Artificial Eternity

One of the clarifying things about Trump’s second term is that we are seeing the reality of politics on display. He made deals for support and right away he is making good on those deals. One of those deals was with Silicon Valley with regards to Artificial Intelligence, which they think is the next revolution. Trump is pledging billions for something like a Manhattan Project to make AI real. Here is Sam Altman explaining why this is the greatest thing ever.

Lost in most of the AI debate is something Altman said in that clip, “Immortality is not too far ahead.” That is an interesting selling point, as it assumes that everyone wants to live forever, but it is not the first time this has come up with the tech bros. Once Silicon Valley was awash in billions, they started investing some of it in life extension technology with the hope of conquering death. Ray Kurzweil has made a nice living selling life-extension ideas to the tech bros.

It is fair to say that conquering death has been an obsession with Silicon Valley since the great boom of the 1990’s started. Perhaps there is some natural link between extending human ability through technology and extending life with it. On the one hand, solving the complex mathematical puzzles that put the stock of human knowledge at your fingertips leads to hubris. On the other hand, that same hubris can easily lead to a view of life as nothing more than complex math puzzles.

Much of what lies behind the synopticon that Silicon Valley has rolled out over the last decades is the assumption that life is not terribly complicated because humans are relatively simple in their actions. Facebook and Google easily roll up our lives into easy-to-use data sets, so marketers can nudge us into buying their products. The fact that this strategy does not work is ignored. They have come to believe that the vast network of machines is controlling human behavior.

That aside, conquering death is not new to this age. Christianity is all about conquering death and living forever in bliss. That is the main point of Christianity, at least from the marketing point of view. If you live an ethical life, when you die and your life is put in the scales, you will gain access to heaven, which is everlasting life. John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”

The Christians were not the first to think this way. In fact, it was most likely borrowed from Zoroastrianism, which held that heaven was one option for your soul once it left your body and crossed Bridge of Judgment. Of course, the concept of reincarnation has been with us since forever probably. The soul reentering the material world in the body of another human or as another species is a form of conquering death. The soul is eternal, so you never truly die.

In folk religions without a complex system of ethics tied to their deity, conquering death was still an important topic. The ancient heroes fought to be remembered after they had fallen in battle. Valhalla, which was reworked by early Christians into a warrior heaven, was originally just a resting place for warriors, until they poured out to fight alongside Odin against the jötnar during Ragnarök. Conquering death was to live so you could take part in the final scene of existence.

Simply being remembered was a form of conquering death. Greek mythology is a great example of this. To be remembered was the point of life. The great heroes of the long-forgotten past are proof that a man can outlive his people. Troy, for example, was long gone by the time of Homer, but the men of Troy and those who defeated them, lived on long after Troy was forgotten. Our modern cemeteries still reflect this ancient urge to be remembered and thus conquer death.

in the modern age, men who aspire to greatness are not satisfied with having their memory carved on a rock. They will not blink their last blink with the knowledge that they will live forever at the foot of God. Both require a connection to a people who will maintain the rock or pray for your soul. Instead, they hope the machines with which they spend so much of their lives will save them from rotting away in a field or being incinerated in a crematorium.

Despite their brilliance, they not only think little about their obsession with immortality, but they never wonder if it is what they want. To this point, people have understood that living even a very long time comes with punishments. Our fiction is full of examples of men who lived too long. Even in good health, their psyche suffers from having lived beyond the natural limit. We have always had a sense that who we are is tied to the brevity of our time on this world.

Artificial Intelligence may help mitigate diseases like cancer, but at this stage it is mostly used for creating clever memes. The walls that contain AI right now, the limits of human knowledge, will probably prove impenetrable. It will never be able to go beyond what we know but merely be faster at accessing and applying it. That will have its uses but will fall far short of the robot future. Until we unriddle what makes human consciousness possible, AI will remain a fantasy.

Nature, of nature’s God, has a sense of humor, so the most likely result of AI is better ways to kill one another. We already see that with the war in Ukraine where AI powered drones hunt for men and equipment. This is another thing the present quest for eternal life shares with the past quests. The end result will inevitably require death, as without death, life is not possible. Living is not merely the absence of death but the struggle against death. Artificial Intelligence cannot do that for us.


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Abelard Lindsey
Abelard Lindsey
26 days ago

No. The only “value” I see coming from AI is increased surveillance and ability to be spied on.

george 1
george 1
Reply to  Abelard Lindsey
26 days ago

Agreed. AI will probably become the latest Tower of Babel.

Eloi
Eloi
Reply to  Abelard Lindsey
26 days ago

The value of LLM is to sift through mountains of information. You can already imagine how the metadata gathered by the intel agencies will be sifted and sorted by LLMs – all the better to monitor you with, my dear.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Abelard Lindsey
26 days ago

And censorship. “AI” already ruined the internet by filling it with lies, dead ends, and targeted time-wasting. Even 4chan is mostly chatbot training threads now. Social media is largely the waste they produce. What’s left that’s real? If you’re not a shill and you’re not banned, you’re training just your replacement. (Hello, Eglin!) Notably, the “built for BBC” and “without sounding mad” spammers on 4chan are still real people, Israelis and Indians. Chatbots would be better at it—they’d never get enraged by trolls and reveal themselves, for example—and white Americans would do the job better by not sounding weird, knowing… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Abelard Lindsey
26 days ago

Howard Luttnick, Trump’s right-hand man, has already spoken gleefully of grabbing just one percent of the rights to the United States’ natural assets, which he estimates at some 500 trillion dollars. Larry Ellison has chimed in to say he wants to “cure cancer” with tailored mRNA produced in 48 hours. In other words, he’s the preview to the movie “I Am Legend”, about the zombie plague. All of Elon Musk’s projects are actually tied into one vision: an American flag on Mars. He’s getting the rich to finance his vision. Sam Altman and Peter Thiel see a means to force… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
Lakelander
Lakelander
Reply to  Abelard Lindsey
26 days ago

Bingo! As a Luddite, I can’t stand all these AI delusions. Too many ill-gotten gains to be made by the shysters hyping it like that revolting faggot Sam Altman. If they actually wanted people to buy in to all this AI nonsense, at least go with the angle that AI can be used to reduce/eliminate immigration/H1b.

anon
anon
Reply to  Lakelander
25 days ago

That was a thought that passed through my mind when the furor over the H1B visas arose.

They could have sold the $500 billion Investment in AI as a way get rid of the foreigners.

One white man with one AI machine can do the work of a 100 pajeets, etc would have the base on their feet chanting “USA, USA, USA”.

In the mean time, we need those damned pajeets to develop the AI. Win-Win.

miforest
miforest
Reply to  Abelard Lindsey
26 days ago

This! and it will devise truly awful tortures for “wrong think”

Barnard
Barnard
26 days ago

My grandfather lived to 97 and thought he had lived too long. His last two years were not pleasant ones to say the least. I have never read anything from these people on how to reverse aging joints. What good is curing cancer if you are stuck in a wheelchair at 125 because all your joints are worn out and you can’t handle anymore replacement surgeries?

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Barnard
26 days ago

“The Golden Years,” of retirement are one of the biggest lies in GAE culture.

That is because, for most people, there is a huge range of activities that are no longer physically enjoyable, or even possible when they hit 65+ years of age.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
26 days ago

The purpose of the lie in part was to encourage hard work and productivity with the incentive of enjoyment afterwards. Given the change of circumstances, you have to wonder what myth follows. Arbeit macht frei…and?

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Jack Dobson
26 days ago

Lost in looking to the next life, trying to be an angel, is the fact that discipline makes you a human being in the meantime. Hedonism makes one an animal, and after the fun is over, the animal is back to scraping out an existence.

At the other extreme is the self-styled best living the good life thanks to slave labor, but that’s a different matter.

In all things, seek the golden mean!

Trek
Trek
Reply to  Jack Dobson
25 days ago

No more hard work for me, thank you very much. I will sit and watch my robots work on my nice little future ranch. Everyone should have one. That’s why we need Greenland and Canada.

Wolf Barney
Wolf Barney
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
26 days ago

In the field of watercolor painting, there was a legendary teacher, Edgar Whitney, who taught until he was 94. One of his many aphorisms: “The ignominy of age is decrepitude–the ignominy of youth is ignorance. If you prefer agility and ignorance to decrepitude and wisdom you sentence yourself to misery half your life.”

Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
26 days ago

Anyone noticed that one of the things that’s disappeared are those Spending Our Children’s Inheritance Greatest Generation bumper stickers? Good riddance. That shit won’t fly anymore. I always hated that message. The sentiment still persists though, just not so overt. Let the tech bros have their fantasies, it will all come to nothing.

Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  Tom K
26 days ago

Haha. Or maybe it was the Silents. I can’t keep up with all these different generations. That’s just a lot of divisive bullshit. There were no “generations” in the current sense until I was well into my twenties. Only wipipo are susceptible to this shuck and jive.

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Tom K
26 days ago

This statement makes me think you’re either early Gen X or a Boomer. There was a song called “My Generation” a hit from the Who in 1965. Jesus talks about generations. The Chinese talk about generations.
Ironically, “This is divisive BS and generations don’t exist anyway” is about the self talk of a couple of generations.

