Draft a group of fifty at random, let anyone in that group who wants to drop out do so, and let people vote amongst the candidates that are left. That should at least weed out a few of the sociopaths and mentally challenged who would eventually be selected by a purely random process. Anyone who serves is taken out of the pool, as is anyone convicted of a felony.
Of course, the down side would potentially be that the power vultures would descend on the lot of them and corrupt or destroy them before we had a chance to elect a decent one. I suppose we could put the candidates in an isolated facility with television, radio, and Internet capabilities for a month or so and let them convince us who to vote for. It would be a hugely popular reality show.
The Secret Service would swoop down on the potential candidates in helicopters and ask them on live camera if they choose to serve or not. They have two minutes to decide, and may choose to call one 'life-line' for help making the decision. If they choose to serve, they would be whisked off to the top secret isolation facility.
We could also surround the facility with vicious animals and deadly traps and let any lobbyists that managed to make it to the place alive get their say. Drug them, blindfold them, leave them naked in the wilderness with only a towel and a bowie knife. I'd watch that. We could then let the audience vote on whether to discharge the traps or release the hounds as the lobbyists passed by. "NO honey! That's a Greenpeace activist, what are you doing don't press the-" "Aaaaiiiieeeeee!" "Sorry, sweetie, I think they're kooks." "You are SO sleeping on the couch tonight!"
While they were isolated, the media and sleuths both amateur and professional would, of course, go nuts on their backgrounds. Every character flaw would be exposed and debated, every detail from their past picked over for hints about their true positions. Only narcissists, fools, the naive, and the truly innocent would volunteer when their names were called. Our job would be to separate the last from the first three.
As long as we kept a very careful watch on the selection process to make sure their was no fraud or bias in the system, it seems like it would be a better system than we have now, especially if we had a voting system that followed the Condorcet method. We would, at the very least, tend to have the most attractive politicians in the world.
Haha, thanks for that. I love to piss off idiots like you. You can't argue for shit, your tiny little mind is only capable of hatred and frothing outrage, and you're dumb enough to admit it in public. Wow.
Why would machines 'want' anything but what we build them to want?
How is individuality critical for imagination or creativity? I'd say just the opposite. Raise a man in a closet with no outside contact and he won't even be a man, let alone creative. Creativity and imagination need material to work with, and that material do not come from 'individuality.'
That being said, I still think Kurzweil is a loon. I've just never understood your particular point of view on this, though I've heard it from many people. Not saying you're wrong, but it seems like a knee jerk primal fear kind of reaction, not a reasoned critique.
Nice hypothesis, but I've heard those assertions before and I don't buy it. People are not lazy automatons motivated only by survival instinct. Look at Maslow's heirarchy of needs. The more comfortable we are, the more energy we have to pursue higher goals. Look at history, when basic needs have been met such and people have free time, as in ancient Greece, or during the renaissance, people turn to arts and sciences.
Kurzweil's singularity concept does not rest solely on non-human AI, it also addresses technology that augments human intelligence. And who exactly would be telling the AIs what to think about? We needn't make them our masters, even if they are more intelligent we can create them with a desire to serve us selflessly.
In short, you make a common assertion not backed up by reasoning. It may appear self-evident to you that comfortable humans do no work, but it isn't to me. You may assume that humanity would wither and die in the face of unquestionable superiority, but I feel that we will blossom under those circumstances. Why exactly do you feel we wouldn't?
The Kargil Conflict between India and Pakistan happened in 1999. Pakistan invaded India. Both sides rattled their nuclear sabers in a big way, but they ended up slugging it out conventionally anyhow. So I guess your point really depends on what you mean by 'these days.' If 'these days' refers, as it would seem, to 'after India and Pakistan got nukes,' then no, MAD has most assuredly not worked.
Just keep telling yourself that it's all asshole moderators picking on you. Of course, that doesn't explain why Shakrai was modded UP for his anti-Obama comments. You can also keep telling yourself that people worship Obama, it's still a right wing country, people just were hypnotized into voting against their interests. Yeah. Your self serving theories are a transparent attempt to make yourself feel superior. You come off sounding quite delusional, and a little paranoid. Oh, and that bailout plan? Yeah, didn't, what was his name? Bush? Didn't he start that whole ball rolling? And if the president wants to have little talk with Wall Street leaders, more power to him. I hope they do limit executive pay for any company taking our money, but as I said, Obama is no leftist so I sincerely doubt that will happen. Funny, we both dislike Obama, just for entirely the opposite reasons. FYI, you may want to watch the Daily Show election night coverage, they had Obama's law school adviser on. He thought Obama was a Republican when they first met because Obama idolized... wait for it... Reagan! So don't worry, no matter what your dear leaders on the right say, he's no leftist.
