Here is a link to a GAO report which specifies the 50 year period. From the Highlights:
PAEA required USPS to prefund its future retiree health benefits as part of comprehensive postal reform by establishing the PSRHBF along with an initial target period to fund the unfunded liability in 50 years.
It explicitly states on page 7 of the full report
Contrary to statements made by some employee groups and other stakeholders, PAEA did not require USPS to prefund 75 years of retiree health benefits over a 10-year period. Rather, pursuant to OPM’s methodology, such payments would be projected to fund the liability over a period in excess of 50 years, from 2007 through 2056 and beyond (with rolling 15-year amortization periods after 2041). However, the payments required by PAEA were significantly “frontloaded,” with the fixed payment amounts in the first 10 years exceeding what actuarially determined amounts would have been using a 50-year amortization schedule.
And I never claimed that the Republicans didn't try to block course changes to the PAEA afterwards. I said, accurately, that the NALC later lied about the Republicans having forced the original PAEA down their throat, in a bid for sympathy. It's ironic that you're accusing me of reading right-wing websites (though that's the sort of thing I'd expect rabid partisans on either side to say). The only link I gave was to a copy of an NALC web page, which I doubt you looked at. Reading something into the other person's statements that they never actually said is a sign of being partisan. Try working on that.
It's a 50 year period, not 75. That's the reference to "September 30, 2056" in the legislation (the PAEA was passed in December 2006). And the exaggeration that it's 75 years was originated by the NALC, one of the postal labor unions. Along with the claim that the PAEA was forced on the USPS by Republicans in Congress (in reality it was bipartisan, and supported by postal management and the NALC itself). Here is what the NALC actually thought of the legislation just after it passed (notice how they brag about how bipartisan it was). The NALC was in favor of it at the time because total mail volume was still increasing (even though First Class mail peaked in 2001) and they thought the prefunding would safeguard their retirement benefits. As it turned out, total mail volume peaked right around the time the PAEA passed, then started dropping. When they realized the mistake they'd made, they decided to play victim by pretending that the PAEA was forced on them, and exaggerating the time period. It worked beautifully, as you can see from all the ignorant comments here with a "5, Insightful".
Leftist ideologies are much younger, but already have overtaken Christianity's death count (180M to 100M) -- but then, if you take together the sum of Abrahamic faiths, the race is about neck-to-neck.
Shouldn't the death count be measured as a percentage of population? Otherwise, reducing the death rate is penalized.
Write your creditors and say you no longer consent to your information being sent to equifax due to their ongoing security issues. There are two other reporting agencies they can use, tell them you only want information shared with experian and transunion until further notice.
At this point there's no reason to believe the other bureaus are any less leaky than Equifax. Equifax may have just been the first bureau with a breach of this scale purely by chance. It would be different if there was a history of repeated breaches unique to them.
An account is only vulnerable if people use weak passwords, or reuse them across multiple sites (some of which are probably storing them in plaintext). People should use a unique randomly generated password for each site, storing them with a password manager (and backing it up), not try to be Rain Man and remembering all of them.
An account can develop a reputation, which helps moderation. And the owner can be anonymous, so not vulnerable to retaliation.
Having said all that, I can't see any good reason for requiring an account for submitting stories. They can stand or fall on their own merit.
It's more important that a site allow strong passwords, by having long or no length limit, and no character restrictions. Amazon, Google, and LinkedIn, for example, may allow weak passwords, but unlike many sites, they also allow very strong passwords (no length or character restrictions AFAIK). If someone doesn't want a strong password (for example if they insist on trying to remember dozens of different passwords instead of using a password manager) forcing one will just make them write it on a sticky pad. Which may or may not be OK, depending on whether it's a secure environment.
Except it wouldn't work, because the AI will eventually escape from the bottle. Anyone could gain a temporary advantage by giving their own AI a little extra freedom. And there's no way to perfectly enforce the regulations.
More talented coders might write elaborate routines with more levels of indentation. With tabs, the inner level lines would wrap around more and make it harder to read.
I normally try to read the whole article before commenting, but it starts with a list of straw men claims, so I didn't bother.
