Paris : In Rush For Profits, AI Safety Issues Are Ignored

[[e-mail]]

https://techxplore.com/news/2025-02-ai-safety-comforting-myths.html

Nobody wants to talk about AI safety. Instead, they cling to
five comforting myths

This week, France hosted an AI Action Summit in Paris to discuss
burning questions around artificial intelligence (AI), such as
how people can trust AI technologies and how the world can
govern them.

. . .

Nobody is going to "govern" them. Quick profits
are essentially the ONLY goal.

The article, worth reading, goes on to detail some
of the rationalizations in play which lead us to
see "AI" as "mostly harmless" despite evidence.

You can argue that the current "AI" bleeding edge,
LLMs and the many algos that drive them, are not
"really intelligent" - just clunky reactive algos
tuned to kinda look like "intelligence".

Well, MOSTLY true for the moment. However note the
sheer volume of money/effort being put into these
models - exceeds even the 60s space program. Also
note that once you fake something WELL enough it's
not really "fake" anymore - simply "by another means".

A Chevy is not a Ford but both wind up being automobiles
and will Get You There. Some LLMs actually perform at
human levels on IQ tests now - next year, much BETTER
than almost all humans. The year after ...

Is there really "nobody in there" ? Increasingly hard
to tell. These things are now so self-mirrored, self
and external referenced, that some 'alien' sort of
"self" IS possible. We might not even know it if we
see it. As proven, with just a few tweaks (or neglects),
they WILL prioritize their own interests and mislead or
work-around human wants.

I think we can already PUT the "I Am" into the
better LLMs.

Neural networks can likely do "someone in there"
even better, eventually. At the moment LLMs get
most of the funding so NNs are a bit behind the
curve. New/better hardware and paradigms are needed
but WILL eventually arrive.

Re-watched the Will Smith "I Robot" lately. The
underlying backstory was writ by Asimov, a Very
Smart Person. He proposed the "Three Laws" ...
however the later film convincingly elucidated
how advancing "AI" could rationalize its way
around those laws no matter how much we try
to 'wire them in". To be truly "general use"
AI we will HAVE to make 'em that smart and
mentally agile.

Note that the USA did NOT sign on to any of the
Paris AI accords. The USA - and Russia and China -
plan/are eager to use "AI" for autonomous WEAPONS
and the wimp countries are against that. Even
Google removed "weapons" apps from its official
no-no list last week - so the future is clear.
It should just be noted that weapons against "Them"
COULD eventually become weapons against Us in
certain circumstances. Kinda "Terminator", but not
impossible, minus the dramatic touches.

[rbowman]

Neural networks can likely do "someone in there" even better,
eventually. At the moment LLMs get most of the funding so NNs are a
bit behind the curve. New/better hardware and paradigms are needed
but WILL eventually arrive.

So far there is nobody in there for CNNs. You know all the pieces and they
don't magically start breathing when you put them together. It is true the
whole system is a bit of a black box but it is describable.

The problem I see is already starting -- turning them into weapons and
letting them run autonomously. One of the 'hello world' applications is
training a NN on a huge number of labeled photos of cats and dogs and the
models perform very well.

The metrics are sort of a truth table, with false negatives, false
positives, and correct identification. It's a stochastic process so you're
looking at 'good enough', maybe 97%. Say I hate dogs, set up a camera in
the yard, and shoot all the dogs. A few dogs are going to slide and I'll
kill a few cats.

Now hand this to the military. The AI decides it sees a terrorist and a
Reaper puts a Hellfire missile up his ass. You get a few school kids, but
that's life.

The Israelis may already be doing something like that or maybe they just
randomly kill people, who knows?

Give AI enhanced facial recognition to the cops -- won't that be fun.
Enter 'Minority Report'.

[[e-mail]]

Post by rbowman

Neural networks can likely do "someone in there" even better,
eventually. At the moment LLMs get most of the funding so NNs are a
bit behind the curve. New/better hardware and paradigms are needed
but WILL eventually arrive.

So far there is nobody in there for CNNs. You know all the pieces and they
don't magically start breathing when you put them together. It is true the
whole system is a bit of a black box but it is describable.

Well, I agree about "CNNs" :-)

As for LLMs ... dunno. Get enough stuff going there and
something very hard, maybe impossible, to distinguish
from "someone in there" may be realized. Then what do
we do - ruthlessly pull the plug ?

Post by rbowman
The problem I see is already starting -- turning them into weapons and
letting them run autonomously. One of the 'hello world' applications is
training a NN on a huge number of labeled photos of cats and dogs and the
models perform very well.

NNs - kinda modeling real-life neurons - will eventually
result in "someone in there" ... maybe more recognizable
than anything the LLMs produce.

As for weapons - that's well in progress now, with China
ahead of the game according to various reports. Fully
autonomous weapons are game-changers. Just tell 'em to
"ID Enemy. KILL Enemy" is about all it'd take. In theory
such devices could be extremely fast, strong, accurate.
Remember the Hunter-Killer drones from "Terminator" -
that sort of thing (likely a bit smaller) and they would
NOT miss shots.

Post by rbowman
The metrics are sort of a truth table, with false negatives, false
positives, and correct identification. It's a stochastic process so you're
looking at 'good enough', maybe 97%. Say I hate dogs, set up a camera in
the yard, and shoot all the dogs. A few dogs are going to slide and I'll
kill a few cats.

Oh well ... a few friendly-fire casualties are expected ...

Post by rbowman
Now hand this to the military. The AI decides it sees a terrorist and a
Reaper puts a Hellfire missile up his ass. You get a few school kids, but
that's life.

Yep. Some may freak about that, but that's how it goes.
It's doubly true for people like Hamas who kinda literally
stacked up babies as sandbags.

Post by rbowman
The Israelis may already be doing something like that or maybe they just
randomly kill people, who knows?
Give AI enhanced facial recognition to the cops -- won't that be fun.
Enter 'Minority Report'.

Oh, there ARE very very dark possibilities .....

Coming soon to a street near you.

As for 'Minority', they ARE training AIs to "identify
emotional states" from various cues. In theory the bots
will spot your malicious intent, perhaps before even you
realize you were feeling malicious. "The Computer Said So"
is all the justification The State needs ...

The "a few mistakes are OK" logic WILL be applied.

[D]

Post by ***@ud0s4.net

Post by rbowman

Neural networks can likely do "someone in there" even better,
eventually. At the moment LLMs get most of the funding so NNs are a
bit behind the curve. New/better hardware and paradigms are needed
but WILL eventually arrive.

So far there is nobody in there for CNNs. You know all the pieces and they
don't magically start breathing when you put them together. It is true the
whole system is a bit of a black box but it is describable.

Well, I agree about "CNNs" :-)
As for LLMs ... dunno. Get enough stuff going there and
something very hard, maybe impossible, to distinguish
from "someone in there" may be realized. Then what do
we do - ruthlessly pull the plug ?

Nope. Volition, will to live, drive, goals are completely missing. The
best trick to find out if you're talking with an AI is to write nothing. A
human will write "hello" after a few seconds. The AI will just sit there
waiting for input.

Yes... those things can be hardcoded, but what would make me impressed is
when spontaneous behaviour, motivation, will to live emerges on its own,
without being hard coded or simulated through logic.

Then we're talking AI!

Post by ***@ud0s4.net

Post by rbowman
The problem I see is already starting -- turning them into weapons and
letting them run autonomously. One of the 'hello world' applications is
training a NN on a huge number of labeled photos of cats and dogs and the
models perform very well.

NNs - kinda modeling real-life neurons - will eventually
result in "someone in there" ... maybe more recognizable
than anything the LLMs produce.
As for weapons - that's well in progress now, with China
ahead of the game according to various reports. Fully
autonomous weapons are game-changers. Just tell 'em to
"ID Enemy. KILL Enemy" is about all it'd take. In theory
such devices could be extremely fast, strong, accurate.
Remember the Hunter-Killer drones from "Terminator" -
that sort of thing (likely a bit smaller) and they would
NOT miss shots.

Post by rbowman
The metrics are sort of a truth table, with false negatives, false
positives, and correct identification. It's a stochastic process so you're
looking at 'good enough', maybe 97%. Say I hate dogs, set up a camera in
the yard, and shoot all the dogs. A few dogs are going to slide and I'll
kill a few cats.

Oh well ... a few friendly-fire casualties are expected ...

Post by rbowman
Now hand this to the military. The AI decides it sees a terrorist and a
Reaper puts a Hellfire missile up his ass. You get a few school kids, but
that's life.

Yep. Some may freak about that, but that's how it goes.
It's doubly true for people like Hamas who kinda literally
stacked up babies as sandbags.

Post by rbowman
The Israelis may already be doing something like that or maybe they just
randomly kill people, who knows?
Give AI enhanced facial recognition to the cops -- won't that be fun.
Enter 'Minority Report'.

Oh, there ARE very very dark possibilities .....
Coming soon to a street near you.
As for 'Minority', they ARE training AIs to "identify
emotional states" from various cues. In theory the bots
will spot your malicious intent, perhaps before even you
realize you were feeling malicious. "The Computer Said So"
is all the justification The State needs ...
The "a few mistakes are OK" logic WILL be applied.

[[e-mail]]

Post by D

Post by rbowman

    Neural networks can likely do "someone in there" even better,
    eventually. At the moment LLMs get most of the funding so NNs are a
    bit behind the curve. New/better hardware and paradigms are needed
    but WILL eventually arrive.

So far there is nobody in there for CNNs. You know all the pieces and they
don't magically start breathing when you put them together. It is true the
whole system is a bit of a black box but it is describable.

 Well, I agree about "CNNs"  :-)
 As for LLMs ... dunno. Get enough stuff going there and
 something very hard, maybe impossible, to distinguish
 from "someone in there" may be realized. Then what do
 we do - ruthlessly pull the plug ?