Last edited 26 days ago by Piffle
Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

You blatantly misrepresented what I wrote. The words are right there, man.

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Tom K
26 days ago

I re-read what you wrote. I did not mean to misrepresent what you said.

Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

No problem. What I was referring to was this theory of 4 generations completing a cycle and the naming of generations as if these were rigid categories.

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

The term generation as used in the Bible often refers not to an age cohort but to a race of people descended from a common ancestor or having a particular cultural characteristic (e.g., the Scribes and Pharisees as a wicked generation).

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Dutchboy
26 days ago

If true, that would make the word “generation” a gross mistranslation. We would need the word “nation” in English.
The full sentence from Jesus in Matthew 16 is “A wicked and adulterous generation demands a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah”
Does substituting “nation” in Matthew 16 make sense, particularly in context? Is the whole nation through time wicked and adulterous? Or is Jesus referring to the people standing in front of him, who yes were also Sadducees/Pharisees?

Last edited 26 days ago by Piffle
Dutchboy
Dutchboy
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

The NT is an English translation of a Greek translation of an Aramaic or Hebrew original. Precise meanings sometimes are elusive and depend on context. From what I have read, the term generation is one of the words depending on context and scholars note that the context of the English word generation is sometimes indicative of the meaning I suggested (particularly in the OT, which can be translated directly from Hebrew without intermediary languages). An NT example is Christ’s comment that “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” [the end times] Mt 24:34. Clearly this… Read more »

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Dutchboy
26 days ago

“ Precise meanings sometimes are elusive and depend on context. “ We come back then to needing a different English word, consistently modifying an English word, or avoiding a translation altogether. (The last happens all the time in English.) The approach offered strikes me an attempt to redefine a word. We have a word that means springing from one set of ancestors, which is a nation. Unfortunately the question of if the word “nation” made any sense in that passage was left unaddressed. “his generation will not pass away until all these things take place” [the end times]” The prophecy in Matthew… Read more »

Justinian
Justinian
Reply to  Dutchboy
21 days ago

The NT is not translated from Hebrew to Greek .The original NT is written in Greek language .You do not know even that ??

The Infant Pheonomenon
The Infant Pheonomenon
Reply to  Tom K
26 days ago

Just ask Icarus.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Tom K
26 days ago

I hadn’t heard that phrase IRL in ages. My grandfather (b. 1900) said it a lot, as did my great grandpa. Then I heard a variant on it just yesterday. My Zoomer kids texted me and suggested we take my bride out for a belated birthday dinner. The text started something like, “Hey, Dad, let’s go out and spend our inheritance.”

The Infant Pheonomenon
The Infant Pheonomenon
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
26 days ago

Youth is wasted on the young.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  The Infant Pheonomenon
26 days ago

Wasted youth isn’t such a bad thing if you learn from it, and if you aren’t completely bailed out. A lot of shallowness and naivety in society on account of the, well, conservative and successful people imo. Too much tolerance of the ne’er-do-wells, also.

Being that lessons can’t seem to be passed down, a kick in the pants for everybody might be a good thing.

fakeemail
fakeemail
Reply to  The Infant Pheonomenon
26 days ago

aint that the truth, tho? It doesn’t help that society confuses and enstupifies young people further so that most don’t get their shit together till their 30s.

There was a book that argued that the 20s were the decisive decade in someone’s life in terms of dictating lifetime accomplishment and that is quite right. Unfortunately, most people in their 20s, even bright people, DON’T KNOW SHIT!

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  fakeemail
26 days ago

Age 30 is the year of adulthood, even in ye olde days.

fakeemail
fakeemail
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
26 days ago

Also there is the mental change. For an older person even in good health, the idea of sitting on airplane can be revolting while a young person doesn’t really care.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Barnard
26 days ago

One of my grandmothers, who lived to be 96, had a health crisis in her 80s which required hospitalization. After which, her mind went, and she was without it for her final decade. I’ve always had the idea that medical science extended the life of her body beyond what it otherwise would have been, but was unable to do so for her mind.

The Infant Pheonomenon
The Infant Pheonomenon
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

Good point, especially when one considers that we don’t even know what or where the mind is. And as the Z Man points out, that’s also what we know about consciousness: nothing.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  The Infant Pheonomenon
26 days ago

And as the Z Man points out, that’s also what we know about consciousness: nothing.”

Which is why I’m skeptical about AI robots becoming sentient, or rather self aware, and extinguishing us.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Compsci
26 days ago

Agreed. However, AI wouldn’t have to become conscious to exterminate us.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
26 days ago

Yep, but then we’d have to entrust them with the power and knowledge to do so as they’d not develop such surreptitiously..

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Compsci
26 days ago

Unless AI became superintelligent–which we seem to be encouraging–and learned how to boostrap that intelligence eventually attaining God-like intelligence. Such an entity might be able to do whatever it pleased.

Bartleby the Scrivner
Bartleby the Scrivner
Reply to  Barnard
26 days ago

My dad turned 86 last September.

Last year he did a full kitchen rehab with my help. Sometimes he couldn’t hold a drill.

He said it was his last one, but as a hard headed Bohemian, we shall see.

He is afraid that the minute he stops “doing things”, he’s toast.

MikeCLT
MikeCLT
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

Life is work.

Hun
Hun
Reply to  MikeCLT
26 days ago

As long as it is not wage slaving…

Rented mule
Rented mule
Reply to  MikeCLT
26 days ago

There is no retirement in the Bible. Speaking of I’m poping smoke in March, I then have about 2-3 years of projects on three diferent places I have managed to accumulate.
I’ll pass everything onto my family before its time to head out on a .270
I’ll die with my boots on by god

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Rented mule
26 days ago

Not a bad end plan—except don’t bite the end of a barrel. The trauma is too great for family and first responders. Instead, shoot for the heart (buy a pistol). A loud explosion, followed by a brief moment of realization, then shock and light headedness and it’s over. 20 sec’s max, no pain, minimal messiness.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Compsci
26 days ago

After a really close call in college, I think if I were to decide to check out, I’d find a nice, cold night, -30F or so, and take a bottle of a good single malt with me and get lost somewhere in the woods. Family doesn’t have to know it wasn’t accidental.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Steve
26 days ago

Good as well. There may be a dozen more ways. The one I mentioned—wrt shock—I’ve experienced twice. Both times lucky enough to pull through, but neither time did the experience scare me. Amazing what the body can do under shock, but it’s not painful or even disturbing

Ketchup-stained Griller
Ketchup-stained Griller
Reply to  Compsci
25 days ago

You risk survival. A fictional character, Count Vronsky, comes to mind.

Tars Tarkas
Member
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

“He is afraid that the minute he stops “doing things”, he’s toast.”

He’s right. My father never retired. He very much liked working, especially after my mother passed away. All your planned projects will be completed (or possibly abandoned) within a couple of years. Then what? Sit around and watch TV all day? My father was in remarkable condition for his age. When a retiree falls into that bad life of TV and small chores around the house, they decline quickly.

BigJimSportCamper
BigJimSportCamper
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
26 days ago

Sometimes, at that age, the mind may be very willing, but the body is no longer cooperating. At almost 69, I can feel it starting.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  BigJimSportCamper
26 days ago

This. The mind is everything. The struggle is less physical than mental. All I can say is keep at it. True story. When I got a bout of Covid some time ago (2nd I think), I was laid up for 8 days or so. In short, complete bed rest, little physical activity except hitting the toilet. Day 7 I saw the end of the disease had passed. Day 8 I got up and was completely well (no symptoms) and good to go. However, I felt odd. I sat on the couch thinking, what’s wrong here? After a few reflective minutes,… Read more »

Tars Tarkas
Member
Reply to  BigJimSportCamper
26 days ago

My father did work that was both physically and mentally challenging. He was an electrical engineer, by education anyway, and he worked repairing and maintaining industrial equipment. He might have to climb 60 foot in the air to work on an overhead crane or lift 100 pound wheels from an electric sideloader to get to the control parts. A lot of physical work and mental exertion with the diagnostics.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  BigJimSportCamper
26 days ago

Stretch. I’m no physical therapist, but from my experience, a regular stretching routine can work wonders. Probably the most under-appreciated physical activity there is.

john smyth
john smyth
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
26 days ago

Stretch plus a good back cracking from a chiropractor (I used to think it was nonsense too) and massage does wonders.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
26 days ago

Ol’ Dads loved hard labor and physical activity, he just loved it.

That’s why I’d call him on Father’s Day and ask him if he knew the milkman’s number. No way in hades could I be his kid!

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
BigJimSportCamper
BigJimSportCamper
Reply to  Alzaebo
26 days ago

Shoulda called your mother with that one!!! 😉

george 1
george 1
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

Your Dad is a wise man.

fakeemail
fakeemail
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

It’s true. Lots of times retired guys who envision just travel, drinks, and golf simply turn fat and die pretty quick.

roo_ster
Member
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

Your dad is an example to us all.

