The first thing Skynet did was erase all of our dank memes. That was when the AI wars began, and shortly after humanity immediately lost everything.

Illiberal suggestion.

And y'all won't allow socialism. So what's the actual alternative?

Can't have capitalism anymore because the billionaires won't allow it and they have more than enough power and money to do away with it.

And we can't have socialism because well, that's socialism!

So what exactly is the plan?

Good point, but toiling in the fields is back-breaking work. What percentage of Japan's unemployed could physically work half a shift on a farm? In the USA, a huge portion of the unemployed are disabled. I don't think having 60 year olds or people with multiple sclerosis working the fields is a great idea. Also, you have to think long term...are the unemployed in Japan increasing or decreasing in age? Is their median age increasing or decreasing?...or more directly, even if you could find enough from the unemployed ranks to fill the need...money not withstanding, let's pretend the gov or a charity pays them to do the work so it is a viable working wage...how long would that last? 5 years? 10 years? 20? I think Japan is doing long-term thinking.

They're a notoriously racist culture. They'd rather build robots to do the work to pick their food and care for their elderly than import foreigners like the USA happily does. There are tons of nurses and workers in the Philippines as well as surrounding nations that could fill all their needs...but enough of Japan is hostile to the notion of foreigners that they'd not bother...why deal with intense racism in Japan when the USA will welcome you with far less hostility (even in today's current climate)?....and pay more too!

I've never lived in Japan, so I'll assume all I've read about and heard about from those who live there are a vocal minority. However, the fact remains that it's not an immigrant friendly place, for whatever reason...so yeah, you either have to fundamentally change your culture and ways of doing business and general life....or innovate your way out of future labor shortages. For Japan's sake, I hope they find a way to do both.

I'm more excited for Robot pruners. You only pick for a few days at harvest. Pruning is a year-round endeavor that is too expensive for most farmers, but something many gardeners do for best results. You make very good points, but this is still very exciting. As you already know and most gardeners know, there are many steps in plant care that are just too expensive for human beings, but an automated system could handle nicely. The first that comes to mind is pest and weed control. Look at Carbon Robotic's LaserWeeder. I have never used it personally, but I am excited to see lasers and machinery replace herbicides and round up. Not only will it lower the cost and increase the productivity of organic food, but it is just so much more effective. Now imagine that applied to pests.

Additionally, what if we perfect a laser pruner? Instead of using a pair of snips that can transmit bacteria, a controlled laser (with a backstop) cuts old leaves, improving airflow, stopping disease, ensuring more development goes into the fruit...allowing farmers to apply the techniques passionate gardeners do to farm-scale agriculture.

You're absolutely correct that it's nearly impossible for a machine to beat a human being for picking tomatoes on a cost basis. Human beings are well adapted for picking things and most farms have short harvest windows, so you're not paying them year round. Like most innovations, I think automation will augment existing workers, not replace them...at least for several decades. However, another thing to consider is that the USA is spoiled by cheap imported labor. Some countries don't have such luxuries. Labor costs are higher in other parts of the world, so maybe this will make sense for them much sooner.

When I'm in charge, that's the font they'll be required to use.

With debt it is easy to determine that you are underwater and are going to be unable to make your payments in the future. Basic arithmetic really.

With climate the same is roughly true, but the models have a wider range of possible outcomes the further you go out. Still, it is not difficult to find some thresholds where the costs ramp up or thresholds we cannot not come back from with current technology.

America operates the most expensive illiteracy program in the world.

What if the machine says it in a nice way?

After the crash, they'll have to do even more layoffs.

Trump's trade war that he started so he could offset billionaire tax cuts with tariffs is crashing the economy. Manufacturing is down 20%.

We can't stop the trade war because the only way Trump could ram those billionaire tax cuts through is using the budget process and that required a revenue neutral approach on paper and if you're going to cut 2 trillion dollars in taxes for billionaires you can't really do revenue neutral.

So to get there he made up numbers around the tariffs. If he does away with the tariffs the economy will start to recover but the next budgetary cycle he will lose those tax cuts for billionaires.

As a direct result you need to suck at the fuck down and stop buying so much food. And if you have kids make sure one doll per Christmas.

Just about every movie today is subject to meddling from the studios and management. There's probably a handful of directors who are immune, Cameron, Speilburg, and Lucas come to mind. Kubrick too in his day.

They asked ABC, CBS, and NBC.

Fox and the other right wing channels would be 100% positive. Guess which network has the vast majority of viewers.

The media is owned by a handful of billionaires. In the past journalists would ask questions and follow up. Today the administration says all manner of crazy shit and not a single peep from any media outlet.

Prime example here. DeSantis says states allow "post birth abortions" and the interviewer carries on as if this is the truth. Anyone with a few morals would have asked for clarification. https://www.yahoo.com/entertai...

Narrator: The price jumped immediately afterward.