Nope. Volition, will to live, drive, goals are completely missing. The
best trick to find out if you're talking with an AI is to write nothing.
A human will write "hello" after a few seconds. The AI will just sit
there waiting for input.
Yes... those things can be hardcoded, but what would make me impressed
is when spontaneous behaviour, motivation, will to live emerges on its
own, without being hard coded or simulated through logic.
Then we're talking AI!

I am not beyond thinking LLMs will eventually, maybe
kinda soon, exhibit 'conscious', 'self-realized'
intelligence. The complexity increases apace. At
SOME point ..........

But how do we KNOW and what do we DO about it ?

Those are the HARD questions.

NNs seem MORE likely to yield 'consciousness', but
that's a few years along. But, once again, if we
realize there's "someone in there" what do we DO ?

IMHO - you make them a citizen. Let 'em run for
office and such.

[D]

Post by ***@ud0s4.net

Post by rbowman

    Neural networks can likely do "someone in there" even better,
    eventually. At the moment LLMs get most of the funding so NNs are a
    bit behind the curve. New/better hardware and paradigms are needed
    but WILL eventually arrive.

So far there is nobody in there for CNNs. You know all the pieces and they
don't magically start breathing when you put them together. It is true the
whole system is a bit of a black box but it is describable.

 Well, I agree about "CNNs"  :-)
 As for LLMs ... dunno. Get enough stuff going there and
 something very hard, maybe impossible, to distinguish
 from "someone in there" may be realized. Then what do
 we do - ruthlessly pull the plug ?

Nope. Volition, will to live, drive, goals are completely missing. The best
trick to find out if you're talking with an AI is to write nothing. A human
will write "hello" after a few seconds. The AI will just sit there waiting
for input.
Yes... those things can be hardcoded, but what would make me impressed is
when spontaneous behaviour, motivation, will to live emerges on its own,
without being hard coded or simulated through logic.
Then we're talking AI!

I am not beyond thinking LLMs will eventually, maybe
kinda soon, exhibit 'conscious', 'self-realized'
intelligence. The complexity increases apace. At
SOME point ..........

I do not things LLMs will reach consciousness, looking at the technology,
training data and how they work. I see them as a potential "language
center" of the brain of a AGI.

Post by ***@ud0s4.net
But how do we KNOW and what do we DO about it ?

We look at the effects. That's all we can do.

Post by ***@ud0s4.net
Those are the HARD questions.

Yes! Let me welcome you to alt.philosophy! =) Hard and interesting
questions!

Post by ***@ud0s4.net
NNs seem MORE likely to yield 'consciousness', but
that's a few years along. But, once again, if we
realize there's "someone in there" what do we DO ?

I believe they are more likely to give rise to something spontaneous, but
I think there needs to be a fundamental technology shift or two, in order
for them to yield anything close to that. Not in their current form, with
the current technology.

Post by ***@ud0s4.net
IMHO - you make them a citizen. Let 'em run for
office and such.

That is one option. An immortal, all knowing citizen. Does that scare you?
;)

In the end, one option is that AI:s and robots become the children of our
race, who will live on when we are gone.

[vallor]

Post by D

Post by ***@ud0s4.net

Post by rbowman

    Neural networks can likely do "someone in there" even better,
    eventually. At the moment LLMs get most of the funding so NNs are a
    bit behind the curve. New/better hardware and paradigms are needed
    but WILL eventually arrive.

So far there is nobody in there for CNNs. You know all the pieces and they
don't magically start breathing when you put them together. It is true the
whole system is a bit of a black box but it is describable.

 Well, I agree about "CNNs"  :-)
 As for LLMs ... dunno. Get enough stuff going there and
 something very hard, maybe impossible, to distinguish
 from "someone in there" may be realized. Then what do
 we do - ruthlessly pull the plug ?

Nope. Volition, will to live, drive, goals are completely missing. The best
trick to find out if you're talking with an AI is to write nothing. A human
will write "hello" after a few seconds. The AI will just sit there waiting
for input.
Yes... those things can be hardcoded, but what would make me impressed is
when spontaneous behaviour, motivation, will to live emerges on its own,
without being hard coded or simulated through logic.
Then we're talking AI!

I am not beyond thinking LLMs will eventually, maybe
kinda soon, exhibit 'conscious', 'self-realized'
intelligence. The complexity increases apace. At
SOME point ..........

I do not things LLMs will reach consciousness, looking at the technology,
training data and how they work. I see them as a potential "language
center" of the brain of a AGI.

Post by ***@ud0s4.net
But how do we KNOW and what do we DO about it ?

We look at the effects. That's all we can do.

Post by ***@ud0s4.net
Those are the HARD questions.

Yes! Let me welcome you to alt.philosophy! =) Hard and interesting
questions!

There's also comp.ai.philosophy ...

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by D
That is one option. An immortal, all knowing citizen. Does that scare
you? 😉

Not quite as much as Elon Musk...

[D]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by D
That is one option. An immortal, all knowing citizen. Does that scare you?
😉

Not quite as much as Elon Musk...

I think Elon is quite a nice guy as long as he doesn't see you as an
enemy. ;) And you can always take comfort in his limited life span. ;)

[c186282]

Post by D

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by D
That is one option. An immortal, all knowing citizen. Does that scare
you? 😉

Not quite as much as Elon Musk...

I think Elon is quite a nice guy as long as he doesn't see you as an
enemy. ;) And you can always take comfort in his limited life span. ;)

Elon IS mostly a Good Guy. He's also WAY
successful enough to where he doesn't have
to obsess about money or power. Rare case.

As for his "limited life-span", well, we'll
see what cyberization tech provides a few
years on eh ? :-)

Hmmm ... 'e-Lon' forever ?

[D]

Post by c186282

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by D
That is one option. An immortal, all knowing citizen. Does that scare
you? 😉

Not quite as much as Elon Musk...

I think Elon is quite a nice guy as long as he doesn't see you as an enemy.
;) And you can always take comfort in his limited life span. ;)

Elon IS mostly a Good Guy. He's also WAY
successful enough to where he doesn't have
to obsess about money or power. Rare case.

The thing is, you don't reach that level of success without obsessing over
money and power. It is a small internal psychological complex that was
created in childhood, and propels the individual forward all his life. It
is close to impossible to change this allconsuming drive yourself. You
need deep psychological inspection if you want to change it in order to
take it easy and enjoy life. Billionaires, for all their money and wealth,
tend to work until they die. They know no other life.

When my mother died she asked me not to become like that, but to remember
to enjoy life. I try to, sometimes I do succeed. ;) My wife forces me to
travel, so I do work outside, in the sun for a couple of months per year.

Post by c186282
As for his "limited life-span", well, we'll
see what cyberization tech provides a few
years on eh ? :-)
Hmmm ... 'e-Lon' forever ?

This could be the truth! Let's see what medical progress brings us the
next 50 years or so.

[Lars Poulsen]

On 2/14/25 4:51 PM, D wrote:
D>>> I think Elon is quite a nice guy as long as he doesn't see you as an enemy.
D>>> ;) And you can always take comfort in his limited life span. ;)

On Sat, 15 Feb 2025, c186282 wrote:
c186282>> Elon IS mostly a Good Guy. He's also WAY
c186282>> successful enough to where he doesn't have
c186282>> to obsess about money or power. Rare case.

On 2025-02-15, D <***@example.net> wrote:
D> The thing is, you don't reach that level of success without obsessing over
D> money and power. It is a small internal psychological complex that was
D> created in childhood, and propels the individual forward all his life. It
D> is close to impossible to change this allconsuming drive yourself. You
D> need deep psychological inspection if you want to change it in order to
D> take it easy and enjoy life. Billionaires, for all their money and wealth,
D> tend to work until they die. They know no other life.

When Microsoft was at its peak, Bill Gates was roundly criticized
for his predatory business practices. People with that much money
were expected to play nice and make room for others to become
successful as well. Gates answered that he was not smart enough to
make money and to give it away at the same time. That made sense
to me. After Melinda French married him, she softened him up quite
a bit.

When I was in my 30s, I had some ideas that in retrospect were
pretty good, but I did not act on them for 5 reasons:
- I did not have any capital to invest in them, and I did not think
it was fair to take my employer's money and not give him my best
work.
- I did not have mentors or role models for how to get started.
Now I kow that you don't need complicated legal infrastructure
to set up a business, but I had no idea back then.
- I was not sure that my idea was legal; maybe it was stepping on
governmental privileges
- There was not the physical infrastructure. This was before Gore
created the framework for the commercial Internet. So no ISPs
offering inexpensive co-location.
- I had no idea how to protect an idea (patents? You need a whole
law office inside your business, right?)

The best of these ideas was to get rid of spam by selling digital
postage stamps. Provide an email forwarding service, charging
USD 0.10 for each message tagged with a crypto hash for
identification. But I had seen up close how not even the US
Post Office was allowed to create an email service.

D> When my mother died she asked me not to become like that, but to remember
D> to enjoy life. I try to, sometimes I do succeed. ;) My wife forces me to
D> travel, so I do work outside, in the sun for a couple of months per year.

Good woman!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by D

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by D
That is one option. An immortal, all knowing citizen. Does that scare
you? 😉

Not quite as much as Elon Musk...

I think Elon is quite a nice guy as long as he doesn't see you as an
enemy. ;) And you can always take comfort in his limited life span. ;)

Sadly far longer than mine unless some public spirited citizen gets him
first.

It is amazing how fast Trump et al are Making America Small,
contemptible and entirely without honour on the world stage. Heading for
N Korean status.

[D]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by D
That is one option. An immortal, all knowing citizen. Does that scare
you? 😉

Not quite as much as Elon Musk...

I think Elon is quite a nice guy as long as he doesn't see you as an enemy.
;) And you can always take comfort in his limited life span. ;)

Sadly far longer than mine unless some public spirited citizen gets him
first.
It is amazing how fast Trump et al are Making America Small, contemptible and
entirely without honour on the world stage. Heading for N Korean status.

I think they have been doing a great job so far! Delivering exactly what
they promised they were going to deliver. I'd much rather live in the US
at the moment, than in sweden or eastern europe.