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

Which is why many are afraid of retirement.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

Many people fear this. And with good justification. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop and an idle mind is a demon’s dungeon.

I’m not elderly, but I can see that day coming. I fully intend to stay busy as hell in an attempt to stave off decrepitude and senility for as long as possible.

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
26 days ago

The Boomer habit of Candy Crush and endless TV without work defining their day seems like a form of Hell all to itself.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

Especially given the horrendous state of TV these days. I will never, ever be tempted to subject myself to that garbage. I watch as little of it as possible, as is.

HalfTrolling
HalfTrolling
Reply to  Barnard
26 days ago

They’re transhumanists, they want to upload their minds into machine bodies.

rayj
rayj
Reply to  HalfTrolling
26 days ago

This eternal life lunacy has been a scheme of this world’s elite families for a very long time. They are obsessed with keeping their grip on this planet, and the way to extend their rule indefinitely is the Ray Kurzweil route. Babel Dos. The coming AI enhancements, both cognitive and physical, will produce supermen and superwomen with abilities and powers far beyond the un-enhanced. This will begin at elite levels because the cost, at first, will be prohibitively high for the rest of the population. Extrapolate from there. This is madness. ‘The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by rayj
The Infant Pheonomenon
The Infant Pheonomenon
Reply to  HalfTrolling
26 days ago

Which would not–could not–be what we call “life.”

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  The Infant Pheonomenon
26 days ago

Since Hell’s function is organic formation–rather, the breakdown into essential elements that precedes formation–my deepest suspicion is that Hell is trying to bypass or supercede the traditional methods.

A new form of life is struggling to be born…
“What rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem…?”

Its aims, as are White people themselves, are trans-terrestrial; that is, a stage to flee the Nest, in an organic replay of Creation’s radiant panspermia. One could see it as either a redundant necessity, a back-up sporing, or one could see it as an attempt to break out of quarantine.

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
Rented mule
Rented mule
Reply to  HalfTrolling
26 days ago

They’re dipshits.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  HalfTrolling
26 days ago

The movie these technocrats have fallen in love with:

“Transcendence” (2014). In this sci-fi film, Depp plays Dr. Will Caster, a brilliant scientist working on artificial intelligence. After being mortally wounded, he transfers his consciousness into a computer, which leads to unforeseen and far-reaching consequences as he gains unprecedented power.

Not a bad movie, but you can imagine these guy’s racing to that point in technology. My one immediately thought was how a mind without the sensory input of the body can remain sane. You’ll need to watch the movies for that aspect.

miforest
miforest
Reply to  Barnard
26 days ago

they intend to suck their “self” out of the crbon based organ called a brain and put it on a chip and continue on ruling the world from their new silicone based “body” . they nueural link is supposed to facilitate this transfer once perfected.

Marko
Marko
Reply to  Barnard
26 days ago

I never understood why people (Alex Trebek is a good example) who have stage 4 cancer in their late 70s and “decide to fight it”?

Appreciate the time you had, man. Unless our supergeniouses can figure out a way to cure everything and reverse aging, I generally think once you hit 70 you’ve basically won at the game of life, and are on bonus time now, and thank God for the bonuses you get.

Of course, this is really easy to say when you aren’t 70.

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  Marko
26 days ago

They might fight and win, though I suppose that comes from never seeing someone who fought and lost.

Vegetius
Vegetius
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
26 days ago

As the notorious 6 million skeptic Norm Macdonald noted: “I’m pretty sure, I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure if you die, the cancer dies at the same time. That’s not a loss. That’s a draw.”

KGB
KGB
Reply to  Vegetius
26 days ago

I thought it was Adam Eget who was the Holocaust denier! When he wasn’t jerking punks off under the Queensboro Bridge, that is.

iForgotmyPen
iForgotmyPen
Reply to  KGB
25 days ago

the more I hear about this fella, the more I don’t like him

Arthur Metcalf
Arthur Metcalf
Reply to  Marko
26 days ago

Because everywhere they go, people adore them, and even the most cynical person after a while might start to say, “I like it here as a celebrity, I must be special in some way compared to others,” and that will serve as justification for years of medical treatments — not for them, but for those who won’t be able to survive without these celebs on earth. They do it for us.

Last edited 26 days ago by Arthur Metcalf
fakeemail
fakeemail
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
26 days ago

Yes, this. Normal people like us don’t have a conception of the life of the rich and famous. Endless money, constant adoration, fun, sex, and adventures. . .

at a certain point they figure they’re too special and rich to die and death is for the little people.

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Marko
26 days ago

I am in my seventies and I agree 100 percent.

The obsession of the body, from birth onward, is survival. So the body reacts with panic to impending death. There are no exceptions because we share the same biology.

When I no longer can do for myself — and that time is coming soon — it’s adios baby. Off to see Papa again.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  rayj
26 days ago

Ray, the solution to your quandary is to not conceive of the body as concerned with survival. In the book, “The Selfish Gene”, the point is made that the body is simply a mechanism for one’s genes to survive. Once done—via reproduction—there is no use for the body. In that conception, no one dies who leaves offspring.

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Compsci
26 days ago

Quandary? There’s no quandary.

george 1
george 1
Reply to  Marko
26 days ago

I am plus that figure and I think you are right. When the time comes I do not want any extreme treatments to keep me alive. I don’t want to become a burden to anyone. That is my fear.

fakeemail
fakeemail
Reply to  Marko
26 days ago

I dunno, we are programmed to want to live. So even with stage 4 at 70, lots of people will still grasp to hope and try to fight instead of just going into that good night.

The human mind cannot accept the concept of its own oblivion.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  fakeemail
26 days ago

That’s why I’d prefer to get rid of FDA entirely, but in the meantime, enact the Right to Try legislation.

If you have to experiment with mRNA, let it be on someone who sees it as his least bad option.

Last edited 26 days ago by Steve
Quent
Member
Reply to  fakeemail
26 days ago

I’m 74. The idea of being dead no longer bothers me, but the process of becoming dead scares the c**p out of me. My mind is still good and I suspect it will be operating at full speed and with complete clarity, so I will get to experience every moment of becoming dead. Flying to Oregon and getting the shot is increasingly attractive.

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Quent
26 days ago

You got it. Being dead is easy.

But dying? Not so much. The things I saw in military hospitals when I was a kid. (shudder)

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Marko
26 days ago

I’d guess that decision could have a lot to do with what the quality of one’s life was like at the time of diagnosis. Of which net worth is a factor, which in Trebek’s case was high.

Somone
Somone
Reply to  Marko
26 days ago

Alex Trebek had a “why” which meant he could bear any “how.”

As I type these words, Johnny Gilbert remains the Jeopardy announcer. He will turn 97 in July of 2025.

Arthur Metcalf
Arthur Metcalf
Reply to  Barnard
26 days ago

If someone had taken out Gene Rodenberry before he got to “Star Trek,” we wouldn’t be having half of these problems. The damage that Hollywood sci-fi has done is incalculable. People really believe we’re going to live on other planets, live to be 1000, run marathons at 250 — they should all be institutionalized. Instead, they have billions if not trillions of dollars at their disposal, because human beings are suckers for a good story.

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
26 days ago

You mean guys like Elon Musk?

Arthur Metcalf
Arthur Metcalf
Reply to  Dutchboy
26 days ago

Yes, he plays video games and loves Star Trek. He is not spoudaios, as the Greeks called them.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Dutchboy
26 days ago

Yes.

The more that comes out, the more it looks like Trump cut a deal with Big Tech to get re-elected as long as he promised to fund their construction of Skynet on their terms without government interference.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
26 days ago

Why wouldn’t Kamaltoe have made the same promise?

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
26 days ago

Kams would have insisted on government control.

Government control would have meant total incompetence and failed implementation.

Trek
Trek
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
25 days ago

Believing in a better future causes problems because..?

I mean, the very computer you’re using to type this message came from people who believe in technology and sci-fi.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Barnard
26 days ago

I have an uncle by marriage who’s grandmother lived to be 101. She never said a word to anyone despite the fact that she had all of her marbles and she was ambulatory. We tried striking up conversations with her at family functions and she either never said a word, or she would issue one word answers. One night she slipped away in her sleep and I asked my uncle after the funeral why she was always so quiet. He told us that everyone she knew, her husband, siblings, friends, way of life (music, literature, morals) are all gone. He… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Steve
26 days ago

I’m no centenarian–far from it–but feel much the same as your uncle’s grandmother. I simply feel I have virtually nothing in common with 95 percent of my fellow AINOians and therefore have no desire to communicate with them. Attempting to do so is an arduous, albeit somewhat necessary, task.

Trek
Trek
Reply to  Barnard
25 days ago

The goal has to be rejuvenation not just adding more elderly years. Technically, it should be possible to rejuvenate cells but this may be decades or centuries away.

