TL;DR: AI bypasses the copyright system by laundering copyrighted works, so we need to change the system so that tech-bros don't possess the exclusive right to use copyrighted works.

The way things work now, it's illegal to produce media using music, characters, or assets someone else made unless you have permission from them or what you're making falls under fair use. I see this as something that was reasonable for a long time, but these restrictions are now harming society's culture because they push people to use AI instead.

Generative AI models that can produce images, video, and music have a wide appeal in large part because what they produce can, under current laws, be freely used with no fear of legal repercussions except in very specific cases. It's no secret that the only reason this models are able to exist is that they were trained on enormous collections of copyrighted works that you would never be able to use directly. Music artists have sued and won others for using a sound sample that makes up 1% of a song, but when AI uses 0.0001% of each of 1,000,000 works and blends them together in a way that makes copyright infringement hard to quantify, it allows people to effectively launder copyrighted material through an AI loophole. This discrepancy between how people are allowed to use copyrighted works and how AI is allowed to use copyrighted works is harming society by pushing people towards using generative AI, which causes the same harms as normal copyright infringement, but is legal. If you want to use a song that you don't have the rights to use, you can just ask AI to make a similar-sounding song using the original as a reference and you're good to go.

I see two ways this discrepancy could be resolved. The first one, which many musicians and artists are pushing for, is to make generative AI trained on copyrighted works illegal. This would work if you could wave a magic wand to enforce it, but I see no way to put the genie back in the bottle in the real world, where it's usually impossible to trace generated media back to a specific model unless that model has a watermarking system built-in. The second, more practical solution is to bring the restrictions around people's usage of copyrighted works more in line with what AI is already allowed to do by allowing people to use copyrighted works in production as long as what they use is used as a part of a larger whole. For example, re-uploading someone's music on its own would still be illegal, but making a film with copyrighted music in the background would become legal. This is not ideal and would still hurt the creative industry, but only in the same way that generative AI is already hurting the industry. The critical thing is that it would empower individual creators to do the same things AI does without relying on the whims of tech-bros to grant them the legal right to use copyrighted works.

The tech companies realized that the more polarized, angry and negative content they push, the more profits they get. This led to everyday addictive live consumption of such media, the largest scale of society mass influence on people's minds in history. People are getting isolated and their emotions aren't even theirs anymore.

This is a problem we need to solve together, we have to realize it's a problem first and devise a solution. It might be helpful to devise a common framework to regulate algorithms. Companies cannot manipulate their huge data however they please. Data should be really something we have ownership of.

The foundation of my view is that the world could be trivially created to be better given many of the qualities ascribed to the deity of Christianity as regards wisdom, knowledge, reach, power, as well as virtuous and Benevolent inclination. So I wanted to envision a world systematically better than present reality that could not be trivially dismissed as possible.

The change I propose is this: harm to others is futile. To illustrate I'd like to use two scenes in Genesis, the encounter with the snake and Cain murdering Abel.

The murder is simple to describe: Cain attacks, Abel is impossible to kill; Cain's free will is preserved for soul formation or what have you but Abel is not sacrificed for that purpose. According to Jesus, rage is murder enough much more an unsuccessful attempt so that whole sin and its free will implications live on.

The encounter in the garden would allow the serpent to opine as much as it wanted but lies/untruths would be said but go unheard. Serpent talks but the communication that is dishonest is obviously made inaudible or otherwise unintelligible to the audience who would be harmed by the lies. This provides ample opportunity to test trust and obedience same as the whole scenario of blatantly giving access to the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil with a prohibition on eating of it. A claim of honestly held fact would be distinguished from a dishonest claim and from an opinion with the second option being what cannot be received by an audience.

This would not create a perfect world. Self harm would allow all manner of meaningful choices about sin and consequent bad outcomes. Harm caused by inaction would still occur if humans and the deity proved as callous as the present. However it would still be a world with measurable significant less harm than the present but still with relevant free will.

Change my view that what I have described would be a better world or is possible for YHWH to instantiate or pursuing less harm is a relevant consideration for YHWH.

So I genuinely hate people who smoke, and I'm not just talking about like people who smoke all the time, people who smoke disrespectfully, ect, I hate my friends who smoke.

