Interesting....I've never heard of such a thing,,...a minum energy building....?

LOL...I doubt I'd survive there long...my tube amps alone likely would have me thrown out of such an abode...

Elon doesn't actually have that much in cash. Most of his net worth is tied up in assets that would probably lose considerable value if someone killed him and confiscated his property.

For now it's a thousand here and a thousand there. Also the cited $500 million is a research grant not intended to help anyone actually losing their jobs. But $500 million would go a long way to help some laid off employees start their own businesses. Just not all of them. If the program were successful on a small scale, it would need more funding in the future.

Yeah focusing on small business startups would probably be the smart play, especially if it involves hiring a lot of other displaced workers.

Okay but people are already losing their jobs now. Also humanoid robot production is scaling up considerably while cost/unit is plummeting. It isn't just tech bros that will feel the pinch.

Interestingly enough if you count out loud your lips won't touch in the middle until you get to a million.

Billion continues that deviation from the lower numbers.

If workers are actually being displaced by AI, then $500 million would be a nice start towards a fund intended to help displaced workers taking lower-paying jobs and/or starting businesses of their own (where they could potentially hire other displaced workers to do something else).

At the same time, I'm sure some wage slave making $15/hr or less will be thrilled to see a laid-off tech bro working next to him getting incentive pay just to take the job. So maybe the emphasis needs to be on small business startups rather than placing people in existing industries.

In any case, handing money over to a bunch of pundits, politicians, and focus groups to study the problem is likely the second-least method for dealing with the problem of AI disruption.

You can't just hang a window AC unit out of one of your windows?

That's easy, does't require any apt. Modifications....

Thank you good answer.

We do not want "mob rule" here in the US...and if we didn't use the EC to more proportionally allocate vote weighting....then basically NYC and California for the most part would dictate who was president....and ignore the vast middle of the US.

Here in the US, you are a citizen of your state first and then of the United States....the state is what affects your life the most directly...and each state is diverse in its population climate, land types and laws....so they need to be more represented on a state level by the president...the Congress has a house with proportionate representations as a part of this too.

Most of us do NOT want a national ID.

If it can misused, it WILL be misused and we all know that...at least to date we do.

The US has a single centralised government with a single currency, Europe is not.

You've partially right....we have a single currency, but we do NOT have just a single centralized government.

The Federal govt. is and is supposed to be somewhat weak...and its few enumerated powers are in the US constitution....

The real power that actually governs the people for the most part, resides in the individual states. That's how we have VERY varying laws in many respects.....there are some cases the SCOTUS has had to take over the years, mostly on equal rights, etc....to establish that are constitutionally the same across states, but for the most part, everything that affects a citizens' life daily is governed by the laws of the state they reside in....so, financial laws, tax laws (state and local)...etc can all vary by state.

Most states have sales taxes..some do not. Some do not have income tax and others do...some states require car inspections annually, some to not and even those that do, vary in what they check..most do not check emissions if I recall correctly....

So, the US has. Federal govt that manages the currency....and is a singular face to the world....but internallly it's largely a mishmash of state laws that change as you cross state borders...

It's yet another SuperHero story in an era where many are beyond burned out on SuperHero stories.

While I can't speak for everyone, I'm pretty tired of all of the following:

1) Star Wars / Star Trek
2) Zombies / Post Apocalypse / Alien Invasion / Natural Disasters
3) The " One " or the " Prophecy "
4) Seemingly average guy living in small town who is always ex Special Forces / CIA / Assassin fighting against local crime
5) Sequal # 4+ of anything
6) Super Heros / Mutants
7) Evil AI that is going to murder everyone
8) Five year old children who magically save the World because adults are apparently all dumb as rocks
9) Feel free to add your own way, Way, WAY overused storyline here

So, this person was paying her taxes. Her options are:

1) Pay by check
2) Pay by credit card
3) Pay by debit card
4) Pay by cash in person
5) Pay by bank transfer

The last time I had to pay property taxes, only the first two options were accepted by the taxing entity.

The first comes with the risk of covertly being intercepted and stolen as mentioned by the article.

The second comes with the overt addon of at least three percent " convenience " fees.
( Because we allow the MasterCard / Visa duopoly to continue to exist )

The others aren't even an option at all because the taxing entity isn't set up to deal with them.

So, basically, there really aren't any good solutions here unless the entire industry changes up their
toolset to allow additional / better / more efficient / modern options.

While I'm not really a fan of Microsoft and the abomination that their flagship Operating System
has evolved ( devolved ? ) into, I can't say I'm on board with the " Let's blame the manufacturer "
line of thinking in a lame attempt at lawfare for the porpose of easy money.

My thoughts:

So, Microsoft built a custom piece of hardware to a customers design specs ( we don't just have
these things on the shelf at your local SuperComputer Outlet ) and then sold that system to the
aforementioned customer.

How, exactly, is Microsoft liable for anything the customer does with that computer ?
( It is simply a tool. How said tool is used is solely the responsibility of the wielder of said tool. )

This logic can be applied to many industries. Fast Food, Firearms, Vehicles, Alcohol, etc. etc.

Unless Microsoft literally wrote the software with the sole purpose of allowing said hardware to violate
the law ( as it existed at that time ) and engage in criminal activity, ( which I doubt ) I don't see where
Microsoft has anything to do with this other than the NYT targeting a corporation for nothing more
than the vast sums of money they are hoping to extract via litigation.

To me, it sounds like the NYT is simply throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks in an effort to
maximize the potential payday they're hoping for.

The US - within living memory - used to be a high trust society.

Of course, no, it wasn't perfect but I grew up in MN. You could leave your car running outside a Target on a bitterly cold January day and it wouldn't get stolen. In the small town I grew up in, it was pretty common to 'run a tab' at the local grocery so if you needed to stop and get stuff but turned out you forgot your wallet, etc they'd just note your name and the amount and you'd come back in (usually as soon as you could, as it was embarrassing) and pay off your tab.

But then...the Somalis came along with millions of other illegal and legal migrants from LOW trust societies.....and helped ruin this.

It's easier to be a high trust society when the member of the society are more homogenious , and live and think alike largely.