@2cool4school lol I had never given it much thought more than for its entertainment value back in the day, but then I saw interview with Elon musk and saw his genuine concern about it and I've been thinking long and hard about it ever since. Once released, that Genie is not going back in the bottle and it's mostly released already by now.

You know those capcha(sp?) things we have to go through in order to prove were not bots so we can gain access into certain places online? AI has been able to get around them by using a human online service that you can pay to perform various tasks and errands.

It seems like the smarter they get, the dumber we get and soon we're going to get to that Tipping Point where everything is so automated that we don't need so many humans anymore. More and more, we are all interacting less with humans and more with computers.

There was a time in my lifetime when you would pull into a gas station and not just one person would come but a couple people would come to fill your car up up with gas, wash your windows, front and rear, check your oil, check your tire pressure and adjust accordingly. Then you go across the bridge to pay your 50 cents to one of the 40 or so attendants there at the toll plaza. I'm getting sidetracked here, but those jobs are all gone, Farming, agriculture, logging, assembly line production, the building trades, and on and on, has all been automated so much that they don't need as many people as we used to need to get more work done than we used to get done.

If machines get much smarter, it's not that far fetched of a notion for an AI decision to be made to start thinning the herd as we become a menace to the planet or possibly a menace to them because they don't need EPA regulations. Those are a place for us so that we can survive and they usually slow down production. While we're busy saving the Earth, they might get busy Paving the Earth.

@Jayciedubb You know I realized that I don’t even know enough about A.I. to make snide remarks.
So I’m trying to educate myself a little more and I’m currently half way through this interview: [media=https://youtu.be/bk-nQ7HF6k4]
Maybe this will help me understand a little more than I currently do.
I really do appreciate the way that discussions in posts go with you. You have a very polite manner even if someone disagrees with you. I appreciate that immensely and find incredibly rare especially on SW. I believe that the best way to exchange ideas and knowledge is to respect the other person/people who you’re talking with. And I just had to let you know that I’m grateful for your approach and I do truly hope to learn more about the things I don’t have much experience with.
This is the only way that I believe we get better as a group. And I certainly don’t want to just hear people that are echoing my opinion and point of view. Thank you for being you I’m very glad that you are here.

@2cool4school how did i miss this reply? Thanks for the kind words and acknowledgement.

But yea, i noticed long ago how even people who are on the same side of an issue could be at odds with each other on that same issue just due to an abrasive reply. Ultimately, i try to share my perspective and try to understand opposing perspectives. Also, i try to clear up any misinformation or dysinformation if i can.

@2cool4school Thank you 🤗 However I was forced to move away again in the late 90's, I had a major falling out with my Dad's side of the family after my grandmother and an uncle severely betrayed me, I am just glad my Dad and Grandfather weren't alive to see what happened, it would have torn them apart, it's a very long story. Looking back I wish I would have stayed in Oregon, I have regretted every day since.

@NativePortlander1970 I’m so sorry to hear but I know from my own bad and regrettable experiences that as hard as it may be we have to keep looking and moving forward. Life is more like a sailboat than a car it’s just not possible to put it in reverse. But learning from the hard and bad times is very important for weathering future storms. I really enjoy interacting with you. I’m currently in a lot of pain so I’m on SW a little more than usual as it’s a distraction from my pain and helps me feel more connected than I currently am laying in bed. So thank you again for your polite correspondence and interesting recollections. I do appreciate and look forward to our conversations.

@2cool4school You're so very welcome, and thank you as well :)

@2cool4school I welcome your two cents. I appreciate it all the things you have to say. Actually, doesn't it back my theory that we lie naturally regardless of the reason it's still a lie it's still dishonest just like two trees competing for the same sunlight when one gets in front of the other one that's it for the other one . it's natural and it makes sense to everybody but it's not what Jesus would do is it LOL. I really don't know what Jesus would do. But I often wonder. I think it's strange that the Catholic Church claims to know so much about Jesus and care so much about Jesus when they're the ones who killed him. Right? The romans? Then 40 years later they come up with this religion based on him which violates the Ten Commandments, but it's so close to the rest of the Bible that nobody questions it. I know if I came back from the dead after dying a very horrific violent death, and I saw everybody wearing a reenactment of How I died around their necks,, celebrating it, I might be offended, like they're mocking me. Not to mention, if anybody came back these days and claimed to be jesus, what would we do to him? I wonder what the Catholic Church would do to some guy who claimed to be Jesus? I guess it would depend on how old he was when he comes back, wouldn't it LOL if he came back in a prepubescent state, he might be in trouble LOL sorry couldn't help myself.

Here's a neat little nugget, do you realize that Jesus Christ is closer to living in our time than he was to living in the times on the pyramids were built? I mean, the pyramids were already ancient when Jesus was born And if you really want to feel old , instead of counting from your date of birth to today , count backwards the same amount of years. Ouch, right?

