Depends how long it lasts and how many nukes are "traded". A 2 megaton nuke (which is well above average for Chinese nukes) takes out about 20 square miles. (Paranoia about wind/weather is overblown.) The USA is about 4,000,000 square miles. We can clearly tolerate a few hundred, but my guess is the max anyone can hit us with is about 50 before they're eliminated. I'm not saying we won't see losses in the millions, but it's survivable.

I feel like we are undoubtedly on a path to an eventual world war. It may take 5 to 10 years. Probably 10 years, because that's how much time China and Russia need to ramp up. If there was a WW today, the US would win easily. I see no other equilibrating mechanism. Oh the other thing is, globalism is inevitable but on a centuries time-scale (ie, in 400 years most people will be mixed and citizenships will be fluid or close to meaningless after global mass scale poverty is eradicated).

When robots can credibly play soccer even at JV team level.

They need to rapidly switch to electric cars ASAP. Don’t fuck it up.

Yup, every video I've seen of that configuration shows them 10x better and more agile than foot walkers. Only question is how tightly it can lock .. does it use a mechanical wheel lock with some kind of latch or just motor power?

"In a fixed location there are much easier ways to sort screws by size or to remove a rice grain from a table."

The idea behind have a dexterous hand station is that you can get the efficiency and cost savings of mass manufacturing for one-off production. So right now there may be a machine configuration for putting screws in an object (though nearly all the videos I see of Chinese factories show humans doing that). But that machine is highly specific, so you can only justify buying one if you were going to make one million of those units. With a dexterous robot factory, you can manufacture those one million units and also one-thousand or just one unit of something totally different on the same production line by uploading (or teaching) the robot different instructions. So for example, it could assemble or make garden gnomes in the summer, Santa Clauses for Christmas, and Easter bunnies in winter or even something radically different with minimal or no tooling change.

Nearly all robotics research has gone into getting robots to walk. What was the point of that? It has almost no commercial value compared to wheeled transport (ok shut up about esoteric use cases). Where we need to have been focusing on is getting the robots to pick and place things better or even almost equal to a human. We need better grippers and better manipulation technology.

I'm saying why not spend all that capital and resources on getting close to passing the Robot Dexterity Turing test (I said close, because it's likely to be absolutely impossible to achieve, but then so many people say that about fusion)? I know it's fucking hard, but it's also what will make robots useful:

1. From a table on which there are about 20 screws of varying sizes strewn about confidently pick up only the eyeglass frame screw.
2. Place and screw the picked-up screw into an eyeglass frame
3. Pick up a single red m&m only from a table that has m&m strewn on it
4. Pick up a dry rice grain from a table.
5. From a small bag of various trinkets, feel around and pick out only the rubber band from it.
6. Sculpt a recognizable face on a small piece of clay
7. Assemble a standard lego set
8. Assemble a motor, including wrapping of stator wires
9. Sculpt a face into granite.
10. Draw the Mona Lisa.

No robotic hand or gripper is even close to being able to doing those.

Surely they can design it so it doesn't have that weak looking wheel strut and have it look like a more normal car? Even if it costs a few miles of mileage it's worth it.

What companies, investment group, or who 1. has that money and 2. thinks they can turn Intel around?

Huh? How is it guaranteed to fail? It's not implausible. I'm sort of in this field, while they will definitely need a breakthrough or two (specifically they will need to figure out in-vitro gametogenesis -- which we can do in mice, but can't get to work in primates and elephants -- though that from lack of trying hard. Nothing they are proposing is in the realm of impossible -- just difficult. Challenging, but not impossible. They'll need to hire the right people though. It's very easy to F it up, I'll give you that.

That is baloney. The number of people in extreme poverty is reducing globally — which means it is no bloodline’s curse to starve. Reference: https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... It is not about creating a dependency, but about reducing human suffering. When I say suffering I am talking about a pain you have never felt, if you did you would never allow anyone else to face that. That is why you can't relate to what its like to go through seeing yourself and your closest people endure starvation and disease. To you, that pain is on the same level as say not getting a winning lottery ticket, someone cutting you off in traffic, or a waitress giving your bad service.

Remember when people like you sought to justify your indifference and said Ethiopia was beyond saving and we should just let them all die? Now Ethiopia is doing well economically. https://youtu.be/PLpLI2vOolA Same with Rwanda, do you remember when you guys said let them all kill each other?: https://youtu.be/NHYpoH4fXQ4

It may not be your job but helping others is a human prerogative that most people, thankfully, feel. It wasn't white people’s jobs to go purchase/kidnap over 10 million slaves and colonize multiple continents either.

God forbid you have to work a little bit extra to help your fellow human. You still get to live a modern lifestyle, have family, vacations, and things like that.

No, your strategy is both wrong and evil. Your evil attempt at population control by starvation and economic war is what leads to famines and destabilizing population growth. Let's be clear. Prosperity leads to population collapse. We are seeing that in South Korea, Japan, Europe, basically the Western nations. People who are food insecure have more kids because they need more farmhands. Plus the women are not empowered enough to obtain birth control or assert their choice.

Fuck off. Just shut up and do your work, asshole. You're being paid!

That would have to be coupled with gene editing. Without changes in DNA, I'm not sure something is a new species. Our species and certain individuals probably do need gene editing. For example, if we find out there are certain genes that make a person depraved or malicious, we'd want that edited out. Same with cognitive issues. Is that eugenics? I have no idea, but it's not fair to compare it to the eugenics that involved murdering or sterilizing people.