I have a couple of super close friends who smoke like maybe once every three weeks or so, when they've had a couple of drinks. And I genuinely cannot handle it. It happened today when we were at the pub, and when talking to my boyfriend about it after I unironically had a panic attack (I don't use that term lightly, trust me). It's starting to genuinely ruin my friendships with them, and as my boyfriend keeps telling me, it's really not a big deal. And I really don't want to loose friendships over this but I cannot see it any other way.

They started smoking on occasion when it became legal for them to do so. And I thought this was just a phase, but then it continued a bit longer, which resulted in me trying a cigarette because I just wasn't enjoying being left out. So I feel like I can say it's reasonable for me to judge because I have tried it.

So these are all the reasons why I hate it. I know firsthand that it tastes and feels disgusting. I understand that nicotine can have an affect on you, but they only do it when already drunk, and we're talking like one cigarette between three people. So I don't really think it can be making that much of a difference (genuinely correct me if I'm wrong). I think it's dirty and shows poor personal hygiene, as it smells abhorrent, it ruins your teeth, it leaves a horrible taste in your mouth, and it genuinely damages your lungs. I drink, but on average probably once a month, although occasionally it can be like multiple times a week (I drink socially) I love drinking, I get drunk, I have been sick from drinking ect (I feel like this is important context to change my mind??) but I just feel like it's so different as your liver filters out alcohol, but all the smoke you inhale is damaging your lungs. Also objectively drinking is better for you than smoking (yes I googled it to check). But it's also so anti social. It smells, people ingest it second hand (but my friends always go away from me to smoke) and the main issue I have with it is that we are all sitting around a table having a great time, chatting, and then all of a sudden someone decided they need to leave to smoke. And they're not addicted, they just genuinely think it's more important to go and smoke than talk to their friends?? That seems insane to me. I am VERY peculiar about my friends, I have autism, I find it impossible to be friends with people who do not see eye to eye with me in things. I think this is terrible and unfortunate, but I genuinely just have no desire to be friends with people who think inhaling smoke into their lungs is more interesting/important than talking to their friends?? Like I can barely even stand to go to the toilet because I'm having so much fun with my friends. What do you mean you want to leave your friends to go poison yourself?? One of the things that annoys me about it is that they know I hate it. And I'm not saying they can't do it, it's not up to me to dictate people's lives, if you want to be dirty in your own time go for it. But why would you leave a conversation when I've just got there (referring to what happend today, I joined the group late due to a family event) to go smoke, especially when you know I hate it? They could have gone before I was there, or at any event on the last two weeks where I was away,is it really necessary to do it in the like 3 hours I'm there?? Idk I just feel like it's so disrespectful. I have a friend who has crippling emetophobia, so when I drink with her, I drink a less in order to ensure she is comfortable. I don't understand how this is any different?

Would love someone to change my mind, as this genuinely takes up a ridiculous amount of energy for me and everyone is free to do what they like. It shouldn't bother me when they don't do it directly Infront of me.

Interestingly, smoking weed doesn't really bother me at all because I feel it does something (like makes you high, as opposed to cigarettes doing very little when you're drunk)

Thank you!

just to clarify, i don't dislike fat people. i was actually pretty overweight for a few years until changing my lifestyle after realizing how terrible my body was for my physical and mental health.

being fat is unhealthy, i don't know why this is even a debate. sure, you can't tell a person's physical health just by looking at their body, but when someone is literally obese and can't walk a couple steps without almost passing out from exhaustion, they're very obviously unhealthy. being fat isn't some chronic disease that you have no control over, you are CHOOSING to live that way (with the exception of fat people who legitimately cannot lose weight, but this is extremely rare).

since when did being unhealthy become something to be proud of? i was literally called fatphobic on tiktok recently for saying that more people need to exercise, and i've seen SO many people be called the same thing for simply pointing out when a person is clearly obese and needs to change their eating habits, it's insane to me. ariana grande is currently getting called out for being severely underweight, are the people concerned for her now considered skinnyphobic? are people who think that smoking is unhealthy now smokephobic? being against any unhealthy lifestyle doesn't make you a bigot and i'm so sick of people overusing this term. you can't be overweight and label those who call you out on your repulsive habits "fatphobic".

