Marianne

Is Bernie right? That the Dems lost by being concerned with stuff the working class considers secondary (democracy, abortion, and I think I could add LGBTQ rights, since Trump ads locally were often about boys competing in girls’ sports). Sure she talked about taking on price gouging, but she really had a hard time separating herself from Biden.…[Read more]

Trump didn’t win. The corrupt and clueless Democrats lost.

Christian Nationalists Feel Their Dark Prophecies Are Now Coming True

There’s a quote often attributed to Sinclair Lewis that has gone viral again and again since Donald Trump first ascended to the White House, fodder for liberal memes on Facebook and reposts on the platform X: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and…[Read more]

Trump’s mental decline has been as precipitous as it’s been obvious, so there’s something no one is talking about: J.D. Vance inheriting the presidency. It’s not certain, but it’s a distinct possibility.

Trump is who we (Americans) are now:

_Robert_ wrote:
OK, so now absolute morality is just values “one holds dear”. So, if one culture holds sex with minors in high regard, and another will lock you away in jail, they are both following absolute morality. Got it. Yeah, see I don’t buy that.

When religious folk talk about absolutes they are talking about specific laws set down by th…

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Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
Facts are in one realm and values are in another one and never the twain shall meet because facts are value neutral

You’re right, I’m being a bit glib and disingenuous. It’s true, they’re different realms, and we don’t treat them the same when making judgments of what to do. We take both into account. In a way,…

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_Robert_ wrote:
So there are really no “absolutes”. “Killing is wrong” is  meaningless.

No phrase I can understand is literally “meaningless.”

There are an infinite number of “killings” possible. And when you say “If one person feels” as in your fetus example, well that’s not exactly an absolute.

When someone expresses a feeling in a moral…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:

Unseen wrote:
You can’t have any sort of ethical system without absolutes. You can make ethical pronouncements till the cows come home, but without some sort of absolute value(s), you have no foundation to build one on.

It seems that with any sort of absolutes there ends up being a gazillion exceptions. Give us an absolute that h…

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Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
You can make ethical pronouncements till the cows come home, but without some sort of absolute value(s), you have no foundation to build one on.

Yes you do, you have physical and scientific facts to build the foundation on.

Facts are in one realm and values are in another one and never the twain shall meet…[Read more]

You can’t have any sort of ethical system without absolutes. You can make ethical pronouncements till the cows come home, but without some sort of absolute value(s), you have no foundation to build one on.

Simon Paynton wrote:
An AI can never be human-centred, because it’s Artificial.

But it doesn’t follow from that that it can’t be intelligent or conscious in a way it that serves its interests rather than ours.

The aibient Youtube channel puts out hyperrealistic AI-created 11-12 hour long simulated 3D videos like this virtually daily:

Imagine how much it would cost and how much time it would take to hire a video artist to create anything like this if the stipulation was “no AI”.

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
We don’t know what to ask or we ask the wrong questions. What’s the key difference?

AI isn’t capable of coming up with an intelligent, guided question. It can come up with random questions, but it knows not what it is to love, or value things, or breathe the fresh air. In other words, it’s not guided by human v…

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_Robert_ wrote:
Music is interesting because of musicians. And well AI just doesn’t have that.

And yet, even “real” musicians are faking it as the Wings of Pegasus guy is exposing it. I’m referring to artists who lip sync live and others who abuse Autotune.

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
I think AI is already doing research to answer questions I ask.

That’s the point I’m making. You have to ask the questions. AI doesn’t know what to ask.

But doesn’t that describe US as well? We don’t know what to ask or we ask the wrong questions. What’s the key difference?

I suppose one key difference is th…[Read more]

If we didn’t have a dog in the fight (Israel), I might say “A pox on both of their houses,” but we support one side of this war between terrorists so we have Palestinian blood on our hands.

UN Commission finds war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israeli attacks on Gaza health facilities and treatment of detainees, hostages

Israel has…[Read more]