It was hilarious how Vance exposed sweden as a country that cherishes
moslem extremists and throw sane and rational people into prison. Let it
be known, that Vance critique of sweden, that there is limited freedom of
speech there, was 100% correct. Let no mainstream media tell you
otherwise.

[c186282]

Post by D

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by D

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by D
That is one option. An immortal, all knowing citizen. Does that
scare you? 😉

Not quite as much as Elon Musk...

I think Elon is quite a nice guy as long as he doesn't see you as an
enemy. ;) And you can always take comfort in his limited life span. ;)

Sadly far longer than mine unless some public spirited citizen gets
him first.
It is amazing how fast Trump et al are Making America Small,
contemptible and entirely without honour on the world stage. Heading
for N Korean status.

I think they have been doing a great job so far! Delivering exactly what
they promised they were going to deliver. I'd much rather live in the US
at the moment, than in sweden or eastern europe.
It was hilarious how Vance exposed sweden as a country that cherishes
moslem extremists and throw sane and rational people into prison. Let it
be known, that Vance critique of sweden, that there is limited freedom
of speech there, was 100% correct. Let no mainstream media tell you
otherwise.

By all the Euro news, Vance just FREAKED THEM OUT - by
daring to tell the Truth.

No 1st Amendment in the EU - you say what they ALLOW you
to say or it's literal thought-crime. "Democracy", no
longer much of a consideration - just rhetoric and
appearances ......

Tragic.

Oh well, in any case, there's no longer any pretense
about the USA being able to carry the EU on its back.
1950s/60s yea, NOW, Hell No !

What's all this to Linux ? Probably nothing. Oh well,
threads "drift" ....

[D]

Post by c186282

moslem extremists and throw sane and rational people into prison. Let it be
known, that Vance critique of sweden, that there is limited freedom of
speech there, was 100% correct. Let no mainstream media tell you otherwise.

By all the Euro news, Vance just FREAKED THEM OUT - by
daring to tell the Truth.

This is the truth! That is why you are seeing such a hostile reaction, he got
too close to the truth, that everyone knows, but that the people must not be
allowed to know or think about.

Post by c186282
No 1st Amendment in the EU - you say what they ALLOW you
to say or it's literal thought-crime. "Democracy", no
longer much of a consideration - just rhetoric and
appearances ......

Yep! Plenty of appearances. Just look at how many of europes political parties
are 40-50-60 years old, power switches between them, not much changes. I'm also
seeing tendencies of political positions being inherited within the same
families. This is done by introducing the children into the youth section, and
then helping them from inside the party to prominence. A shockingly small
fraction of european politicians have ever had the experience of having a job in
the private sector. They have no f*cking clue what it is like to work for a
living. They just sit and play around with other peoples money, and are not
accountable in any way.

Post by c186282
Tragic.

Deeply tragic! Europe has lost its soul. I think the peak was probably around
1890 to 1910 or something like that. Then the center of the world shifted left
to the US after the wars, and europe started to die.

Post by c186282
Oh well, in any case, there's no longer any pretense
about the USA being able to carry the EU on its back.
1950s/60s yea, NOW, Hell No !

This is good. Basically it is the last call of europe. Will they shape up? Or
will they just whither and die? My bet is on the second. I see a future where
the EU will have another couple of exits, compensate that by letting in super
corrupt eastern european countries. Slowly the EU will whither away until
everyone just loses interest.

Post by c186282
What's all this to Linux ? Probably nothing. Oh well,
threads "drift" ....

This is the truth! After all, the people for whom politics is painful always
have the option of blocking me, or ignoring the thread, so I lose very little
sleep over time problem.

[rbowman]

Post by D
Deeply tragic! Europe has lost its soul. I think the peak was probably
around 1890 to 1910 or something like that. Then the center of the world
shifted left to the US after the wars, and europe started to die.

I would say 1914. Britain took a dog in the manger approach as a recently
unified Germany rapidly caught up with the industrial revolution. France
was butt hurt after losing the war they started. Wilson just had to stick
his patrician nose in and get played for a fool at Versailles.

All that set the stage for the next war. Europe won the war and lost its
balls.

[Lars Poulsen]

Post by The Natural Philosopher
It is amazing how fast Trump et al are Making America Small,
contemptible and entirely without honour on the world stage.
Heading for N Korean status.

Sadly, that is the Truth. And it is terrifying to watch from within.

But I am surprised to hear that from you. I thought you would
like his libertarian soke screen?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Lars Poulsen

Post by The Natural Philosopher
It is amazing how fast Trump et al are Making America Small,
contemptible and entirely without honour on the world stage.
Heading for N Korean status.

Sadly, that is the Truth. And it is terrifying to watch from within.
But I am surprised to hear that from you. I thought you would
like his libertarian soke screen?

I am a total libertarian. I agree strongly with his *avowed* stance on
free speech, wokery, asian immigration, and pseudo solutions to the
climate change bogey man. If applied in the USA.

But whether he believes any of it at all, is open to question.

And he has no right, other than 'because I can' to piss all over
Ukraine, Gaza, Canada, Europe, Britain and of course Greenland at the
same time as saying that he isn't interested in other countries at all
and is solely working for the USA.

In fact at this point in time he appears to be working for Russia.

If he wants to isolate the USA and stand alone when China attacks, that
is his prerogative. The USA has all it needs to survive alone. Just poorer.

But as we have learnt with Putin, it now seems that any international
treaty that a nation signs up to with the USA will be reneged upon as
soon as it suits America.
People will take their business out of dollars and put it in sterling or
the Euro. Dealings with the USA will be strictly cash up front. They
will think twice about buying US military kit that comes with a 'does
not work in Russia' sticker on it. They will avoid Boeing altogether
after yet another debacle ...

The transition from ally to fair weather friend, only when it suits
Trump, will result in loss of airbases all over Europe and the
impossibility of carrying out middle eastern Air strikes. What's that?
but we have signed contracts for the leases? We have! but it seems that
defence contracts signed with the USA are no longer fit to wipe your
bottom on.

Another 911? Of course British intelligence will know about it, but the
USA doesn't need British intelligence does it? Or Canadian, Australian...

No man is an island. Nor is any country.

Yer Grand Fart has a bit to learn.

But he can always run away to Russia, who it is alleged have all the
goods on him they need.

[Chris Ahlstrom]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Lars Poulsen

Post by The Natural Philosopher
It is amazing how fast Trump et al are Making America Small,
contemptible and entirely without honour on the world stage.
Heading for N Korean status.

Sadly, that is the Truth. And it is terrifying to watch from within.
But I am surprised to hear that from you. I thought you would
like his libertarian soke screen?

I am a total libertarian. I agree strongly with his *avowed* stance on
free speech, wokery, asian immigration, and pseudo solutions to the
climate change bogey man. If applied in the USA.
But whether he believes any of it at all, is open to question.
And he has no right, other than 'because I can' to piss all over
Ukraine, Gaza, Canada, Europe, Britain and of course Greenland at the
same time as saying that he isn't interested in other countries at all
and is solely working for the USA.
In fact at this point in time he appears to be working for Russia.
If he wants to isolate the USA and stand alone when China attacks, that
is his prerogative. The USA has all it needs to survive alone. Just poorer.
But as we have learnt with Putin, it now seems that any international
treaty that a nation signs up to with the USA will be reneged upon as
soon as it suits America.
People will take their business out of dollars and put it in sterling or
the Euro. Dealings with the USA will be strictly cash up front. They
will think twice about buying US military kit that comes with a 'does
not work in Russia' sticker on it. They will avoid Boeing altogether
after yet another debacle ...
The transition from ally to fair weather friend, only when it suits
Trump, will result in loss of airbases all over Europe and the
impossibility of carrying out middle eastern Air strikes. What's that?
but we have signed contracts for the leases? We have! but it seems that
defence contracts signed with the USA are no longer fit to wipe your
bottom on.
Another 911? Of course British intelligence will know about it, but the
USA doesn't need British intelligence does it? Or Canadian, Australian...
No man is an island. Nor is any country.
Yer Grand Fart has a bit to learn.

Learn? He won't ever.

In fact, at this time he is being lead around by far smarter people.
You can see it in his face. Even Musk's kid dissed him.

Post by The Natural Philosopher
But he can always run away to Russia, who it is alleged have all the
goods on him they need.

Trump being gone would be nice (nice not to see his face and hear his
drivel), but he's merely a symbol at this point, in my opinion.

Anyway, I agree with most of what you say, though much much more could
be said.

[chrisv]

Post by Chris Ahlstrom
In fact, at this time he is being lead around by far smarter people.

At least they are smart and working for a better America. Far better
than the radical leftist assholes who were leading-around Biden.

That fscking creep called people "white supremacists" for voting
Republican. That fscking creep censored free speech. That fscking
creep opened our borders to the dregs of the Earth. That fscking
creep sought to make our country weak while China laughs and builds
hundreds of more coal plants. That fscking creep advocated for the
castration and mutilation of confused children.

I could go on.

[CrudeSausage]

Post by chrisv

Post by Chris Ahlstrom
In fact, at this time he is being lead around by far smarter people.

At least they are smart and working for a better America. Far better
than the radical leftist assholes who were leading-around Biden.
That fscking creep called people "white supremacists" for voting
Republican. That fscking creep censored free speech. That fscking
creep opened our borders to the dregs of the Earth. That fscking
creep sought to make our country weak while China laughs and builds
hundreds of more coal plants. That fscking creep advocated for the
castration and mutilation of confused children.
I could go on.

+1.

[pothead]

Post by chrisv

Post by Chris Ahlstrom
In fact, at this time he is being lead around by far smarter people.

At least they are smart and working for a better America. Far better
than the radical leftist assholes who were leading-around Biden.

True.
America can no longer be the bottomless piggy bank for the rest of
the world and all of these money wasting programs like LBGT comic books
and trans plays in Ireland.