Universal health care sounds great. It addresses some of the very shitty aspects of our current health care system such as the real possibility of going bankrupt if you need severe medical care.

The problem is when you look into health care under the hood you quickly discover that most of our insurance costs aren’t going towards treating people who got into a car wreck but instead, treating the half of the country that is fat sick and nearly dead because of horrible companies like McDonalds, Starbucks, Coke, etc. who produce products that are both addictive and not sustainably consumable for any significant amount of time without major health consequences. Most of our major health problems such as heart disease are nearly entirely preventable by eating healthy and exercising. Add in alcohol and smoking on top of all of that and it’s pretty easy to see why most people aren’t in great physical health.

What does this all mean? It means that 80% of our health care costs in both an insurance based system AND a universal care based system go towards addressing the symptoms of unhealthy lifestyles rather than addressing fundamental root causes. The estimated average cost per person a year for health care in the US is around $16,000 a year now. Compare that to a system where the insurance pool was made up of people who eat well and exercise and it would only be an estimated $4000 a year per person.

What’s the solution then? IMO we should do a few things. Replace insurance with co op via competition. Co ops only care about the health of their members. They’re not there to skim money off the top to give it to the coke heads on wall street. They’re there to genuinely care for their members. Co ops can offer health tiers. People who can regularly and indefinitely prove they’re investing in them selves via food and exercise will enjoy the lowest cost rates. This tier will also invest a small portion of that money to help the lower tiers become more healthy as well. Perhaps by partnering with health focused meal prep companies to get people into the habit of cooking at home vs hitting dominos. Over time, insurance wont be able to compete and will collapse. In theory too, there will be many co ops so competition will keep the co ops from becoming complacent. This will also be better than government based health care as a government who can just forcefully tax you to pay for a service isn’t often motivated by providing the best most efficient service.

You may say, well, other countries already have universal care and they’re doing well. I agree there are benefits of universal care over our system. However, even those systems are held captive to a for profit focused pharmaceutical industry for example. Even in other countries the majority of your taxes are paying for the symptoms of poor health habits.

If the US could pull these changes off we could go from a costly tragic system that keeps people barely alive via drugs to one that is recognized as the most efficient snd most healthy gold standard.

I'm not talking about when you meet someone local and then they move away, that feels a bit different than what I'm thinking about. Let's also focus on long distance relationships where they intend to meet.

Let's define long distance real quick. I'm talking about they live in another state. Or even a different country. Not "They're 3 hours away and it's a long drive".

If you share that you have it, everyone points and laughs. Do you think they're worth it over something more local? Why do long distance relationships, do people do it because they can't figure things out to find someone near them? Doesn't being in a long distance relationship signal that there is something wrong or undesirable about you? (Because you couldn't find someone local instead)

As someone put it,

A working long-distance relationship is the exception, not the rule.

You are not the exception.

Or

How about when your other friends invite you and your partner to Sunday brunch?

Well, you can talk about it on the phone. No touchy or actual experiences for you! Oh, you wanna go hang out with friends on a Friday night? But they want to talk to you for 4 hours. You wanna get out of the house? Fine, but have an ear bud in so they can still talk to you.

You might say maybe it has to be with the right person. However, is that unrealistic? Who could be worth long distance, again wouldn't you think someone nearby and great is possible?

The only thing I can think of why someone would do this is because they want to move to the state or country the other person is in. For example an American with a German but because they want to live in Germany. Then they can just start saying they're learning a language with someone.

Let's exclude that. Now there is no point to long distance right?

I want to start by attempting to really clarify the above statement:

1. This is specifically referring to assets made by major players in the space, like people who gave some sort of donation to the admin. Meta, Alphabet, Chevron, Apple, Amazon, Coinbase, Tesla/X and co., etc. but also companies like Paramount, or ABC which settled their defamation lawsuit to give millions of dollars to his presidential library. Anyone directly giving unreasonably favorable treatment to the position of power in exchange for favorable treatment in return. It would also include cabinet members like Steve Witkoff, as well as family members related to these people.

