What I wonder is whether it's any good. Admittedly, I don't wonder hard enough to listen to it, but then I generally (almost always) avoid podcasts.

There will be tools. But there will also be the more general intelligence. One can argue about the time-line, and that's quite reasonable, but denying it requires accepting spiritualism or some such.

For that matter, people are often used as tools. It's not an "either/or" choice.

I do agree that incentives (and dis-incentives) are typically superior to other forms of regulation.

For example, a higher property tax for unoccupied buildings (or a tax break based on occupancy) might help get things moving.

Though, in the case of commercial property, that might not be enough. A root cause is Bank officers handing out loans like candy and basing the value of the collateral property on "anticipated rent". The owners are now afraid lowering the rent will trigger a re-valuation and the bank demanding repayment or starting foreclosure. Meanwhile, those officers know of the situation but don't want to rock the boat until they can get promoted far enough away not to have it come back on them , or better, make it to retirement first.

In truth, forced re-valuation is most likely the only way to break that log-jam at this point. The market isn't going to grow enough to actually make those turkeys rentable at current asking.

For residential, a grace period on some of those rennovations in exchange for actual occupancy may help.

The only way you could reasonably predict what jobs will be available would be to predict exactly how much more advanced AIs are going to get and how quicly. And any prediction is a "Wild Ass Guess".

FWIW, there's a company in China building humanoid robots for assembly line work. So far it's only sold less than a thousand, so it's probably still in the experimental stage, but if it's "nearly ready" then it will soon be ready.

Now most assembly line work is basically rote repetition, with only a limited number of special-case scenarios, to this is far from a general purpose robot...but it's enough to eliminate LOTS of jobs...if it's cheap enough. And if it is, one can expect incremental expansion into other roles.

It's not going to be an LLM. The LLM is just what it's going to use to talk to you. But "world models" are being built, and that is going to be the basis of real intelligence.

The thing is, it wouldn't help things for one player to quit.

OTOH, as someone else pointed out, the government isn't exactly trustworthy either. (I consider accepting funds from lobbyist groups to be accepting bribes, just like accepting funds from individuals.)

On the third hand, open source approaches can't limit the use to which something is put.

Perhaps the "corporate powers" are the least bad choice...but that sure isn't encouraging.

Sorry, but "death by GPS" is a label, not a reality. Someone decided to follow the instructions of the GPS. So this is not analogous to an actually self-driving car.

I would say that every nation exists as a mixed economy, unless the government has so collapsed that it's no longer worthy of the term.

It wouldn't hurt, but it would be a bit expensive (except the Morse code). Actually, I really think that shop classes should not have been cut. Admittedly repairing a steam locomotive is a bit extreme and a bit dangerous. Also horses are large and dangerous (and expensive) animals. And shoeing horses should be expanded to include running the forge that the horse shoe is created in. Perhaps not to digging the ore and making the charcoal, since in a lot of places the raw materials don't exist.

But these should be "options". They could replace PE and be merged with history and geography, or perhaps be "summer school". People really have no idea what the life of their ancestors was like, and "blacksmith" was a high status occupation.

What do you consider "proper pens" for "Spencerian Script"? I forget which kind of bird supplies the proper quill.

And the problem is that not all corporal punishment is bad. But people lack judgement about using it, so it gets over-used, under-used, or just misused. It needs to be quickly applied, accurately assessed, and minor in degree. Also it isn't sufficient in and of itself. It needs to be followed by an explanation and corrective action. And to come from someone that the recipient of the punishment accepts as having their good at heart. This can be difficult.

Art can be one option (it isn't always), but so can building things. And of the two I think building things is more important. As with art, though, you've got the select the approach if your goal is to develop find motor skills.

It needs to be a mix. I defy you to pronounce "gnu" using the rules of phonics. There are many words in English where phonics just fails, and for those you need to memorize the word. e.g. "adieu". But if you just memorize words, you'll never be able to read a new word. I accept that when I read a word from a foreign language, I'm likely mispronouncing it, but I *do* have a way to pronounce it, or I can't remember it.

Actually, short-hand is a sheave of different systems, some of which are totally a different thing, and some of which are just lots of standard abbreviations, and so closely similar, even if unintelligible to those not skilled in that particular art. ... Then there's steno-typing, which is related to at least one of the forms of short-hand.

I think what it actually means it multiple letters written without lifting the pen from the paper, which is sort of what you mean, but implies things like "i"''s are written without a dot, and the dot is added when the word is complete. IIRC, the "Palmer t" was a "t" at the end of the word written without lifting the pen to cross it.