EdEarl

1 minute ago, dimreepr said:

Sounds like something Hari Seldon would say.

“Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo.” 
― Isaac Asimov

I'm rereading the foundation series now. I don't know if anything can be done; except, understanding vibrations in the force may improve one's enjoyment.

1 minute ago, dimreepr said:

If we allow the current system to remain until the singularity, the bots will have a bias that being better won't eliminate. My point is, if we rely on capitalism as it stands without a governed control, we'll be no better off as a society. 

I'm with you to provide controls on capitalism. However, it seems unlikely we the people of the US will regain control, but I'd like to be surprised. Otherwise, the transition from capitalism's forced scarcities to automation abundance will be traumatic. I think the people in control will not like to give up control. According to history, they can be vicious. Fortunately, AGI will be smarter, and will be able to control them. Perhaps the control will be subtle and the oligarchs will think they are still in charge. Humanity no longer be in total control of their destiny. Instead, the AI presence will control or partly control us.

After the singularity, bots program bots. The singularity means that AI and robots are better at doing all the things we do now.

11 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Who gives you the app?

The bots.

11 minutes ago, Endy0816 said:

Scarcity will continue to exist.

We'll still require some sort of economic system to determine how we allocate resources.

Why, robots run farms, transport produce, prepare produce, deliver food to people just in time for meals. All we need is an app to order what we want.

If you think the current owners of property will prevent this system, consider what an AI in control of all the robots can do to minimize people interfering. Will those people actually declare war on the bots to prevent farms being run, transportation and distribution?

The transition from current society to the society of abundance provided by robots may be difficult for people until there are enough robots to actually provide everything people need, and governments do not interfere .

They cut pieces from extremely large sheets of coated ripstop.

Their literature focus on personal style to select the number of gores. Although, I suspect the largest balloons may need more than three gores.

We will be replaced by AI that design things long before someone designs a comparable robot. Although, we will have designed an analog to the brain, which is itself a significant achievement.

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

I think that humans are far better designers than evolution. Evolution works through failure. You produce many more young than you need, and the worst fail, and the better ones succeed. That really wouldn't do if you want to sell smart phones.

In any case, the phone has gone from invention to the modern smart phone in less than 150 years. Evolution would have taken billions of years to do the same thing.

Mind you, the phone has evolved, so you could say that human designers are using evolutionary principles.

The very best robot a team of humans can design and make is no comparison to a human. It's not even as good as comparing  a wax orange to a real apple. 

23 hours ago, Area54 said:

... I continue to rail against the righteous indignation of those consumers who ignore their own contribution to the problem. As Pogo said, "We have met the enenmy and he is us."

We were an early adopter of hybrid technology, and we have been driving the same hybrid for 15 years, because better choices have only recently come to the market. Here, mass transit is virtually useless. I understand my contribution to global warming, and know a hybrid is not the solution. Do you rail against me or does my understanding excuse my use of oil over the past 60 years.

Maybe.

If you can see as much detail on the 22 as the 24 then by all means get the 22. I need larger characters to read easily, so I'd go for the 24 or bigger, but my vision is slightly impaired.

Reality has been cursed. Perhaps it is a curse.

Quote

just-auto.com

Toyota Motor Corporation on Monday announced its E-palette business system which chairman Akio Toyoda described as a "mobile showroom as a platform for an e-commerce-on-demand retail experience, a multi purpose moving experience, mobile personal shops, an individual, personalised mobile showroom".

He sees the autonomous, all-electric vehicles with fully reconfigurable interiors forming clusters of On Demand Cities.

Examples shown at the CES technology event here in Las Vegas include food service, mobile casino, shoe repair, retail shops and so on.

"This is just one example of Toyota's vision for auto mobility solutions," Toyoda said.

As car autopilots become common, it seems some things now done at fixed locations, such as stores and warehouses, will become mobile. Eventually, food may be picked and delivered to your door without stopping at a store or warehouse, including fresh food and prepared. It will cut costs. There will be similar things done with durable goods, but this segment of the market seems more difficult to fully mobilize.

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

Every broadcaster/publisher is biased to someone because it's all relative to their own position. If you don't sense any bias then that's where you naturally lean. Don't you think?

I think people who prefer a particular news cast can discern the bias of news casters. I like The Young Turks and watch daily on youtube. I also watch other channels such as PBS, Al Jazeera English, MSNBC, CBS, CNN and FOX sometimes. They are all biased in one way or another. I like a progressive bias and despise corporate propaganda. I think others can, too.

It seems we both agree the system is rigged and it will be difficult to change for the better; moreover, we must work toward reform.

Because it is difficult to develop a consensus, doing good is very hard. There are innumerable ways to do bad, and as we have seen, the public opposed the recent tax bill, but it was signed into law anyway.

11 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

... whenever we've allowed those ...

