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Comment Re:Trump is right, tool to be applied, not a storm (Score 1) 243

It's not super intelligence because it currently has tremendous blind spots. But so do people, just different ones. I *think* that blind spots are a necessary feature of the compression used to take a huge volume of signal and compress it into something that will fit into storage.

OTOH, note that the "blind spots" are only "relatively blind". And can be worked around. Actual human 6D geometricians exist, but they approach it via symbolization. (Actually, they are really n-dimensional geometricians, but some specialize on problems in 6 dimensions.) But an AI could presumably be designed to work natively in 6 dimensions (or any specified number), however for most problems this would not be an advantage, but rather the contrary.

Note that human thinking is basically either planar or linear. To handle 3-space we use various short-cuts than enable dimensional reduction. (Unless you are counting time as one of the dimensions...then it get more complex.) Compare the way you play 3-d tic-tac-toe toe the way you play 2-d tic-tac-toe. That's not really fair as the 3-d one is inherently more complex, but it give you an idea.)

Comment Re:The lesser of two evils (Score 1) 243

The electoral college was necessary to get the states to agree to join under a single government. It wasn't, exactly, corruption. And it wasn't argued that it was "for democracy". States were where the power was at the time. Even in the 1860's many people were more loyal to their state than to the federal government.

And I think the direct election of Senators was a mistake. Democracy when actually practiced routinely tramples on the rights of minorities.

Comment Re: They're not losing interest. (Score 1) 136

Unless you give sources, I'm going to assume you are stating your opinions rather than facts. ISTM that I've heard of a few "vibe coded" successes, though I'll admit I wasn't interested enough to either document or remember them. And lack of marketing is a sufficient explanation.

Comment Re:Comic movies now suck. (Score 1) 125

To be fair, the Roadrunner cartoons were pretty much all the same, with differing details. Retreads aren't necessarily bad. Formulas exist because they work.

I just don't like the things I've seen in the last 40 years. (OTOH, I didn't like the movie version of "The Wizard of Oz" when I was a kid...I much preferred the book version.)

Comment Re:Propaganda, meant to happen, or other? (Score 1) 270

What applicable US law would any of those responsible face? Misfeasance is the only one that comes to mind, and I think that's a state level law.

If you mean the laws SHOULD criminalize and punish this kind of behavior, I agree. They don't for high military or executive branch officials. Not even after they leave office.

Comment Re:There is something in the air (Score 2) 110

There are lots of reasons to be unhappy with AI. The weavers had good reason to fear the automated looms. But that doesn't mean it's not already more powerful than people have accepted, and it's not evidence that it isn't getting more powerful.

AGI is poorly defined hoopla, but ... slowing down and being more careful about safety seems like an EXCELLENT idea, and "prisoner's dilemma" means that in the absence of communication and agreement it won't happen.

Comment Re:Only two? (Score 1) 62

That seems to be a different definition than the one they're talking about. It sounds like they're talking about evolutionary origins, and the "reptilian brain" metaphor is talking about function...
They probably aren't exactly all the same cells of the body.

There's also the sympathetic and parasympathetic division. Again it's separation along a *different* dimension.

Comment You're mis-identifying the problem (Score 5, Informative) 75

The federal government has always (for at least several decades) used the threat of removing federal funding to force states to do things that they don't want to do. This is nothing new, and is not, as this summary implies, setting a dangerous precedent.

The difference is that normally, this is used to do things that add standards intended to make things better/safer for the general public or serve some legitimate public need.

This is being done to remove standards intended to protect the general public. As a general rule, states have always been allowed to have stricter laws than the federal government, just not more lax laws. Using the threat of removing federal funding to take away laws intended to protect the public's rights, reduce competition among content providers, and push the Internet more and more towards a content monopoly is doing the opposite of that.

It's not the federal government using the threat of withdrawing funding to push its agenda that is bad. It is the agenda itself that is bad. It is fundamentally antithetical to the rule of law, fundamentally contrary to the regulatory powers required to maintain a functioning capitalist system, and fundamentally contrary to the public interest. It is putting greedy corporations ahead of the American people.

Additionally, the executive branch taking such an action without authorization from Congress is also bad. The long history of doing this has, to my knowledge, been limited to the executive branch acting on laws passed by Congress that give them the authority to withhold funds for specific non-compliance reasons. Doing so in the absence of such laws is likely a violation of the separation of powers.

But unfortunately, the current administration has a long history of violating that separation of powers, doing various illegal acts, knowing full well that it will take months for the courts to strike down those acts, and that the damage will have been done by then, and using the threat of such illegal executive orders as a way to extort concessions out of states, government agencies, corporations, nonprofits, and individuals. And that right there — the repeated willful commission of unconstitutional acts for borderline felonious purposes — is a fundamental abrogation of their oath of office.

So the way I see it, there are only three ways to fix the problem:

A. Pass laws clarifying that Congress has exclusive power of the purse, and that the executive branch shall not retract funding to any state, any agency, or any individual for any reason unless the right to retract funding for that specific reason is explicitly codified in the relevant law as an executive power, and that this rule shall apply to all government agencies, without exception, superseding all previously assumed authority, and providing criminal liability for anyone acting in contravention of this law, with no statute of limitations. That way, federal agency heads who act on such executive orders will no longer be protected by any assumption of legality or constitutionality, and will risk future criminal charges if they act on an executive order that violates the separation of powers in this way.

B. Remove the people who are pushing this agenda, whether through the ballot box, through impeachment, or both.

C. Do both A and B.

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