Shakrai posted an irreverent opinion of Obama and got modded +5 insightful. You posted a childish insult insinuating that he thinks he is the messiah and that his supporters worship him and you got modded down. The mod system works, intelligence is rewarded and trolls are punished. Personally, I think Obama is completely centrist. He's no savior, and he's certainly not leftist at all. He'll do okay, but he won't do anything radical or new. I love to see intelligent criticism of him. You haven't provided any. All I see from you is frothing, impotent rage at having 'lost.' You rightfully had your ass handed to you on a platter, and now, like any hypocritical bully who's victims dare fight back, you scream and cry like a little girl.
Now you've just gone off the deep end and lost all credibility you might have had. This is a sadly typical example of the right wing's use of what is know as 'thought terminating cliches.' You have added nothing to the conversation but bile and insult, with the intention of getting someone to attack you, just so you could pull out this tired old counter. You look like a fool to anyone with half a brain, because your tactics are completely transparent and childish. You need to wor on your sophistication if you want to be a really successful right wing troll. But sophistication has never been the right's strong point, has it?
And you probably think CNN is left wing, and that Fox News is 'Fair and Balanced.' Personally, the only person I like on MSNBC is Rachel Maddow. I think Olbermann and Mathews are just as bad as their loud-mouthed right wing counterparts like Limbaugh and O'Reilly. I don't read any of the other publications you mention.
However, as I find your style of debate lacking in any critical thinking, analysis, or even basic thought processes, but merely impotent, rage induced emotional appeal, I decline to discuss this with you further.
Your comment history. Everyone can read any or all of your previous comments. So we know the ridiculous and contradictory things you've claimed in the past. That was what MarkusQ was referring to.
They WERE working, and making the situation better, as any look at the entire range of statistics will clearly show, and as I have shown previously. It was only when the New Deal plans were stopped that the '37 recession kicked in. What other explanation do you have for the trend lines in GDP & unemployment? Look at the trends for 1933-1937, and explain them, if you can. You and the wingnuts at mises cherry pick your data to support the conclusions you WANT to be true.
You are offended when someone calls your pet theory names? ACs made your points for you? It's all just hot air, again, unfounded assertions. You say the New Deal didn't end the recession. Prove it or shut up.
That is textbook crackpot Austrian school economics, right there. You are just making assertions without proof, in fact, I have proof that your assertions are wrong: here's a graph of us GDP, 1920-1940. You ca plainly see the New Deal was working, and then in 1937 when FDR backed off the New Deal plans, the economy started to tank again. So sorry that reality doesn't support your loony, self serving economic theories.
Please go read a reputable history of the Great Depression. The New Deal worked. By the mid 1930s, we were doing better than before the crash. It was Republican interference in 1937 that caused FDR to back off some of his New Deal promises, and THAT caused another mini-depression.
And that is both illegal and immoral. It is perfectly legal to advocate for communism in this country. Outing communists makes McCarthy a traitor, not a hero. Maybe someone should use the same tactics against you, to dissuade you from holding your un-American views.
Oh, you are so full of it! Do you honestly expect anyone to believe that your MULTIPLE comments on this page asserting that you worked with Tice were ALL jokes? My hat's off; it takes huge brass balls to lie that brazenly. But please, do explain your little joke. It's always amusing to watch a liar try to wriggle off the hook.
I'm FAR left and I could give a rat's ass about gun control one way or another. Michael Moore showed that it isn't gun ownership that's the problem, it's our culture of fear. On the other hand, the original reason for that ammendment is moot. Any weapon you can buy is a peashooter compared to the hammer our military swings. So I really don't care.
As RealityMaster points out below, you have a habit of claiming inside information about nearly everything. You flat out state that you worked with him and know his clearance levels. You are a bald faced liar.
Well, sorry, but the site you quote is simply untrustworthy, and the site IT quotes is even less so. Anyone who quotes either of those sites loses all credibility, much as you would by quoting the Weekly World News as a source for science journalism. The fact that you quote totally screwball websites is relevant information that readers need to know to evaluate your assertions fairly.
Professor Herman started with his desired conclusions, found evidence to back them up, and discounted anything that didn't. Please see the traitor's page on wikipedia for a list of people debunking your revisionist history. The thing is, even if McCarthy's accusations were true, so what? It is legal to be a communist in a free country.
So, if you live in Canada, how exactly did you work with Tice, hmmm? I simply don't trust you and I believe you have ulterior motives.
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Draft a group of fifty at random, let anyone in that group who wants to drop out do so, and let people vote amongst the candidates that are left. That should at least weed out a few of the sociopaths and mentally challenged who would eventually be selected by a purely random process. Anyone who serves is taken out of the pool, as is anyone convicted of a felony.
