10 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

S,

I wish they had an ebook or audio version.

The trilogy is hard to come by. Or expensive. Or both.

Michael

Ok so it's a little bit of a gamble.

But I think not... not for you.  

Get a copy of the first book, any copy... an old ratty rag of a copy... as long as all the words are there.

Read it and if it was not worth it by all means give up on the trilogy...

I suspect you will find there is MUCH to love about it (and it is not *easy* reading) that you will find almost any price or wait for the subsequent books (or for the trilogy of you find it somewhere) well spent.

I would be so excited to hear your opinion.

Finally, I got a hardcover copy of this trilogy on eBay.

Good as new!!

About time I read it again.

Wish I could talk about this trilogy with someone...

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Yup...

Michael

Then again... 

one could look at all the sprawling long chains of causation

emanating from Marx throughout the years...

and arrive at the

exact inverse conclusion

and still be correct.

2 hours ago, Guyau said:

John Galt's "activism" of the collective strike is not one that is possible in the real world.

2 hours ago, Guyau said:

Galt's engineering/physics achievement

I would have characterized the result of his activism as merely “implausible” and his fantastical invention as literally “impossible”.

In any case I think I see now what specific meaning you ascribe to political activism… and it seems limited to public persuasion in the so called public political sphere.

I grant in that sense Washington himself was not a political activist… such would be far too small a label for him and his achievements… which in retrospect were quite implausible.

On 3/13/2023 at 10:33 PM, Guyau said:

The fictional ideal human characters of Rand's—Howard Roark, John Galt, and Dagny Taggart—spent how much of their time being political activists?

So this is in the spirit of honest interest.

I note you use the term “political activist” and imply John Galt was not one or spent little time being one.  This is somewhat interesting because Galt is a man of action, in the face of culture, philosophy, politics, all of society going down the wrong paths he vowed in front of a room of witnesses to stop the motor of the world and he spent years pursuing, persuading and getting the Atlases of the world to shrug.  He wasn’t merely an ethicist or personal guru, spreading ideas and wisdom to whomever would come to his shrine, he actively went incognito and set out to literally change the world which he did through long and laborious effort.

If his actions, motivation, and time spent did not constitute or include being politically active or activist, I wonder just what to you (directly and concisely) would constitute “political activism” as you use the term?

The age old use of divide and conquer..

how much of it is inbuilt into a two party system?

The parties are not of course technically deep state apparati, but they are nudged and pulled by strings ... those nudgings orchestrated when and how it is most beneficial to various DS players, a season on the left or the right... predictable swings, skimming of power or money as the "teeter" totters... so to speak... 

It seems the two party system is to their advantage and that they have worked to keep that status quo... would a third party throw this off balance (I know they would do their best to use that too...) ... 

I cannot deliver any blow to shatter the thing... but any vote or whisper which helps to make a crack or any bit crumble is progress.

17 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

S,

Without massive numbers of people believing in lies, the Deep State cannot exist.

It ONLY exists because of the lies. When people learn the truth, they no longer authorize the government to fund the Deep State. On the contrary, massive lawsuits rise up.

And the Deep State? So far, going by history, they just come up with other lies and people believe those.

If any revolution needs to occur in the USA, like say, yesterday, it's epistemological, not political.

 

Habitual liars should not be believed. 

What a concept, huh?

 

Michael

Well now, given this has been happening for a very long time... my working theory for the glimpses we are seeing now are "technology" is creating cracks, and one of them being elected president and letting the cat out of the bag, made them panic.

What is your take on what Rand knew or did not know... or perhaps (god forbid) couldn't believe or chose not to see?  Or was there just fewer breaches in the facade back then?

11 hours ago, Guyau said:

 

SL, "beliefs of a good Objectivist"

The fictional ideal human characters of Rand's—Howard Roark, John Galt, and Dagny Taggart—spent how much of their time being political activists? Is that "none" a good example for the youth of our nation, who, like those heroes, value individual freedom? Yes, and I wish I had always followed their example in that. 

