Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Religion is declining worldwide in a predictable sequence, study argues.

More Americans identify as “religiously unaffiliated” than 10 years ago.

“This is an abuse of power. Despite Sanders’ best efforts, Arkansas is not a Christian theocracy.”

The Bondi Beach Muslim man’s heroism is being used to shift the narrative away from antisemitism toward a supposed story about Muslim representation or bias.

Nonreligious struggle to find their voice and place in Indian society and politics.

The next 60 years of American Atheists.

World of Woo: Everyday life……

Environment: Is climate change lighting a fuse under Iceland’s volcanoes?

Compatibilism is a philosophical stance, not a physics theorem.

Is atheism a belief?

Are we the Martians?

Long Reads:

What the final words of the condemned can teach us about how to live.

Quantum physics doesn’t behave like common sense because classical intuition simply doesn’t apply at small scales.

Tech companies stand to benefit from widespread public misperceptions that AI is sentient despite a dearth of scientific evidence.

Sunday Book Club: The Psychology and Science of Pseudoscience, by Terence Hines.

Some photographs taken last week. One defining photo from every week of 2025.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Videos: Deconstructing religion.  Atheist turns a Christian’s argument back on himself. The Gettier Problem: True Justified Belief without Knowledge. Rethinking the discovery of DNA. Large Language Models explained. The Top 5 MAGA Prayer requests.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week everyone!

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg:

World of Woo: Everyday life……

Trying to force dogs and cats to go vegan is a good way to get the SPCA and Animal Control turned on a pet owner, and rightly so. And Child Protective Services will also turn on parents who try to make their youngsters go vegan, again, rightly so.

Here, virtue signaling with food is not only playing with your food in public, but it is playing with innocent lives. American Council for Science and Health here lately sure picks some silly content.

[StregaModerator]

Thanks, Reg!!

[PopeBeanieModerator]

[…] AI welfare is a legitimate domain of inquiry because we cannot rule out the possibility that AI systems may have—or may one day develop—consciousness. The authors describe this as “an open question,” but they then unbalance the scales by linking to a preprint by several philosophers—including world-renowned philosopher of consciousness David Chalmers and Anthropic’s own AI welfare researcher Kyle Fish—titled “Taking AI Welfare Seriously.”

What happens if/when an AI is determined to be sentient and/or have consciousness, and is then assigned rights to exist and have certain welfare rights? Or maybe an AI will make such determinations and claims for itself?

The only solution I could ever imagine is that no AI should ever be given the ability to evolve sentience or consciousness. Add the lawful requirement that an effective kill switch must always exist.

Of course developing acceptable, universal definitions of sentience and consciousness is problematic, but it would seem that AI developers, producers, and owners, having conflict of interest, cannot be allowed to determine the definitions.

But even before that, will we be able to recognize or interdict “bad actors” that weaponize AI to inflict harm on others?

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

From AI Welfare to AI Warfare. This is a great read.                                 .

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

The Gettier Problem: True Justified Belief without Knowledge.

Again, I think the problem with True Justified Belief is the statement, I am factually justified.  To know I am factually justified, I must know that my belief is true, yet I use this justification as proof that the belief is true.  I justify the truth of my belief by saying it is justified.

The argument for justification would seem to be circular.  I don’t know where it says so, but a circular argument surely can’t prove anything.

Justification can only be subjective.  I have my reasons for feeling justified, you have yours, and we may reach different conclusions – just like in morality.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

From AI Welfare to AI Warfare. This is a great read.

Absolutely a great read! Written half like a mini-novel, and half like a documentary. I’m adding it to the AI Group…

[jakelafortParticipant]

How is this for an unforseeable development if we were to look back just a few years?

Unholy alliance between Islam and the far left has resulted in an Islamic nation being unwilling to pay for its own to attend British schools because they are too Islamic.

UAE limits funding students to study in UK as concerns soar over Islamic radicalisation in the campuses of Britain

[jakelafortParticipant]

I found this amusing as Prager is at Oxford to embarrass the brain dead students. UAE knows of what it speaks.

[jakelafortParticipant]

There are reports of 100s of citizens of Iran protesting and murdered. Is it treason to oppose the hands of tyranny?

There is the possibility that the lives of millions will improve markedly in Iran. And in so doing stabilize the middle east. Little Israel far from causing world war 3 as the lefty filth hoped has been an instrumental fillip in toppling the tumbless towers of Tehran. Work to be done and many a slip twixt cup and lip. Boy it takes balls to be out there rioting/protesting but when desperation reaches an unsustainable level it is hell’s bells and full steam ahead. Imagine the bloodshed from this filthy Islamic regime if this shit is quelled? Trump is promising to intervene but will he? Stay tuned sports fans as the world turns and the universe shrugs or doesn’t even pay no notice…

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake:

I’m hoping the Iranians have got this. I do know between between Trump’s sparing of the regime and restraining Israel from taking out the regime, the worse thing that Trump could do is get involved.

Trump’s half-assed handling of Venezuela and Greenland also punctuates this all the more.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake:

Also noteworthy: There are Muslim nations that are stricter on The Muslim Brotherhood than either the U.S. or U.K. Even Muslims hate Islamism when pressed hard enough.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Enco,

Inshallah.

[jakelafortParticipant]

If the Ayatoldyaso regime is overthrown there goes the funding for the terrorist proxies. Presumably. There in living color is a social experiment in Islamic rule played out and receiving an F. One might suppose the American ideal of separation between church and state as the sine qua non of decent governance is more obvious than ever. For greater nuance the importance of free speech lest bubbles are generated that are to the detriment of the majority.

There go a great many voices who lived through Iran’s Islamic playground to admonish the lefty’s how insane their alliance with Islam is and how twisted the narratives. Islamism is inimical to all that you hold dear in human rights. Potentially the upheval would facilitate the critical exploration of Palestinianism and how the left is complicit in a cycle of indoctrination and violence. This could lead to Mein Kampf no longer being standard fare in the islamic world. Add on the pervasive cultural indoctrination in Jew hatred that a few Islamic nations are addressing. And i can only hope that the far left is utterly discredited. But that is probably a bridge too far.

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