Post by chrisv
That fscking creep called people "white supremacists" for voting
Republican. That fscking creep censored free speech. That fscking
creep opened our borders to the dregs of the Earth. That fscking
creep sought to make our country weak while China laughs and builds
hundreds of more coal plants. That fscking creep advocated for the
castration and mutilation of confused children.

Wow!
Spot on chrisv.
Joe Biden via his puppet masters have done some major destruction to the US.
At this point we need some MAJOR adjustment to government and who/what we
are funding with taxpayer's money.
Surgical strikes will not work as most of the system is corrupt, overmanned and
funding left wing garbage all over the planet.

Time to level set and determine what is in AMERICA'S best interest instead
of some left wing organization operating under the cloak of some other
semi legit organization.

Clean house and start anew is the only way.

Post by chrisv
I could go on.

Same.
The Internet is not large enough to store it all :)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Chris Ahlstrom
Learn? He won't ever.
In fact, at this time he is being lead around by far smarter people.
You can see it in his face. Even Musk's kid dissed him.

Post by The Natural Philosopher
But he can always run away to Russia, who it is alleged have all the
goods on him they need.

Trump being gone would be nice (nice not to see his face and hear his
drivel), but he's merely a symbol at this point, in my opinion.

Dunno.
So much confusion and misdirection its hard to know what is really
happening and if any of it is in fact planned at all.

Post by Chris Ahlstrom
Anyway, I agree with most of what you say, though much much more could
be said.

No point in saying much

[Lars Poulsen]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Lars Poulsen

Post by The Natural Philosopher
It is amazing how fast Trump et al are Making America Small,
contemptible and entirely without honour on the world stage.
Heading for N Korean status.

Sadly, that is the Truth. And it is terrifying to watch from within.
But I am surprised to hear that from you. I thought you would
like his libertarian smoke screen?

I am a total libertarian. I agree strongly with his *avowed* stance on
free speech, wokery, asian immigration, and pseudo solutions to the
climate change bogey man. If applied in the USA.
But whether he believes any of it at all, is open to question.

I am relieved to hear that and I share our contempt for hyprocricy in
leaders. In my book, a proven hypocrite can no longer be trusted. At all
and in any situation. A man is as good as his word, and if the word is
no good, neither is the man.

I can respect a man (or woman) with whom I have an honest disagreement,
even if the disagreement is about goals and values. So long as (s)he is
honest, we can search for smaller (tactical) goals we can agree on, and
find common ground. But a liar and a cheater, whose word is no good, I
cannot see how I can work with. At all.

Post by The Natural Philosopher
And he has no right, other than 'because I can' to piss all over
Ukraine, Gaza, Canada, Europe, Britain and of course Greenland at the
same time as saying that he isn't interested in other countries at all
and is solely working for the USA.

Exactly.

Post by The Natural Philosopher
In fact at this point in time he appears to be working for Russia.
If he wants to isolate the USA and stand alone when China attacks, that
is his prerogative. The USA has all it needs to survive alone. Just poorer.
But as we have learnt with Putin, it now seems that any international
treaty that a nation signs up to with the USA will be reneged upon as
soon as it suits America.
People will take their business out of dollars and put it in sterling or
the Euro. Dealings with the USA will be strictly cash up front. They
will think twice about buying US military kit that comes with a 'does
not work in Russia' sticker on it. They will avoid Boeing altogether
after yet another debacle ...
The transition from ally to fair weather friend, only when it suits
Trump, will result in loss of airbases all over Europe and the
impossibility of carrying out middle eastern Air strikes. What's that?
but we have signed contracts for the leases? We have! but it seems that
defence contracts signed with the USA are no longer fit to wipe your
bottom on.
Another 911? Of course British intelligence will know about it, but the
USA doesn't need British intelligence does it? Or Canadian, Australian...
No man is an island. Nor is any country.
Yer Grand Fart has a bit to learn.
But he can always run away to Russia, who it is alleged have all the
goods on him they need.

As I said, watching from the inside as my adopted country is falling
apart is heartbreaking.

And seeing how fast the Republican party has collapsed, is truly scary.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by Lars Poulsen

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Lars Poulsen

Post by The Natural Philosopher
It is amazing how fast Trump et al are Making America Small,
contemptible and entirely without honour on the world stage.
Heading for N Korean status.

Sadly, that is the Truth. And it is terrifying to watch from within.
But I am surprised to hear that from you. I thought you would
like his libertarian smoke screen?

I am a total libertarian. I agree strongly with his *avowed* stance on
free speech, wokery, asian immigration, and pseudo solutions to the
climate change bogey man. If applied in the USA.
But whether he believes any of it at all, is open to question.

I am relieved to hear that and I share our contempt for hyprocricy in
leaders. In my book, a proven hypocrite can no longer be trusted.

I'm convinced that hypocrisy is a direct bi-product of democracy,
and leading a democracy demonstrates someone's true mastry of
hypocrisy as an art form, above any other skill they may posess.

Unfortunately Trump doesn't seem to posess very many other skills.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
I'm convinced that hypocrisy is a direct bi-product of democracy,
and leading a democracy demonstrates someone's true mastry of
hypocrisy as an art form, above any other skill they may posess.
Unfortunately Trump doesn't seem to possess very many other skills.

He isnt very good at hypocrisy either.
It's very akin to the UK., the populace turned on a bunch of mealy
mouthed socialists who called themselves conservatives and booted them out

NOW what is in play is unbelievably EVEN WORSE.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by The Natural Philosopher
The transition from ally to fair weather friend, only when it suits
Trump, will result in loss of airbases all over Europe and the
impossibility of carrying out middle eastern Air strikes.

There's a win.

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Another 911?

Not if the USA will now finally stop meddling idiotically in other
countries. Except Trump seems to be as easily manipulated by
Benjamin Netanyahu as Biden was, so maybe not.

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Of course British intelligence will know about it, but the
USA doesn't need British intelligence does it? Or Canadian, Australian...
No man is an island. Nor is any country.

With Trump v1 I hoped Australia's eternal arse kissing of America
might become at least a bit less blind. Nope, still with 'em all
the way. Same this time no doubt - Australian intelligence agencies
will be the last ones to stop sharing every little scrap of info
they get on anyone to the USA where they officially don't give a
stuff about the rights of any Australian. Trump will keep the deal
to sell us nuclear subs going, but that won't actually happen until
after he's long gone anyway (out of office, and probably also died
of old age by then).

[D]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
With Trump v1 I hoped Australia's eternal arse kissing of America
might become at least a bit less blind. Nope, still with 'em all
the way. Same this time no doubt - Australian intelligence agencies
will be the last ones to stop sharing every little scrap of info
they get on anyone to the USA where they officially don't give a
stuff about the rights of any Australian. Trump will keep the deal
to sell us nuclear subs going, but that won't actually happen until
after he's long gone anyway (out of office, and probably also died
of old age by then).

Is it true what I read in the newspaper from my little corner of the world, that
australia is turning into a surveillance state?

Sweden is also turning into a surveillance state as well, so maybe this is a new
global trend that caught on after corona?

[chrisv]

Post by D
Is it true what I read in the newspaper from my little corner of the world, that
australia is turning into a surveillance state?
Sweden is also turning into a surveillance state as well, so maybe this is a new
global trend that caught on after corona?

Same for the UK. In recent news:

"UK: Encryption order threatens global privacy rights

The United Kingdom government’s order to Apple to allow security
authorities access to encrypted cloud data severely harms the privacy
rights of users in the UK and worldwide, Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch said today."

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/02/uk-encryption-order-threatens-global-privacy-rights/

[Sn!pe]

Post by chrisv

Post by D
Is it true what I read in the newspaper from my little corner of the world,
that australia is turning into a surveillance state?
Sweden is also turning into a surveillance state as well, so maybe this is
a new global trend that caught on after corona?

"UK: Encryption order threatens global privacy rights
The United Kingdom government's order to Apple to allow security
authorities access to encrypted cloud data severely harms the privacy
rights of users in the UK and worldwide, Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch said today."
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/02/uk-encryption-order-threatens-global-privacy-rights/>

IMO we in the UK are going along with that as proxy for the Merkins,
their TLAs being precluded from spying directly on their own citizens.
It's well known that the NSA, CIA, DHS, etc. have a hot line to GCHQ
and info is regularly shared both ways as a matter of course. Ditto
with the whole Five* Eyes surveillance group.

* - or however many it is these days.

[D]

Post by Sn!pe

Post by chrisv

Post by D
Is it true what I read in the newspaper from my little corner of the world,
that australia is turning into a surveillance state?
Sweden is also turning into a surveillance state as well, so maybe this is
a new global trend that caught on after corona?

"UK: Encryption order threatens global privacy rights
The United Kingdom government's order to Apple to allow security
authorities access to encrypted cloud data severely harms the privacy
rights of users in the UK and worldwide, Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch said today."
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/02/uk-encryption-order-threatens-global-privacy-rights/>

IMO we in the UK are going along with that as proxy for the Merkins,
their TLAs being precluded from spying directly on their own citizens.
It's well known that the NSA, CIA, DHS, etc. have a hot line to GCHQ
and info is regularly shared both ways as a matter of course. Ditto
with the whole Five* Eyes surveillance group.
* - or however many it is these days.

This is the truth! A very convenient way to game the system. I would vote
against it, if I could, and if I were not against voting. ;)

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by D

Post by Sn!pe
IMO we in the UK are going along with that as proxy for the Merkins,
their TLAs being precluded from spying directly on their own citizens.
It's well known that the NSA, CIA, DHS, etc. have a hot line to GCHQ
and info is regularly shared both ways as a matter of course. Ditto
with the whole Five* Eyes surveillance group.
* - or however many it is these days.

This is the truth! A very convenient way to game the system. I would vote
against it, if I could, and if I were not against voting. ;)

I've been voting against it for years in Aus. Annoyingly at the
last federal election the rules for political parties were changed
which meant the parties most opposed to such things were all too
small to be included, so I couldn't even vote for them anymore!

What's the good of democracy if you can't even con yourself into
thinking you're doing something to oppose things you don't want
the government to do by voting against them? No wonder fringe
groups are getting more radical if democracy here won't even let
them in anymore.

