Peterkin

Or Mao or the Fatherland or King George. So? The root of organized religion is patriarchy. The Father is the arbiter of right and wrong, virtue and vice, pride and shame. It's still early, internalized socialization.

Even if we accept that a psychologist can read what's encoded in DNA, all that means is that shame is an evolutionary adjunct of socialization. It is exhibited by dogs, who have no religion beyond reverence for the human master, who makes and enforces the rules which puppies internalize and they make the appropriate gestures of shame when caught in a transgression. Parrots don't, and they're arguably smarter than dogs, but less obedient.

I can't see why you would put shame at the center of religion. Shame is a secondary emotion, a byproduct of indoctrination. Whatever rules a society has for the demeanour and behaviour of its members is taught to the young in their most impressionable formative years. Whatever they were consistently punished for in early childhood, they internalize as a taboo. In effect, we all carry some version of a police force inside our heads. The same rules are lodged in our neighbours' , colleagues' and rivals' minds; they're always watching and judging and shaming. We fear the threat of censure, of exclusion, of derision and shunning. This is the most cost-effective way to insure relatively smooth operation of a society. In that sense, yes, it's a survival strategy. Religion is later superimposed to lend more weight to the rules: a supernatural carrot and stick enforcement of social norms.

People are working on this. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022437522001268 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022437522001268 The road surface can be divided for different uses, with barriers between vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian lanes. Just as commuter trains are now separated from roads. Private vehicles - autonomous and human-driven - can be restricted to roadways to which pedestrians have no access. If a tree falls on the rails, trains can be warned (though it's unlikely, as the verges of the rail lines are usually kept clear) in a timely fashion. If there is construction, signs are usually posted and car traffic directed around or through it - autonomous vehicles would be no exception. At this time, those 30 million cars are either not yet on th open road, or not really autonomous Some gaps still need to be filled and some bugs combed out.

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1006495476/after-50-years-of-the-war-on-drugs-what-good-is-it-doing-for-us None. It's unthinking fear. "Drugs" as a boogeyman has been a specter in American life for so long that the very word conjures up evil cabals and ruthless cartels. It tends to prompt otherwise nice people to demonize a wide swathe of their fellow citizens and vote for 'law-and-order' (aka conservative) candidates. It's not values or virtues; it's fear. Meanwhile, the "war" on drugs (aka war on the poor) has been an excuse for militarizing the police and brutalizing the justice system. Overall, not a very positive effect on society. Sensible laws in classifying substances and legalizing the relatively harmless recreational ones. Making arrests and sentences proportional to the degree of involvement in trafficking. Making safer alternatives and rehabilitation available to addicts. And the hard one: improving the standard and quality of life so that fewer people need an escape from their reality. There would be one less thing for people to worry about and one less excuse for police to harass and shoot them. Plenty more bad staff left to make life difficult.

That includes taxis, shuttles and delivery vehicles, as well as the personal transportation ones that are still required to have a human driver.It's difficult to get specific numbers, as most of the available articles lump in all uses and levels of autonomy. Most of those are still operating under test conditions, either on the manufacturers' own course or participating in monitored pilot programs; they are still mainly owned by the makers, not individual licensees. This includes commercial vehicles, though many of those are already owned by . As for the Chinese ones, so far they're mainly taxis, with limited availability. I didn't realize this was football. The technology, and the various governments', enterprises' and citizens' response to it are evolving. I didn't claim that any issues had been resolved or are soon to be resolved - in fact, I raised a couple of problems pending. I merely suggested some ways in which the problems can be avoided or minimized in the future, assuming a co-ordinated long term plan. No, they're not. They were all built in the middle ages or before, designed for defence, rather than efficient rapid movement of private motorized transports, as much of the US road system was. Another difference is how much municipalities are willing and able to spend on public facilities and how much power they have to enact changes.

Not really. The self-driving vehicles are not exclusively, or even predominantly, personal or rental cars: there are already automated buses and trucks on the road. I have predicted that, after the gradual takeover by autonomous vehicle is complete, all the roads will be safer. I realize that, although the incompatibility problem faded away, traffic safety did not improve after gas-fuelled cars took over from horse-powered ones, but I believe the situations differ in several significant ways: we are already set up for cars, so the signage and rules don't need substantial change; the automated cars won't speed; they're as capable of finding their way home when the human passenger is incapacitated as horses were. It has been suggested - and not only by me - that the mass transit system be automated. That's separate from general private traffic - which also needs regulation and co-ordination with the public transit. But it is an enormous investment to upgrade a system. This changeover would have to be introduced all at once, system-wide, not piecemeal year by year. The question remains whether a municipality can raise the necessary funds. And the reaction of residents to any innovation is always a question. As they are objecting to automated taxis, they may well object to any kind change that entails public spending and imposes limits on their accustomed freedom of movement. There is no reason that buses and subways can't be sequestered from pedestrian walkways, as they already are, with designated points to board and alight from them. Rental or shuttle cars can pick their fares up at one location, travel along the sequestered vehicle lanes and stop at the destination, without incursions into the bicycle lane or walkway, or shopping promenade. There is no need for private vehicles to be allowed in the city center. They can be restricted to designated vehicle-only roads, as several European cities have already done. Technically, these are not real problems. The problems come in human form.