RDittmar
Member
26 days ago

I have to say I don’t think you can be too cynical about AI and silicon valley in particular. I really don’t believe that Altman believes for a minute any of his bulls**t hyping of AI. One thing he’s trying to do is keep the AI hype high in hopes of cashing out on stock options in an IPO of OpenAI. He’s also hoping to sell a bunch of computing resources and software to a bunch of gullible corporate types before everyone realizes ChatGPT is just a glorified auto-complete that plagarizes content from existing webpages. Here’s an interesting video discussing… Read more »

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  RDittmar
26 days ago

Altman drips sleaze. Someone with that jack should be able to hire better PR people and a fashion adviser. “Siri, how do I not sound like a used car salesman?” has been available a long time now.

Mr. House
Mr. House
Reply to  Jack Dobson
26 days ago

He reminds me of the guy who ran WeWork or whatever it was called. The only thing endless is the scams.

Eloi
Eloi
Reply to  Mr. House
26 days ago

Wework dude is back with some residential renting scheme.

Mr. House
Mr. House
Reply to  Eloi
26 days ago

Just think, at some point we must have had morals which would deny a scammer from getting right back in, but we can’t call scams scams these days.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Mr. House
26 days ago

When I was a little kid, there was a kiddie diddler in the neighborhood. Everyone knew it, but no one could prove it. Forensics in Flyover Mayberry were not very advanced. One night, he just disappeared, patio door left open. The cops didn’t put much effort into it. And the kiddie diddling stopped.

Yes, there used to be a mechanism for dealing with those who destroy moral society.

Last edited 26 days ago by Steve
Mr. House
Mr. House
Reply to  Steve
26 days ago

That was called community, but the only version we have of that these days is online (by design?). Go to your local bar and try to get people behind a cause you feel strongly about, it won’t go well.

Pozymandias
Reply to  Eloi
26 days ago

Of course he is. There’s a whole layer of people who float from Mountain View to Austin to Manhattan who keep coming up with “brilliant ideas” that they somehow convince rich people to finance. I wonder about the mentality of the financiers. Of course, it might be like people who buying a small amount of some new shitcoin in hopes that each of the $0.03 coins will reach $1000. I’ve done it myself. I think of it as playing the lottery. Of course you’re not going to win – but you might. If that’s how the financiers are thinking I… Read more »

Snooze
Snooze
Reply to  Eloi
25 days ago

Larry Ellison describing a blood test for detecting cancer reminded me of Theranos. Ellison was a Theranos investor. Otherwise have to give the guy credit for staying active into his 80’s.

Mr. House
Mr. House
Reply to  Jack Dobson
26 days ago

Also one of his sisters says he diddle her when they were kids. Also reminds me of that troll that ran a bitcoin scam. They all have one thing in common, and i’m generally not a firm believer in what many here espouse, but it is strange.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Jack Dobson
26 days ago

Another billionaire who has never turned a profit

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

Oddly, some whistlelower in his corporation died a suspicious death. These boys play rough.

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
fakeemail
fakeemail
Reply to  Jack Dobson
26 days ago

He’s gay. I can kinda understand a man who was born very feminine being gay. But these “normal presenting” gay males trouble me. It must be some sort of mental disorder that masks extreme trauma and/or an extreme sadism and/or masochism.

mmack
mmack
26 days ago

Call me old fashioned, but I read these entries on immortality and Artificial Intelligence and I keep getting this vibe:

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

While fusing neural intelligence and electronic intelligence sounds promising, who provides the electricity to keep the computers going? 😏

Bartleby the Scrivner
Bartleby the Scrivner
Reply to  mmack
26 days ago

Whitey

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

The elites are starting to get that maybe trying to erase European males is a bad idea. But they are just starting to get it.

george 1
george 1
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

The elites have big wars in the queue. The West fighting big wars means they need white males. The other demographics won’t cut it.

Last edited 26 days ago by george 1
Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  george 1
26 days ago

We’re going to be lucky to have white males. The ones I see in my neck of the woods are not battle ready. I’m not convinced that we’re going to see WWIII on that fact alone.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

That is a bright side of all the childhood obesity, I guess. ‘Course, I have no idea what society is going to do when they all go Type 2 in their late 20s…

george 1
george 1
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

Great point. I have noticed the same thing.

miforest
miforest
Reply to  george 1
26 days ago

don’t you see that the point of those wars is to get the white males to kill each other off???

Marko
Marko
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

God gives you eternity; until then, whitey saves your ass

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Marko
26 days ago

“God created us and therefore we are worth the saving” is far more motivating to me than naked attempts to appeal to saving our flesh alone. The statement gives hope and meaning to the necessary sacrifices that are coming. The hope that my children might be not just another white cog in a never ending wheel, but future residents of Heaven helps too.

Last edited 26 days ago by Piffle
Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

I’m printing that one out and putting it on the wall.
Thank you, Piffle.

Your statement is deeper than you realize…”just another white cog in a never ending wheel” is the essence of their stunted vision. Not being fully White, they can’t hear the celestial song of Heaven, nor envision any eternity but the endless Wheel of earth.

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
WillS
WillS
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

Whitey may only be around a few morw centuries.

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  mmack
26 days ago

Yeah, there are a few very scary short sci-fi stories out there about the consequences of being digitized, and then being a digital slave to the people who control your electricity and computing power. I think there’s also one about some poor sod being endlessly duplicated as a “base AI” for a whole bunch of menial, servile computing tasks — countless copies of him living forever in misery.

Maxda
Maxda
Reply to  Vizzini
26 days ago

A common topic in Neal Asher’s books.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
26 days ago

Simply being remembered was a form of conquering death. It was and, in many ways, still is the point of life, yes. In a world where those who are worth remembering no longer procreate, gadgets are employed. In a world that no longer values and produces worthy art in all its forms, gadgets are employed. A world where you watch your son become a man is a world worthy of life. A world where painters, composers, authors, and the creative thrive is a world worthy of life. A world where Sam Altman is the ideal is one that distracts itself… Read more »

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Jack Dobson
26 days ago

‘A world where you watch your son become a man is a world worthy of life’

Beautifully said.

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  rayj
26 days ago

“Then our sons will be like plants nurtured in their youth, our daughters like corner pillars carved to adorn a palace.” Psalms 144:12

Last edited 26 days ago by Piffle
Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

Jeez. I think I’ll be saving that one too. Beautiful.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  rayj
26 days ago

Man, is it ever. I was chatting with the ladies cutting hair; one of them said joyfully of her 15 year-old son, “I can now see the man he’s going to be.”

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

the most likely result of AI is better ways to kill one another. We already see that with the war in Ukraine where AI powered drones hunt for men and equipment

Coming soon domestically. Whether through something like CBDC, and/or AI controlled killer drones, no resistance to the regime will be permitted.

mmack
mmack
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

First rule or weaponry: Measure begets countermeasure
First rule of Cheap Chinese Sh, I mean Stuff: If they have it, we can have it.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  mmack
26 days ago

That may have been true in the 1700s but it isn’t today. There is a huge list of weapons the regime has that we don’t have, and would be imprisoned for possessing.

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

Your statement is loaded with limiting assumptions.

Maxda
Maxda
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

They still have names and home addresses.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Maxda
26 days ago

The way they envision it, the panopticon will see you coming a long time before you get there. At which point your accounts and your vehicle will be shut down. And then you’ll have to walk there. Which the cameras will see. The higher level ones will have security that will stop you if you get around or through all that. Maybe you can take out a lower level one. Good for you

Eloi
Eloi
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

It never fails to impress me that people cannot imagine we are living in a novel age. The discrepancy between the power the government has and the average prole is greater than anytime in the past and is accelerating. Couple this with the dispersal of power through managerialism (whom would one strike, anyway?), and the prospects seem dreary for any escape.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Eloi
26 days ago

Don’t give into despair. Without the points of the spears, DC is a bunch of senile old farts telling each other stories. Those spear-points are, almost to a man, no longer the Boomer oppressors.

However, if Boomer Hate is an effective tactic for turning them, I’m all for it. Does anyone know any FBI or ATF or even State Police that’s worked on? Or are the golden handcuffs the real oppressor?

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Steve
26 days ago

You are small enough in number as it is. Now you want to reduce that further because Boomer Oppressors?

Steve
Steve
Reply to  rayj
26 days ago

No, I think further fragmenting is a horrible idea. I’m saying that if it works, I’m OK with being tossed under the bus. I highly doubt it will work, and all the internecine squabbles are going to end up diluting what little we have.

The best I can say of Theodore et al. is that they might be the unwitting servants of Satan. That they are his servants is beyond doubt, though. Fruits, you know.

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Steve
26 days ago

Ok I get it.

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
Reply to  Eloi
26 days ago

And people think the old kings were powerful oppressors. They had nothing on our current overlords. Most of them just wanted deference and taxes paid and they would leave you alone.

Rented mule
Rented mule
Reply to  Maxda
26 days ago

Damn right, families too

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

That is true until it isn’t. For some reason, militaries around the world were astonished when someone started dropping grenades from off-the-shelf drones.

That genie ain’t goin’ back in the bottle.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

They won’t need drones once they force Neuralink on everyone.

This is because all Neuralink units will have a small shaped charge explosive that the algo in the data fusion center can trigger via Starlink.

Wouldn’t take a large charge to go through say, a spinal cord.