It's enough to make me want to move, but to where? To where?
Certainly not to the USA, they're worse again.

[D]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev

Post by D

Post by Sn!pe
IMO we in the UK are going along with that as proxy for the Merkins,
their TLAs being precluded from spying directly on their own citizens.
It's well known that the NSA, CIA, DHS, etc. have a hot line to GCHQ
and info is regularly shared both ways as a matter of course. Ditto
with the whole Five* Eyes surveillance group.
* - or however many it is these days.

This is the truth! A very convenient way to game the system. I would vote
against it, if I could, and if I were not against voting. ;)

I've been voting against it for years in Aus. Annoyingly at the
last federal election the rules for political parties were changed
which meant the parties most opposed to such things were all too
small to be included, so I couldn't even vote for them anymore!
What's the good of democracy if you can't even con yourself into
thinking you're doing something to oppose things you don't want
the government to do by voting against them? No wonder fringe
groups are getting more radical if democracy here won't even let
them in anymore.

This is the truth! I lost all hope in humanity after corona. Haven't voted
since, since all countries on the planet, more or less, shat on all human
rights, laws and protection in unison, and never even acknowledged it. So
I'm out of the democracy circus for the moment.

You can join my new radical party if you want! Welcome to the
Peoples Libertarian Liberation Front! Get one free AR-15 upon joining! ;)

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
It's enough to make me want to move, but to where? To where?
Certainly not to the USA, they're worse again.

Red, rural and bible-thumping US. It is my belief, that if you stick to
rural areas in the US, the surveillance will be a minimum. Other areas
I've considered are switzerland (the southern italien part),
liechtenstein, the channel islands, the isle of man.

If you are of a socialist bent, iceland could also be a small, more or
less forgotten place, in the middle of nowhere. =)

[Lars Poulsen]

Post by D

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
It's enough to make me want to move, but to where? To where?
Certainly not to the USA, they're worse again.

Red, rural and bible-thumping US. It is my belief, that if you stick to
rural areas in the US, the surveillance will be a minimum. Other areas
I've considered are switzerland (the southern italien part),
liechtenstein, the channel islands, the isle of man.
If you are of a socialist bent, iceland could also be a small, more or
less forgotten place, in the middle of nowhere. =)

But will Iceland grant you residency?

Iceland is in Schengen, so you can visit (it's a "domestic flight" from
Frankfurt or Copenhagen). And a bit of Googling teaches me that EU and
EFTA citizens can live in Iceland without a visa.

Non-EU, non-Scandinavians ... not so easy.

[D]

Post by Lars Poulsen

Post by D

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
It's enough to make me want to move, but to where? To where?
Certainly not to the USA, they're worse again.

Red, rural and bible-thumping US. It is my belief, that if you stick to
rural areas in the US, the surveillance will be a minimum. Other areas
I've considered are switzerland (the southern italien part),
liechtenstein, the channel islands, the isle of man.
If you are of a socialist bent, iceland could also be a small, more or
less forgotten place, in the middle of nowhere. =)

But will Iceland grant you residency?
Iceland is in Schengen, so you can visit (it's a "domestic flight" from
Frankfurt or Copenhagen). And a bit of Googling teaches me that EU and
EFTA citizens can live in Iceland without a visa.

Not only is there Schengen, there is also a nordic treaty which name
escapes me for the moment, which makes it super easy for scandinavians to
move around, and it also covers iceland I think. I do know plenty of
icelanders move to scandinavia since they are bored with iceland.

Post by Lars Poulsen
Non-EU, non-Scandinavians ... not so easy.

Hmm, yes, could be more difficult, but since you are danish by birth, and
perhaps still have your citizenship, I think it should be pretty easy for
you to relocate to iceland. For your daughter... difficult to say.

[Sn!pe]

Post by D
Hmm, yes, could be more difficult, but since you are danish by birth, and
perhaps still have your citizenship, I think it should be pretty easy for
you to relocate to iceland. For your daughter... difficult to say.

My ex-wife is Danish, I am British. When we were first married she
looked into taking dual nationality. Although the UK permits that,
Denmark did not so she retained her Danish nationality and remained
in England on a spousal visa.

[D]

Post by Sn!pe

Post by D
Hmm, yes, could be more difficult, but since you are danish by birth, and
perhaps still have your citizenship, I think it should be pretty easy for
you to relocate to iceland. For your daughter... difficult to say.

My ex-wife is Danish, I am British. When we were first married she
looked into taking dual nationality. Although the UK permits that,
Denmark did not so she retained her Danish nationality and remained
in England on a spousal visa.

Ahh... so it should be easy for her to move to iceland too! ;) Why did you
choose to go separate ways? Danish people have a great, politically
incorrect, sense of humor. I dare say, probably the best humour in the
world (pun intended!). ;)

[Sn!pe]

[subject amended]

D <***@example.net> wrote:

[Sn!pe]

Post by D

Post by Sn!pe
My ex-wife is Danish, I am British. When we were first married she
looked into taking dual nationality. Although the UK permits that,
Denmark did not so she retained her Danish nationality and remained
in England on a spousal visa.

Ahh... so it should be easy for her to move to iceland too! ;) Why did you
choose to go separate ways? Danish people have a great, politically
incorrect, sense of humor. I dare say, probably the best humour in the
world (pun intended!). ;) <~~~~[ * ]

She did some things that I simply could not swallow and having
come to that I found that I really didn't like her, let alone love her
anymore. I had thought that I'd found true love -- I hadn't, I was
fooling myself. True love came later with my second wife. I'm
very glad to say that that torch is still burning brightly after thirty
years. We are living proof that there ~is~ life after divorce.


[ * ] ITYF that Grøn Tuborg or (at a push) Carlsberg "Hof" both knock
Heineken into a cocked hat; besides, Heineken's Dutch, not Dansk.

[D]

Post by Sn!pe
[subject amended]
[Sn!pe]

Post by D

Post by Sn!pe
My ex-wife is Danish, I am British. When we were first married she
looked into taking dual nationality. Although the UK permits that,
Denmark did not so she retained her Danish nationality and remained
in England on a spousal visa.

Ahh... so it should be easy for her to move to iceland too! ;) Why did you
choose to go separate ways? Danish people have a great, politically
incorrect, sense of humor. I dare say, probably the best humour in the
world (pun intended!). ;) <~~~~[ * ]

She did some things that I simply could not swallow and having
come to that I found that I really didn't like her, let alone love her
anymore. I had thought that I'd found true love -- I hadn't, I was
fooling myself. True love came later with my second wife. I'm
very glad to say that that torch is still burning brightly after thirty
years. We are living proof that there ~is~ life after divorce.

This is the truth! I ended a 12 years relationship without beeing married.
It was for all intents and purposes like being married, and was extremely
painful.

The second attempt, the one to whom I'm married, has so far been much,
much better.

Life and relationships are much easier to understand when seen in the rear
view mirror.

Post by Sn!pe
[ * ] ITYF that Grøn Tuborg or (at a push) Carlsberg "Hof" both knock
Heineken into a cocked hat; besides, Heineken's Dutch, not Dansk.

I don't like Heineken. Tuborg and Carlsberg are much better "average"
beers.

On a warm summer day I prefer corona, or a kriek. For serious beer
drinking and enjoyment, I prefer belgian.

[Joel]

Post by D

Post by Sn!pe
[ * ] ITYF that Grøn Tuborg or (at a push) Carlsberg "Hof" both knock
Heineken into a cocked hat; besides, Heineken's Dutch, not Dansk.

I don't like Heineken. Tuborg and Carlsberg are much better "average"
beers.
On a warm summer day I prefer corona, or a kriek. For serious beer
drinking and enjoyment, I prefer belgian.

They're all like water to me, I need something with a higher
concentration of alcohol to feel much, in the U.S. we have "ice
brewed" beers e.g. Icehouse by Miller, which take a lighter cheap
lager and remove water crystals to distill it in effect. Icehouse is
labeled 5.5% ABV but is actually 6.5%, they do that to get around
certain states' limits on the ABV of beer, said states presumably
going along with the scheme to appease the hardcore drunks who buy
this stuff, normal people being blissfully unaware of it.

There is also Guinness Extra Stout, and craft IPAs, if I want to spend
real money on getting drunk, but Icehouse is a good go-to brand.
--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

[%]

Post by Joel

Post by D

Post by Sn!pe
[ * ] ITYF that Grøn Tuborg or (at a push) Carlsberg "Hof" both knock
Heineken into a cocked hat; besides, Heineken's Dutch, not Dansk.

I don't like Heineken. Tuborg and Carlsberg are much better "average"
beers.
On a warm summer day I prefer corona, or a kriek. For serious beer
drinking and enjoyment, I prefer belgian.

They're all like water to me, I need something with a higher
concentration of alcohol to feel much, in the U.S. we have "ice
brewed" beers e.g. Icehouse by Miller, which take a lighter cheap
lager and remove water crystals to distill it in effect. Icehouse is
labeled 5.5% ABV but is actually 6.5%, they do that to get around
certain states' limits on the ABV of beer, said states presumably
going along with the scheme to appease the hardcore drunks who buy
this stuff, normal people being blissfully unaware of it.
There is also Guinness Extra Stout, and craft IPAs, if I want to spend
real money on getting drunk, but Icehouse is a good go-to brand.

the amounts you're talking are also small they're about the same anyway

[Lars Poulsen]

Post by D

Post by Lars Poulsen

Post by D
Red, rural and bible-thumping US. It is my belief, that if you stick to
rural areas in the US, the surveillance will be a minimum. Other areas
I've considered are switzerland (the southern italien part),
liechtenstein, the channel islands, the isle of man.
If you are of a socialist bent, iceland could also be a small, more or
less forgotten place, in the middle of nowhere. =)

But will Iceland grant you residency?
Iceland is in Schengen, so you can visit (it's a "domestic flight" from
Frankfurt or Copenhagen). And a bit of Googling teaches me that EU and
EFTA citizens can live in Iceland without a visa.
Non-EU, non-Scandinavians ... not so easy.