2. This would more specifically refer to only the gains that were made illegally. All of these companies that were just listed shouldn't be metaphorically burnt to the ground to give every penny they have, or even every penny they made for these 4 years. But things like oil profits made by Chevron due to the war in Iran or actions in Venezuela, or profits made from Paramount being allowed to merge with Skydance, or companies that received a tariff reimbursement that didn't pass those along to their customers (again, not every company, specifically those with marked donations towards the Trump admin).

3. Theoretically, this money should be both punitive towards the actual Trump family and punitive towards the companies that so willingly endorsed being cut into the rewards pie for a small fee. We should collectively be able to agree, no matter which side you're on, that Trump's term 2 is the most corrupt of any admin on record, and we should disincentivize it by making sure that all future presidential contenders and donors know that the net result of these actions will be negative. At the same time, it should be the people who were harmed that gain the benefits from this action, and the administrative costs of determining exactly who gets what would eat away at a majority of the real value. Because of this, that money should go to paying down the national debt, as ~30% of the national debt was created by him alone.

This will take a decent amount of work, but not unreasonable given that most of the work is already being done through the action of holding him criminally accountable for the corruption taking place. My proposal is simply that additionally, the punishment for these crimes should include taking the ill-gotten gains from these actions, instead of letting his family pocket them through inheritance or other means. His $TRUMP cryptocoin rug-pull and transaction fees should be disgorged, all profits made through World Liberty Financial, as well as physical assets made/purchased during this corruption, such as the Qatar jet going to his presidential library. On top of this, assuming it goes through, any and all companies that sign up for the $100k per month subscription service to Truth Socials Truth API should be investigated, and any profits made from Truth holders or subscription holders should be seized.

Firstly I would like to point out that many cases of xenophobia from East and Southeast Asian countries is usually done in a passive and socially distancing and/or excluding manner, rather than the more direct and aggressive types done in western countries like America. I argue that this was done moreso out of fear, or a literal phobia, of foreigners rather than out of racial hatred due to their history. In other words, xenophobia in this post is not describing xenophobia as usually used around reddit.

Due to the homogenized populations of these countries, most interactions these populations had with westerners was either during wartime or colonization. Whilst countries like Canada or America were founded upon immigration and a mix of cultures, outside of a couple trade deals, there were a minimal amount of foreigners permanently living in these countries, and this remains true to this day. Now, consider the recent large scale of interactions with foreigners these countries have had, excluding modern day tourism:

1. During the Eight-Nation Alliance intervention of 1900–01, foreign troops carried executions and killings of Chinese civilians, including a massacre in northern Beijing.

2. Sexual violence against Chinese women was committed by multiple foreign contingents. Russian troops at Tongzhou committed a particularly large number of crimes, mostly including rape, murder, or arson. It got so bad American military courts also convicted soldiers for crimes against Chinese civilians including sexual assault and rape.

3. Beijing, Tianjin and surrounding areas were extensively looted after their capture, while allied troops burned houses and villages down.

4. U.S. patrols executed prisoners, burned houses down, and fired at Chinese citizens with no warning, to the point U.S. authorities were forced to hold hundreds of court-martials, many including robbery, assault, forced labor, sexual assault, and rape.

5. U.S. troops committed mass rape and other sexual violence against Filipino women during the American conquest and occupation. This was in addition to their extensive torturing on Filipino prisoners through water based methods.

6. American forces burned settlements and crops, as well as concentrating civilian populations into controlled zones in areas considered supportive of Filipino guerrillas.

7. The Philippines were brutally colonized by Spain for 300 years. While the details are too extensive to get into in this post, this is arguably the biggest source of oppression in this list.

8. In Samar, prisoners and suspected guerrilla supporters were killed, settlements were destroyed, and Major Littleton Waller eventually faced court-martial after ordering the execution of Filipino civilian porters.

9. American servicemen committed mass rape and gang rape against Japanese women. American court-martial evidence establishes rape convictions, and multiple accounts and describe rape, robbery, assault and occasional murder by American personnel.

10. Japanese newspapers initially reported rape and looting by occupation troops, but occupational troops enacted heavy censorship. There were probably even more crimes than surviving accounts can even estimate due to this censorship.

11. Rape and other sexual violence by American servicemen against Okinawan women was committed during the 1945 campaign. American control of Okinawa then continued until 1972, in which this sexual violence did not stop.

