whom I often communicate on covid and other subjects. He has been quite strong in his criticism of Vanden Bossche’s predictions, so I asked him why. ABN
In 2001, Amazon’s stock fell 90%. In a hail-mary attempt, Bezos invited a book author to Amazon. Together, they created the foundation for trillions in market cap:
The author was Jim Collins, who published Built to Last in 1994. By 2001, Bezos had already adapted several of its concepts into Amazon’s principles:
· Tyranny Of Or → Avoid 1-Way Doors · Homegrown Leadership → Hire & Develop the Best · Good Enough Never Is → Insist on the Highest Standards
So, Bezos was intrigued when Jim said, in front of the whole executive team:
“In times like this you want to respond not by reacting to bad news, but by building a flywheel.”
Collins had in mind the 5,000 lb old-style flywheels. They took hours to turn at first. But at some point, WHOOSH! Their own momentum kept them going.
Collins had quite a bit of reason to believe in his statement. He had commissioned a large team of Harvard MBA researchers for his new book, Good to Great. They compared companies that had delivered sustainable, S&P 500-beating results to mediocre companies that had flailed.
What the team found is the great companies were spinning flywheels. It wasn’t the first, fifth, or one-hundredth rotation that got them spinning. It was their concentrated effort that led to the breakthrough momentum.
On the other hand, mediocre companies were constantly launching new initiatives. Instead of achieving breakthrough momentum on one flywheel, they tried to create many. But each never achieved breakthrough velocity. They had to keep manually cranking them.
Given the insight, Bezos and Collins began sketching out Amazon’s e-commerce flywheel. They identified that Amazon could generate self-reinforcing momentum in 2 ways:
Lower cost structure leading to lower prices leading to more scale and back to lower costs.
Greater selection leading to customer experience leading to traffic leading to more sellers and back to greater selection.
These two elements have been the backbone of Amazon’s e-commerce business for the 20+ years since the pair initially founded them.
To this date, the flywheel continues to extract market share for Amazon. Last year, Amazon reached a tremendous 57% of total US e-commerce sales. At $514B in revenue, it has left the competition – like Walmart – in the dust.
So, what can we learn from Amazon’s e-commerce flywheel? As product and business people, we are tempted to start new flywheels constantly. But, it usually pays to focus on spinning our main one with self-reinforcing momentum faster.
As an observer, I have always believed Bezos also used Edward Deming’s Deming Cycle to grow and improve Amazon. Since Bezos departure as CEO, it seems Deming is being forgotten. Fees are higher, service is worse. ABN
Tjeerd Andringa of the University of Groningen Professor of Cognitive Sciences, response to question of why we continue to see these types of scandals, particularly involving pedophilia, cropping up with such frequency in the highest political offices? Is there some reason for this, can we explain this phenomenon by recourse to things in the public domain?
“One of the reasons for the intimate association of the power elite with child abuse is that they might use it to maintain their, somewhat hidden, ‘kakistocracy’: government by the worst and most evil people: a highly capable brand of psychopaths if you like.
Psychopathy is only mildly hereditary, so an elite psychopath cannot guarantee that sons or daughters will be just as psychopathic. I expect this entails that they need a steady resupply of ruthless and power hungry individuals who understand the world deeply and pervasively and, as such, are highly capable. Normally deep and pervasive understanding leads to wisdom and a sense of responsibility, humility even. But that is precisely not what that the kakistocracy needs: it needs the same depth and pervasiveness of understanding, but in combination with utter ruthlessness and the capacity to appear respectable.
Enter child abuse. By abusing children you “give” them an attachment disorder by violating or destroying the deep sense of security that is the basis for an open attitude towards learning and discovering. With this trust violated the child’s world changes from a world of opportunities, to a world of potential and actual threats. And often they will search and serve those who can protect them from these threats an in doing so giving their autonomy away for life. And they might even carry it over to their children: stultifying their growth towards autonomy. Aristocrats and priest must have discovered a long time ago that abused children lead to useful adult servants; slaves actually. And while this is despicable to people with a normal moral development, it is a positive thing for psychopaths who see other people as tools anyway.