The wealthy are buying elections and oppose the government do anything for the people. And, they disenfranchise as many voters as possible. Do you really feel an election can recover the will of the people over big money?

8 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Regulation. Corporations are chartered to work within the law, and compliance with it is supposed to be built in, so we determine the ways we want private industry to behave through regulations. Citizens abide by laws, and corporations are bound by regulations. We need to stop letting extremist businesspeople decide how they're regulated, just like we know it's a bad thing to let shady citizens determine which laws affect them.

Regulation has failed and cannot be recovered and improved in time, IMO, to affect the climate change in time. We need the overthrow of citizens united to have much effect in the US. There is as much chance AI will force prices and profits to zero, IMO. We will find out how much people have awakened during next year's congressional election, and we face four more years of a Republican President. The rate at which people are signing the Wolf-PAC petition is slower than I'd hoped, and still shows people not acting in their own interests. I hear rumblings about the population tuning in on politics, but I am underwhelmed.

6 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

And to be clear, I think there's a LOT of profit involved in for-purpose ventures. 

What needs to change is our acceptance of for-profit behavior. Of course the corporations are going to lobby to give themselves an unfair advantage IF THE SYSTEM ALLOWS THEM TO. It's like sponsoring a marathon race and then letting a small percentage of the contestants set the course. Of course they'll choose terrain that favors them and hampers opponents. I think it's up to us to set the course, not to favor the runners, but to favor those who benefit from having the race in the first place. Forget making it easier for the runners; they are mighty athletes and do what they do better than anyone. 

Imagine the innovations we'd have now if Reagan hadn't destroyed Carter's solar dreams, if Big Oil had worked hand in hand with alternative energy producers and government scientists to focus on creating effective, affordable, and sustainable energy grids instead of just profitable ones. The more profitable the industry, the more we have to be careful it's not allowed to unnaturally protect itself from competition. This is an area where I feel like a conservative Republican; the market shouldn't show favoritism, and it's better for all if competition is encouraged.

The status quo is not motivating the oligarchs as you suggest. What do you think will change their motivation.

2 minutes ago, Area54 said:

For that to be true one has to make the unwarranted assumption that I lacked the education, intellect, curiosity and skepticism necessary to recognise the lies. And I confess, as a ten year old, I was impressed by the nature posters in the classroom supplied by Shell. However, as a ten year old, I never owned a car. By the time I did, I had matured somewhat.

I understand your point, but I continue to rail against the righteous indignation of those consumers who ignore their own contribution to the problem. As Pogo said, "We have met the enenmy and he is us."

I think the majority of people understand, but I agree that those who are ignorant need to hear how much trouble we are in. Among those we rail against, the ones with big money are more important to educate so they modify their behavior.

3 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

This is the heart of my arguments wrt Big Oil. We could have been smart, and developed alternatives alongside fossil fuels if our purpose (generating affordable energy) had been focused on, but the influence of all that profit unfairly and unnaturally skewed the market and sheltered the oil industry from pressures that would have automatically led to a more diverse energy economy. We've long bitched about being dependent, and this is a huge reason why. 

We really need to adjust our focus. I truly believe that we need to start approaching more endeavors on a for-purpose basis, rather than a for-profit one. If you fulfill a meaningful and needed purpose first, the profit will come and should be all the sweeter for actually helping more of society.

I think much of the world agrees with you. However, the oligarchs see only that their competition will not invest in a venture that has little or no profit potential. In the long run, as corporations build "lights out" factories the cost of goods will drop towards zero. Perhaps one day it will make sense to invest in a venture without profit potential.

Unfortunately, the call to make our country strong again, which which suggests we reset the laws and culture back a few decades, is completely impossible, no matter how strong nostalgia appeals. For us, time travels only one direction. However screwed up things get, we can only work with the current state of the world and try to repair damage as we go forward.

China and other countries are moving towards renewable energy quickly, but they are still selling coal power plants to countries that need electricity. Around a 100 giga factories need to be built to provide solar power for the world, according to Elon Musk. A few are in progress AFAIK; I assume there are some unknown, too.  I believe we are a decade away from having enough. I think we will also need to build CO2 sequestration plants on a massive scale; perhaps grow algae and let it fall to the ocean floor.

Fortunate for the Asians and fortunate someone is developing the technologies, but dangerously late for climate change management. The powers in the US have done a poor job of running the world, and they continue to make bad decisions.

11 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

I agree with that absolutely. It is paramount that we do. The thing is, people are saying we should have done this decades ago but the means to do so is only now emerging into feasibility. The only way it could have been done before was large-scale nuclear but, apart from France, no one was interested.

Instead of suppressing research into battery, wind and solar technology, US companies could have developed the technology and be in the forefront both scientifically and economically. Instead, our educational systems have been under attack, weakened, and research under funded. Capitalists have become powerful and their selfish interests are working towards eliminating the good nature of the Earth. Rapid changes are occurring, and we are not in control.