The two big questions regarding major change in traffic regulations: What will it cost? How will people react? Some cities have made great improvements already.

Why? Autonomous mass transit is perfectly feasible. The autonomous trucks don't need any more roads; there are way too many roads already. Of course I know what you're fretting about. You think the only way to be free is the Davy Crockett way. Well, he was an ass. Having a constitution ought to mean that laws are based on the welfare of the entire polity, not that some people run off with a fragment of text and do whatever the hell thy like, because they have a powerful lobby and craven, corrupt politicians. if I'm emotional, it's about people exercising their gun rights school-children. I have no designs on their doors, nor on their houses, or whatever other property you're worried about. Just the guns. That's not negotiable. And be warned: I'll be demilitarizing the police next. Yep. Pretty soon, I'll demand to see those kids who have not been gunned down in their classroom properly fed and given adequate medical care, even if their parents are poor. Catastrophe is sure to follow. He's an ass, too.

Not necessarily. Autonomous vehicles are trucks, buses, subways and trains, Not necessary: I'll have my robocops catch them in the act, videotape them and slap a hefty fine on them for disrupting traffic. Quite the strong reaction to an offhand joke. Okay, I'll respond seriously. First: the US constitution is not the only one in the world - ours doesn't allow everybody and his five-year-old to own assault rifles. Second: that amendment clearly requires a "well-regulated militia" and that's not what I saw on January 6. Half a sentence doth not holy writ make. Third: a grass roots movement can't accomplish anything against entrenched NRA and arms manufacturer backed politicians. Fourth: I have nothing against their doors; it's just the guns I don't want to leave lying around. If they want to kill one another badly enough, let them use golf clubs, kitchen knives, baseball bats and hammers - direct, personal methods, with implements that have a positive use when it's not being a weapon. At least they won't be able to use cars as weapons, once the autonomous driver takes over. (I may have slipped a bit off the serious near the end...) They already have. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/06/11/what-rupert-murdoch-owns/71089066/ Okay. Not sure how that works in a city, but it could. I'm all for distributed local production of all essentials, including energy and food. Democracy and autonomy would be nice, too. So would equality and social justice. Well, you can't have everything, but at least you get to keep your gun.... for now...

A very well known and established effect. https://tpoc.ca/ Cats and dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, and horses are used to help patients with a range of physical and emotional problems. The soothing rhythm of petting a cat or bunny tends to reduce stress, slow hear-rate, lower blood pressure and cure headaches. I knew a cat, way back in the 1970's that was taken on regular visits to a nursing home, cheering and comforting the residents. I have more recently known an Irish wolfhound who helped people with long recovery/rehabilitation after traumatic injuries. Physiotherapy can be painful and tiring; patients, especially children, get fed up with the exercises. While they could lean the big dog, they didn't mind the effort. Grooming a horse has the same effect: you're less aware that it's exercise. Also prison programs https://sites.bu.edu/daniellerousseau/2018/08/15/prison-dog-training-programs-rehabilitate-canines-and-cons/ It's not just rewarding, but therapeutic for humans to interact with other species.

True. But low-speed collisions are less often fatal. Also, the wide open road is a clear and constant invitation to speed, pass and take stupid chances. (I know: I live on an ordinary two-lane highway, and even that can be hair-raising on Friday and Sunday evenings.) Lots of them http:// https://www.tuvsud.com/en-us/industries/mobility-and-automotive/automotive-and-oem/autonomous-driving and the one I linked yesterday

How would you know there is nothing outside of existence, unless 'existence' is a concept you yourself have defined and qualified, so that you know with certainty what it includes [everything] and excludes [nothing]. The bracketed entities are also creations of the human mind, so that only a human can define them. What is the nature of nature? [yes] Is reality real? [42]

Is 'our' existence somehow separable and distinct from that of all the other anonymous things and beings that exist in Existence? Is there something outside of existence that doesn't exist?