1. Artificial intelligence is already getting smarter than us, at an exponential rate.
It would be more accurate to say that the claim is that Artificial Intelligence is increasing faster than ours, which is hard to dispute. Saying "getting smarter" makes it sound like a claim that AI is already smarter, which I don't think anyone has made.
2. We’ll make AIs into a general purpose intelligence, like our own.
Why not? The ability to learn to play Go and Poker better than humans, without having detailed algorithms built in, shows that computational brute force goes a long way, even when humans don't understand how the program works. Until recently it was thought that there would have to be conceptual advances specific to those games in order to defeat human champions (and in any case it was already possible to defeat the average human).
3. We can make human intelligence in silicon.
It's unnecessary for AI to emulate human intelligence (and chauvinistic to suggest that it has to). Its capabilities can match or exceed humans, while working in a completely different way.
4. Intelligence can be expanded without limit.
Why? All that's necessary is for AI to equal or exceed human capabilities. Even if one makes the farfetched assumption that humans are at the peak of intelligence, simply being able to match the most intelligent humans would exceed the capabilities of 99.9+% of the population.
5. Once we have exploding superintelligence it can solve most of our problems.
It would probably allow solving most of our existing problems, and create new ones. Life goes on. In any case what it could accomplish is completely independent of whether it's possible.
Laptops were predicted in the September 1977 Scientific American article Microelectronics and the Personal Computer by Alan C. Kay. That's just one prediction I happened to know, there may be earlier ones.
Countries with longer lifespans have lower population growth, or even decline. This is plausible because people in those countries don't have to have extra children to be certain that some will survive. If life extension also increases the maximum reproductive age, people could put off having children which would reduce population growth even more. A lot of people in developed countries only choose to have children because their biological clock is ticking.
They are easily detectable on earth - for example see here (picture here). They've also been detected in the atmosphere of Venus, which has winds over 200 miles per hour.
"Dig once" is cheaper, and reduces the need for rural internet subsidies.
That, and the fact that people with good internet access should be more productive and hence pay more in taxes, so it's an investment. (I throw that in because his answer would probably be "but why have internet subsidies at all?".)
Tax evasion, by definition, is illegal. What's being discussed here is tax avoidance, which isn't. And if nobody ever engaged in tax avoidance, what incentive would politicians have to fix tax law? If anything, there needs to be more tax avoidance, preferably highly public, to shame them into acting. And the public needs to start putting the blame on the politicians, where it belongs. If the politicians are letting themselves be bought off, one more reason to blame them.
They're stealing from you, and from everyone else.
Yes, keep confusing legal and illegal, so politicians can keep people thinking that they've done their job and continue to do nothing. That's what they want. (And as long as they do nothing, companies will keep "stealing", as you put it.)
Google "personal expenditure tax". Economists have been fond of it for a long time, although it's almost never been implemented. Basically it's just a modification of the current income tax, where instead of computing income once a year, you compute consumption = income - savings (where debt is equivalent to negative savings, so borrowing is added, eliminating the buy/borrow loophole, and paying off debt is subtracted). The current system already has income being reported to the IRS, and I don't recall reading any concerns that the invasion of privacy would be worse than now.
Your argument wasn't very convincing. Your plan is essentially to give them an unlimited 401k tax shelter.
Yes, basically to give everyone an unlimited 401k (with no RMD at age 70.5). Like a 401k, the money gets taxed when it's taken out (when it's spent). And if the tax rate is highly progressive, when the balance gets high enough, there's no way to spend it as fast as it's growing without incurring a very high tax rate. The only other ways to avoid that are to either watch it grow forever, without ever spending more than enough to avoid the high tax rate (which is unlikely given that inherited money is usually squandered within 3 generations, and also pointless, because then why have that much money?), or to give it away. I suppose a rich family could theoretically breed like rabbits as a loophole if they didn't want to give it to charity.
Slashdot Mirror
Here is a link to a GAO report which specifies the 50 year period. From the Highlights:
PAEA required USPS to prefund its future retiree health benefits as part of comprehensive postal reform by establishing the PSRHBF along with an initial target period to fund the unfunded liability in 50 years.