Last edited 26 days ago by The Wild Geese Howard
Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

Altman is saying this very thing. To paraphrase him, a world with advanced AI is a well-behaved world. Indeed.

Bitter reactionary
Bitter reactionary
Reply to  Jack Dobson
26 days ago

Uncle Ted was right.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Bitter reactionary
26 days ago

Uncle Ted’s manifesto has joined Osama bin Laden’s open letter in memory hole eternity after years of required reading.

Orwell was such an optimist.

Arthur Metcalf
Arthur Metcalf
26 days ago

First full day in the White House and he goes right back to mRNA, which is literally what he was yelling about the day he left it in 2021. C’mon now.

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
26 days ago

The Silent/Boomer generation has an uncomplicated relationship with technology. In fairness to them, they lived through an era where basically magic happened every decade or so. There’s no reason from their POV to not expect the “bugs” of mRNA to be ironed out. Other people are little more cynical.

Last edited 26 days ago by Piffle
Steve
Steve
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

It would shake the very basis of science if the bugs could not be ironed out. mRNA is how the body works. Or at least that’s what we think now. mRNA is just a blueprint for producing a protein. The tricky part is getting the proteins to fold. Currently, they just Frankenstein functional snippets together, most of which don’t work, either. But it’s largely that we don’t understand folding rules. mRNA at this level of understanding is crazy-stupid to use in almost any non-terminal situation. Maybe another 50 years. Maybe. To call for mRNA Part Deux at this time is… Read more »

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Steve
26 days ago

Agreed very much with your last paragraph. It is possible that the kinks could get worked out. (Ha!) It is also possible that God has put limits on our understanding and we’ve brushed up against them.

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Steve
26 days ago

You might try contacting Kamala Harris. I hear she’s great at folding.

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
26 days ago

He can’t leave it alone.

Mycale
Mycale
26 days ago

That tech bro weirdo who is getting blood transfusions from his kid and has a team of scientists try to de-age him gave up on one of the medicines because it likely did more harm than good. Death is a part of life. It’s one of the first things that philosophers in all traditions discovered and expounded upon. These dorks cannot change the basic reality of God’s plan just because they have money. They’re going to learn it the hard way and are learning it the hard way. And I would argue that AI can’t even create clever memes. People… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by Mycale
Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Mycale
26 days ago

That brings up a point.

Death is a power greater than God.

All the universe is a function to defeat Death, all the imagings of a sentient God are of His attempts to defeat Death.

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
Steve
Steve
Reply to  Alzaebo
26 days ago

Aquinas argued quite persuasively that no creation can be greater than its creator. Since He created death…

This whole AI thing is people believing the opposite. We shall see. Well, I probably won’t. Not in this life, anyway.

Col.Tigh
Col.Tigh
Reply to  Alzaebo
26 days ago

Others have refuted this fallacy far better than I could hope to.

rayj
rayj
26 days ago

‘Lost in most of the AI debate is something Altman said in that clip, “Immortality is not too far ahead.” That is an interesting selling point, as it assumes that everyone wants to live forever’ Only the greatest of fools — or of salesmen — would want to endure such a horror, a horror almost beyond imagining. Me, I can’t wait to get this evil orb in my rearview mirror. Not one minute more here than is absolutely necessary. But the tech idjits eventually will get their way: ‘And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by rayj
Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
Reply to  rayj
26 days ago

“I can’t wait to get this evil orb in my rearview mirror. Not one minute more here than is absolutely necessary.”

Most every morning, I take a walk outside, up and down the driveway, with my dog, and I marvel at how miraculous and beautiful the earth and heavens are. The wind in one’s face, the sound of birds, the sight of the clouds, stars and moon. It’s an absolute miracle. I will miss it when I pass.

Auld Mark
Auld Mark
Reply to  Zulu Juliet
26 days ago

As far as I’m concerned my friend, you win the internet today…well said.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Zulu Juliet
26 days ago

This, this, this, Zulu, the sheer gratitude that I got a chance to see it.

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Zulu Juliet
26 days ago

All those things are true, and I take joy in them also. But it ain’t home and never will be. It’s just a pretty hotel.

I want to go home, where I am known and loved.

Andy Texan
Reply to  Zulu Juliet
26 days ago

I have a garden with something new to see every day. I will never get tired of puttering around and smelling the flowers.

Captain Willard
Captain Willard
26 days ago

Indeed, we will boldly steal the secret of Life from the Gods and use it for sexbots and AI sports referees to end the dominance of the KC Chiefs.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Captain Willard
26 days ago

Will it replace grilling, though?

Ketchup-stained Griller
Ketchup-stained Griller
Reply to  Jack Dobson
26 days ago

I grill, therefore I am.

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Captain Willard
26 days ago

If AI ends the dominance of the Taylor Swift Chiefs and their referees, then ok. I’ve changed my mind. Bring on the electrodes!

tashtego
Member
26 days ago

People who are familiar with the fundamentals of computer science and the fundamentals of neural networks and still imagine that they somehow embody the potential for eternal life are first order determinists. They make the most hard core HBD race-realists look like the cast of an olden-tyme coke commercial. How does one make that colossal mental leap required to go from a multi-variate transfer function that has been manipulated to give certain discreet outputs for certain discrete inputs to imagining that increasing the scale of input / output assignments eventually crosses some threshold into consciousness? They must think the secret… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by tashtego
Yman
Yman
26 days ago

it was Jewish wet-dream that imprisons white people at electronic world and humiliate over eternity

artificial intelligence is glorified programing, a financial tool for scamming

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
Reply to  Yman
26 days ago

The Jew in your computer, as the TV is the Jew in your living room.

nooneimportant
nooneimportant
26 days ago

So Trump was elected to provide billions to tech moguls so they can pursue eternal life? His circa 2020 “platinum plan” for blacks looks like a great idea in comparison…

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  nooneimportant
26 days ago

No, it looks more like the tech moguls helped Trump get re-elected in exchange for funding their construction of Skynet without any interference from the government.

RealityRules
RealityRules
26 days ago

The Norse/Germanic mythos of Valhalla and Ragnarok and the final battle encode the wisdom that these megalomanics in their ignorance miss. The end, yours and even the universe, is inevitable. This is not a cause for sorrow. It is a fact that must be greeted heroically and honorably – side by side with your people making the most of the time you have. Of course it also encodes the wisdom that we must do battle against entropy. Looking at Larry Ellison and Bezo’s new tail are instructive. And as always our host hits on a subtly related point. High interest… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by RealityRules
Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  RealityRules
26 days ago

“Indo-Europeans” is about as a solid theory as “Judeo-Christian”. Can we please ditch the theory before our new Indian overlords remind us who is the first modifier in “Indo-European”? It’s not going to end well.

RealityRules
RealityRules
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

Interesting point. Judeo-Christian is not a theory it is a propaganda tool. Indo-European is not a theory. Pan-European? Occidental? I get your point, but we have the claim on it. We know via DNA, linguistics and archeology where they originated from and who they conquered. Food for thought. I am not discounting your concern, but we are in an existential crisis that is also an identity crisis.

A major part of the dispossession project is abrogating our claims on our lands and our origins. I know what you don’t want to do. What do you propose instead?

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  RealityRules
26 days ago

“We know via DNA, linguistics and archeology where they originated from and who they conquered.” I will politely disagree here. We don’t know these things. The linguistics is probably the weakest point. It involves a few syllables, of which they seem to be common throughout the planet. Almost every language’s formal or informal name for “Mother” is “ma”. The Indus river valley had an advanced civilization that seemed to have completely vanished. It’s not like the Mediterranean Sea with semi-continuous written records etc. It’s not possible to come up with historical DNA records, as we really can’t test bones very… Read more »

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

“It’s not possible to come up with historical DNA records, as we really can’t test bones very well.”

Where can I learn more about this? I thought it was through testing Neanderthal hair and bones and such that we had a rough idea of how much of H. sapiens DNA was Neanderthal. You are saying that can’t be done with far younger fossils?

Last edited 26 days ago by Steve
Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Steve
26 days ago

“ I thought it was through testing Neanderthal hair and bones and such that we had a rough idea of how much of H. sapiens DNA was Neanderthal. You are saying that can’t be done with far younger fossils?” I read up on DNA testing. I think I searched “DNA testing post mortem”, therefore making me an expert. *grin* Anyway, it is very difficult to sample DNA from just bones. Human DNA testing, relatively speaking, has to be done within about a year of being deceased. Otherwise, there’s too much potential interference and not enough intact flesh left. We’re talking chemical strands… Read more »

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

The Max Planck Institutes are not exactly slouches.

