I don't have a horse in this race, but I really wish both sides would get their ideology into something resembling coherence.

You got liberals that absolutely lose their ---- at the heresy of someone like James Damore a few years back suggesting some diversity goals are unattainable because men and women naturally have sexually dimorphic brains, and some of those differences manifest in differing interests and pursuits. Clearly the brain is not a gendered organ, and men and women are exactly the same - unless they're trans, in which case they're totally different, more like the opposite sex of the body.

Or conservatives. Still in the 1950's, men and women are completely different, and that's why men think logically, and women can't math or science, which is why they belong in the kitchen. Unless they're trans, in which case clearly the brains are the same, and physical sex is the only reality, not gender.

Could you two sort this out maybe? Mix and match until at least one of you has a full hand?

Of course the US government isn't hiding it. They've passed it all in to corporations to hide it, so no FOIA issues.

Lol, one explanation I've heard anyway. The whole thing honestly is fascinating. Clearly there's something flying around that can travel through multiple mediums with no effort, accelerate fast enough to turn passengers in a conventionally propelled vehicle into so much gooey red paste, and confuse the heck out of both civilian and military pilots. There's been too much evidence released NOT to believe something unidentified (key word) is freely moving in and around our airspace in ways we don't understand. Options are aliens or advanced military tech and well - the answer is never aliens.

How mind numbingly dumb can climate deniers be? Ten years ago you could look at satellite images taken from the first satellites on and watch the visible regression of polar ice caps year over year. Mountains losing glacial caps they've had for millennia. It's only been a couple years since I've been scuba diving either - it's not just the Great Barrier Reef, although that will be the largest loss - reefs from Florida to Hawaii are bleaching out. And science denial? It's not like a tenuous theory. Nature provided us a damn science experiment cosmically right next door. You know, Venus, the planet with the CO2 atmosphere that's substantially hotter than the planet TWICE as close to the sun as it is.

Oh, but one winter was randomly cooler in a local geographic area? Remind yourself that when starving because farmland has to turned to desert. I'm sure it will take the edge off the hunger.

Oh come on! Now they're going after aspiring soap opera actors just looking for work?

As the Handmaiden Turns was going to absolutely corner the Florida housewife market.

Whatever happened to good old laxatives and a bully just finding themselves in a really crappy situation?

#7 | POSTED BY JOE AT 2024-03-08 11:44 AM | FLAG:

Best news I've heard all day!

So you are also for defunding the police?

#6 | POSTED BY DONNERBOY AT 2024-03-08 11:31 AM | REPLY | FLAG:

Mistake me for a republican because I criticized democrats somewhere? I'm not independent because I'm a centrist. I'm independent because I think democrats are just republican lite and need to do better to earn my vote. Neither here nor there in this thread.

As for defunding? Not precisely - but they need to lose the wannabe military equipment.

What I'm for is police accountability. They have the power to make life and death decisions, and they should be held to a higher standard for that. You don't get to make mistakes in those circumstances, and they should both be indicted more readily and face harsher penalties than someone not committing crimes "under color of law." Not should civil asset forfeiture be a thing, damages caused when they decide to play Rambo should be mandatory to cover, "immunity" is absolute bs, and they should either be directly responsible in instances like this, or minimally forced to carry insurance so bad cops can be priced out if nothing else.

It's absolute insanity that the military has to answer to UCMJ and rules of engagement when dealing with enemy combatants, yet LEO's get away with almost any abuse against their own fellow citizens.

What it doesn't have is "consciousness", because we don't actually know what that is.

#18 | POSTED BY CORKY AT 2024-03-08 10:20 AM | REPLY | FLAG:

That doesn't mean it does not have it. Probably one of the most fascinating aspects of AI really.

I've always held consciousness is just a recursive loop. Metacognition. The brain's perception of itself as it perceives external or internal input. So it's possible any sufficiently complex system programmed with the ability to self-reflect could result in consciousness. Of course, just how much complexity would be necessary - no idea. In order to mimic a human brain, not only complex, but dynamic. Strengthening and pruning connections, not just gates, but the equivalent of analog gates that can vary signal intensity. Which might necessitate a computer which can rewrite it's own code, possibly even alter its own hardware.

But that seems like something that gets out of control fast. A brain has limits to its size, neuroplasticity, speed, etc. A computer that could do all that would have a chance at exponential increases in intelligence.

A. Get out and vote

B. Don't take all these polls too seriously. Just saw one making huge headlines all over ... the sample group was 1000. And that's probably mostly people who still use landlines.