It explicitly states on page 7 of the full report
Contrary to statements made by some employee groups and other stakeholders, PAEA did not require USPS to prefund 75 years of retiree health benefits over a 10-year period. Rather, pursuant to OPM’s methodology, such payments would be projected to fund the liability over a period in excess of 50 years, from 2007 through 2056 and beyond (with rolling 15-year amortization periods after 2041). However, the payments required by PAEA were significantly “frontloaded,” with the fixed payment amounts in the first 10 years exceeding what actuarially determined amounts would have been using a 50-year amortization schedule.
And I never claimed that the Republicans didn't try to block course changes to the PAEA afterwards. I said, accurately, that the NALC later lied about the Republicans having forced the original PAEA down their throat, in a bid for sympathy. It's ironic that you're accusing me of reading right-wing websites (though that's the sort of thing I'd expect rabid partisans on either side to say). The only link I gave was to a copy of an NALC web page, which I doubt you looked at. Reading something into the other person's statements that they never actually said is a sign of being partisan. Try working on that.
It's a 50 year period, not 75. That's the reference to "September 30, 2056" in the legislation (the PAEA was passed in December 2006). And the exaggeration that it's 75 years was originated by the NALC, one of the postal labor unions. Along with the claim that the PAEA was forced on the USPS by Republicans in Congress (in reality it was bipartisan, and supported by postal management and the NALC itself). Here is what the NALC actually thought of the legislation just after it passed (notice how they brag about how bipartisan it was). The NALC was in favor of it at the time because total mail volume was still increasing (even though First Class mail peaked in 2001) and they thought the prefunding would safeguard their retirement benefits. As it turned out, total mail volume peaked right around the time the PAEA passed, then started dropping. When they realized the mistake they'd made, they decided to play victim by pretending that the PAEA was forced on them, and exaggerating the time period. It worked beautifully, as you can see from all the ignorant comments here with a "5, Insightful".
Making money by treating people like shit doesn't make you successful in my book. It just makes you an asshole.
Why can't it be both?
Leftist ideologies are much younger, but already have overtaken Christianity's death count (180M to 100M) -- but then, if you take together the sum of Abrahamic faiths, the race is about neck-to-neck.
Shouldn't the death count be measured as a percentage of population? Otherwise, reducing the death rate is penalized.
Write your creditors and say you no longer consent to your information being sent to equifax due to their ongoing security issues. There are two other reporting agencies they can use, tell them you only want information shared with experian and transunion until further notice.
At this point there's no reason to believe the other bureaus are any less leaky than Equifax. Equifax may have just been the first bureau with a breach of this scale purely by chance. It would be different if there was a history of repeated breaches unique to them.
Reducing the cost of using the prison phones to a reasonable amount would help.
An account is only vulnerable if people use weak passwords, or reuse them across multiple sites (some of which are probably storing them in plaintext). People should use a unique randomly generated password for each site, storing them with a password manager (and backing it up), not try to be Rain Man and remembering all of them.
An account can develop a reputation, which helps moderation. And the owner can be anonymous, so not vulnerable to retaliation.
Having said all that, I can't see any good reason for requiring an account for submitting stories. They can stand or fall on their own merit.
It's more important that a site allow strong passwords, by having long or no length limit, and no character restrictions. Amazon, Google, and LinkedIn, for example, may allow weak passwords, but unlike many sites, they also allow very strong passwords (no length or character restrictions AFAIK). If someone doesn't want a strong password (for example if they insist on trying to remember dozens of different passwords instead of using a password manager) forcing one will just make them write it on a sticky pad. Which may or may not be OK, depending on whether it's a secure environment.
Except it wouldn't work, because the AI will eventually escape from the bottle. Anyone could gain a temporary advantage by giving their own AI a little extra freedom. And there's no way to perfectly enforce the regulations.
why he thinks it would be possible for humans to control superintelligent AI with regulation? Or why it wouldn't be able to achieve space travel?
Turning the region into a resourceless dump of poverty is unlikely to improve things for anyone.
Lifting the Resource Curse probably will improve things in the long run.
Bank robbers typically aren't very bright. If they had that kind of talent, they'd find a safer way to exploit it.
More talented coders might write elaborate routines with more levels of indentation. With tabs, the inner level lines would wrap around more and make it harder to read.
I normally try to read the whole article before commenting, but it starts with a list of straw men claims, so I didn't bother.