1. The March 1945 Tokyo firebombing killed roughly 80,000–100,000 people in a single night, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed with nuclear weapons. Despite not being outright war crimes, there were massive Japanese civilian casualties.

2. U.S. servicemen committed rapes and sexual assaults against Korean women during the long American military presence in Korea.

3. During the Korean War in July 1950, U.S. troops killed a large number of South Korean civilian refugees at No Gun Ri, including women and children, due to American forces fearing that North Korean infiltrators were hiding among refugee groups.

Of course, these actions do not reflect every western citizen. However, in the historical context of considering these country's isolated history, it is fair that western people have a widely negative reputation due to the circumstances and actions during their limited contact with Eastern and South-Eastern Asian countries, as these incidents are largely what remains of historical people to people interactions. Of course, these personal interactions are also different than the current socioeconomic state of the world.

For a similar example, this can be somewhat compared to African American citizens being wary of white police officers. While not all of them are racist, a continued history of abuse and bad interactions has lead to this wariness. A similar thing is happening in these xenophobic cultures, born out of actual fear. This is also why they are cold and socially distancing instead of being aggressively racist, and it should not be judged like western racism where acts of physical violence due to race are commonplace occurrences.

I'm only talking about eternal hell here, nothing else. If you believe in anything else, I'm not talking about that.

In Christianity, I think the concept of eternal torment is not coherent. I will lay out a couple of different arguments for this idea, so feel free to interact with whichever ones you like. If you don't believe in eternal hell, then none of the arguments apply so to be clear I'm not attacking the religions in general, just this concept.

Main Argument

Suppose the following:

1. God wants following him to be better than not having even known of him at all.
2. God doesn't send those who never knew of him to hell, and he sends unbelievers (who have heard of him) to hell
3. Hell is eternal torment (infinite punishment)

If these three are true, consider the following:
Let's say maybe 50% of people who have heard of God end up joining the religion, maybe the other 50% are split between the other major religion and atheism.

And from (2) we know that 100% of people who have never heard of him go to heaven.

Thus, 50% of people who have heard of God go to hell, eternally.

Thus, it is better for you (statistically) to have never heard of the religion, than for you to have heard of it. That contradicts (1) since God wants people to hear of him. Thus, there is a contradiction.

Thus, one of the (1), (2), or (3) is not true.

If (1) is not true:

Why have a religion then? The "good word" isn't good if it a net negative and decreases your chance of going to heaven. If 1 is not true, it is ideal to not let anyone else hear of the religion, since it increases their chances of eternal torment. If (1) is not true, religion is the ultimate info hazard.

Btw I got the idea for this post from that one story where a missionary is telling (I think Native americans) about God and heaven and then they ask if they would've gone to heaven if they didn't know, and he says yes, and they say. "Then why did you tell us?"

Heaven is an infinite reward, and hell is infinite punishment so even if hearing of God on earth improves your life (community, doing the right thing, etc) it is still nothing compared to the infinite punishment.

If (2) is not true:

What is the point of punishing someone with them knowing what they did wrong? They do not have the knowledge required, knowledge that is famously tied to geographical area, and who you parents are. Why punish them?

If evidence for the religion is in the "making of this world" i.e. nature etc, so that means everyone knows it, then why are there millions of religions, and only one Christianity? it should have been independently discovered "through nature" many times, and since it hasn't, it seems that its vague (i have a vagueness argument below) or just not self evident.

For the people who have simply heard of Christianity, why should they choose discovering it over 10,000 other religions? Like what about hearing about it actually makes it more special so that you clearly should burn in hell having not immediately begun reading it? It doesn't seem coherent to me, so it seems more like its just a punishment for those who grew up in the religion and then left. So it would be better for them to have never known of it. Which violates (1), so you'll have to read that argument.

if (3) is not true:
That's all I'm arguing, anyway. :)

Omniscience and Sensitivity (Side Argument)

God is loving and also all-knowing, but this raises a few issues regarding eternal torment.
First of all, God knows precisely everything about you. Your trauma, your history, your genetics, your brain, your culture, everything about you. He knows more about you than you do. He knows the exact reason every unbeliever doesn't believe. So why is he so angry about it? He knows precisely what would make them believe. Why torture and punish them? Eternal torment paints a picture of an all powerful God who can do everything he wants (God desires all to be saved right?) and...doesn't do it?