@Jayciedubb Interesting. They have found that trees are a lot more cooperative than once thought actually and it even goes into the mycelia as well. Organic cooperation is an emerging area of study that’s dispelling a lot of the long believed myths. But I believe that lying with intent is a much bigger offense than the lying of a child that’s developing a sense of the world. I think it can be seen as you have to know what is right and wrong before you grow up and employ one or the other in your life in general. But that’s just my take.
As for the Catholic Church I find it interesting that they have so much information about all kinds of things that they keep very securely guarded. They are one of 1-2 organizations that are recognized by the world governments and UN as a country which is a very unique situation. They have a lot of power despite not contributing to the world in a measurable sense along the lines of gdp or natural resources. Such is the power of an idea and belief. I went to a private Catholic college prep and I was fortunate enough (though at the time I didn’t believe so) to have a religious studies class every year. Comparative religions was the class in my junior or senior year and it was actually pretty interesting and enlightening. I used to feel like I always had a second history class with the mandatory religious studies but it’s given me more insight into things in life than I ever could have expected.
Yes the crucifix joke springs to mind told by one of if not my favorite comedian, Bill Hicks. But isn’t it taught that Jesus forgives ?
I used to be fascinated by the period in life that my grandparents got to experience. From all aspects. Technologically, socially, if I count 45 years back from my birth date it’s 1932 which is crazy to imagine I think. Anyway always enjoy having a good conversation with someone that has different opinions thoughts and experiences. So thank you again. I look forward to more.

@2cool4school i think trees on the same root system are in cooperation, like the aspen grove that can be seen from space as its the largest living organism on earth. But do they let anything else grow among them?

I read an article years ago about a patch of sunflowers I think. They were able to determine that they could communicate between each other and that they had feelings or something like that. I read it years ago and I've since tried to find the article and have not been able to. Wait. I'll try again, hold on.

https://theworld.org/media/2019-09-19/sunflowers-turn-each-other-help

That's not the article I read but that's pretty interesting about sunflowers. As far as mycelium go, some people believe they're from outer space. Did you hear about how they streamlined Tokyo's Subway systems? That's just crazy. There are even some that they use to clean up oil slicks. They grow on the oil slick and I guess they consume it as they grow.

My point about kids lying is that it's the deception that comes natural to them for whatever reason.

Another thing is thst suicide is a sin. ..maybe because its like escaping from prison.. 😜

@Aidan I'm sure there are plenty of vegan substitutes you would like, but they can be hard to find depending on where you live. I live in New York, so the options here are better than most other states.
This is one of the reasons I want meat and dairy to be banned. Imagine how hard corporations would go in creating substitutes. They'd be everywhere and much cheaper.

@BohemianBoo [quote] This is one of the reasons I want meat and dairy to be banned. [/quote]

@BritishFailedAesthetic

@Gloomy in order for the world to keep turning in a way that we all somewhat recognize, a certain amount of order is needed. That's government. Imagine trying to drive anywhere with no traffic signals and no rules on the roads and no enforcement of any kind. It wouldn't take long before we were gridlocked everywhere and going nowhere. The infrastructure needs to be maintained.. that's what governments do. Governments have boundaries Yes they get out of hand but out of existence and we don't live this closely anymore. It's been calculated that it takes 5 Acres of good land with good rainfall and a long growing season for each individual person to be able to sustain their own lives.. that's about the size of a city block, per person needed to survive annually to grow in a food on it and collect water and to filter out all the bio waste. In that environment, it's only natural for communities to sprout up and from there it doesn't take long for government to kick in. And if it's successful, it wouldn't take long for another government to want to come and take it. Lines would be drawn sooner or later. That's the way it happens. If Anarchy was actually possible we'd have it somewhere but anywhere there's anything close to Anarchy it's very dangerous place to live.

@Jayciedubb I'm no Anarchist but governments can operate without heavily securing borders and restricting movements. I'm against Nationalism and the premise that being born somewhere dictates where you have to be or how different passports hold unequal value and possibilities

@Gloomy I understand and I'm not trying to be a pain. I think about that a lot. Birds fly where they want and live where they want without paying tax or anything like that frogs do what they do wherever they want to do it and on and on. But ants live in a colony bees live in hives. I live in my house on my property that ends at my property line. Then there's the City limits and the county line then the State Line to the borderline

Through the internet, I've Got Friends all around the world and when I hear their stories more and more I feel so lucky to be born here. So lucky in fact that I often feel guilty. And not just to be born here in the US but to be born here where I live where it hardly rains and never too hot, never too cold and extremely Diversified. I knew the definition of racism. But I'd never seen it until I joined the army and mixed with some of the truly finest people this country has to offer, and I learned their stories and their stories made me feel lucky to be where I'm from also. I've also been around the country and I know for sure there's no place like home for me so I get what you're saying . it's not fair. So I just count my blessings that I ended up where I am

@TheOneyouwerewarnedabout What’s happening to Tesla?