1. Artificial intelligence is already getting smarter than us, at an exponential rate.
It would be more accurate to say that the claim is that Artificial Intelligence is increasing faster than ours, which is hard to dispute. Saying "getting smarter" makes it sound like a claim that AI is already smarter, which I don't think anyone has made.
2. We’ll make AIs into a general purpose intelligence, like our own.
Why not? The ability to learn to play Go and Poker better than humans, without having detailed algorithms built in, shows that computational brute force goes a long way, even when humans don't understand how the program works. Until recently it was thought that there would have to be conceptual advances specific to those games in order to defeat human champions (and in any case it was already possible to defeat the average human).
3. We can make human intelligence in silicon.
It's unnecessary for AI to emulate human intelligence (and chauvinistic to suggest that it has to). Its capabilities can match or exceed humans, while working in a completely different way.
4. Intelligence can be expanded without limit.
Why? All that's necessary is for AI to equal or exceed human capabilities. Even if one makes the farfetched assumption that humans are at the peak of intelligence, simply being able to match the most intelligent humans would exceed the capabilities of 99.9+% of the population.
5. Once we have exploding superintelligence it can solve most of our problems.
It would probably allow solving most of our existing problems, and create new ones. Life goes on. In any case what it could accomplish is completely independent of whether it's possible.
Medical researchers have been able to create certain kinds of living cells with 3D printers for more than a decade.
I think they meant to say tissues, not cells. Printing living cells is a bit more advanced.
Thank you. I googled Dynabook and it was also proposed by Alan Kay.
Woz predicted portable laptops back in 1982
Laptops were predicted in the September 1977 Scientific American article Microelectronics and the Personal Computer by Alan C. Kay. That's just one prediction I happened to know, there may be earlier ones.
It should work fine with quotes (for example search for "ubuntu 18.04", including quotes) as long as there are no typos.
Countries with longer lifespans have lower population growth, or even decline. This is plausible because people in those countries don't have to have extra children to be certain that some will survive. If life extension also increases the maximum reproductive age, people could put off having children which would reduce population growth even more. A lot of people in developed countries only choose to have children because their biological clock is ticking.
They are easily detectable on earth - for example see here (picture here). They've also been detected in the atmosphere of Venus, which has winds over 200 miles per hour.
"Dig once" is cheaper, and reduces the need for rural internet subsidies.
That, and the fact that people with good internet access should be more productive and hence pay more in taxes, so it's an investment. (I throw that in because his answer would probably be "but why have internet subsidies at all?".)
Tax evasion, by definition, is illegal. What's being discussed here is tax avoidance, which isn't. And if nobody ever engaged in tax avoidance, what incentive would politicians have to fix tax law? If anything, there needs to be more tax avoidance, preferably highly public, to shame them into acting. And the public needs to start putting the blame on the politicians, where it belongs. If the politicians are letting themselves be bought off, one more reason to blame them.
They're stealing from you, and from everyone else.
Yes, keep confusing legal and illegal, so politicians can keep people thinking that they've done their job and continue to do nothing. That's what they want. (And as long as they do nothing, companies will keep "stealing", as you put it.)
Next Patch Tuesday is March 14. Let's not make it any later than it is.
Google "personal expenditure tax". Economists have been fond of it for a long time, although it's almost never been implemented. Basically it's just a modification of the current income tax, where instead of computing income once a year, you compute consumption = income - savings (where debt is equivalent to negative savings, so borrowing is added, eliminating the buy/borrow loophole, and paying off debt is subtracted). The current system already has income being reported to the IRS, and I don't recall reading any concerns that the invasion of privacy would be worse than now.
Your argument wasn't very convincing. Your plan is essentially to give them an unlimited 401k tax shelter.
Yes, basically to give everyone an unlimited 401k (with no RMD at age 70.5). Like a 401k, the money gets taxed when it's taken out (when it's spent). And if the tax rate is highly progressive, when the balance gets high enough, there's no way to spend it as fast as it's growing without incurring a very high tax rate. The only other ways to avoid that are to either watch it grow forever, without ever spending more than enough to avoid the high tax rate (which is unlikely given that inherited money is usually squandered within 3 generations, and also pointless, because then why have that much money?), or to give it away. I suppose a rich family could theoretically breed like rabbits as a loophole if they didn't want to give it to charity.