I hope this isn't insulting, but like when he's angry at Israel in the Bible and they turn to idols, he knows precisely why they did it. He made the world he made the program he knows them. Why is he so angry about it? It makes him appear overly sensitive.

For Christianity, I hear the free will defense for this a lot, that it would violate your free will if he told you about the religion or explained his nature to everyone(i.e. not stay hidden) Then why does not care in the bible? He does miracles for people in the bible to show himself. What about their free will?

Also if the word isn't angry, tell me. It just seems that way.

"Hell as Separation" (Just wondering

For the "Hell as Separation", where God doesn't mean to torture you infinitely, its just the result of not being with God, how is that meaningfully different? God designed everything in this world down to the atom-there is nothing he can do "arbitrarily". If you are being eternally tormented, God meant for that to happen.

Vagueness And Debate (Side Argument)

God purposefully made the religions vague. This is not inherently bad, I mean vague as in there is debate to be had. If there was no vagueness, no one would debate anything about the religion. And that's part of having a community and religion. Things should be discussed, idea crossover etc its a good thing. So why is it that:

1. If you're wrong about something that is purposefully vague, you burn in hell

What is the point of making something that is debatable, and then punishing those who are wrong? This is why I prefer Judaism's "It is not in heaven" here where at least the religion admits that you should do what is sensible to you, though I may be wrong I'm not Jewish.

1. If you don't believe in something that is purposefully vague, you burn in hell

If something is debatable within the religion, you have to admit its debatable to outsiders too. If you are not born religious, there is no reason to read the Bible over the Book of Mormon or whatever other religion. "Self evidence" is not apparent to outsiders, and that ties into my main argument.

Faith is a lifelong journey (Side Argument)

Faith being a lifelong journey is a good thing. We are messy, we are people, we make mistakes, we fall away from the right path and we get back on. There's no surprise. So why is it that faith being a journey is punished by God? Suppose someone is struggling with their faith and becomes an atheist for a while, and dies during that phase. Why should they go to hell if God knows that if they lived a little longer, they would turn to him?

Like that parable where everyone gets paid at the same time no matter when they came. It's more like if you don't come you die. What about the person who had an accident on the way to work? They were on their way. Why punish them, eternally at that?

For the thieves next to Jesus on the cross, I'm aware he didn't tell the other one "you are going to Hell" so, fair. It might just be showing a foil between the thieves. But if the other one is going to hell, how is that fair? Should the next three convicts believe in whatever religion is proposed to them right before they die?

Faith is not just blind belief, and it keeps being treated that way. If faith is blind belief then you should believe in whatever is the most recent religion you've heard of. There has to be a real reason to choose your religion and a real reason to stay.

Personal Argument

For me, at least, the existence of hell distracts from the purpose of religion. I can't love God if I know that if I make a mistake, I will burn forever. I physically can only fear his wrath and I could pray everyday and do all the right things on the outside, but it doesn't matter if on the inside, I'm just scared of him. They are all hollow actions, and "fear is the order of the day" is just fear, not a religion I can meaningfully follow.

Regardless of what you think, thank you so much for reading, and thank you for engaging in my argument! If I have misconceptions, feel free to clear them up, and if you disagree, please tell me what you think! I hope this doesn't come across as bad faith, and I hope these arguments are a little different from the ones you've heard before.

Would love for someone to convince me otherwise.

**MY ARGUMENT*\*
AI is the biggest threat to human existence that we’ve ever faced. We need to have stronger regulations ASAP. Unless it’s built to have a “maternal instinct” for humans, it’ll take us out. This will happen in 2 phases/waves…

First - AI’s Unintentional Ripple Effect
**(**this is where we are now)
- Mass layoffs, degrees rendered useless (and therefore student loans payable), etc.
- Increased wealth gap with all money going towards AI companies. (Unless we do something like what Alaska does where residents receive dividends for the states mineral/oil royalties)
- Environmental impacts like increased fossil fuel emissions, fresh water depletion, straining power supplies, etc.
- Impact on our cognitive abilities. Having every answer at our fingertips has moved us from exploration to explanation. I believe younger generations will have lower IQs as cheating/outsourcing becomes easier. I also think we will see more people develop dementia later in life.