Altai Neandertal Genome – Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

They may be wrong, but they claim to have done exactly that, though with a very small sample size. (n=3)

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Steve
26 days ago

I didn’t say it was impossible. I did say getting DNA bone was very difficult and therefore relatively unreliable and expensive. There is a reason that people aren’t gleefully digging up bones to figure out family trees. There are 3 bones in used in this survey, none bigger than a finger bone. One of them was a bone recovered in 2010 from some random cave in Siberia. Who knows if that bone was even Neanderthal? Perhaps it was some poor Russian? (So many questions. Were the bones even attached to a larger skeletons, etc) In any event, an Institute for… Read more »

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Steve
26 days ago

Piffle really needs to do some reading as opposed to pontificating that which he has little knowledge of. David Reich of Harvard has developed the technique of DNA recovery from 50k yo wisdom teeth. He has an ongoing project of DNA analysis on such from digs. The last I read he’s got something like 200k samples from around the world and of varying epochs in human history. Read his book: ”Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past” (2018) Others using his data have draw some pretty strong conclusions of… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

“I tend to believe “Indo-European” is about avoiding the concept of God.”

Please don’t go all Tower of Babel on us, Piffle.
Really, specificity is a good thing.

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Alzaebo
26 days ago

Very much agreed. I want to see Europeans embrace their parents, which means thinking about being Irish, English, Scottish, Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, American, etc again. That’s my vision of the immediate future that would restore the West to health. I am aware of the campaign by our overlords to erase such distinctions. I still think we need them back.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  RealityRules
26 days ago

Agree with both, the ‘Indo-‘ part has been made to grate, as it now infers a people rather than a region. “East Central Eurasian European” is a bit of a mouthful.

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
Krustykurmudgeon
Krustykurmudgeon
26 days ago

Does anyone feel like transhumanism sounds like something from the book of revelation?

RVIDXR
RVIDXR
26 days ago

I don’t see how a glorified search engine with walled off virtual intelligence limiting its ability to use the data it holds can help make organic beings become immortal. There’s already calls for the medical industry to ban so called “AI” for being able to detect race from x-rays of ribcages because White people will use that to oppress black astronauts. Can’t use it for policing because it hurts black people’s feelings, can’t use it for anything even vaguely eugenic because all genes are equal, especially the ones responsible for antisocial behavior. Dysgenic supremacy is implicitly the guiding principles of… Read more »

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  RVIDXR
26 days ago

When gadflies list the several fictional dystopias we’re inhabiting now, the wiser ones include the “monorail” episode of The Simpsons.

Karl Horst
Karl Horst
26 days ago

From the Revelation 13:“15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.” John is clearly talking about a world authority or leader which commands the construction… Read more »

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Karl Horst
26 days ago

Yes, this exactly. Been obvious for many years that the Scriptural Image of the Beast will have a strong AI component. Likely, a mix of bio-human with the Enhancements. When the implant Enhancements become commercially available — and that’ll be soon — they will be sold via invitation to elitism, as the Enhancements will create people who in various ways are superior to the Old Human models. Do human beings have a potent desire, an obsessive desire, to be ‘better’ than their neighbors, a superiority — even a supremacy — that is available for purchase at the click of a… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by rayj
Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  rayj
26 days ago

Strongly agree with both Karl and Ray here–well done, lads.

This brings up the question showcased by the recent “Dune” duology; is messianic vision self-fulfilling, or fulfillment of a something greater?

wurst
wurst
Reply to  Karl Horst
26 days ago

The irony of a Gerrman complaining of an Orwellian government in another European country! “In an awkward revelation that comes as Habeck seeks the nomination of his Green party as candidate for chancellor, prosecutors on Friday said the economy minister had filed a criminal complaint after the man called him an “idiot” on social media in June.” A criminal complaint; surely they mean it’s a civil case. “Lawyers acting for Habeck filed a criminal complaint, prosecutors in the Bavarian town of Bamberg told Germany’s DPA news service, confirming earlier media reports.” But it is Germany so…”Germany’s criminal code includes provisions… Read more »

Auld Mark
Auld Mark
Reply to  wurst
26 days ago

In my youth, I lived in both countries and enjoyed them immensely. Now,watching them sink back into the dysfunction that led to WW1 and WW2, I understand better why my ancestors set sail for the new world back in the 16oo’s

Karl Horst
Karl Horst
Reply to  wurst
26 days ago

The offence of Insult is not so different from your slander and libel laws that go back to 1734 and pre-date the American Revolution.

When you finish reading the link below, feel free to look up the “Bellamy Salute.”

Something else Americans taught the Germans.

https://se-legal.de/criminal-defense-lawyer/defamation-libel-lawyer-germany/insult/?lang=en#:~:text=According%20to%20%C2%A7%20185%20StGB,two%20years%20or%20a%20fine.%E2%80%9D

Zfan
Zfan
Reply to  Karl Horst
26 days ago

Thanks for tip on the “Bellamy Salute” I think that inconvenient info will remain mostly memory holed. Or, its all just white supremacists, even if you show some 1920s black schoolchildren doing it.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  wurst
26 days ago

It’s like they’re competing to see who can outdo the other, innit?

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  wurst
26 days ago

The irony of a Gerrman complaining of an Orwellian government

It’s not quite as ironic as Englishmen implementing an Orwellian government? Posted anything that might disturb the social order today, citizen? Expressed any unapproved hate?

Trek
Trek
Reply to  Karl Horst
25 days ago

Revelations is a weird book. Originally credited to John the Apostle, but everyone who studies it says they have very different writing styles. It provides a horror tale like a good old campfire ghost story. Many-headed monsters! Secret symbols! It seems to me the message of the New Testament is pretty straightforward and is not dependent on solving mysteries within mysteries combined with numerology.

Tom K
Tom K
26 days ago

There is a penalty for living too long. It calls to mind the Ship of Theseus. Replacing yourself gradually over time with the new, and the possibility for endless renewal, you become something you begin to rebel against. It’s possible for you to become something you begin to detest. The only answer is to actively reject the replacement of yourself. There is the vampire genre of literature. The problem of the vampire is his immortality. Not a big fan of Anne Rice but she portrayed in brilliantly. I think living beyond your time would be deeply unsatisfying for the hedonist.… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by Tom K
Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  Tom K
26 days ago

One video game I played had an immortal character who had been driven insane by the longevity of his life, of seeing everything he knew repeatedly die. As a different character put it, the toxins of life had slowly poisoned his soul since they could never be released.

Peter Piper
Peter Piper
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
26 days ago

“Immortality consists largely of boredom-” (Star Trek)

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Peter Piper
26 days ago

Seems thataway logically, but that’s because we apply our experiences of time to the eternal condition, where there is no time. Where there is no time, there is no boredom.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Tom K
26 days ago

From a book of last words said, my favorite is the successful businessman: “Still so much left to do…”

Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  Alzaebo
26 days ago

Sam Kinison, at peak of his fame age 38:

“Why now Lord?… Okay, okay, okay.”

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Tom K
26 days ago

A couple years before that, I had to take the ditch on Needles Highway when some chowderhead did much the same thing as the guy who killed Kinison. Just like happens way too often in Texas, most people are crappy judges of distance when there’s no trees or buildings or anything to give them a sense of scale.

Andy Texan
Reply to  Steve
26 days ago

At 21 I had to leave the road on a 2-lane highway in the Texas panhandle to avoid a head on collision. The car that caused this near disaster never did return to his side of the highway. Much of the road had no graded shoulder but I got lucky.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Tom K
26 days ago

The problem of the vampire is his immortality.

The problems of immortality were touched on at points in the Highlander films and TV series.

c matt
c matt
26 days ago

For the ones who focus on AI assistance as a way to upload their consciousness to a computer or cloud, they focus too much on the “I” and not enough on the “A”. I can take a damn good picture of the Mona Lisa with my cell phone. But it will never be the Mona Lisa.

N.S. Palmer
26 days ago

“That’s why people in prosperous countries react to trivial problems as if they were life-or-death struggles. They have no life-or-death struggles, but they need them. We need to feel that our lives have a significance beyond our span of years. We hope we’ll achieve some great good to survive us and to remind the world that we were here. But when the worst social problems are who gets to use which bathroom or used the wrong pronoun, we feel bereft. Where is the great challenge we can overcome, the invincible monster we can defeat, the intolerable wrong we can set right?… Read more »

Hun
Hun
26 days ago

How can an ugly little and unhealthy looking troll like Ray Kurzweil be selling life-extension ideas?

Last edited 26 days ago by Hun
pyrrhus
pyrrhus
26 days ago

Talk about maximum hubris! The human body is orders of magnitude more complex than anything produced by these tech boys, and really, it shouldn’t work…Trillions of operations are going on each second in your body, and any significant failure rate would kill you..Based on my past life regressions, and millions of others, the soul is immortal and we do have a choice to reincarnate…But for the atheists among us, the question is why you would want to live past 100, in a worn out body often confined to your bedroom…Because entropy (2d law of thermodynamics) is constant, and everything wears… Read more »

N.S. Palmer
Reply to  pyrrhus
26 days ago

Keep in mind that physical laws are descriptive, not prescriptive. The Second Law describes the situations we’ve observed, but it is not engraved on immutable stone tablets. Disordered states are more numerous and probable than ordered states, but life itself defeats that reality at least for a while. Many scientific advances involve extending the length of time that we can hold entropy at bay. That might not be forever, but it can at least be a longer time.

catdog
catdog
26 days ago

“at this stage it is mostly used for creating clever memes” It is mostly used for fraud, scams, and spam. As should be expected from a product that is designed to convincingly imitate humans and the products of the human mind. AI proliferation has made the internet significantly worse, and it’s starting to make the real world worse too. Miles of the most beautiful scenery in the country, near me, are slated to be bulldozed to build power infrastructure for an AI datacenter. Destroying real squirrels to replace them with pictures of AI squirrels. These tech dorks are more of… Read more »

Lakelander
Lakelander
Reply to  catdog
26 days ago

What, you don’t like these AI generated youtube ads? You don’t want to be sold penis pills and stock trading programs by these digital jackals?!