You sound young. The imposition of wage and price controls by the President in 1971 was a more grave threat to freedom in America than all the present items you mentioned and their combined weight were we to add in all the anti-freedoms put forth by today's "right" as well. It was THEN that we were closest (since WWII) to the Directive 10-289 of Atlas Shrugged. You mentioned warmongering of the present. That is nothing compared to the devastation of freedom in America that occurred during the warmongering in America during the WWI era. Vigilante groups deputized by law enforcement could come in and search your home for any signs of disloyalty towards America (meaning any dissent to Wilson entering America in the war against the Kaiser's aggression). My grandmother showed me the bureau, still in the dining room of the farm house in the 1960's, where she would keep things like the properly folded American flag and copies of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution for the intruders to find. Her husband's brother was tarred and feathered for speaking German on the telephone (party-line phone system). He could not speak English. A year ago last autumn, we drove from Virginia to Colorado to visit my older sister (the only other survivor from my family). As we drove past the penitentiary at Ft. Leavenworth, I couldn't bear to look at it because of the history there during WWI. German Americans of a Christian faith in which pacifism was part of the faith were imprisoned there, brutally tortured to death, and their bodies dressed in US Army uniforms for their relatives to come and reclaim. 

Did you get called up for pre-induction physical for being drafted into the Army in America, land of the free? I don't think so. I think your eligible-age years were after that. That draft for that war was abolished before your turn, pretty sure. A few years later, the government debated and passed reinstatement of draft registration. My comrades and I campaigned heavily against reinstatement, but we failed. There have been tremendously terrible anti-individual-freedom currents in this country a long time. And what about the FDR years? No, I do not see the recent years in America as containing "exceptionally bad" currents against freedom in America that have occurred.

One might make politics the raison-d'etre of the whole philosophy that is Objectivism, given these "exceptional" times in America. Let your roads and interests lead there. I've a different vista and travel plans.

 

Your exposition is excellent evidence for the position that things for a very long time (perhaps almost always) have been far worse than what we all have been brought up to believe.  That we, those relatively younger or more naive or trusting of mainstream media, should discover the Deep State is older, deeper, wider, and that America and indeed all of the West is so much farther from what it should and could be, is it no wonder we should show indignation and alarm?  Every time has its vices, and by your account, the Thing has a different incarnation or shows a different appendage of oppression every season and century.

You are not wrong by any means… but whether the tide is inward or outgoing, your words are good motivation and yes, reason enough for freedom lovers and individualists of all kinds to keep talking… and by God to speak up oh so much louder and stronger.

Prager teamed up with Tim Poole to make this video.

It's a nice watch, and a nice swing at the Predator Class Propaganda Machine:

14 hours ago, Guyau said:

A site headlined by the names Objectivist or Objectivism or Rand need not have every subject lead to politics, rather than steady on the named philosophy area of the philosophy sectors of the site. If the headline were Libertarian or Equitarian or some other political philosophy or party, that would be different; then it would be true to the advertisement to turn most everything taken up into the political.

This sounds like a plaintive premised either on the lack of necessity or relevance of the current political climes to the deeply held morays, convictions, and beliefs of a good Objectivist.

As a normie or an Objectivist, I have no doubt whatever, that something has been poked, agitated, and unleashed in the wake of the whole "drain the swamp" MAGA DT election and win of 2016... and the reactionary waves of censorship, top down lying, wokeism, the pandemic itself, and the subsequent lurches to totalitarianism and warmongering, ecoterrorism and eco-authoritarianism, ...  all of this is TRULY exceptional... and exceptionally bad for freedom loving individualists.

ANY political view, party, or movement which is inimical to life becomes an issue FOR Objectivists when they come to prominence, in fact I am appalled how silent most so-called "representatives" of Objectivism have been in the face of all the attacks on what is left of an America that could and should be.

14 hours ago, Guyau said:

 

Yes, you are missing what I am saying.

The stretch is going to "I Tad know such and such could not be your case," which latter is an instance of your claim that "In practical terms any masking/blocking measures below the level of positive pressure suits would serve no actual medical benefit." The sense of "know" so as to apply to a particular case cannot be established with statistical results of a population (unless you're getting into the 5-sigma sort of confidence levels). And the claim "I Tad don't think masking kept you from getting Covid" is a step down in certitude from your starting claim of knowledge: "In practical terms any masking/blocking measures below the level of positive pressure suits would serve no actual medical benefit."