Oop, got a downvote. See? Told ya it was controversial. XD

@CrystalSkull i have a feeling its not just people. We had a litter of 9 Doberman Pinschers, 1 black female, 3 black males and 5 red males. I noticed on many occasions that they would be segregated into two piles, one red and one black. ..and even when they were all stacked up in one pile, they'd still be separated.

I kept most of them and there were many fights over the years. It was always reds ganging up on the black ones.

I think it's natural to feel comfortable with what you're familiar with and maybe to surround yourself with people like yourself. I think the problem occurs when that mob mentality kicks in after maybe one person in the group had a bad experience with a person from another group and starts generalizing about everybody in that group and then it just perpetuates from there, back and forth.

What I don't understand is the term Reverse Racism. If I never knew what racism was and somebody explain to me what it was and then I heard the term reverse racism, I would assume that it was when somebody does good things for people of a specific group (other than their own group) solely because they're from that specific other group. If not that, at least it should do something counteract racism, not perpetuate it...

@Jayciedubb interesting re the pups. And interesting response on the whole.

@CrystalSkull it could also have something to do with our position in the food chain.. I think if we weren't at the top, we wouldn't be in it at all because we're not the strongest we're not the fastest we're not the toughest, definitely not the fittest.. I wonder how how many other apex predators can be cut with paper LOL and I know none of the others need to wear any clothing in order to survive Winters or Summers without frostbite or heat stroke of some sort.

My point is that every other species has another species keeping its population in check basically every other species is some other species food. There's no other species that keeps our population in check so we have to do it ourselves with war and genocide. If it's something we do naturally then racism would fall right in line with that I think because it's so much easier to hate an entire different group than it is to cull your own population.. I have no proof or and I'm definitely not endorsing this notion it's just something that occurred to me. My belief is that since any pair of humans, regardless of their race can create fertile offspring, then there's only one race. It's the human race

You ever wonder why all the visual differences between humans is what draws the lines between races but with any other animal, the differences are called breeds, if anything at all. What did Darwin call the differences between the finches on the Galapagos I wonder. Isn't species the most finite classification according to biology?

@Emosaur While I agree with what your saying. At the root of all these issues are humans and humans are greedy. The world suffers from human greed whether religion is involved or not. Religion just gives bad people an excuse and good people a bad name.

@NativePortlander1970 I believe the kiss of death to the educational system was the combo of “No Child Left Behind” in addition to the relaxing of the grade percentages. An A became 84% and above a B was 67% to 83% and a C was 50% to 66%
Plus the removal of so much of the electives and music and drama programs for public schools that it’s just a joke now. If you don’t want children to fail you don’t make it both easier and make it impossible for teachers to actually hold back children that don’t understand the lesson plans. I remember that kids who struggled in math in my elementary school years went to a math resource teacher. Which is what my mom was when she went back to teaching after taking maternity leave and once my sister and I were both old enough to take the bus to and from school.
I went to a speech therapy class because I had a lisp on steroids caused by something that was termed being a tongue thruster. I’m pretty sure that they had resource teachers for reading and writing as well and then if a child was still failing they had no choice but to have them repeat a year. I could have actually moved from 3rd to 5th but my mom didn’t think it would be good for many reasons socially was one of them. It was already challenging enough to adapt to a school in 4th grade where every kid knew one another from going to kindergarten on up together.

@2cool4school My step sister complained heavily about no child left behind, she almost quit over it. I went to speech therapy as well, for the Boston Curse, I had a hard time with my R's and W's, I still do occasionally when I'm tired, my older brother had trouble with L's.

@NativePortlander1970 you’ve been all over. I’m the only member of my family of four that’s lived in other states. My parents still live in the house I was born into. My parents live inside a 3 mile radius of where they grew up too. They’ve had an apartment their first house which they kept and now the house they bought for starting a family. They rented the other house out. I actually thought about moving into it in my 20s with a bf turned fiancé but I’m so glad that my life path changed drastically at 28/29. I’m still finding my way and I hope life goes as unexpected and interesting as it has so far. Plenty of shitty times too but I’m not even a very positive person and I think it’s gone pretty well. I’m dealing with chronic pain syndrome psoriatic arthritis psoriasis and some more proposed back surgery(s) pending second and third opinions. (And my own decision making of course) . I have too many things to do still I’m not sure if I want to do the surgery thing at least not at the moment. I’ve skipped knee surgeries so… knee braces are preferable to surgeries sometimes…