Yet this does not solve the problem of keeping the kakistocracy supplied with respectable appearing, super high functioning, and completely ruthless psychopaths. Only a small fraction of the population (say 1%) is psychopath and as such has the benefit of an absence of empathy and a conscience: psychopaths are able to exploit others as if they were tools. Yet the vast majority of them are not particularly evil: they can be ruthless, daring, and callous, but they find mostly norm-abiding ways to be psychopathic: they might be mountaineers, military, ER-doctors, car or insurance salesmen, real-estate brokers, or white-collar criminals. But most are definitely not the high functioning individuals that compare with how the power elite sees themselves and would accept as their peers. So how do you recruit suitable psychopaths in your midst if they do not advertise themselves as such.
Enter child abuse again. If you organize events for the ambitious and capable in which they progressively can show that, notwithstanding their veneer of respectability, they are actually completely ruthless, you have the ideal recruiting grounds for the kakistocracy. Of course blackmail plays a role, but the suitable candidates gladly let themselves become blackmailable because this gives them access to the inner sanctum of the kakistocracy: they prove themselves worthy members and loyal (due to their blackmail-ability) and in return they will receive access to power in a way they could never dream of on their own. After a while they become fully accepted at a level that suits their capabilities and they will help maintain the system that gave them so many opportunities (and can end their respectability at any point in time).
I think that what I have sketched above is a useful framework to understand the dynamics of elite child abuse networks. It is never an incident, it is “just” the kakistocracy maintaining and reinvigorating itself: business as usual. But the few moments the abuse networks become exposed it provides and ideal opportunity to glimpse the kakistocracy at work (and frantically protecting itself).”
This was sent to me as text copied into an email without a link. I will post a link when and if one becomes available. Ha! I just went looking for it and found instead: Tjeerd Andringa and the question of academic freedom:
Dr. Tjeerd Andringa of RUG University has now been suspended a year after teaching conspiracy theories in his course. This conflict raises questions about the place that alternative media and conspiracy theories have within an academic setting, and where the boundaries of academic freedom lie.
Apparently RUG University does not know that conspiracy theorists are simply people telling a truth before most can see it or people brave enough to say what everyone already knows. ABN
Head in the sand argument. The variants monitored across the globe in the most decentralized sequence surveillance ever performed show no sign of your swarm.
A few variants dominate the sequence for a few months and are replaced. What is shocking the actual lack of a swarm. pic.twitter.com/GS1w6Etb1C
This Twitter thread will not unroll. It can be found here. It is a strong refutation of the idea (first proposed by JJ Couey, I believe) that covid has been a psyop ornamented with swarms of ‘infectious clones’ deliberately released to provide newsworthy symptoms and positive PCR tests in enough parts of the world to make the pandemic look real. McKernan believes the pandemic is based largely on fraudulent PCR tests. The open debate and evidence based ideas presented are healthy and I am glad to see this happening. ABN
…What is new is not gay sex per se but mainstreaming non-procreative sex as normal.
The anti-procreation campaign is succeeding. A recent compilation of surveys (12,000 total respondents) conducted between 2012 and 2021 showed dramatic increases for those identifying as LGBT. Among millennials (born 1980 and 1999) a notable rise occurred in those considering themselves as LGBT, from 5.8% to 10.5. Significantly, these self-identification numbers were basically flat for precious generations, baby boomers, generation X (1965-1979) and so on. But for what is called Generation Z (1997-2002) the figure in 2021 was 20.8%. That is, slightly over 1 in 5 saw themselves as living outside of the traditional definition of “normal.” Yes, maturation might bring a return to past patterns, but given that procreative sex is the hard-wired default option of human nature, something powerful is pushing youngsters away from normal.
…sex education in today’s schools has advanced far beyond the traditional bone dry, unerotic birds and the bees. Under the label of “comprehensive sex education,” lessons now include graphic depictions of oral and anal sex along with masturbation. Massachusetts seventh graders learn how to mold Saran Wrap to form a dental dam for safe cunnilingus. High schoolers in Eugene, Oregon recently were instructed about massage oil, flavored syrup, a candle, music, feathers or a boa on the pathway to sexual satisfaction.
The lessons on non-reproductive sex continue in college and, if anything, they become more explicit. No longer might gay students worry about living celibate lives in hostile campus environments. Now, thanks to the website Campus Pride Index those in the LGBT+ community can see how over 400 campuses are rated by their friendliness toward gays to ensure years of sexual exploration. The site also offers pride events and campus fairs where like-minded youngster can meet and exchange information. Their job bulletin board includes a gay-friendly research institute and access to a pride media center.
American Buddhist Net 