I mentioned the other behaviors and conditions that may have prevented me from getting Covid only by way of illustrating that I do not know if masking did the trick. I wouldn't rule it out as part of the protective bundle, but I do not claim knowledge it was so, only confidence in the experts I chose.*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'll take my advice from my scientific doctor, and urge others to do the same, and not from people, from any quarter, having overarching political agendas or political analyses and conjectures in play. Reality and survival are not attained by making politics the decisive interest and paramount lens in every matter.

A philosophy scholar at the master's level wrote a book titled Critique of Patriarchal Reason. He held forth a script of all Western epistemology and metaphysics being really about quashing feminism. It is junk and did nothing to advance thought in epistemology or metaphysics. A site headlined by the names Objectivist or Objectivism or Rand need not have every subject lead to politics, rather than steady on the named philosophy area of the philosophy sectors of the site. If the headline were Libertarian or Equitarian or some other political philosophy or party, that would be different; then it would be true to the advertisement to turn most everything taken up into the political.

I also attempt to follow doctors who attempt to follow science as opposed to those who purport to follow it.

You note politics is a major force in todays culture, and excoriate a student of objectivism for possibly succumbing to its evading and biasing influences and yet you perhaps underestimate those very effects on the mainstream doctor who may or may not be as self aware about such things nor as conscientious about checking premises as that student of objectivism.

Since we are not in possession of all the information a question of the science is largely moot or irrelevant, it comes down to who you trust… people are not science, in fact scientists are not science… we all are subject to information scarcity, political biases and yes, believe it or not some deception and evasion. 

I have heard of some studies that show masking is ineffective… and a minority of doctors and scientists, let’s call them skeptics of the narrative, have been trying to inform the public in face of monolithic obedience to the so called consensus.

In a few years you might find out getting the virus would have been better than getting mRNA injections… but those studies are still not getting attention.

Do not project your honesty and integrity and respect for human life on everyone in power… no matter how much better that might make you feel.

41 minutes ago, tmj said:

Something about the idea of a ‘culture de jour’ and how an identification of such will say something about a self identified position in relation to that milieu, yes ? Not sure what , just now, is it that is nibbling around my edges but it made me reflect on the movie The Bridge On The River Kwai.

I’m not sure yet why but my internal analogy machine linked mask acceptance and promotion to trying to stop the ultimate destruction of the bridge(late spoiler alert). I’m a little short on time right now , but I wanted to get a thought out there. Basically, the moral rationalism or rational moralism of the officer in charge of the construction was seemingly oblivious to the real world considerations of his efforts, blind to a more pragmatic assessment of his actions toward a goal , without consideration of what the goal accomplished.

I haven’t ironed it out yet , but I think I can connect the ‘whining’ about forced face diapering to planting and igniting the demolition charges.

Please explain… when you have more time!

55 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Dayaamm!

I almost put this up as a serious tweet.

Here's a screenshot if it goes down, but I can't duplicate the video.

A lot of people are getting fooled by this.

I do not believe that is James O'Keefe's account.

And I do believe that is what a Deep Fake looks like.

Watch it while you can because Twitter will likely take this down.

Be careful to watch out for Deep Fakes. We are moving fast into a Brave New World.

Michael

Deep State Fake

They aren’t just playing the left… it’s just easier to have home base there … with their resources you can bet they are playing every part of the game they possibly can think of.

Playing the L R and C with real and fake stuff from the R L and C against any of the L R and C and using any useful idiots they can use from the C R and L …  I think the more they panic the more masks will come off and the more angles being played will become apparent.

12 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

S,

An update happened yesterday--or was it the day before?. I honestly don't recall because there was a huge problem with a thread I made out of migrated posts (and this was an actual glitch in the software). So I was going back and forth with support. And to make things worse, an update notice happened in the middle of that and I thought, what the hell? Just do it. It's mostly automated anyway.

