Rhaedas

There is the analogy of a balloon’s surface where every point moves away from its neighbor, or a better analogy of bread expanding as it is baked, since that’s more three dimensions. The idea is that space is expanding at the atomic level at a certain rate, but it’s so small that it takes an astronomical amount of these atomic increases to be able to measure it (we can’t measure expansion at solar system scales, or even between our galaxy’s stars, as gravity drowns out the effect. But space is so large that over distances like between galaxies, the light that has traveled all that way has had to travel over this expanding so much that we can see a shift in its wavelength. And overall everything is shifting red, so either we in our section of the galaxy are the center, or it’s something that’s common in any part of our universe. One of these is far more likely.

Reddit had simply changed for the worse after ten or so years. Some of the niche subreddits I was in were still okay and not touched by the issues (yet), but I felt that it was for the best to move to other places. The Reddit migration popularized the Fediverse idea (that had been there already), and it made sense to me to decentralize discussions to resist control. For the most part the past few years this has felt more or less like old Reddit, and even previous forums before I found Reddit, because in the end discussion areas are made up of the people posting in them, not the architecture they’re on. It’s the transitions between that are the hardest.

You don’t have to be intelligent to ruin things. Look at Trump.

At least a thinking machine would have a reason for doing what it might do, instead of bumbling along and overshooting any safeguards left. Which given Musk’s attitude, Grok would be the first and last safeguard for everything. So yeah, this is worse than Terminator.

I’ve seen this movie.

“The only way to keep things from crashing is to plug Skynet Grok in.”

Not only doesn’t understand what a tariff is, he thinks it’s some magic word to make anything change and him get credit for it.

If he didn’t have full blown dementia I’d say he’s an idiot. The ones around him going along with it, they ARE idiots.

Given that “interesting” is how the Chinese curse goes, we’re in interesting rimes now. So more of the same as far as how humans behave. Climate far worse because again, we aren’t going to change. More dystopian, corporate rule (the cyberpunk novels had that spot on), AI better/worse depending on your perspective (more advanced, used everywhere). Internet far different than it has been, with familiar niches holding out here and there. Possibly recovering from some major disaster, maybe large scale even.

It’s safer to expect pessimistic results and be surprised. I don’t doubt there will be some good things to happen too, great advancements and maybe even big societal changes that help people. They’re harder to predict though.

“Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.”

A good lesson is to look back on predictions made for the future 50 or 100 years ago. Often times the technology is the guessed the closest right, but how it is used, and how it affects the social structure of society is totally wrong.

“Why doesn’t anyone want to trade with us anymore?” - Trump

I don’t know, man. Can’t be anything you did, right?

That’s not what happened. He went fast enough to go back in time. The Earth rotated backwards because time was going backwards for him. And importantly, unlike so many time travel stories where the person goes to exactly when the event happens, he went back further, so he had time to stop both missiles. Cause he’s super smart.

10 percent would be huge not only the bill but in wear and tear. I doubt it’s that much, but more is always good when it’s a simple fix.

I can’t help with the problem since you’ve covered most of the things I would know about. Last carb I worked on was my beloved VW Beetle, and I understand how things can run fine and then suddenly just stop for no reason. But in the end, there IS a reason, somewhere.

I just commented to point out if it helps, a carburetor is just a mechanical computer. It changes the input of fuel and air based on other variables. So somewhere in the code something is now not calculating the same as it was, or the variables themselves are different. I know that doesn’t answer the problem, but it’s something I’ve always been in awe about since being told my my dad that a automatic transmission is just a fluid computer. Which is funny, since he could tear down one of those, but never could “get” how an electronic computer worked.

Don’t feel bad, it was a very subtle jab. The best part was it was at the end of a Fox News interview as they cut away, so it was what I liked to call a sarcasm grenade. Pull the pin, let it sit for a minute. Boom.

“if you gave Jerry Falwell Jimmy Swaggart an enema you could bury him in a matchbox.” - Christopher Hitchens (would have said RIP)

That’s a hell of a reduction.

Individual creatures do have their own traits that make them differ from the rest. They aren’t robots following the exact same instruction for every stimulus. That being said, personality implies a sense of agency or self-awareness, and I don’t think they have that. Humans have a built in desire to anthropomorphize anything that begins to resemble something human-like, it’s in our brain.

Why wouldn’t they give an example of what they are talking about?

“Stop shooting ourselves in the feet!”

So many decisions being made are very isolationist, and that never works well for the one shutting everyone else out. But who looks at history, right?

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

“Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.'”

“Now that’s a real shame when folks be throwin’ away a perfectly good white boy like that.”

Yes. That’s why I said what I said in the parentheses, different beliefs have different afterlife ideas, some may not have a hell but might have other punishments. The point was a relationship where one or both thinks the other is going to suffer later but is okay with it can’t be very deep. If it’s a religion where there isn’t such a thing, then there isn’t a conflict (at least not in that sense).

I think the biggest problem is when one partner believes that the other is condemned for eternity in some way (not just a hell, but also other forms like reincarnation to a lower state or anything else deemed bad)…and either they spend the relationship trying to change the other person and probably ruining it, or worse, they accept that fate for someone they claim to love.

As an atheist, I don’t have that concern that my loved one is doomed to torment somehow, I just have the here and now to try and make their life with me as pleasant as I can. There is the issue of whether or not an atheist could live with someone whose rational is governed by beliefs that affect their judgement, either like mentioned above trying to convert them for their sake, or in other ways where religion steers them vs. having their own thoughts. But for what I think is a large majority, religious people mostly go through the motions if any just to fill some subconscious uncertainty and it’s not enough to threaten a relationship with a differing viewpoint.

The human brain is very good at compartmentalizing things to help us get through the day.

Saw a Jason Bourne movie, didn’t use the right car.