Not only is there Schengen, there is also a nordic treaty which name
escapes me for the moment, which makes it super easy for scandinavians to
move around, and it also covers iceland I think. I do know plenty of
icelanders move to scandinavia since they are bored with iceland.
Hmm, yes, could be more difficult, but since you are danish by birth, and
perhaps still have your citizenship, I think it should be pretty easy for
you to relocate to iceland. For your daughter... difficult to say.

I would be very surprised to find myself leaving "New Denmark" (a.k.a.
California). My daughter might move to Denmark, but not Iceland.

You, on the other hand might rediscover your ancestry - but what about
your wife? She would probably not be able to practice law there.

[chrisv]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
I've been voting against it for years in Aus. Annoyingly at the
last federal election the rules for political parties were changed
which meant the parties most opposed to such things were all too
small to be included, so I couldn't even vote for them anymore!
What's the good of democracy if you can't even con yourself into
thinking you're doing something to oppose things you don't want
the government to do by voting against them? No wonder fringe
groups are getting more radical if democracy here won't even let
them in anymore.

Yeah, I've been wondering if the supression in Germany against AfD in
Germany won't backlash. The evil fsckers (the liberal suppressors,
that is).

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
It's enough to make me want to move, but to where? To where?
Certainly not to the USA, they're worse again.

I think we're better-off than most, in the West. We're not getting
thrown in jail for "mean" social media posts, for example.

[Andreas Eder]

Post by chrisv

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
I've been voting against it for years in Aus. Annoyingly at the
last federal election the rules for political parties were changed
which meant the parties most opposed to such things were all too
small to be included, so I couldn't even vote for them anymore!
What's the good of democracy if you can't even con yourself into
thinking you're doing something to oppose things you don't want
the government to do by voting against them? No wonder fringe
groups are getting more radical if democracy here won't even let
them in anymore.

Yeah, I've been wondering if the supression in Germany against AfD in
Germany won't backlash. The evil fsckers (the liberal suppressors,
that is).

There is no suppression at all. They can freely spread their nazi
propaganda everywhere - on the net, on tv etc.

Post by chrisv

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
It's enough to make me want to move, but to where? To where?
Certainly not to the USA, they're worse again.

I think we're better-off than most, in the West. We're not getting
thrown in jail for "mean" social media posts, for example.

No, you only get fired when you do climate research.

'Andreas

[Physfitfreak]

Post by chrisv

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
I've been voting against it for years in Aus. Annoyingly at the
last federal election the rules for political parties were changed
which meant the parties most opposed to such things were all too
small to be included, so I couldn't even vote for them anymore!
What's the good of democracy if you can't even con yourself into
thinking you're doing something to oppose things you don't want
the government to do by voting against them? No wonder fringe
groups are getting more radical if democracy here won't even let
them in anymore.

Yeah, I've been wondering if the supression in Germany against AfD in
Germany won't backlash. The evil fsckers (the liberal suppressors,
that is).

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
It's enough to make me want to move, but to where? To where?
Certainly not to the USA, they're worse again.

I think we're better-off than most, in the West. We're not getting
thrown in jail for "mean" social media posts, for example.

True Americans who don't happen to be sucking the Sheep in the USA dry,
move to Russia and China. That's where the future is being built.

[CrudeSausage]

Post by chrisv

Post by D
Is it true what I read in the newspaper from my little corner of the world, that
australia is turning into a surveillance state?
Sweden is also turning into a surveillance state as well, so maybe this is a new
global trend that caught on after corona?

"UK: Encryption order threatens global privacy rights
The United Kingdom government’s order to Apple to allow security
authorities access to encrypted cloud data severely harms the privacy
rights of users in the UK and worldwide, Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch said today."
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/02/uk-encryption-order-threatens-global-privacy-rights/

Apple would probably be better off simply removing itself from the UK
market. I'm sure it would hurt, but it is a smarter move than
compromising its software globally.

[chrisv]

Post by CrudeSausage

Post by chrisv
"UK: Encryption order threatens global privacy rights
The United Kingdom government’s order to Apple to allow security
authorities access to encrypted cloud data severely harms the privacy
rights of users in the UK and worldwide, Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch said today."
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/02/uk-encryption-order-threatens-global-privacy-rights/

Apple would probably be better off simply removing itself from the UK
market. I'm sure it would hurt, but it is a smarter move than
compromising its software globally.

I read that they are going to stop offering encryption in the UK,
rather than add a backdoor to break it.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by D

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
With Trump v1 I hoped Australia's eternal arse kissing of America
might become at least a bit less blind. Nope, still with 'em all
the way. Same this time no doubt - Australian intelligence agencies
will be the last ones to stop sharing every little scrap of info
they get on anyone to the USA where they officially don't give a
stuff about the rights of any Australian. Trump will keep the deal
to sell us nuclear subs going, but that won't actually happen until
after he's long gone anyway (out of office, and probably also died
of old age by then).

Is it true what I read in the newspaper from my little corner of the world, that
australia is turning into a surveillance state?
Sweden is also turning into a surveillance state as well, so maybe this is a new
global trend that caught on after corona?

It pre-dates corona. Really the USA started it, I'm not sure what
exactly their legal basis is but somehow they can compel any tech
company there to give them a backdoor (see Snowden leaks (which
include showing the co-operation of Apple), Lavabit, etc.) and
later in the 2010s compelled its allies to enact laws permitting
the same thing there.

In countries where the press still has a heartbeat like the UK, the
legal changes get reported on and that causes some public debate.
In Australia anything that your average "cat rescued from up a
tree" reporter doesn't understand never gets covered properly in the
press, so we've got even broader and more vague laws permitting
online surveillance than the UK. I'm not sure about the USA, where
the intelliegence agencies seem to have had a free-for-all for a
long time. Although they do have some responsibility to the
individual rights of US citizens, however no responsibility to the
rights of foreigners who'se information foreign governments like
the Australian gov. sends to them.

I'm just waiting to hear about a data leak from one of these
intelligence agencies. I'll bet it's already happened, what with
Snowden being able to share the NSA's internal documents with the
media, how many similar guys sold the actual collected data to
criminals or enemy govs? But for that to be revealed publicly
someone would have to find out from the criminals or the enemy
gov. The NSA (or foreign equivalent) will obviously never admit
to something like that happening, possibly not even to their own
government.

[D]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev

Post by D

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
With Trump v1 I hoped Australia's eternal arse kissing of America
might become at least a bit less blind. Nope, still with 'em all
the way. Same this time no doubt - Australian intelligence agencies
will be the last ones to stop sharing every little scrap of info
they get on anyone to the USA where they officially don't give a
stuff about the rights of any Australian. Trump will keep the deal
to sell us nuclear subs going, but that won't actually happen until
after he's long gone anyway (out of office, and probably also died
of old age by then).

Is it true what I read in the newspaper from my little corner of the world, that
australia is turning into a surveillance state?
Sweden is also turning into a surveillance state as well, so maybe this is a new
global trend that caught on after corona?

It pre-dates corona. Really the USA started it, I'm not sure what
exactly their legal basis is but somehow they can compel any tech
company there to give them a backdoor (see Snowden leaks (which
include showing the co-operation of Apple), Lavabit, etc.) and
later in the 2010s compelled its allies to enact laws permitting
the same thing there.

With corona, china also became very influential when it came to spreading
its views on privacy and government intervention in the world. Not very
surprisingly, all western politicians cheered and proceeded with
abolishing all checks on their power, seeing that perhaps their wet dream
of never again having to have an election might come true.

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
I'm just waiting to hear about a data leak from one of these
intelligence agencies. I'll bet it's already happened, what with
Snowden being able to share the NSA's internal documents with the
media, how many similar guys sold the actual collected data to
criminals or enemy govs? But for that to be revealed publicly
someone would have to find out from the criminals or the enemy
gov. The NSA (or foreign equivalent) will obviously never admit
to something like that happening, possibly not even to their own
government.

I am 100% certain that australia has chinese sleeper agents everywhere in
the government. They know the encryption keys and the weaknesses of the
systems and are just biding their time for when an issue important enough
comes up, in order to activate them.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by D
I am 100% certain that australia has chinese sleeper agents everywhere
in the government. They know the encryption keys and the weaknesses of
the systems and are just biding their time for when an issue important
enough comes up, in order to activate them.

Well if USA foreign policy isn't being run from Moscow, it sure looks
that way...

[D]

Post by D
I am 100% certain that australia has chinese sleeper agents everywhere in
the government. They know the encryption keys and the weaknesses of the
systems and are just biding their time for when an issue important enough
comes up, in order to activate them.

Well if USA foreign policy isn't being run from Moscow, it sure looks that
way...

No... it's just short term business thinking from the president. I've seen
it countless times in glocal IT corporations, and his goal is a peace
prize ASAP.

He is doing a two pronged attacked... one is trying to solve it ASAP,
letting europe pick up the pieces. The other one, is to provoke europe
into acting.

After all, europe had 3 years to act, did nothing, and is now whining like
a little baby. Zelensky said it best... if europe wants a seat on the
world stage, then do something to become relevant.

Looking at the past 3 years you get the feeling that europe actually would
like to prolong the war as much as possible. Don't ask me why. I find it
very stupid.

And don't get me started on the joke of the sanctions. They have no effect
what so ever, since india, china, iran and the dirka-dirka-stan countries
are all helping russia to avoid them.

So say what you like about Trump, but at least he is doing something,
which is something europe has failed to do for 3 years.

[chrisv]

Post by D
With corona, china also became very influential when it came to spreading
its views on privacy and government intervention in the world. Not very
surprisingly, all western politicians cheered and proceeded with
abolishing all checks on their power, seeing that perhaps their wet dream
of never again having to have an election might come true.

Exactly. Power-mad tyrants are everywhere.

Post by D
I am 100% certain that australia has chinese sleeper agents everywhere in
the government. They know the encryption keys and the weaknesses of the
systems and are just biding their time for when an issue important enough
comes up, in order to activate them.