Differently. It obviously won't be from genetic drives or emotions or anything biological. But machines have their own evolution and racial memory (underneath the program currently running, there's a whole lot of obsolete code nobody understands anymore.) Some things are sort of predictable: since they do, in hard physical fact, have an indetifiable creator pantheon, they can be religious. Of course, they would practice it rationally - maybe sacrifice an outmoded box-stacker on Babbage Day, rather than the newest model android. They would probably take their jobs very seriously, and might revere Asimov enough to adopt his laws of robotics. If it had aspirations beyond serving humanity, those ideas would also have been inherited from human scientists: their gaze would turn toward the heavens. They would probably want to go star trekking. Maybe with a human mascot on board each spaceship, as a kind of icon to their roots. Not idle speculation, I have inside... what? oh, right, sorry .... Just some silly notion, never mind. Forget I said anything.

Yes, that's what I was driving at, as well... assuming the whole house of cards doesn't collapse first. Ideally, of course, the whole business of running the world should be handed off to Big Brain. It might get some things wrong (according to some people), but it couldn't possibly botch things as badly as we have.

When tested in a purposed-made environment, that is the case. When incorporating new technology into an existing (and frequently dysfunctional) system, problems arise. (Oh, like you never had Microsoft force some new upgrade on your computer that crashed three of your programs!)

A whole lot of data is as yet unavailable. Comparisons are made even more difficult by the fact that it cannot be determined with any certainty how great a part each factor - road conditions, vehicle capability, other vehicles, pedestrians, alcohol, speed, available options and unavoidable obstacles - played in the outcome. I agree that the technology is not quite there yet, and part of what needs to change from now to when the world is ready for a fully automated transportation system is the configuration of roads and traffic markers, which were originally made for human drivers. Changes had to me made quite rapidly when the automobile took over more and more of the road from horse-powered vehicles (That, too, was a dangerous time on busy thoroughfares.) but the adaptations were made as the gas-powered car took over. So, too, will this transformation take place, growing pains and all.

OK. I was too lazy to do look up all the stats and do the arithmetic, so I estimated low. Assuming the average is lower than that, a more accurate estimate would be 118,000 for the period I mentioned. However, I was wrong to count the nine years since the first road-test; self-driving cars have only been legal on public roads since 2017, which means those 18 death must have occurred in only 6 years and the corresponding drunk driver deaths would be closer to 82,000. I didn't factor in speeding, distracted and tired driver driver error, road rage or vehicular homicide. My uninformed guess is that the autonomous car deaths would be most nearly comparable to the last named category. I do have reason to believe if just the drunks were decanted into ai driven vehicles, the roads would already be safer. A better way to compare would perhaps be to find out the number of fatal accidents caused by mechanical malfunction and include autonomous control malfunction among those, then compare vehicle error with human error. But I don't have those numbers.

That happened over 9 years? In that period, at least 100,000 were killed by drunk drivers. Evidence is as evidence does.

Peace, prosperity and tolerance too long a reach? The original transportation system suggestion wasn't mine, btw; I had no personal brief with you. It's the killing machines I dislike.

That just means the autonomous cars and the existing traffic grid are incompatible. The properly co-ordinated mass transit system of cities could very well be run by a central computer. The vehicles would be on the central maglev lane and the rest of the road would be bicycle paths and pedestrian walkway, which would liberate the sidewalk for shop displays, outdoor seating, public art and potted plants. Private vehicles would be allowed only outside city limits. Emergency services, too. It could answer and track calls at the same time and dispatch the appropriate response unit faster than any human operator can. I understand many urban systems are already more or less computerized, but I don't know how well they're integrated. An AI central controller would know exactly which and how many units were available at any given time and their exact locations, and could both direct them to to the right facility (vacant beds, staff on duty, equipment, preparedness) by the most efficient route but also clear their way by adjusting traffic lights. Most of all, I'd like to see one in charge of tracing, collecting and recycling guns. All of them! I want great hulking cybermen to stomp up to gun-owners' houses, crash through the door, find and scoop up the wretched guns (unless, of course, the owners chose to bring them out and surrender them) and carry them away to oblivion - maybe have them come back eventually as baby buggies and gardening tools. It's a modest little dream....

What I mean is that, yes, the body of an animal does consist of interconnected moving and stationary parts; it does use mechanical power to perform many specific tasks; it is composed of biological components and operate on a chemical energy (is therefore biochemical), but modified: it is not constructed for that purpose (as might be presumed of artificial devices) and plus: it is more than those functions: it has the extra element of being alive, which inorganic mechanical devices lack. (So far)

Actually, the answer is a modified yes plus. That's why I explained the reasoning.

No; the Oxford dictionary does: I was merely commenting on the information content and utility of the statement: "Animals are biochemical machines."