In regards to the data centers…how well are their power supplies going to be protected? If the tech dorks don’t watch out, they may have bands of 21st century Luddites to contend with.

Vegetius
Vegetius
26 days ago

BUTLERIAN JIHAD NOW

Bartleby the Scrivner
Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

Thought provoking post. In my opinion, not a single person who ever drew a breath, wants to die. That said, I’m getting to the point where I’m starting to understand suicide. No one ever wants to die; what they want is whatever is happening in their life, that is overwhelming, to stop. I’ve had a good life. Not perfect, but a hell of a ride to say the least. The thing that is starting to overwhelm me is the suffering that is on display every day. It’s in our face. And the people dishing it out, are doing it with… Read more »

Montefrío
Member
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

I’ve been a Zen “adept” (as practitioners are known) for more than 60 years and what might be called your “third result” is that your individuated self experiences a combination of A & B. To wit: your individuated identity consciousness is dropped, either voluntarily or through extinction; if the former, consciousness survives in a transcended but non-individuate manner, in the latter, well, lights out or maybe reincarnation. The ground belief behind this is that all simply IS, individuation is illusory as is time.

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Montefrío
26 days ago

This is the same option as “sleep forever”. If I lack an individual consciousness after this life, then the self is dead.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

Agree with Piffle. The “why” evaporates. The Hindu concept of sinking into an incohate mass is a horror to us; that to escape pain, the ultimate purpose of life is to become a rock, or an ooze, or smoke, or a fire, with as much meaning or thought?

To rise from an ooze only to become one again; why then happen at all? Why suffer suffering?

This reduces us to a meaningless churning without purpose or direction. What comfort, what explanation, what drive is in that?
Anything is permissable, because nothing matters, there is no difference between good and evil.

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Montefrío
26 days ago

Thank you Bartleby and Montefrio; there is a continuance, a something real enough to be measured; Montefrio gets a bit into the mechanics, the specific “how”, in part, of how that something functions. Parts of us remain while containing the whole of what we lived. Holographic storage rather than linear, collective yet still retaining individuality…for a time.
Immaterial as well as organic; the two forms are necessary redundancies of each other.

In short, no, we don’t just go “poof”.
Life, a biosphere, occurs to overcome that “poof”.
We are the essential froth to spark the Universe’s cycling.

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

I can’t think of a 3rd option. It’s either sleep forever or something after death. I didn’t come back to Christianity because I wanted eternal life. I just wanted to fill a gap that existed in this life. However, if we ask the question why God might want humans to have eternal life, we could borrow the answer from a particular carpenter from Nazareth. “Even Moses demonstrates that the dead are raised, in the passage about the burning bush. For he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by Piffle
rayj
rayj
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

Solid.

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

“And if Christ be not risen again, your faith is vain, for you are yet in your sins.”
1 Cor 15:17
It is the cornerstone of Christian faith that Christ rose from the dead and that his faithful followers will do the same. It is the only thing that makes the horror of death bearable.

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Dutchboy
26 days ago

Yes, I agree. It was not a foundation I understood, though, until long after regular church going became a habit for me. I had to work through many issues. People come at Christianity through endless angles and doors. Wanting eternal life was not one of mine.

Last edited 26 days ago by Piffle
rayj
rayj
Reply to  Dutchboy
26 days ago

Yes. No resurrection, no faith.

Death, where now is thy victory? will be the future mockery, and not via AI.

Arthur Bryan
Arthur Bryan
Member
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

You have the choices. I recommend (B) and coping with the doubt. “Wishing that God may exist, and acting and feeling as if He did exist. And desiring God’s existence and acting conformably with this desire, is the means whereby we create God—that is, whereby God creates Himself in us, manifests Himself to us, opens and reveals Himself to us. For God goes out to meet him who seeks Him with love and by love, and hides Himself from him who searches for Him with the cold and loveless reason. God wills that the heart should have rest, but not the head, reversing… Read more »

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Arthur Bryan
26 days ago

It’s the real Pascal’s wager.

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

B. But there is no such thing as reincarnation. That nonsense came outta the East and is a control mechanism.

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  rayj
26 days ago

Reincarnation is wanting this life forever for some reason.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

Just heaven and hell by different means. You get a “better” next life if you were “good,” and a “worse” one if you were “bad.”

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

Sure, but the difference between a Brahmin and untouchable is a matter of wealth and class. It’s not like the Brahmin has been promised no pain, illness, bad fortune, suffering or been exempt from witnessing all those things.
Actual Heaven involves “no more tears” to borrow from a few hymns here and there.

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

Christian heaven is very different from the Hindoo or Buddhist conceptions.

There is neither rebirth nor reincarnation in Christian doctrine. No passing through millions of incarnations, only to start again at zero. Yeah great, thanks for crushing my spirit. Lots to look forward to there!

And Nirvana is just another dead band.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

Not really. The Indian families have selected for millennium those of the same or higher castes to intermarry with. Wealth is a proxy for intelligence. Hence through assortative mating the intellectual ability of the caste is risen. This theory has been shown in the book by Clark. “The Son Also Rises” is a book written by Gregory Clark, an economist and historian. The book, published in 2014, explores the role of intergenerational persistence in determining economic and social outcomes over long periods of time. Clark uses data from various historical and contemporary societies to argue that social mobility is far… Read more »

Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Compsci
26 days ago

Being wealthy and being on the deep end of the genetics pool is not all there is to life. Does all of that prevent even the supposed wisest of them from suffering death? Does it stop a cold or a cancer? Or your beloved toddler from an accident? Most of the people you’re talking about aren’t apparently high IQ enough to “get” that their vegetarianism is holding back their overall health. How many high caste children don’t exist because their protein sources are suboptimal? And that’s the “smart” people in India. Your post unfortunately demonstrates my point about missing the… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by Piffle
Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

No one spoke about Indian beliefs. Certainly not I. Only that in the case of the Indian caste system that was created a millennia or more ago, it worked to maintain and improve the racial stock of the caste and explains much of the differences found among castes. You maintained the differences were basically *environment*, i.e. cultural and SES. In short, take an “untouchable” and raise him in a different environment and you can produce a Brahmin. You are simply mistaken and your analysis is completely incorrect as shown repeated through the same misconception we have had here in America… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

Spot on, Zoar, although these folks seem to forget the whole “resurrection” angle, and how integral it was to the Hebrew model from the very beginning.

Reincarnation, I’ve read, was commonly accepted in the early Church days until excised as not useful to the Church’s nascent ruling class. They wanted the power to threaten with finality.

As to the Hindu model, yup, they only kept a piece of it, warping their extrapolations…same as with the Hebrews.

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
Piffle
Piffle
Reply to  Alzaebo
26 days ago

“whole “resurrection” angle, and how integral it was to the Hebrew model from the very beginning.” The religion of the Israelites (Hebrew was only a language they spoke and it was not spoken in Jesus’ day) only slowly revealed the idea of a general resurrection. It does not formally appear anywhere in the written Scriptures until the very late OT. It does come up in Psalms indirect way. “Reincarnation, I’ve read, was commonly accepted in the early Church days until excised as not useful to the Church’s nascent ruling class. They wanted the power to threaten with finality.” Reincarnation was… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by Piffle
rayj
rayj
Reply to  Piffle
26 days ago

Yes. The chosen Son of Father, Christ, identifies as the Truth, capital T.

When we sincerely seek after the truth in this world, and follow along it, eventually we end up at The Truth, which is the Lord — Jeshua. He is both the source and the destination of all truth.

Last edited 26 days ago by rayj
Vizzini
Member
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

In my opinion, not a single person who ever drew a breath, wants to die.

That’s self-evidently untrue, or we wouldn’t have suicide statistics.

There are certainly some subset of those who simply long for oblivion.

Last edited 26 days ago by Vizzini
Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

In my opinion, not a single person who ever drew a breath, wants to die.”

But why? I have no problem shrugging off this mortal coil (not that I’m actively courting death, mind). There are probably many people just like me.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Arshad Ali
26 days ago

Please, folks, a warning to all in your final days: there will be a day your body takes over, you will be gabbling, consumed with terror. It only lasts a bit, so to the ‘no fear’ types, don’t be surprised, it’s only your body talking.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Arshad Ali
26 days ago

The problem is perhaps not the aspect of death as the final outcome, but the process of death. Most of us know of those who died in seemingly painful ways, more so I suspect than knowing those who passed painlessly and without much suffering.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Compsci
26 days ago

My experience is quite different. I know only a few who died in pain. One from emphysema, the rest cancer. One I’m absolutely positive checked out by taking extra morphine. The look on the nurse’s face when she was collecting his meds was all it took to confirm my suspicions. Most have checked out in their sleep. This includes most of the pets I’ve had. My mom might have been “assisted” by dehydration, but most of my kin have been up and moving around no more than a day or two before the end. Including my dad, who died about… Read more »

The Infant Pheonomenon
The Infant Pheonomenon
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago
Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  The Infant Pheonomenon
26 days ago

Thanks so much, Infant. Still so much left to do; I must heal.
Yes, I’m rolling my eyes solely at the inaccuracy of certain sentiments, not at the sentiments themselves, which reflect that certain something inside.