Of course, the down side would potentially be that the power vultures would descend on the lot of them and corrupt or destroy them before we had a chance to elect a decent one. I suppose we could put the candidates in an isolated facility with television, radio, and Internet capabilities for a month or so and let them convince us who to vote for. It would be a hugely popular reality show.
The Secret Service would swoop down on the potential candidates in helicopters and ask them on live camera if they choose to serve or not. They have two minutes to decide, and may choose to call one 'life-line' for help making the decision. If they choose to serve, they would be whisked off to the top secret isolation facility.
We could also surround the facility with vicious animals and deadly traps and let any lobbyists that managed to make it to the place alive get their say. Drug them, blindfold them, leave them naked in the wilderness with only a towel and a bowie knife. I'd watch that. We could then let the audience vote on whether to discharge the traps or release the hounds as the lobbyists passed by. "NO honey! That's a Greenpeace activist, what are you doing don't press the-" "Aaaaiiiieeeeee!" "Sorry, sweetie, I think they're kooks." "You are SO sleeping on the couch tonight!"
While they were isolated, the media and sleuths both amateur and professional would, of course, go nuts on their backgrounds. Every character flaw would be exposed and debated, every detail from their past picked over for hints about their true positions. Only narcissists, fools, the naive, and the truly innocent would volunteer when their names were called. Our job would be to separate the last from the first three.
As long as we kept a very careful watch on the selection process to make sure their was no fraud or bias in the system, it seems like it would be a better system than we have now, especially if we had a voting system that followed the Condorcet method. We would, at the very least, tend to have the most attractive politicians in the world.
Are you really this much of a closed minded ass, or is someone trolling in your name?
Haha, thanks for that. I love to piss off idiots like you. You can't argue for shit, your tiny little mind is only capable of hatred and frothing outrage, and you're dumb enough to admit it in public. Wow.
Why would machines 'want' anything but what we build them to want?
How is individuality critical for imagination or creativity? I'd say just the opposite. Raise a man in a closet with no outside contact and he won't even be a man, let alone creative. Creativity and imagination need material to work with, and that material do not come from 'individuality.'
That being said, I still think Kurzweil is a loon. I've just never understood your particular point of view on this, though I've heard it from many people. Not saying you're wrong, but it seems like a knee jerk primal fear kind of reaction, not a reasoned critique.
Nice hypothesis, but I've heard those assertions before and I don't buy it. People are not lazy automatons motivated only by survival instinct. Look at Maslow's heirarchy of needs. The more comfortable we are, the more energy we have to pursue higher goals. Look at history, when basic needs have been met such and people have free time, as in ancient Greece, or during the renaissance, people turn to arts and sciences.
Kurzweil's singularity concept does not rest solely on non-human AI, it also addresses technology that augments human intelligence. And who exactly would be telling the AIs what to think about? We needn't make them our masters, even if they are more intelligent we can create them with a desire to serve us selflessly.
In short, you make a common assertion not backed up by reasoning. It may appear self-evident to you that comfortable humans do no work, but it isn't to me. You may assume that humanity would wither and die in the face of unquestionable superiority, but I feel that we will blossom under those circumstances. Why exactly do you feel we wouldn't?
The Kargil Conflict between India and Pakistan happened in 1999. Pakistan invaded India. Both sides rattled their nuclear sabers in a big way, but they ended up slugging it out conventionally anyhow. So I guess your point really depends on what you mean by 'these days.' If 'these days' refers, as it would seem, to 'after India and Pakistan got nukes,' then no, MAD has most assuredly not worked.
Just keep telling yourself that it's all asshole moderators picking on you. Of course, that doesn't explain why Shakrai was modded UP for his anti-Obama comments. You can also keep telling yourself that people worship Obama, it's still a right wing country, people just were hypnotized into voting against their interests. Yeah. Your self serving theories are a transparent attempt to make yourself feel superior. You come off sounding quite delusional, and a little paranoid. Oh, and that bailout plan? Yeah, didn't, what was his name? Bush? Didn't he start that whole ball rolling? And if the president wants to have little talk with Wall Street leaders, more power to him. I hope they do limit executive pay for any company taking our money, but as I said, Obama is no leftist so I sincerely doubt that will happen. Funny, we both dislike Obama, just for entirely the opposite reasons. FYI, you may want to watch the Daily Show election night coverage, they had Obama's law school adviser on. He thought Obama was a Republican when they first met because Obama idolized... wait for it... Reagan! So don't worry, no matter what your dear leaders on the right say, he's no leftist.
