verisimi

> We will get much better at manipulation and better at people “writing” things to justify their own feelings.

Yes, ai has strong narcissistic traits. And so do the people that own them. And pay for them.

In response, people in general will become fat more capable of recognising the manipulation. And will become more paranoid.

I don't use Betamax, nor is it well supported.

What can I say - its popular with me! Its also well supported, so that's something.

I was responding to the generic comment that:

> pretty much no-one uses either of them

I use RSS multiple times daily.

For fun, I'll say. You're trying to apply reason to emotion, not realising emotion drives everything. Consequently you think it's acceptable to force everyone to accept (your) superior reasoning, for their own good, whether they want it or not. Think Vulcan.

> all of them are serial arsonists, which means three or more fires

So, the number '100', has to wildly low, as some arsonists will not have been caught, or only started one or two fires.

If you think any human endeavour, especially those that relate to handling of money, is without an agenda, I think you'd be wrong. If you also throw in the fact that this money is not taxed, you increase nefarious incentives. And that money can be given without needing to show the names publicly, this doesn't increase comfort.

Finally, even if robots were to run these operations, someone would have to code them and own them, right?

> astroturfing works, and is only getting better/worse

Perhaps one would say 'increasing' or 'decreasing'?

People aren't doubting the benefit.

Lenders are doubting their return. People's benefits have nothing to do with it. The benefits would go in a minute, if doing so yielded a better return.

"re-buy democracy"

This is another point that is overlooked. If you transform a landscape, moving the water through quickly or whatever, preventing the natural action (eg deeply drenching the ground) perhaps you create a high risk of a fire where the ground gets very hot, where that wasn't a possibility before.

> I find it easy to envision a world, maybe 50 years from now, in which the very concept of "truth in advertising" is viewed as a lost, idyllic fantasy.

I find it easy now!

Oh no, would Google and Meta be dead? How will we manage?!

No one asked you about this. Your government is free to spend its money as it likes, it can send it to the UN.

The speed of turn-around sounds impossible. That you are asking for bike lanes - which is already part of most local agendas - is more believable. I daresay if someone asked for the lanes to be removed, they would not get any traction.

We were already living in 1984 when Orwell/Blair wrote the book.

> It's going to be interesting watching nation states fight over how best to do this

As others have said, there is a coordinated push to drive this legislation everywhere. There is no fight in nation states. Just capitulation.

Are you talking from experience? What legislation have you organised?

It always was.

Why can't they spend the tax money they collected on secret contracts or however they are fit? It's their money!

Change the governance. Both red, blue and the corporate sides are supportive of this.

Monetary wealth is a proxy for power.

> Does wealth continue to be a coherent concept once very few have all of it? I don't think it's been tried.

I think this is already the case.

Nice story. I believe that dogs are capable of moral judgements too. The idea of 'evil' is a human idea though.

I agree. But I don't think pecking the eyes of a deer, thereby providing all the crows food, would be considered 'evil'/'bad' by other crows. I think crows would acclaim the action as 'good'/'right'.

Thanks for clarifying.

Re matters of degree, I would disagree. The opposite of selfishness would be selflessness. This sounds like a good thing, eg being altruistic is assumed to be 'good', but then, it could also be about imposing one's values on someone, and devaluing the self. It could be a means of control (was forced altruism in communist countries 'good', for example). It seems that 'selflessness' - selfishness's opposite - can also be characterised as 'evil'. If it's not clear whether selfishness or selflessness is evil, it's not clear that it's a matter of degrees.

Ayn Rand argues in the "The Virtue of Selfishness" that selfishness is a good thing, if you want to see a lovely alternative argument.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3URpIKFoyW0

'Evil' is a human characterisation, and is not applicable to animals imo; to apply it is to anthropomorphise the animal.

An applicable use of 'evil' for an animal, would be if you believe the animal 'knows better', eg a dog that knows right or wrong (in its way) but does something it thinks it shouldn't.

> Great question does intelligence require selfishness / evil?

You think 'selfishness' and 'evil' are equivalent?

Its the Apple way too. Its the corporate way.

Organic food can use organic pesticides.