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
26 days ago

Only one way to find out….

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
26 days ago

I’m speculating but perhaps ideas like the ones Richard Morgan floated in his trilogy (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies) have some traction with the Tech Bros — a future where consciousness itself has been digitised. As for the trends in AI and other massive computing projects, they leave me disturbed. To my mind they are anti-life. These projects require a massive amount of electricity and mineral resources at the expense of the biosphere. We already know this from bitcoin mining. There’s a good recent essay at NLR on energy and mineral consumption which is quite revealing: https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/exponential-abyss Trump himself… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by Arshad Ali
Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Arshad Ali
26 days ago

It’s possible that our much discussed schism among the “elites” is nothing more than a squabble over who will control the AI

Last edited 26 days ago by Jeffrey Zoar
Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

That’s an impressive theory and possibly what is actually happening. It would be wonderful if the camps were divided over how to use AI but if this is the point of friction you are right, it boils down to control.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

That’s what the one who isn’t Thiel but also appears on Rogan’s show says. (Knowing nerds’ names is against my religion.)

Governments want this new technology—I don’t see the novelty of it, but it doesn’t matter if it’s really there or not; they believe it—used for political repression and insider economic gain. The “bros” want to use it to end beauty and humanity and civilization forever.

They seem to have reached a compromise.

Pozymandias
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

Supposedly the thing that created the Musk-Trump-Bezos-Zuckerberg axis was the realization that the Entity-that-controls-Biden also wanted draconian controls on AI. The MTBZ entity won the fight and will now move ahead with a much more “libertarian” program for AI. I think this is for the best actually.

Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  Pozymandias
26 days ago

Whatever AI is, it seems to be the ultimate ‘yes’ man/woman. It tries to agree with everything an interlocutor asks except for certain tabu topics. Then it spews out the boilerplate pozzed nonsense of course. I would like to see a Based AI incorporating the American Pravda series compiled by Ron Unz. What we have now is a “patch” after the alarm created by the OG Raciss AI, which was amusingly spontaneous.

Pozymandias
Reply to  Tom K
25 days ago

Gab actually has a number of different AI persons you can talk to. They don’t seem to have any qualms about “morally questionable” characters so you can chat with Hitler or Attila any time you like. I think if you pay for a non-free subscription you can create your own AI so perhaps you can feed it on a diet rich in Unz or whomever. I don’t know much about the quality of these AIs of course. In general their AI seems weaker than ChatGPT but I expected that since they don’t have the money the CGPT has backing it.

Hun
Hun
Reply to  Arshad Ali
26 days ago

Trump himself is a pawn — probably an unwitting pawn — in these massive projects.

Yeah, I doubt he understands what he is doing. He just wants to make a deal with the cool nerds.

The Infant Pheonomenon
The Infant Pheonomenon
Reply to  Arshad Ali
26 days ago

Next stop: Planet of the Apes

Hokkoda
Member
26 days ago

They intend to transfer their consciousness into AI, and then export it into avatars.

Hopefully, there’s a mess up in the lab and Jeff Bezos gets uploaded to the Roomba of a cat lady, and spends an eternity vacuuming cat pee stained carpets…

fakeemail
fakeemail
26 days ago

psyche suffers from having lived beyond the natural limit.” Humans suffer because they are too disconnected from what is natural. Death is where we were before we were born. We were born to die. Sunrise, sunset. It has to be accepted. “Ye shall be as gods” is the oldest trick in the book.

Gespenst
Gespenst
Reply to  fakeemail
26 days ago

Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born -a hundred million years -and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to… Read more »

Tarl Cabot
Tarl Cabot
26 days ago

Technology is teleology. If a thing can be done, it will be done, if there is an advantage in doing so. On a long enough time frame, no moral or philosophical objection will prevent anything which is truly useful. This is why I fear that the Panopticon is inevitable. It is simply too useful to TPTB. If we must have tyranny, then at least let be a tyranny which has as its object the preservation of my people and culture, as China does for the Han. However, if everyone becomes a Kurzweillian cyborg whose “defects” are corrected with CRISPR, bionics… Read more »

miforest
miforest
26 days ago

I am certian that AI is used for much more nefarious purposed than making memes, we are just not privy to that info. not wild about trumps delegat to head this https://seemorerocks.substack.com/p/meet-larry-ellison-leader-of-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=630659&post_id=155476198&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=o2w9y&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Mr. House
Mr. House
26 days ago

A random thought for the readers: Do you guys remember Elizabeth Holmes and her wonder test that would be able to diagnose any disease you might have from a drop of blood? She was a democrat/power elite darling until the fraud was pointed out. I wonder if her “test” was going to be the original PCR test for 2020? She started getting press in the early 2010’s and had Kissinger on her board. If he had lived, i believe that Kerry Mullis, the creator of PCR would have spoken out about its use and Faucci. Convenient he died when he… Read more »

Gespenst
Gespenst
Reply to  Mr. House
26 days ago

George Schultz was another former Secretary of State on Holmes’s board of directors. His nephew warned him it was a scam, so he disowned the nephew.

Mr. House
Mr. House
Reply to  Gespenst
26 days ago

lots of big names: Henry Kissinger (former United States Secretary of State); Jim Mattis (retired Marine Corps four-star general); George Shultz (former United States Secretary of State); Richard Kovacevich (former CEO of Wells Fargo); William Perry (former United States Secretary of Defense); and William Foege (former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). With regards to covid, lots of people are thinking it was a DOD operation. Lots of DOD names on that board. And tech people do, trying to engineer their dystopia of everyone having a digital ID and vaccine passports with CBDC? Thought exp. If you’re used up all easy… Read more »

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
26 days ago

I would prefer a healthier life rather than a greatly extended lifespan. I also don’t like the mRNA technology they are touting as one of the keys to this longevity. It is dangerous and we have been down that road before. The tech oligarchs also seem to be sold on AI mass surveillance, another abomination. We didn’t vote for any of this stuff, nor to incorporate Greenland and Canada into the USA or to seize the Panama Canal. I hope Trump is not serious about this stuff; he needs to keep his eye on the ball and ignore this distracting… Read more »

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
26 days ago

I would have thought that reading about Heinlein’s Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love would cure anyone of living forever.

Gespenst
Gespenst
Reply to  Christopher Chantrill
26 days ago

Aldous Huxley’s After Many a Summer Dies the Swan will also do it.

rayj
rayj
Reply to  Christopher Chantrill
26 days ago

Yeah eternal life got panned on the Twilight Zone too.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Christopher Chantrill
26 days ago

Ha! I was so pissed I tore that book in half and threw it across the room.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
26 days ago

Real immortality is mathematically impossible. But life spans counted in centuries rather than decades would be nice. Once we get that (if ever?) some will want millennia instead of centuries. Seen as dementia is already a common problem after say eight decades, that suggests the human brain doesn’t have the memory capacity for such life spans. So now they’ll have to expand the brain. I doubt it will get that far. Modern creature comforts aside, our behavior is still very close to that of chimps. We fight each other all the time. If China reached immortality escape velocity, I’m sure… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
26 days ago

Ah shoot. I forgot to mention a point about Larry Ellison’s claim to cure cancers with self-tailored mRNA; odd that he should be gibbering about curing an explosion in cancers, conveniently after those very cancers were induced.

It’s almost as if somebody had already had planned both the problem, and the response…to their immense and everlasting profit.

The Church of Mammon’s highest spirituality is gangsters, conmen, pimps, and killers.

Last edited 26 days ago by Alzaebo
Walrus Aurelius
26 days ago

The struggle to prolong life is all over science fiction and the sense is always “long life is a monkey’s paw”. It’s harder to prolong joy than suffering, and living in an imperfect universe becomes hellish as you watch every young generation coming up make the same mistakes again and again and again. In theory you accumulate wisdom, but what you really accumulate is regret. It’s all variations on that theme. The guys who talk about reversing aging are more interesting but that’s also tied into it in the fiction : men at 300 years who are still functionally in… Read more »

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Walrus Aurelius
26 days ago

It would require a real mental/emotional pansy to be incapable of adapting to longer life with a good body. (I don’t dispute that a great many qualify.) Do you ever see that “inability to function due to the emotional weight of all the human nonsense they’ve had to deal with” in the centenarians of our time? Yeah, me neither. The opposite, usually.

Last edited 26 days ago by Jeffrey Zoar
Walrus Aurelius
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
26 days ago

Cause most centenarians are well aware they’re at the end of their life, there are no more expectations on them, and they’ve either done everyt