That's the real secret to quantum computing. If your AI can pass the Turing Test, it can fool humans. Then it can make up an answer and tell you it used quantum computing. You'll never know the difference.
]]>One major underlying problem is that R&D gives a lot less return on investment than it used to. If we could solve that problem, the resulting surpluses would improve most of our other problems. If we can't solve it, our population will outrun our production.
Any ideas?
]]>That's the nature of the Red Queen's Race; any success is undone by population increases. The world's population has more than doubled in our lifetimes. Technology has in many respects leveled off, so the basic risk/reward balance facing society is changing. This pushes societies away from open, exploratory behavior (liberalism, roughly), which no longer pays off enough to justify the risk.
the war isn't lost unless we surrender
It's not that I've given up, it's that I don't have even the beginnings of an idea of how to change the dynamic. Do you?
]]>On a worldwide scale, Hitler was an unforced error. WWI reparations devastated Germany, and German politics turned negative-sum. After the war, it was relatively easy to solve the underlying problem. Boom, Wirtschaftswunder.
Now the problem is that we've exceeded our planet's sustainable carrying capacity. The underlying problem is much less tractable. Trump was basically a forced error; there's no way to maintain positive-sum politics in a negative-sum habitat.
]]>It seems like, to a lot of people on this blog, Trump's election was the final straw that shook them out of their complacency. That's good, but Trump is just a symptom. Politics, in the US and many other places, is becoming negative-sum because our environment is becoming negative-sum. The writing has been on the wall for decades, for those who cared to look.
]]>It probably has a lot to do with how moneyed elites were destroyed on the Continent by any or all of fascism, communism, and de-nazification (depending on the country). In the UK and America they maintained their power.
]]>http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/case.against.micropayments.pdf
]]>Another facet of the problem is that, when advertisers are footing the bill, not all viewers are equal. Viewers who respond to advertising in measurable ways are much more valuable than those who don't. Websites have strong incentives to make content attractive to the highly suggestible (and the wealthy, of course). Viewers who think critically and stay focused are much less likely to click through the ads, make a purchase, and make the advertisers happy.
On the other hand, it's not like pre-internet history was a bastion of gentle reason. Our demagogues use Twitter instead of handbills, but I'm not sure how much difference that really makes.
]]>Americans tend to be optimists. This means that we usually, as a group, pick the devil that we don't know.
Also, one of the main functions* of the Electoral College was to prevent a few populous states (NY, VA, later CA) from dominating the election; a presidential candidate needs broad appeal. It appears to be functioning as intended: Hillary won California by 28% and New York by 22%, but the system was designed to reward broad appeal over localized landslides.
Wish us luck.
*The other main function is obsolete now that sending a representative to Washington takes hours, not weeks, and sending a message takes seconds.
]]>The VR avatar doesn't have to look anything like the user. Throw in a little audio processing to get rid of the accent, and some guy in the Phillipines could be you for 10% of the cost.
]]>Very true, and relevant to the discussion a few posts up. Trade and immigration offer great benefits to residents of less developed countries, but impose considerable costs on the developed-country citizens with whom the foreign laborers most directly compete. The losers in this deal tend to be less well educated, less cosmopolitan in outlook, and are unlikely to live near major centers of finance or trade. We're currently in the middle of a struggle over whether and how their costs will be recognized.
This isn't to say they aren't dangerous, racist fascists. That's also a fair characterization for many of them. Desperation isn't ennobling.
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