Growing up in the Midwest, we were very much aware that nuclear war could end humanity's existence with scarcely more than a half hour of warning. Climate change is positively tame by comparison.

What these researchers misunderstand is that most people are not so privileged that climate change even makes the list of their concerns. It's not that they don't care, but that they just don't have the time or money to do anything effective.

The average person cannot afford an electric car.

The average person doesn't own a home, but if they did would still be unable to afford solar panels.

The average person can't work from home, because their employer insists they come into the office.

The average person can't live without a car, because America was designed and zoned for car traffic. If every American decided to use public transportation tomorrow, there wouldn't be enough trains or busses for everyone.

The average person can't grow their own food, because they don't own (enough) land. Even if they did, modern agriculture - from fertilizers to harvesting and transportation - depends on diesel fuel.

Given that most governments are owned by the fossil fuel companies, it is rather naive to expect governments to do anything more than token measures to address climate change.

It strikes me as a bit odd that people who are rather astute at predicting climate 50 to 100 years into the future can't predict that, in spite of their polemics, nothing meaningful will be done about climate change. Individuals lack the power, and governments lack the incentive. It seems to me that the old joke about consulting rings true for climate science: if you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem.

In fact, the best thing to do is to use the gaps between cars to absorb speed differences so as to allow ALL traffic to flow more smoothly

I agree with you, and I find that this is easier to do in a manual because the acceleration is instantaneous. I have found that I don't have to accelerate as hard if the response is immediate, versus delayed. I don't have to brake as hard because I start slowing as soon as I back off the gas.

With most automatics, the off-pedal cruising speed is 20 to 25 mph, which means that driving any slower than that requires riding the brake. From behind, a slow, steadily moving automatic appears the same as one which is stopping, or stopped. So they create a situation in which drivers behind a steady 15mph automatic vehicle have a harder time estimating traffic speed - which leads to the inevitable traffic accordion.

Many years ago, when Motorola was in buyout talks with Google, they used Google docs extensively. One can only wonder if Google got a better deal because they were able to read Motorola's internal discussions. I don't know if they used Google docs for the discussions, but I do know there were quite a few people at the company who expressed no concern for the possibility that Google docs could leak proprietary information.

One of my vehicles has an automatic transmission, and the other, a manual. The car with the automatic transmission has about twice the horsepower of the manual, but drives as if it's twice as heavy.

What I've noticed is that when driving the manual in heavy traffic, I use the brakes much less than with the automatic; one pedal both brakes and accelerates. Because I can keep the engine in its power band when crawling along in traffic, I get instant acceleration when traffic speeds up again. But with the automatic, the "delay, downshift, overaccelerate" conniption fit of the automatic transmission often allows other drivers the space to cut in front of me.

So instead of teaching people to write concise, to-the-point emails, we instead let them ramble on and use AI to communicate what they really intended to say.

This doesn't solve the TLDR problem, it only makes it worse by encouraging people to waste time writing emails that others simply won't read.

In other words, information known to most graduates of the physical sciences, but somehow illegal to disseminate outside of the collegiate environment...

I find it rather curious that Britain has not only made certain knowledge illegal, but has managed to convince the press that merely knowing certain things can threaten their very safety.

If a model produces better answers when it is given more time to think, one can presume that it doesn't understand when it has actually found the answer to a problem, but is instead weighing incomplete options against the time remaining.

A truly thinking agent would recognize when it has the solution to a problem, and would be able to signal that it needed more time to complete the answer if it hasn't found the answer and has options yet unexplored. And it would also be able to understand if it had not reached a correct answer after trying all of its possible options. It seems that what passes for deep thinking here is nothing more than tuning time constraints so that the agent gets most of the answers correct, rather than actually building an agent which can recognize when it is right, when it is wrong, and when it needs more time.

We in America just experienced an election in which an adulterous convicted felon managed to out argue the best the Democratic party had to offer.

Pandering used to be illegal in politics, but it seems some laws just aren't enforced anymore. Even Plato recognized that rhetoric could be used to manipulate and deceive, rather than pursue truth.

AI just makes it easier to do what the wealthy have done for ages.

The days are coming when no one will make movies anymore, but will instead type a prompt into a movie service, and an AI will generate an entire film in realtime.

Think, "NetAI, play me a movie in which the lead character is a big city powerful attorney who returns to her home town at Christmas and reluctantly falls in love with the boy she rejected in high school, who has since become independently wealthy running a winery."

No, I don't respect it, I explain it. There's a difference.

Being able to understand why you lost the last election is the first step in winning the next one.

The short answer is because, for all of his faults, DJ talked to poor people, and his opposition talked about them. As progressives waged a campaign of hatred against whites, Christians, and males, the same just decided to stop voting for them.

I know a lot of Christians who (formerly) believed in progressive politics. But after seeing how 4 years of a progressive President left black households worse off than they were before, now they're not so sure.

I know quite a few males who (formerly) believed in equality of the sexes. But our former President nominated a SCOTUS justice because of the fact she was female, and our current one bragged about grabbing women between the legs.

I know a number of whites who (formerly) thought that racism was immoral. Now there are voices on the Right who consider racism a personal indiscretion, and on the Left who are convinced it's morally required, if it's directed against Whites, Asians, or other "privileged" groups".

While it is quite predictable that people will circle the wagons when threatened, it is difficult to overstate the effect that Left-leaning politicians have had in shifting public sentiment to the right, by pursuing a campaign of identity politics which alienated and threatened the very people who used to believe in their cause. And Biden's attempt to gaslight the American public ("Trump put you on the sidelines") left a lot of Americans with the distinct impression that the Democrats were fighting against them instead of for them.

Which is precisely why it matters. If you're in a war zone, it's not a good idea to anger your most significant arms dealer. If Israel does not enforce the judgement, the US could simply hold shipments of munitions, spare parts, etc...

In the middle of a proxy war with Iran, that's kind of a big deal.

You know, I'd agree with you, except that in 2008, banker stupidity caused my house to lose half its value. It wasn't my mistake that caused the loss, but because bankers are politically well connected, not only did I lose my investment, but my tax dollars were used to make the bankers - not me - whole.

When grandma gets scammed, her children lose their inheritance. The fact that a fool and his money are soon parted doesn't mean there's nothing immoral about taking advantage of another person's trust. Without trust, our society would look much different - and I think we'd rather have a society built on trust which prosecutes thieves than a society in which no one trusted each other, but fraud was legal.

Yes, there are stupid people in the world, but from a societal perspective, they're not as bad as the competent, but malicious, folks.

The interesting thing (no pun intended) is that a change in interest rates will change the price of a house by far more than this, and it never makes the news. Even a one percent difference in mortgage rates can easily make a 30k+ difference in total payments over the life a mortgage.

Don't know about the UK, but here in the US, 5k is nothing on the price of a new house. It's the difference between "builder grade" and "stainless premium" appliances - and if you want kitchen upgrades, you're easily spending 20, 30, or even 40k over base price. Someone buying a house in the UK is going to complain more about title fees and land transfer taxes than solar installation.

When it comes to a criminal prosecution, such a disclaimer would likely be held invalid. In fact, it may even be construed as intent to enter into a conspiracy. As in, Meta knew, or should have known that their products would be used for illicit activities and attempted to shield themselves from the possibility of loss.