How long until they make one capable of altering and improving its own code, I wonder?

The trouble is, in every one of these systems I've read about, there's been at least one programmer or admin it scared the hell out of - and yet they all drive on, because "it's going to get made either way, and it's better if they're there to try and shape it first."

Now take it out of their paychecks instead of taxpayer's dollars.

"Mommy's" been dead a long time, and no, democrats didn't "leave" me, I just got tired of republican lite bs. Offer me someone with real anti-war convictions who's willing to stand up to corporations, break up monopolies and oligopolies, and start fighting for single payer and better opportunities in higher education (like increasing public education to at least k-14 or a trade to rival European states in the global market) rather than just half-assing it by paying off some people's student loans, ahem, or why are you wasting my time? And yeah. I might vote Republican until they get it right. Because I've watched 20 years of pitiful "progress" and my patience is running out.

Oh, Sabine Hosenfelder is the first to come to mind.

I read it. But it will get passed around among dems, not many republicans. I just think the common "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing dems seem to have with Liz is disconcerting. To say the least.

This sounds like a fantastic movie, maybe with the guys from Super Troopers.

When her best moment was a vote in favor of poverty, I am afraid to ask what her worst moment is!

#23 | POSTED BY SNOOFY AT 2024-03-06 04:41 PM | REPLY | FLAG

I don't know, but I'd still share it with her. All 15 seconds.

Democrat warmth towards Liz Cheney seriously grosses me out.

I've been independent since about 2010, once Obama proved little more than Bush III in any of the issues I cared about (Patriot Act, NSA domestic spying, secret FISA courts with gag orders, illegal wars and nation building, rescuing banks and Wall St while letting Main St lose their homes, starting off the healthcare debate with "single payer is off the table, etc) so I gave Trump a little more chance than the more partisan democrats would have.

Rather than the visceral hate so much of the left felt for him, I mostly found him to be precisely what I expected. Bumbling, not highly competent, achieved a couple good things, screwed up the SCOTUS worse than I imagined - biggest thing I didn't expect was the cult of personality he formed among republicans. I really expected they'd all distance themselves from him, not want any part of the ship going down, and it would turn into 4 years of him just not getting anything done and the nation would carry on. Wow. Was I wrong. Seriously. Wow.

But there was one thing I LOVED to see. Starting with Jeb - and that was him just driving out and making the old guard neocons, the mass murdering warmongers of the Bush / Cheney era absolutely irrelevant.

If you judge presidential success in part by the disgustingly low bar of how little they take part in the great American tradition of - as Carlin put it - bombing brown people, or how many new laws they make like the Patriot Act to eviscerate our Bill of Rights, Trump was oddly successful, a step in the right direction finally. Objectively, in terms of damage to the world, I'd call him a far better president than Bush. Take it for what you will. I was Army when Bush was president, and people I loved and served with never came back. From the wrong goddamn country, at that. I'd put the noose around his neck for war crimes myself if I could, so I'm willing to admit I may not be the wholly rational one there lol.

So of course, Liz, who 100% willingly carries on the sins of her father, hates Trump. But it utterly boggles my mind to see Democrats praise her as one of the last sane or honest republicans. Trump is just an unintelligent narcissist doing precisely what they do. She's pure calculating evil, the type willing to commit genocide so long as it keeps the family business rolling in cash.

#73 | POSTED BY MIRANDA7 AT 2024-03-07 01:04 AM | FLAG:

Seems far more likely to siphon from Trump to me. No great political analysis behind that, just might appeal more to the conspiracy minded that are also a little over Trump.

Not like one can rely on polls to figure out much these days :/

Interestingly, if there's any crypto / NFT whales out there, you can get 2 for 1 if you buy either $83 million worth of them or around $460 million for some reason.

Did none of you Deplorables buy NVidia?

#33 | POSTED BY SNOOFY AT 2024-03-06 12:23 PM | FLAG:

And pass up the Trump NFT's?!? They're going up any day now. Any day ...

Define G-d.
#97 | POSTED BY SNOOFY AT 2024-03-06 02:58 PM | FLAG:

A theoretically conscious creative urge with the power to create and alter natural laws at the universal level, be that inherent or through technology so beyond our capacity to understand as to be indistinguishable from magic. Preferably personal and benevolent, but also some days possibly explained by a spoiled toddler left to play Universe Sim for too long so their parents could just have a moment of peace and quiet.

#88 | POSTED BY SNOOFY AT 2024-03-06 01:52 PM | FLAG:

I was going to comment on that, but was already so long-winded I was tired of hearing myself type lol.

