We won't have human like intelligence until we can model the human brain with some degree of accuracy, and we don't know enough about the human to do that yet.

There may be other kinds of 'intelligence' that can serve. If they were discovered it would most likely be from experimenting with artificial evolution, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

(Replying to my own post to clarify something)

Aaarrgh! Never should post late at night. What I meant was
I want no systemd, I do want Xlibre (when I can get it, till then stick with xorg, but no wayland) and probably I don't want Rust, though I'm still waiting and seeing on that one.

Count me out. I want no system D, Xlibre, and probably no Rust. So I'm a dinosaur, we'll see who gets that last laugh.

I'm not a physicist, but I think what we call 'the speed of light' is actually the speed of cause and effect.

Maybe there is only one speed in the universe. When things are moving slower, it's because they are made up of sub atomic particles that are bouncing back in forth inside some sort of containment field and therefore moving in a zig zag as the larger object seems to move in a straight line. That's why time contraction seems to happen, as the object moves faster, the zigging and zagging has to go further between each bounce and so takes longer.

But, like I say, I'm not a physicist, maybe that's all wrong, real physicists please correct me.

Settling on one desktop puts too much control in the hands of too few. Sure, the way things are now can be annoying and confusing, but take it away and you'll eventually regret it. My opinion. Just settle on one desktop you like, as well as one distro you like, and be done with it.

Google is always trying to push Gemini on me. Someday when I'm careless I'm likely accidentally sign up for it. That's probably what they're hoping for, so they can use me for training data.

If only there were a way to get them to leave me alone. (I know, dream on.)

My PCLinuxos distros are also running just fine.

I hope they're right when they and 'never will be'. On the other hand, there's that expression "never say never." Some things are happening in the world right now that I thought would never happen.

I'm not that knowledgeable about database stuff, though I did, in a previous life, work as a contractor at one time or another for Oracle, Informix, and Sybase. (I did backend stuff, meat and potatoes C programming, not database stuff with SQL or anything like that.) I was there when Informix kind of bit the dust and developers were leaving in droves for Oracle. (Sigh, Informix was a good place to work too, but then they got a CEO who screwed things up. Enough digression.)

From what I've read and heard, open source Postgres is pretty good. It has not become the linux of database engines though, and, what I heard is, it's because it just can't do the heavy lifting of zillions of transactions that Oracle can. Still, I can't help but wonder. Maybe they need a Redhat for Postgres to beef it up and supply support for those who need hand holding. (I know, I know, Redhat! But they did some good stuff in the beginning. Maybe Redhat has gone over to the Dark Side, but modern Linux benefited from them, my opinion.)

The funny thing is, when some entity (Redhat maybe?) does start to create a one true version of Linux, the sharks move in and start subverting it.

I'm beginning to think that Linus Torvalds greatest contribution isn't creating Linux, but in defending it and fending off those who would distort and corrupt it.

Richard Stallman deserves credit too, for creating the GPL which Torvalds uses. A lot of people don't like the GPL, and I can understand how it sometimes gets in the way, but we need it.

How do you define economic efficiency and engineering efficiency? I'm genuinely curious. Is financial success automatically economic efficiency? Maybe in Micro-Economics it would be, but it seems to me a 'successful' but poorly performing product would not be efficient for a Maco-Economy.

I'm not an economist so yeah, enlighten me if I'm wrong.

One thing about flying cars is, engine trouble could be a pretty big deal, also colisions. Sure there's a lot more space because it's 3 dimensional, but if flying cars really took off, there'd be congestion spots.

Hmm, I'll offer a quibble here. I don't think the primary purpose of religion in all of history is to be a tool to control the masses.

It seems to me religion has several roots: A need to placate and control Nature with things like sacrifices, rituals of shamans going to visit the hidden world, etc. Also, it arises out of a need to feel that one is part of something greater than oneself. Offering hope and comfort when in despair, and part of that comfort is being part of a like minded community. This is probably what it was for early Christianity, before it became an official religion. Religion sometimes defies the State rather than supporting it.

However, I do agree that it often gets appropriated as a tool to control the masses, and sometimes Governments have tried to create artificial State Religions. Some of them may have been successful. From what I've read, a lot of North Koreans really do think Kim Jong Un is some kind of near diety for instance.

The headline and 1st paragraph of the article are about obesity. Then it switches to diabetes.

Is it saying that part of the decline in obesity is that people are taking drugs to reduce it? That kind of solution makes me think of old saying: Today's solutions are tomorrow's problems.

Yeah if arbitrary and capricious individuals use personal power to restrict supply or destroy demand on a whim, then I agree 100% that prices won't reflect the real or natural supply and demand. How often and how much does that happen?

Is this supposed to be a criticism of capitalism? Because I don't see that as being particularly capitalistic. Are you thinking of monopolies? I compared capitalism to fire in my first post, and this is one of the ways in which the fire of capitalism has to be watched and banked, to keep monopolies from having too much power.

I have to confess your Fischer Black quote was a bit too dry for me. It seems very theoretical, and you can see my sig to know how I feel about theories. If he has recommendations that have been put in to practice and shown to work in practice, then I'll take more notice.