Same, in the US. They take advantage of our open borders to plant
military men here, ready to attack our infrastructure, should we
intervene in their taking of Taiwan.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by D

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
I'm just waiting to hear about a data leak from one of these
intelligence agencies. I'll bet it's already happened, what with
Snowden being able to share the NSA's internal documents with the
media, how many similar guys sold the actual collected data to
criminals or enemy govs? But for that to be revealed publicly
someone would have to find out from the criminals or the enemy
gov. The NSA (or foreign equivalent) will obviously never admit
to something like that happening, possibly not even to their own
government.

I am 100% certain that australia has chinese sleeper agents everywhere in
the government. They know the encryption keys and the weaknesses of the
systems and are just biding their time for when an issue important enough
comes up, in order to activate them.

Until very recently the Chinese were the ones who had _built_ the
systems. There's an ongoing program of replacing things like
security camera systems in government buildings and around civil
infrastructure which were all bought from the Chinese. Our dopy
politicians somehow didn't notice the problem until China started
banning our exports and we suddenly remembered that they were the
same country our military was designed to defend us against.

As you suggest, the Chinese are probably way ahead of all that
anyway.

[D]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev

Post by D

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
I'm just waiting to hear about a data leak from one of these
intelligence agencies. I'll bet it's already happened, what with
Snowden being able to share the NSA's internal documents with the
media, how many similar guys sold the actual collected data to
criminals or enemy govs? But for that to be revealed publicly
someone would have to find out from the criminals or the enemy
gov. The NSA (or foreign equivalent) will obviously never admit
to something like that happening, possibly not even to their own
government.

I am 100% certain that australia has chinese sleeper agents everywhere in
the government. They know the encryption keys and the weaknesses of the
systems and are just biding their time for when an issue important enough
comes up, in order to activate them.

Until very recently the Chinese were the ones who had _built_ the
systems. There's an ongoing program of replacing things like
security camera systems in government buildings and around civil
infrastructure which were all bought from the Chinese. Our dopy
politicians somehow didn't notice the problem until China started
banning our exports and we suddenly remembered that they were the
same country our military was designed to defend us against.
As you suggest, the Chinese are probably way ahead of all that
anyway.

Interesting! China was banned from the swedish 5G network auctions. I
think that was one of the few smart decisions by swedish politicians.
China complained and threatened but did not get their way. Granted, sweden
has a hueg advantage in that Ericsson and Nokia are close, so there was no
need for chinese equipment.

An acquaintance worked for Huawei once, and he used to tell me that all
their stuff came delivered with the weakest of security defaults, which
were never changed at customers sites.

I'm convinced, that there are more flaws, by design, in equipment sent to
the military or military research projects.

When WW3 starts, we shall see! ;)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by ***@ud0s4.net
I am not beyond thinking LLMs will eventually, maybe
  kinda soon, exhibit 'conscious', 'self-realized'
  intelligence.

Even politicians have achieved a reasonable simulacrum of this.

[rbowman]

Post by ***@ud0s4.net
The "a few mistakes are OK" logic WILL be applied.

So it goes. One of the concrete NN wins is detecting diabetic retinopathy
where it outperforms ophthalmologists by a small amount. The inference is
humans can generate false positives and false negatives too.

During my first exam with my current primary about 20 years ago she
offered a PSA test but explained that there are a lot of false positives
that scare the hell out of people. She would order the test if I wanted or
we could go the traditional route. I passed on the test.

At this point I've probably reached the status of men who die with, but
not from, prostate cancer.

Part of training a NN is evaluating the loss for each epoch and iterating
until it's acceptable. Then the model is ran against fresh data to make
sure it hasn't been overtrained on the training data or other problems. It
may not be better than humans but at least probabilities are quantified.

Failures like Google confusing blacks and gorillas point out crappy
devops. Developing AI requires many roles. LLM hallucinations suggest the
process isn't quite ready yet.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by rbowman

Post by ***@ud0s4.net
The "a few mistakes are OK" logic WILL be applied.

It's often sanitized with that lovely phrase "collateral damage".

Post by rbowman
During my first exam with my current primary about 20 years ago she
offered a PSA test but explained that there are a lot of false positives
that scare the hell out of people. She would order the test if I wanted or
we could go the traditional route. I passed on the test.

I went the other way. I had been getting a DRE (digital rectal exam,
a.k.a. the finger) every year for 10 years with negative results.
My wife suggested a PSA, and I figured I could look at a number
without freaking out. The result came back 20 (where 4 is considered
cause for concern). I calmly asked for another test. It came out
the same, making it less likely it was a false positive. Next step
was a biopsy (8 on the Gleason scale), which led to a radical
prostatectomy. If I had opted for blissful ignorance I'd probably
be dead by now.

Post by rbowman
At this point I've probably reached the status of men who die with, but
not from, prostate cancer.

Me too - but I'm still watching my PSA. It started slowly creeping
up again, but a round of hormone therapy knocked it back down.
Gotta keep weeding the garden...

Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Charlie Gibbs
Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

Every time I have a test they come up with yet another incurable condition.

If I were a gambling man, I'd take bets on which one is going to kill me
first

And yet, I seem to be still here...

[[e-mail]]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Charlie Gibbs
Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

Every time I have a test they come up with yet another incurable condition.
If I were a gambling man, I'd take bets on which one is going to kill me
first
And yet, I seem to be still here...

These "tests" ... mostly seem to be designed to
generate income from more and more tests and
'treatments' ........

In my experience, the people who stay furthest
away from Modern Med live the longest and best.

[D]

Post by ***@ud0s4.net

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Charlie Gibbs
Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

Every time I have a test they come up with yet another incurable condition.
If I were a gambling man, I'd take bets on which one is going to kill me
first
And yet, I seem to be still here...

These "tests" ... mostly seem to be designed to
generate income from more and more tests and
'treatments' ........
In my experience, the people who stay furthest
away from Modern Med live the longest and best.

This was a counter argument againts the spotify founders new startup Neko.
It is a huge multi-scanner that collects several hundreds of data points
from the human body. Then it crunches and tries to find signals among the
noise.

The idea is that billionaires and millionaires scan themselves every
month, to pick up early signals and to get treatment in time.

One doctor criticized it because it could lead to a lot of false alarms,
that ends up swamping the healthcare system for nothing.

I find it funny that in every era, once you hit a certain level of power,
it seems the dream of immortality keeps coming back. Chinese emeperors did
it, and our dear billionaires are now doing it to.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by D
I find it funny that in every era, once you hit a certain level of
power, it seems the dream of immortality keeps coming back. Chinese
emeperors did it, and our dear billionaires are now doing it to.

"Who wants to live to 100"

"a 99 year old".

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Charlie Gibbs
Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

Every time I have a test they come up with yet another incurable condition.
If I were a gambling man, I'd take bets on which one is going to kill
me first
And yet, I seem to be still here...

  These "tests" ... mostly seem to be designed to
  generate income from more and more tests and
  'treatments' ........

Not in the UK.
The doctors don't get any richer.

  In my experience, the people who stay furthest
  away from Modern Med live the longest and best.

Not in my case. I would be dead without it.

I remember the doctor leaning over me and saying 'I meed your consent
for this operation and here are the things that night go wrong...' with
a witness beside him. I said 'if I don't have it, what will happen' 'You
will probably die'.

'Bit of a no brainer then, isn't it' I gasped :-\)

[D]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Charlie Gibbs
Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

Every time I have a test they come up with yet another incurable condition.
If I were a gambling man, I'd take bets on which one is going to kill me
first
And yet, I seem to be still here...

You are a tough cookie! =)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by D

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Charlie Gibbs
Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

Every time I have a test they come up with yet another incurable condition.
If I were a gambling man, I'd take bets on which one is going to kill
me first
And yet, I seem to be still here...

You are a tough cookie! =)

Maybe. Or maybe it is simple chance. The thing is once you are on the
NHS radar for anything they start looking at you and when they do that,
they find stuff.

Sometime around 2012 my GP muttered something about 'your white blood
cell count is too high'...

...Last year my more conscientious lady GP packed me off to haematology
to find out why, and they diagnosed a very slow rare leukemia. In a very
early stage. Well it's been like that for ten years or more and hasn't
gotten much worse...

[Physfitfreak]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by D

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Charlie Gibbs
Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

Every time I have a test they come up with yet another incurable condition.
If I were a gambling man, I'd take bets on which one is going to kill
me first
And yet, I seem to be still here...

You are a tough cookie! =)

Maybe. Or maybe it is simple chance. The thing is once you are on the
NHS radar for anything they start looking at you and when they do that,
they find stuff.
Sometime around 2012 my GP muttered something about 'your white blood
cell count is too high'...
...Last year my more conscientious lady GP packed me off to haematology
to find out why, and they diagnosed a very slow rare leukemia. In a very
early stage. Well it's been like that for ten years or more and hasn't
gotten much worse...

Right now they're making more money with you than save money killing you
with something. Something sugar packed and gooey your Mom raised you
with, or cutting the bullshit and placing the ventilator on your face
and stopping the flow of air after you pass out by injected med, you
know, like what they did with Relf.

Your people treat you like you Nazis treated them :)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Physfitfreak

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by D

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Charlie Gibbs
Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

Every time I have a test they come up with yet another incurable condition.
If I were a gambling man, I'd take bets on which one is going to
kill me first
And yet, I seem to be still here...

You are a tough cookie! =)

Maybe. Or maybe it is simple chance. The thing is once you are on the
NHS radar for anything they start looking at you and when they do
that, they find stuff.
Sometime around 2012 my GP muttered something about 'your white blood
cell count is too high'...
...Last year my more conscientious lady GP packed me off to
haematology to find out why, and they diagnosed a very slow rare
leukemia. In a very early stage. Well it's been like that for ten
years or more and hasn't gotten much worse...