I don't use an iPhone, so I don't know about cookies on an iPhone. But if there is a way to clear you cookies or browser cache and things like that, this might fix the issue.

In other words you could have been trying to access the site during a update and that is what went into your cache. So your iPhone could be looking at old data, not current.

Let's go poetic. If you take out the garbage, it generally stops stinking inside.

 

Michael

Coincidentally I managed to do just that… clear all data, cache, cookies associated with the forum and voila now it’s working again on all my devices! 

Hi Michael...

I had tried to make a post from my phone but apparently using the k word has triggered something?

I had posted (if I can remember correctly)

NOTE: This is under investigation still so might be a nothing burger

Does ["ending"] each other off count as unraveling?

Apparently,  someone connected to, some people,

has died, due to... get this

air turbulence.

I suppose their continually ["ending"] themselves off is an indication of cracks are forming or at least the cracks are getting too big.

[Another note.. my iphone's access to this site is now borked... no idea... keeps locking up at www.objectivistliving.com/admin/install/

Now Chrome has the same problem I get error 500 and can only access the site in incognito mode.. using an old copy of Edge now... wtf

So now I am always being redirected to

https://www.objectivistliving.com/admin/install/ 

when I use my chrome browser...

and I get an error 

This page isn’t working

www.objectivistliving.com is currently unable to handle this request.

do you have any idea why?]

13 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

S,

Rather than use terms like public health, utilitarianism and so on because they are so easy to misconstrue, or better, construe in different ways, I prefer to use Rand's get out of jail free card for love (and even compassion).

This is a direct quote from her:

Ayn Rand said that twice in The Fountainhead. (Maybe more, but I know of 2 times.)

Love is the easy part to understand. Compassion is a bit more nuanced (presupposing in this case it is not an evaluation base on reason), but it works with Rand's quote. Also, you can insert love where the word compassion is below and it works in an identical manner.

If you feel compassion and do not act on it, you deny yourself.

If you feel compassion and demand others act on it, you deny them.

You are free to act on as much compassion as you feel. But the only way to guarantee that others act on your compassion is by force.

And that would make you an authoritarian, a bully.

Rand's get out of jail free card is to show that one's life is more important to oneself than reason is. But it does not exist as a weapon for enslaving others.

And to be clear, a rational man (or woman) holds both his own life and reason dear.

Michael

I like that.

I agree with you.

and also @Guyau 

Quote

Ever since first reading Rand, I’ve wanted again and again to say to her critics on the point of rationality: “but your ‘rational’ is too small” (paraphrasing a book title back in those days). Just as any modern should want to say to philosophers from Plato/Aristotle to Descartes/Hume: “but your ‘knowledge’ (expelling the merely likely from the club) is too small.”

Rebelling for real scientific knowledge against the impotent scientific knowledge by syllogistic demonstrative form down from Aristotle, the title That Nothing Is Known (1581) by Francisco Sanches loses its punch to modern minds with a better grip on what is empirical science and where it gets its traction as science than the grip tendered by Aristotle.

Love, exception-making, and rationality live harmoniously here. People too often slip into conventionality as working criterion of or stand-in for rationality.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not on the offensive against reason as such or even pointing at over rationalistic tendencies of anyone in particular here.  I make no claim that it cannot be harmonious, only that it can get out of balance.  I am touching on a psychological tendency which I believe can be dangerous when allowed to take over, which can happen to anyone who is a proponent of reason including some Objectivists.

I think Peikoff was most brilliant at a few points in Understanding Objectivism in particular the chapter/lecture on Rationalism and the other one Emotions and Moral Judgment.  These are absolutely some of the best treatments of Objectivism, Philosophy, and reason in their proper context of a full well balanced human being.  

I highly recommend those lectures.

I believe knowledge is useful for the human being and flourishing, that understanding knowledge and the study of knowledge Philosophy are important, and an individual should have a basic working framework to enable the living of life.  I believe that as Philosophy and not a special science of any kind (examples of which are physics, psychology, genetics, evolutionary psychology, mathematics, developmental psychology, biology … etc.) the fundamentals of Objectivism are true.