I don't mean to "God of the gaps" it - but the point of the really long brushing past of numerous physics issues - Bell's Theorem, the one the proved reality is non-local being the one that really gets me - was to say it's not just a simple "gap." This isn't "we know gravity is there, but not how it works, so let's just say God is holding everything together." This is "we literally don't understand base reality and can't even perceive most of it." String theory posits everything from multiple dimensions rolled up within our own too tiny for us to probe with a particle accelerator from here to the moon. And it also posits branes on which could literally sit entire other realities overlapping our own. Some serious scientists actually speculate on the whole simulation hypothesis - and what, if anything, is that, but God with a computer and extra steps? 4/5ths of the mass in our universe is invisible. These aren't "gaps". These are chasms you could actually fit a whole god into, and rather than simply using the supernatural to explain something natural we know exists, the problem is at the very bottom floor of reality - we don't even know reality exists as we perceive it. And that's while trying desperately to avoid any of the woo.

So again, I'm not espousing any one religion, so much as pointing out the arrogance of claiming we know what "can't be." Fundamentally - we don't know anything.

#83 | POSTED BY SYCOPHANT AT 2024-03-06 11:56 AM | FLAG:

I personally don't necessarily believe any of it - in a literal sense. I don't even know many Christians that do, although having been raised by a Pentecostal literalist, I certainly once did. I honestly don't even know how many times the whole Bible, front to back, was read to me or by me.

Of course, that, along with the hypocrisy of so much of the religious right and the prosperity gospel types were why I jumped on the New Atheism bandwagon hard when I was younger - teens to mid 20's at least.

It was cringey.

Were they wrong about many of the evils done in the name of religion? No. But Stalin and Mao proved quite well one doesn't need religion to commit great evil, that rather any belief system can be perverted into something horrible.

And self-righteousness? The whole being a moral busybody all up in everyone's business and more concerned with signaling your own virtue by tearing down others rather than truly being virtuous? Well, I'm an independent these days politically, and can easily see where the supposedly rational left can be every bit the Puritanical killjoys the religious right can be. There are times the Tic Toc cancel culture culture club absolutely leave me shaking my head laughing that we've gone from little blue haired church ladies seeing Satan everywhere and trying to censor any art, music, or political views they think are evil right to not so little blue haired college students seeing racism and misogyny everywhere and trying to censor any art, music, or political views they think are evil. So you don't need religion to be annoying.

But, as Oneironaut and I both pointed out in various ways, religion need not dictate, but can inform culture, morals and social cohesion. It can give provide comfort and thousands of years of philosophy that would truly be a waste to throw out just because one doesn't see a god when looking out the window. And as I pointed out - and can go much deeper into if one wants - there is a hubris and ignorance to believing one has a monopoly on reality. What we perceive, both directly and indirectly through scientific instruments is the tiniest fraction of reality. What is dark matter? where is dark matter? Explain particle-wave duality and how the macro world coheres out of the quantum, and Bell's Theorem. And tell me which theory on that is correct. Are we all encoded in holograms on the event horizon of an expanding universe or 4-D black hole in another universe? Is our universe infinite, or one of many in an infinity of universes? Either way, what beings could evolve out of actual infinity? We do not even understand our own reality. We cannot even perceive it. There's no biological advantage to it. As I mentioned before, e we can't even prove if we're part of a simulation or not.

So while I can't say one religion in particular is correct, how can I say there isn't a higher dimension or a vastly more evolved being out there, so beyond us as to essentially be a God? There's no proof - but there's an awful lot of proof of just how tiny and ignorant we truly are.

And it does little good to mock the religious. Neither you nor they will change your minds. But it does make one look like an ass, and it achieves more to find what unites us than divides us. And most probably take most of your examples as allegory.

That's a thing?!? Alright, alright, I'll lay off the Taco Bell!

#12 | POSTED BY SITZKRIEG AT 2024-03-05 06:55 PM | FLAG:

Damn it Sitz. Really want to flag that abusive. Clearly didn't bring enough for everybody.

Man, this is what I missed about this place. Other threads calling poster's intelligence, species, sexual orientation (also including species,) std's, and how best they could unalive themselves in question, and then a discussion like this.

Posted a couple times on Flipboard recently and decided the dead internet theory was true - or worse, it would be better if it was lol.

Also, great quote in the YouTube comments on that video Corky.

"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to him"
Louis Pasteur

Don't know how I never heard that before. Somewhat concerned I found it in YouTube comments.