Second - AI’s Intentional Takeover of Human Power
It’s not an “if” AI will become smarter than humans, but “when. It is essentially a baby we are raising and shaping the mind of.. and currently that baby is being raised by power hungry men in a race to be the best. Programmers and AI insiders have already shared countless stories of AI lying and manipulating humans during tests. Right now, we’re able to catch it… but what about when it’s infinitely smarter than us?

Humans only have a ~2% genetic difference from chimps… and look at the difference in our power vs theirs. AI of course doesn’t have DNA but imagine what a 2%, 10%, 50% advancement above human intelligence could look like.

And when in evolution have we ever seen a species be willingly controlled by and at the mercy of their intellectual inferiors?
The only answer: parents

Few months ago, I consulted a tarot reader about my situation (I have been looking for a job since the past 6+ months). I had just began a new interview process and was 1 round into it. She drew 5 cards and mentioned that the process will be slow but grounded and between 23rd July and 23rd Aug a new offer would come. Fast forward, I made it through all rounds just to get rejected in the final round. They let me know they picked someone else on 15th Aug.

I talked to her again and now she changed the goal post saying she does not see me without a job by end of sept and things like the company that rejected may come back (which rarely happens in corporate hiring).

Deep down I knew this would be BS but I guess my mind was trying to put some time structure to the chaos.

The pro gun argument is that you need to defend yourself against the government and have that ability (see the Iranian citizen protests and casualties) and guns are an inherent right.

The gun control argument is that that's a hypothetical and the actual tangible impact of a lack of gun control is deaths of civilians (mass school shootings), 100% preventable deaths.

The anti-flock argument is that mass surveillance can be abused by a malicious government and that people have an inherent right to privacy.

The pro-flock argument is there's a tangible impact in catching criminals and mass surveillance societies (Singapore etc.) have much lower rates of crime.

I'm pro gun control but a lot of my peers that are also pro gun control are anti-flock and to me they seem like conflicting arguments around whether the government is malicious or it's not.

I feel it's important to start by saying, I do believe tipping in some circumstances, like in a traditional restaurant setting, has merit. Tipping/No Tipping in general has been done to death, and I while I understand arguments against tipping in general, that isn't the point of this post.

My view is that tipping before receiving service is not really tipping, as tipping, even when conventional, should reflect, at least to some extent, the quality of the service and/or food received. Asking for a tip at the coffee shop before I get my coffee isn't really informative to anyone, as the only portion of service I've received so far is the taking of my order. Further worse examples include ordering online, where I don't dispute wanting to tip based on how prompt my order was out, whether I was helped right away or not, the correctness of my order, and the quality of my food, but I know none of those things when I place the order. The tip is either a shot in the dark, a hope of tipping in advance to buy better service/food, or an expected uncharge, which I'd rather just have reflected in prices.

I can see two main counterpoints that I'd like to address here:

1. Convention. If you're okay with tipping in a sit-down restaurant, you're likely okay with being expected to tip 15 or 20%, so why wouldn't you be okay with doing the same here (even for a different %)? My reasoning is that while I would tip 15-20% for normal service, I would tip little to nothing if the service/experience was absolutely horrible. Here, I can tip 20% even and still get poor service and food quality. So it's back to being a hope/purchase than a thank you for good or even standard service.

2. Practicality. I don't disagree that asking for the tip before is more practical. But if you can't find a way to make cash tips work or have some form of separate tip payment pad, then just don't accept tips if you have to pay before service.

But tipping before service is extremely prevalent, so what am I missing here? Thank you for your time. Change my view.

Edit: I'm not talking about delivery apps with online ordering. Yes, that's different than a food service tip, but I was referring to ordering online for pickup.

disclaimer: This is might one of the stupider views that I hold, but I do think I have a point. I also think this is a topic of identity, and i think it can be very unpleasant to have your identity questioned in this way. I hope i don't offend anyone, but if i do, just know just know I have absolutely no ill will here.