Shakrai posted an irreverent opinion of Obama and got modded +5 insightful. You posted a childish insult insinuating that he thinks he is the messiah and that his supporters worship him and you got modded down. The mod system works, intelligence is rewarded and trolls are punished. Personally, I think Obama is completely centrist. He's no savior, and he's certainly not leftist at all. He'll do okay, but he won't do anything radical or new. I love to see intelligent criticism of him. You haven't provided any. All I see from you is frothing, impotent rage at having 'lost.' You rightfully had your ass handed to you on a platter, and now, like any hypocritical bully who's victims dare fight back, you scream and cry like a little girl.
Now you've just gone off the deep end and lost all credibility you might have had. This is a sadly typical example of the right wing's use of what is know as 'thought terminating cliches.' You have added nothing to the conversation but bile and insult, with the intention of getting someone to attack you, just so you could pull out this tired old counter. You look like a fool to anyone with half a brain, because your tactics are completely transparent and childish. You need to wor on your sophistication if you want to be a really successful right wing troll. But sophistication has never been the right's strong point, has it?
And you probably think CNN is left wing, and that Fox News is 'Fair and Balanced.' Personally, the only person I like on MSNBC is Rachel Maddow. I think Olbermann and Mathews are just as bad as their loud-mouthed right wing counterparts like Limbaugh and O'Reilly. I don't read any of the other publications you mention.
However, as I find your style of debate lacking in any critical thinking, analysis, or even basic thought processes, but merely impotent, rage induced emotional appeal, I decline to discuss this with you further.
Your comment history. Everyone can read any or all of your previous comments. So we know the ridiculous and contradictory things you've claimed in the past. That was what MarkusQ was referring to.
That's inflation adjusted dollars shown on the charts. And the New Deal created lasting infrastructure. So your argument falls flat.
They WERE working, and making the situation better, as any look at the entire range of statistics will clearly show, and as I have shown previously. It was only when the New Deal plans were stopped that the '37 recession kicked in. What other explanation do you have for the trend lines in GDP & unemployment? Look at the trends for 1933-1937, and explain them, if you can. You and the wingnuts at mises cherry pick your data to support the conclusions you WANT to be true.
Again, the 1937 depression was caused by FDR stopping many New Deal programs. We've been over that part...
And? So what? Are you saying he's wrong, and guns ARE the problem? No? Then the moron is right. Haha, you agree with Michael Moore.
You are offended when someone calls your pet theory names? ACs made your points for you? It's all just hot air, again, unfounded assertions. You say the New Deal didn't end the recession. Prove it or shut up.
That is textbook crackpot Austrian school economics, right there. You are just making assertions without proof, in fact, I have proof that your assertions are wrong: here's a graph of us GDP, 1920-1940. You ca plainly see the New Deal was working, and then in 1937 when FDR backed off the New Deal plans, the economy started to tank again. So sorry that reality doesn't support your loony, self serving economic theories.
Please go read a reputable history of the Great Depression. The New Deal worked. By the mid 1930s, we were doing better than before the crash. It was Republican interference in 1937 that caused FDR to back off some of his New Deal promises, and THAT caused another mini-depression.
And that is both illegal and immoral. It is perfectly legal to advocate for communism in this country. Outing communists makes McCarthy a traitor, not a hero. Maybe someone should use the same tactics against you, to dissuade you from holding your un-American views.
Oh, you are so full of it! Do you honestly expect anyone to believe that your MULTIPLE comments on this page asserting that you worked with Tice were ALL jokes? My hat's off; it takes huge brass balls to lie that brazenly. But please, do explain your little joke. It's always amusing to watch a liar try to wriggle off the hook.
I'm FAR left and I could give a rat's ass about gun control one way or another. Michael Moore showed that it isn't gun ownership that's the problem, it's our culture of fear. On the other hand, the original reason for that ammendment is moot. Any weapon you can buy is a peashooter compared to the hammer our military swings. So I really don't care.
As RealityMaster points out below, you have a habit of claiming inside information about nearly everything. You flat out state that you worked with him and know his clearance levels. You are a bald faced liar.
Liar much? Your history is there for all to see.
You worked with Tice closely enough to know his security clearances, therefore, you implicate yourself in his accusations.
Well, sorry, but the site you quote is simply untrustworthy, and the site IT quotes is even less so. Anyone who quotes either of those sites loses all credibility, much as you would by quoting the Weekly World News as a source for science journalism. The fact that you quote totally screwball websites is relevant information that readers need to know to evaluate your assertions fairly.
Professor Herman started with his desired conclusions, found evidence to back them up, and discounted anything that didn't. Please see the traitor's page on wikipedia for a list of people debunking your revisionist history. The thing is, even if McCarthy's accusations were true, so what? It is legal to be a communist in a free country.
So, if you live in Canada, how exactly did you work with Tice, hmmm? I simply don't trust you and I believe you have ulterior motives.