Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
An interesting opinion piece on ethics and moral identity.

That’s a brilliant article that I agree with.  The author is saying that in order to get people to behave ethically, you have to teach them about ethics in general, or in other words, remind them of what they might already have known.  In any given s…[Read more]

Thanks Reg!

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
What happens when hostility to knowledge becomes policy.

I don’t get why anyone would believe in stuff because they want to, rather than because they think it’s true.  I feel we have some kind of duty to the truth to be open-minded, independent-minded and anti-authoritarian in our thinking, and to let facts speak…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Is this post even visible to the other members?

@unseen, I don’t know what you want people to say.  Are you asking rhetorical questions?

My last couple posts raised question one would think any mentally awake and aware people would want to…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
cooperative breeding is also evolving 🙂

The Homo erectus cooperative breeding was the culmination of a long process of peeling un-weaned infants away from their mothers, that might have taken 2-4 million years.  Great ape mothers do not like to give up their babies to anyone else.  It makes sense that the first p…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Humans are born as socially bootable apes

This level of infant care would have required a bit of social interaction, since it would have been difficult for new mothers to be the only one caring for and protecting a newborn from large predators and other dangers.

This ties in with what we already know about Homo…[Read more]

https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13544

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Of course, Einstein would have used AI. Using it does not mean outsourcing critical thought.

I think there is no way Einstein could have come up with his theories if he used AI to do his thinking.  AI summarises things well; but that means it only comes up with clichés.  It doesn’t do any original thinking, beyond su…[Read more]

The real tragedy is that we even have to ask.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Occam’s Razor is not dead. It has been demoted. It is no longer the supreme judge of scientific truth as Nature may not owe us humans a simple explanation.

I would say that Nature is elegant but not necessarily simple.  I don’t believe the most simple explanation is the right one.

“You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or…[Read more]

Basically, AI’s will move off the Internet.

WTH is he talking about? Listen:

jakelafort wrote:
This gal got slammed by lefties. It was sexual harassment she committed!

Yes, I use “woke” to mean “ludicrous decisions taken in the name of equality”.  Progressive, I like.  Woke is ridiculous.

I knew of a school in the Washington DC area.  Many of the Black kids used to come in with their hoods up.  The teachers, inc…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Why Iran continues to choose war over peace.

Until then, the IRGC will pursue its “forever war,” threatening regional stability, the global economy, and U.S. national security.

I knew it – neither side wants to back down.  Trump doesn’t know how to cooperate, the IRGC just wants to keep doing its thing.

We have been becoming more and more visible via electronic mechanisms over the years, and eventually we will have to learn to live with this. Tin foil hats probably won’t help. So it’s futile to knee jerk against this kind of usage of WiFi, because it’s coming. Writing laws prohibiting things don’t act…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
What physics gets wrong about the idea of “fundamental”.

Yes, I think a model should be “thorough” as well as “fundamental”.  Some fundamental elements are not just individisible particles – they’re also structural factors, for example, that form the fabric of reality.  So, the fundamental constants of the unive…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Don’t honeybees tell each other (reporting information) where to find newly-discovered nectar-hunting grounds, which then send other bees (behavior) to exploit them?

Apparently, when a bee goes to a flower, it leaves sweaty footprints on the petals.  Another bee can come along and smell the footprints and determine how long ago th…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
Yes, chimpanzees exhibit culture, defined as behaviors that are socially transmitted rather than genetically inherited or caused solely by ecological factors.

Don’t honeybees tell each other (reporting information) where to find newly-discovered nectar-hunting grounds, which then send other bees (behavior) to exploit…[Read more]