Recent Comments

I'll raise a toast to that...

Amen

If they take a surf perch and test it now it's got prozac and birth control in it. We don't process it out in the sewage processing.

Sorry to hear that...

My question is what will replace real estate as a hedge on inflation? Classic cars? Haha...I jest a little. But, these are relevant questions now...

This is one hell of a probing, intelligent discussion my friends. There is a part 1 to this article, also. AI can do many things that in a human being would indicate consciousness. I make the tentative case in the article that probably there can be no awareness without a sensory system, no thinking by a nonliving entity. You cannot be aware if you are not aware of reality and you cannot be aware of reality without a sensory system. And a sensory system requires feelings, which require values. There is no awareness/consciousness that begins at the level of symbol manipulation. Words that do not refer to one's experiences of some kind do not "mean" anything to the entity using them although they do to others hearing and reading them. Again, very informed discussion!

As I argue in the article, nothing will make Bitcoin, or crypto, a replacement for gold. The answer to the question in the title is "NO." My son mentioned today that at an Objectivist summer seminar 15 years ago, a guy urged him to put just $5000 in Bitcoin. That would be worth $444 billion today. That is not money. It represents NOTHING in the real world but speculative frenzy over a novelty. But the blockchain itself has many valid uses.

ALL of Americas Children should watch this about pre-civil war deep south plantation life.

https://archive.org/details/Songofthe...

Will AI break crypto or make it better?

Publick edjukayshun is the "existential threat" that will doom Amerikuh to an 'upper double digit IQ' rather than the previous mid to upper level triple digit IQs of our parents and grandparents

Actually, it is in the water.
When People flush their old meds down the toilet,
It eventually shows up in the ground water in minute, but measurable amounts.

Oh, forgot that one, a very important one.
Including all the Trans-drugs that are causing epic suicide rates and the social media that pushes the Trans and furry psychosis.

For good or ill, we are what God made us.
Denying that reality by trying to change it, is giving God the finger.

My grandfather always said that no one under the age of thirty had any sense. I think he was overestimating 30- to 200- year olds. Remember what George Carlin (the greatest philosopher of the 20th century) said:
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

Sorry to hear that you're going through that, NealS. It took 45 years, but the agent orange finally took out my brother-in-law about 4 years ago. My sympathies to you and all the other guys out there that are coughing up the same.

Remember it well . . .

I don't blame men for not wanting to voluntarily enslave themselves to the whims of women and the whips of government.
Unless the goal of having/raising a family with a male husband is again a more desirable goal for women than fake hair,
fake eyelashes, fake nails, fake breasts, and tattoos, the society will have great difficulty restoring a real high 'standard'
of living. No one deserves to be punished by law for making bad decisions about their personal life, but there must be
some way to encourage the return to traditional roles that result in raising more rational human beings with goals that
are good for their personal success while also contributing to a desirable society.

Better to have savings with a purpose, i.e., retirement independence; savings that also provide funding to the
breakthroughs that improve quality of life (via the SCi-Fi world you mention.)
Take away banking's free credit creation (and bailouts) and force them to do productive work in order to profit.
The banking cartel has been the actual existential threat to individual liberty for at least 112 years in America
(and for centuries elsewhere.)

FFA, we are totally in agreement.
The problem is that it is NOT 100% natural.
Globalism produced the lowest possible prices across the board.
Yes, people have "things" without purpose.

Japan will collapse as a nation in 2 more generations (40-60 years). They are giving away houses for free!

I would rather have my society collapse from a lack of people than survive from excess immigration of the kind we were being offered. Values matter.

The other side, which we cannot see... Is Sci-Fi World. We will find out in our life times. This is the breakthrough type society where people don't have to work, but can find purpose doing what they want. Where the AI is benevolent and redesigns things to be safer, easier and giving us plenty to do, that gives us purpose. Plenty of challenges NOT involving spending money, and seeking dopamine online.

When I retire, soon enough, I will be getting rid of my cellphone. I will switch from Windows to Linux (I develop Windows software for now). I will likely give my time to projects that mean something to me, and set some personal goals at the gym. Spend more time in the community... Building the community.

You nailed it!

We were too young and we trusted our government not to kill us - BIG mistake :-( One of my younger brothers lies in a veterans cemetery thanks to Agent Orange

I understand your point, Abaco, but I think you're being too hard on yourself. We--those of us here, and other likeminded people--are doing what we can NOT to leave them this mess. It's the Obliviots (as Neal Boortz called them) that are leaving this mess. All we can do at this point is watch; I don't think there are enough of us to stop it.

Just had my memory partially jogged. Me dino knows that you equates your mindless zombies with my lemmings and Ayn Rand's sheeple who can't see past what jackasses tell them to see.
All you did was make me think of a zombie apocalypse and what I heard some tinhorn politician said on TV about one of those about a decade or more ago.
Sorry I can't recall the who, the where or the why.
All I can recall is the dude on some news show so seriously facing the camera to say, "The zombie apocalypse is not an if but a when."
Me dino mocked that idiot with unpitying hard laughter like I rarely ever had before.
Must admit I've found some few zombie movies to be very entertaining. Maybe when younger I shoulda run for office.
My credentials woulda been simple~~I can tell the difference between fiction and realty. And so can me dino.

1 in 4 women, approximately. Might as well start putting it in the water....

Haha...hope not! I used to work with a guy who had a PhD in chemistry. I could read any chemical on a food label and he knew, off the top of is head, how it damages the body. In the following years I've watched a few older gentlemen I know die from agent orange and I'm sure that it can't be classified as a "mistake" or even an unplanned circumstance that all these people have been damaged. They knew what it would do, certainly. And...They didn't care.

I agree with you.
But I don't see that a lower population is a problem; instead it may be one solution
if done naturally, and assuming that the decline is reversed naturally.
On standard of living, does a return to one stay at home parent and a less extravagant
(but still workable) house size really a lower standard of living?
imo, that's only in the mind of the person who is an addicted, brainwashed consumer,
enslaved by debt service to the banking cartel (for housing and useless education)
and to the government taxation of housing.
How much of the current 'standard of living' is for useful necessity and how much is
for uneconomic rubbish? How much more useful is a $1,200 new cellphone compared
to a cellphone that is 3 years old (that today can be purchased for $200)?
I have thought for a quarter century that people would be better off with deflation
to actual utility value (and products that last and can be repaired) than never ending
inflation (and false expansion of the throw-away economy.)

Well, yes, adding women almost doubled the workforce. Then created DAY CARES.

Gave more brainwashing to the kids.

We have more cars, more roads, more buildings.
We have more military.

But we have more useless government bottom feeders. Far more corruption.

And it is the specialization of labor that will hurt the most. A farmer was valuable because he was a JACK of all trades. From economics, to labor, to small engine repair, making a still, caring for animals, caring for the land, building irrigation systems.

Show me a modern man, who is not a farmer that has those skills... BELOW the age of 50? Good luck.

As the number of Cellphones sold cuts in half, prices will continue to double. Our standard of living will drop. Mark my words. And I can't say it will be good or bad.