My warnings are not a rebellion from the root base or foundation of what I believe is correct, but a warning more about those shoots and leaves that perhaps go askew…. Further Application and extrapolation and implication or ascribing of levels of significance… all can become issues which become a hindrance to life as indeed they do and have in the context of other ideological bases.

To a hammer everything looks like a nail.  There is more to a building than nails… and some things a hammer’s blow does no good for.

I try to always remember that being human means pursuing a passion, and sometimes that passion IS life and flourishing for that person… and I do believe a proper philosophical foundation and the use of reason are absolutely crucial in living and achieving that life of passion… I want to warn that one should not obsess over the tools, the means, at the expense of that passion and a full life.  This is my main purpose over the past few posts… 

That said.

Sometimes I forget that for some people.

Philosophers and academics in particular…

That which is normally only a tool or a means in the pursuit of life and passion, happens to BE that person’s life and passion…

I would say to them only that they should keep in mind that what they see as life, is (and in most cases should be) only a tool and means for most other people

and then I would ask, in the spirit of love and compassion, that they accept my sincere apologies for incorrectly calling only a tool, that which to them is the source of life giving passion of highest significance to their life and flourishing.

I acknowledge that… and there is no contradiction in its being chosen as a deeply unique and personal path to bliss.

16 minutes ago, Guyau said:

Ordering of one's self and life is another, and this latter is what it was I thought you were calling for putting the brakes on rationality.

Well, you could say I am calling for putting the brakes on "ordering one's life" for order's sake rather than bringing some order into one's life, for the sake of life.

[I recall a funny commercial once, where two onlookers who are insurance agents are spouting off probabilities of this or that occurring... while others go about the doing and living of life... the human calculators safe to calculate, muse, and ridicule....  a far cry form the "pitch and toss" of Kipling's "If"]

Also an adjective, such as "rational" applied to more than a syllogism, does not serve to characterize the entirely what it modifies... it is only one aspect of the thing which it adheres to... that special non-contradictory sauce... like a little garment tag "Made with Reason, polyester and cotton".  It's a great ingredient in the things in which we bring it to bear, as a tool not a design, as an instrument not the plan, as the means not the end.  

Law is to be just and human.  We arrive there in part by way of the important ingredient which is rationality.  I would caution not to overemphasize reason as such, with that comes the traps of rationalism... and down that slippery slope you arrive at statistical treatment of humans, public health, utilitarianism, sacrifice of the few (or the one) for the many. 

Rationality does not logically necessitate the choice to live and the sense of the sanctity of life, everyone's life that goes with that choice... in fact, if a technocrat in reality IS powerful enough, even the sanctity of life becomes dispensible to him...

philosophy and thought have their place... but neither they, nor rationality, nor even the mind are holy enough to sacrifice all else, of what it is and means to be a human, to them.

we are so much more than what we think... and in the end at best knowledge and philosophy help guide each person as a whole, prevent us from making mistakes... but all the richness and meaning of life is to be found way beyond such hypothesizing, tinkering, and syllogizing.

Ultimately, the desire to understand is a need and a drive to control or feel in control... we see the very central planning types ... most eager to wrestle the world to their design are technocrats in spirit.  But the desire and need for control and orderliness, for anything other than one's own property, is a sign of psychosis.  Healthy people do not need to feel that they understand everything.  What people really want is the experience of being alive... fully and as a whole being... mind and body, intuitively, emotionally, rationally, socially. 

I believe Peikoff got it wrong in DIM.  The great threat now is not Religious Theocracy but a kind of Global Central Planning Utopianism... a resurrection through the advancements in technology of Subjectivist Atheist Mechanistic Totalitarianism.  A sort of arrogance and nihilism, arising from the view of people as machines and with our great new powers the possibility of managing a world according to someone's view of the good Utopia... all it will cost is everyone's freedom, everyone's humanity, everyone's life as individual humans.

The next big threat comes directly from overemphasis and arrogance on those connections called rationality... so beautiful and noncontradictory... and yet, as such, inhuman... that we should aim to sacrifice ourselves to this one aspect within, to this one tool, to remake ourselves in the image of rationality as such, as individuals and as a culture, such would be the destruction of humanity.

