He’s been talking about them since he campaigned for his first term, so I’d argue we’re closer to a decade in. Which of course just strengthens your point.

Bolsonaro tried to make it a dictatorship. He attempted to convince the military to annul the election result and stage a coup to keep him in power. But he failed to prevent the transition to Lula, so for now, Brazil’s democratic institutions were strong enough to prevent it from becoming a dictatorship.

No, no, see - he said the other countries would pay us the tariffs! We’d all be rolling in money!

And some appreciable fraction of the American public still doesn’t understand that’s not how tariffs work.

Well, he destroyed the federal government, and he’s locking up brown people while trampling all over their constitutional rights. Naturally, the Republicans love him.

My comment was in jest, but there is a reasonable argument that biological organisms are also predictive input/output machines. It’s especially evident in simple organisms, like an amoeba, where some physical or chemical stimulus in the environment triggers a mostly predictable response.

The argument that human consciousness is fundamentally different - not just that it’s more complex but that at some point the physical determinism of electrical and chemical impulses gives way to an authority that overrides that physical basis, enabling free thought or free will - remains scientifically unsubstantiated. We know of no mechanism by which that could occur.

And the philosophical arguments aren’t much better - I’ve never seen a theory of dualism articulated in a way that doesn’t invoke ghosts or magic.

It will be amazing if AI destroys humanity without ever becoming conscious. Everyone was envisioning Skynet, when in reality we’ll just cook the Earth with GHGs so that data center GPUs can hallucinate legal cases.

“Disappeared” is the word typically used when authoritarian regimes arrest and incarcerate (or worse) people extrajudicially, without due process. “Trafficked” doesn’t have the authoritarian government connotation.

The turtle arc that takes up the whole first half of the season is boring as hell, but IMO the second half redeems it somewhat. Skip forward until you don’t see the turtle and watch from there.

Or skip to S3. Not like the plot is deep and complex and you’ll be left wondering what’s going on.

Are we positive that they’re conscious? I just think we should run some tests.

China disappeared the Panchen Lama, the second-most important religious figure in Tibetan Buddhism, and replaced him with a China-selected puppet.

But the Panchen Lama is not the successor to the Dalai Lama. The whole point is that the Dalai Lama will be reincarnated when he dies, so his successor isn’t born yet.

The Dalai Lama recently proclaimed that his successor will be born in the free nations outside China - allowing him to be born, say, among the substantial Tibetan refugee populations in Nepal or India.

However, it’s a near-certainty that China will select its own successor from a family loyal to the CCP, and from within China-controlled Tibet, while Tibetans outside the country will likely recognize another.

Tesla lost 6% of its value today so I’m sure Elmo felt compelled to find something to pull out of his ass.

Came here to make the same joke about Rush Limbaugh, but it’s probably good to divide and conquer. And I hate it when there’s a line to pee.

It’s the same damn 30% too.

And that’s just the MSRP! The true cost is after every single goddamn unit is scooped up by scalpers.

$11,000 over twenty years. Jesus.

Coincidentally, “Rogan” is also an r-word that’s synonymous with moron, imbecile, or idiot.

If you wake up first, please shake me awake as well.

It’s not my fault. It just flails around like a garden hose and even with both hands I simply don’t have the strength to wrangle that python.

This is my experience as well. Best case scenario it gives me a rough idea of what functions to use or how to set up the logic, but then it always screws up the actual implementation. I’ve never asked ChatGPT for coding help and gotten something I can use off the bat. I always have to rewrite it before it’s functional.

Yeah, the headline should be reversed so as not to bury the lede. A full 30% of Americans want to throw out the constitutional guardrails and basic limitations on power that keep us a republic and not an autocracy. That’s a terrifying figure.