I agree. Putting a hard estimate of 2% (or whatever) on a single event just serves to make one seem less credible to people who understand probability and statistics. It's a manipulation tactic to make one seem like a credible expert to people who don't.

Even if the estimate seems reasonable, it's absurd to claim a specific probability for complicated future outcomes like "nuclear war".

Not to mention all the extra labor and effort it takes to sell a $200 ticket than a $100 ticket. So their 15% addon fees will scale with ticket price instead of with their actual costs, since they have no competition to motivate them to do otherwise.

I think it's more likely they invented a cover story for how they actually found the pilot. Why would the CIA advertise this tech, otherwise? In this case, maybe they just replaced carrots with "quantum".

This.

Does Caprica count as prior art?

One of many such quirks which are absolutely, definitely not intentional nor contributing to widening the economic class gaps or tax burden shouldered by those with the least.

I agree with the engagement motivation hypothesis. Including the meta-engagement, like this thread. There's profit to be found in the long tail!

Our customers are distracting themselves from the distractions they are buying from us.

Idiocracy was prophecy, not fiction.

In the next issue of Dystopian Adventure Stories...

I'm antinatalist, but I haven't seen evidence of most educated people being so. I'm curious if there is data to support this claim.

Right after Fire, The Wheel, Religion, Art, and Cryptography.

Aka. "good facts". Too bad "real facts" aren't the alternative of choice for most media/news outlets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Kurzgesagt released a much more compelling complaint about AI slop's impacts today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

All I hear from Mr. Beast's complaint is that big content creators fear the democratization of content creation, which means content creation won't be pay-to-win as much any more.