I have more in common with an irrationalist and a religionist than that Atheist Central Planner ... and I have no qualms identifying them metaphorically with the lowest of creatures on the lowest rungs of hell.

I think one antidote to the arrogance of the technocratic man-hating tyrant, is humility, and a sense of respect akin to worship for what is it to be human, for the XX% of our soul which is unconscious, for the millions and millions of years which has gone into the forms of our bodies and minds... for the many milenia which has gone into the software of our cultures and our stories.  We cannot remake any better what we have been given, we need to tend and grow it...  the freedom and room to flourish.

the arrogance of attempting to remake man or society in the image of some specific thing.. imposed upon it... even rationality...will only result in the end of humankind.

19 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Here's another great reason Naomi apologized.

(She mentioned Jacob Chansley in her statement.)

Video of Jacob Chansley “QAnon Shaman” Reading Trump’s Tweet to Protesters Resurfaces – Telling Them to “Go Home” and “Stay Peaceful”

Video of Jacob Chansley "QAnon Shaman" Reading Trump's Tweet to Protesters Resurfaces - Telling Them to "Go Home" and "Stay Peaceful" | The Gateway Pundit

WWW.THEGATEWAYPUNDIT.COM

This speaks for itself.

It does not need me to explain it.

Evaluation-wise, there is nothing of importance I can add. 

It's all right there.

Michael

Mainstream "Objectivists" be like...

*blank out*

I have been of a mind recently leaning towards the idea that Objectivists which are human and humanity inclined (as I believe Rand was), rather than mechanism and mechanics inclined, have more in common with the typical Conservative who is usually religious, rather than the typical atheist.  Most strikingly a sense that individual humans are sacred and are ends in themselves, is paramount for us whereas a typical atheist, or mechanism focused Objectivist, is more driven by disproving existence of God or showing everything is rational... to them getting thoughts correct is more important than living life right.  Objectivism for living is a moral sense of humanity and living life as a human being at the pinnacle of what actually matters.  Reason is our tool and servant for reaching it, we are not tools of reason for reason's sake. 

Rationality is not the aim of life, LIFE is the aim of rationality.

For so long, those people all over the map considered God versus No God, to somehow be paramount... but for me something deeper in humanity, a sense of sacredness and joy in living versus a sense of destructiveness or hopelessness... is far more operative and important.  

I am starting to see the camps not as Religious and Atheist, but instead divided into groups of those who advocate for flourishing individual humanity with a sense of sacredness and those who view people as meaningless meat machines that can be utilized as necessary in a blind and senseless universe. 

The lines for me are now, Good and Evil as I see it... and in many ways these do not neatly fit prior considerations of religiosity - atheism, or conservativism - progressivism.

Sometimes I despair that Objectivism now has slid towards the wrong side, or at least in its cowardice is somehow now complicit.

4 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Hail Lucifer?

 

Michael

Yes, deceptively juvenile.

On its face, and how it says what it says, it is directed at teenagers...

but what it says, in the end, may resonate more with adults...

48 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Here is Joe Rogan using common sense on evaluating Alex Jones.

With Russell Brand agreeing with him at that.

Now let's get the narrative out of the way first. Joe thinks the Sandy Hook thing was a period in Alex's life where he was suffering from a psychotic break. But he lets that go because Alex admitted his mistake and Alex has gotten such a sheer amount of things right without relapsing, it's silly to ignore him.

 

So this is an interesting exercise in checking premises.

To people who believe Alex is a tin foil hat fool, or evil, or whatever, take a look at the string of correct facts he laid out in public about the Predator Class 10 years or more before they became known facts, but at the time they were considered woo-woo conspiracy theories.

Ask yourself why you never looked at the information Alex presented, but instead looked only at the mainstream story being told about him. Man, did it feel good to mock him and feel superior, right? Low hanging fruit for a serotonin and dopamine boost, right?

Except by agreeing with the mainstream, you were wrong and Alex was right, time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time.

That is reality. You were wrong on many, many occasions when Alex Jones was right. Those are facts, not opinions. Do you still feel superior?