Right now they're making more money with you than save money killing you
with something. Something sugar packed and gooey your Mom raised you
with, or cutting the bullshit and placing the ventilator on your face
and stopping the flow of air after you pass out by injected med, you
know, like what they did with Relf.
Your people treat you like you Nazis treated them :)

Oh dear. I think your med levels need uprating slightly

[D]

Post by D

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Charlie Gibbs
Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

Every time I have a test they come up with yet another incurable condition.
If I were a gambling man, I'd take bets on which one is going to kill me
first
And yet, I seem to be still here...

You are a tough cookie! =)

Maybe. Or maybe it is simple chance. The thing is once you are on the NHS
radar for anything they start looking at you and when they do that, they find
stuff.
Sometime around 2012 my GP muttered something about 'your white blood cell
count is too high'...
...Last year my more conscientious lady GP packed me off to haematology to
find out why, and they diagnosed a very slow rare leukemia. In a very early
stage. Well it's been like that for ten years or more and hasn't gotten much
worse...

Maybe that is, like in a classic simpsons episode, what keeps all other
deseases at bay? ;)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by D

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by D

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Charlie Gibbs
Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

Every time I have a test they come up with yet another incurable condition.
If I were a gambling man, I'd take bets on which one is going to
kill me first
And yet, I seem to be still here...

You are a tough cookie! =)

Maybe. Or maybe it is simple chance. The thing is once you are on the
NHS radar for anything they start looking at you and when they do
that, they find stuff.
Sometime around 2012 my GP muttered something about 'your white blood
cell count is too high'...
...Last year my more conscientious lady GP packed me off to
haematology to find out why, and they diagnosed a very slow rare
leukemia. In a very early stage. Well it's been like that for ten
years or more and hasn't gotten much worse...

Maybe that is, like in a classic simpsons episode, what keeps all other
deseases at bay? ;)

Well it isn't doing a very good job then.

[D]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by D

Post by D

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Charlie Gibbs
Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

Every time I have a test they come up with yet another incurable condition.
If I were a gambling man, I'd take bets on which one is going to kill me
first
And yet, I seem to be still here...

You are a tough cookie! =)

Maybe. Or maybe it is simple chance. The thing is once you are on the NHS
radar for anything they start looking at you and when they do that, they
find stuff.
Sometime around 2012 my GP muttered something about 'your white blood cell
count is too high'...
...Last year my more conscientious lady GP packed me off to haematology to
find out why, and they diagnosed a very slow rare leukemia. In a very
early stage. Well it's been like that for ten years or more and hasn't
gotten much worse...

Maybe that is, like in a classic simpsons episode, what keeps all other
deseases at bay? ;)

Well it isn't doing a very good job then.

Sorry to hear that. =(

[D]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by rbowman

Post by ***@ud0s4.net
The "a few mistakes are OK" logic WILL be applied.

It's often sanitized with that lovely phrase "collateral damage".

Post by rbowman
During my first exam with my current primary about 20 years ago she
offered a PSA test but explained that there are a lot of false positives
that scare the hell out of people. She would order the test if I wanted or
we could go the traditional route. I passed on the test.

I went the other way. I had been getting a DRE (digital rectal exam,
a.k.a. the finger) every year for 10 years with negative results.
My wife suggested a PSA, and I figured I could look at a number
without freaking out. The result came back 20 (where 4 is considered
cause for concern). I calmly asked for another test. It came out
the same, making it less likely it was a false positive. Next step
was a biopsy (8 on the Gleason scale), which led to a radical
prostatectomy. If I had opted for blissful ignorance I'd probably
be dead by now.

Post by rbowman
At this point I've probably reached the status of men who die with, but
not from, prostate cancer.

Me too - but I'm still watching my PSA. It started slowly creeping
up again, but a round of hormone therapy knocked it back down.
Gotta keep weeding the garden...
Please, guys, if you're over 50, get a PSA test.

Nah, I prefer my dignity. I've had a good life, so what do a few decades
here or there matter in the end? =)

[DFS]

Post by rbowman
Give AI enhanced facial recognition to the cops -- won't that be fun.
Enter 'Minority Report'.

[rbowman]

Post by DFS

Post by rbowman
Give AI enhanced facial recognition to the cops -- won't that be fun.
Enter 'Minority Report'.

http://youtu.be/gRynAK_A8ko

That's not an isolated case. We all look the same to AIs. Technically, we
don't look like anything. There is no 'knowledge' there.

There is a phenomenon called transfer learning. Train a NN on millions of
images, say cats and dogs, it gets good at the job. There is a point where
it has developed a process to handle images in a general form. Rather than
the cat/dog classifier you can swap in a cow/horse classifier and it will
work.

That leads to some interesting processes for picking up wake words like
'Hey Alexa'. First you digitize the audio waveform and process it to
produce a spectrogram, which is an image.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrogram

Now you're in an area where NNs are really good -- image classification.
For speech there can be additional tweaking like using the mel scale. The
bottom line is the 'intelligence' is a lot of FFTs and tensor math.

[D]

Post by rbowman

Neural networks can likely do "someone in there" even better,
eventually. At the moment LLMs get most of the funding so NNs are a
bit behind the curve. New/better hardware and paradigms are needed
but WILL eventually arrive.

So far there is nobody in there for CNNs. You know all the pieces and they
don't magically start breathing when you put them together. It is true the
whole system is a bit of a black box but it is describable.
The problem I see is already starting -- turning them into weapons and
letting them run autonomously. One of the 'hello world' applications is
training a NN on a huge number of labeled photos of cats and dogs and the
models perform very well.
The metrics are sort of a truth table, with false negatives, false
positives, and correct identification. It's a stochastic process so you're
looking at 'good enough', maybe 97%. Say I hate dogs, set up a camera in
the yard, and shoot all the dogs. A few dogs are going to slide and I'll
kill a few cats.
Now hand this to the military. The AI decides it sees a terrorist and a
Reaper puts a Hellfire missile up his ass. You get a few school kids, but
that's life.
The Israelis may already be doing something like that or maybe they just
randomly kill people, who knows?

Yes! As long as the % for innocents decreases, they'll jump on it. Of
course the US and China are developing autonomoues "AI"-driven drones and
rockets as we speak.

Post by rbowman
Give AI enhanced facial recognition to the cops -- won't that be fun.
Enter 'Minority Report'.

They did that in some country, and it always targeted immigrants. The AI
was judged racist, and the project shut down. It was hilarious! =D

[rbowman]

Post by D
They did that in some country, and it always targeted immigrants. The AI
was judged racist, and the project shut down. It was hilarious! =D

Nothing new there. I've spent some time in southern Arizona near the
border. There a both fixed and floating checkpoints. Being a blonde (well
now white haired) blue eyed specimen I get waved through. If you're brown
you get the VIP treatment.

Being an old bearded man with a ponytail doesn't trigger cops anymore. 50
years ago being a young bearded man with a ponytail got you special
attention.

[D]

Post by rbowman

Post by D
They did that in some country, and it always targeted immigrants. The AI
was judged racist, and the project shut down. It was hilarious! =D

Nothing new there. I've spent some time in southern Arizona near the
border. There a both fixed and floating checkpoints. Being a blonde (well
now white haired) blue eyed specimen I get waved through. If you're brown
you get the VIP treatment.

This is the truth! I mostly get treated the same way being a light brown
haired, blue eyed specimen.

Since I have apartments in three countries, sometimes I travel with only
a plastic bag. On a few occasions this has aroused suspicion.

Post by rbowman
Being an old bearded man with a ponytail doesn't trigger cops anymore. 50
years ago being a young bearded man with a ponytail got you special
attention.

[chrisv]

Post by D

Post by rbowman
Give AI enhanced facial recognition to the cops -- won't that be fun.
Enter 'Minority Report'.

They did that in some country, and it always targeted immigrants. The AI
was judged racist, and the project shut down. It was hilarious! =D

Well, of course it was shut down. Even though it was correct.

[[e-mail]]

Post by chrisv

Post by D

Post by rbowman
Give AI enhanced facial recognition to the cops -- won't that be fun.
Enter 'Minority Report'.

They did that in some country, and it always targeted immigrants. The AI
was judged racist, and the project shut down. It was hilarious! =D

Well, of course it was shut down. Even though it was correct.

Well ... they keep talking about "fixing" the cultural
conclusions the AIs draw - e-Brainwashing to avoid any
inconvenient truths ......

On many, broader, levels this does NOT bode well. If
yer 'intelligence' isn't Wokie/PC then you murder it.

[D]

Post by ***@ud0s4.net

Post by chrisv

Post by D

Post by rbowman
Give AI enhanced facial recognition to the cops -- won't that be fun.
Enter 'Minority Report'.

They did that in some country, and it always targeted immigrants. The AI
was judged racist, and the project shut down. It was hilarious! =D

Well, of course it was shut down. Even though it was correct.

Well ... they keep talking about "fixing" the cultural
conclusions the AIs draw - e-Brainwashing to avoid any
inconvenient truths ......
On many, broader, levels this does NOT bode well. If
yer 'intelligence' isn't Wokie/PC then you murder it.

This has always been the modus operandi of the sinisted left. If someone
does not agree, kill or send to siberia.

[Usuario Tres ESware]

Post by D

Post by ***@ud0s4.net
On many, broader, levels this does NOT bode well. If
yer 'intelligence' isn't Wokie/PC then you murder it.

This has always been the modus operandi of the sinisted left. If someone
does not agree, kill or send to siberia.

Argentina's Videla: "Hold my beer!"

[-hh]

Post by rbowman
...
Now hand this to the military. The AI decides it sees a terrorist and a
Reaper puts a Hellfire missile up his ass. You get a few school kids, but
that's life.

Maybe, maybe not. They've not been fielded to date because the JAG's
still trying to decide on Law of War issues. IIRC, one of the proposed
performance standards was to have an error rate equal or lower than a
human in the loop.

Post by rbowman
The Israelis may already be doing something like that or maybe they just
randomly kill people, who knows?
Give AI enhanced facial recognition to the cops -- won't that be fun.
Enter 'Minority Report'.

Or China, as of ~5 years ago.


-hh