It's not like Alex hid his sources. He never did. He always presented government documents, video proof, the whole package. Nowadays, everybody knows about Epstein, credit scores, censorship, bioweapons research, and on and on and on.

So ask yourself why you would not look at the time. Why you preferred the jollies of mocking him.

Was it rational to not look? Was it rational to go along with the mob?

Was that reason in your conception?

That's one hell of a premise to check and it hurts when you look at reality with integrity. So it takes courage.

Michael

Hear hear! 

But here, evasion is so much more understandable given the sheer horror, shock, and incredible evil of the revelations that were so outside the conman man’s prior knowledge … one can be convinced of something extending just outside our blinders and at least somewhat consistent with what is inside and near the edge… but a complete inversion of most things assumed in the normal course and indeed held dear?   That understandably takes time.

6 hours ago, william.scherk said:

I do not understand the faith in Powell's ability to prevail against her erstwhile enemies. She is not in the same objective world as those who are saddened at her descent into crankdom.  Why put faith in an outcome that shows little evidence of ever happening. Buzzwords and hope are not persuasive ...

I take it then that in your opinion a court of law is not the best place to hear and weigh evidence and examine and cross examine witnesses who have personal knowledge of facts in order to get to the truth and render justice…

so that would leave the court of public opinion as your preferred method of both truth and justice?  oh wait maybe you are following some other goal and truth and justice are irrelevant or inconvenient? 

The light of scrutiny chases away the shadows and lies… the courts should be clambering to let these go forward if they think it could and should be proven false.

6 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Here is some great news about ChatGPT.

Report: Elon Musk Is Recruiting Team To Create Non-Woke ChatGPT Competitor

Report: Elon Musk Is Recruiting Team To Create Non-Woke ChatGPT Competitor

TRENDINGPOLITICSNEWS.COM

---

Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is reportedly recruiting a team to create an artificial intelligence bot to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT. The self-proclaimed

I keep wanting to hold back on my admiration for Elon because of his ties to government money, including business with the CCP, but he keeps doing things like this. So I wonder if he is someone like that Schindler dude who rescued all those Jews in Nazi Germany, the one who Spielberg did a movie about,

Schindler was a guy who was making do with the corrupt government, grifting even. But he reached a tipping point inside himself about colluding with evil. There is a line he couldn't cross and still look himself in the mirror. So he stepped up and did something to mitigate the effects of the evil.

I wonder if Elon is like that. The world is swimming in a sewer of lies and corruption while Elon wants to dream about humans living on Mars and beyond. But the stench from the sewer is stinking up that dream.

Besides, the ones giving the power of AI over to lies (wokeness as a replacement for reality) could destroy all possibility of achieving that dream.

So he is going to do something about it.

I do not yet believe in this story 100%, but I really want to believe in it.

As a story alone, it is Hollywood at its finest.

(gravelly male voice)

"In a world gone mad, in a world where evil rules, where death and destruction is everywhere and people cry out in pain... there arose... one man..."

 

 

I am going to keep an eye on this. Part of rational independent thinking is recognizing the good when it appears, not just seeing the hidden bad.

So for now until greater clarity is possible, let's have fun with it.

Elon sure is.

 

Michael

The problems are more with the general public's overestimation of AI and what it can do than with the AI itself, even if programmed neutrally.

EDIT: The level of significance or authority attached to any answer, decision, or functioning, i.e. the reliance and trust in it, is the biggest potential problem. 

First AI does not and cannot actually think.  It "learns" from what it is fed whether or not it is correct or is logically consistent.  If it is fed 90% flawed material, 9.99999999 % normal relatively accurate material, and then in one paper or book given all the keys to logic and conceptualization ... it will completely ignore the one paper, and "parrot" the patterns from the pathways that have been burned into it from the overwhelmingly flawed stuff.  In fact it could not understand the one paper and has not been programmed to do so... AI is amplification of patterns, a glorified parrot... this is not thinking by any stretch.

AI will become political and flawed, even more so than humans, based on what it is fed, i.e. who feeds it.

Finger pointing will continue and these chatter boxes will just contribute more gibberish into and out of the various echo chambers.