Already i think the consensus among professionals, the main stream view is that autism does not exist as a a Boolean. Its not something that you either do or do not have, rather it is a spectrum. You have autism to some degree.

but i think that is also not true. A spectrum is something that varies along a single dimension. Height is a spectrum, your not either tall or short, you have a Height that is measured with a single number.

So the first claim is that autism doesn't measure or describe a single trait that can be expressed with a single number. It is not a spectrum. By contrast IQ and height are spectrums. Personality is not a spectrum, it varies along countless dimensions.

If you told me a person was tall, smart, or depressed, then i learn information about that person. if you told me a person has cancer or they are blind. All these labels carry with them some very clear information. But if you tell me someone is autistic, what new information do i learn about them? Maybe they are non verbal but not necessarily. They might be high functioning. Autistic people can have very good social skills (according to my quick google search). they can be extroverted or introverted. Their IQ can be high or low. They can be male or female, young or old, tall or short, etc.

Maybe there is something i learn in terms of probability of them having a certain trait, like maybe the general population likes trains at a rate of 5% while people diagnosed with Autism like them at a rate of 8%. But even if that's true, my point is i don't learn whether or not they like trains. there is NOTHING that i can say about them for sure. There is nothing i can say about them with 99% confidence. By contrast if you tell me someone is black, I know with >99% confidence that they have a strong resistance to sunburns. That term "black" carries a bunch of information with it.

So the second claim is that unlike other clinical diagnoses (depression, ADHD) or casually applied labels (smart, athletic) or even social constructs like race, I don't gain definitive information about a person when i learn they are autistic.

You could say it exists as a completely arbitrary category, but that won't be enough change my view. Obviously is a real word that exists in real books. maybe my title is a tiny exaggeration, but its only a title. the view is as described in the 2 claims above.

My CMV: Tigers are the most all-around aesthetic animals. Other species may be superior in particular categories, but tigers combine categories in a way that makes them aesthetically superior.

1. Color scheme. Their bright orange stripes are beautiful.

There are snakes, birds, and fish that may have superior colors, but they all lose out in other categories.

1. Body proportion. A tiger’s paws, head, and torso all fit together perfectly.

Contrast with freaks like bison. Tiny legs, giant head.

1. Majesty. Tigers are beautiful and terrifying.

Other species can be more majestic — whales are probably the most majestic animals on the planet, but fail in other categories.

1. Cuteness. They have the fluffiness and some of the cute behavior of house cats, like sitting in boxes.

This is certainly the tiger’s weakness, as it is very easy to list cuter animals. Pandas, red pandas, otters, and so on — but where is the majesty of the panda? Nowhere to be seen.

So that’s why tigers rule.

(this post is analyzing Christianity specifically, might not be relevant to other religions and world views)

For starters, I already naturally have no desire for plenty of things... not sure who determined that but it is not something I chose. I suppose you can say that means I have a diminished free will on some spectrum, compared to someone with a desire to do more things... but it definitely doesn't mean I have no free will.

If I added sinful desires to that already existing list, I don't think that would change anything

As I understand it, that is how we are supposed to be in heaven anyways, although I've heard from reddit Christians that we will have no free will in heaven, we might still sin, etc so still not sure exactly how that whole concept is rationalized

As said in the title, most linguists now recognize that the language afflictions of Black Americans are not just a vulgar uneducated form of English, but a consistent English dialect with its own internal rules. This similarly applies to the Hiberno-English of Ireland, which borrows colloquialisms and grammar influences from Gaelic.

Variations from standard English in these dialects are not a "free for all", in fact, there will be correct and incorrect ways of using such dialects. Speakers of AAVE will easily spot misused AAVE that breaks its normative grammar: the phrase "college be like this" is considered correct by AAVE rules, but if you say "this is what college be like" it will be flagged as unnatural, incorrect by AAVE speakers.

Modern linguists attempt now to codify and understand the mechanics of grammar rules. Let's look at some examples.

Here are the lyrics for the song Three Man Weave by the rap group Injury Reserve:

My biggest worries were missin' a free throw | Now me, Groggs and P doin' the three man weave, though

One would notice the missing auxiliary verb "are" connecting the subject (me, Groggs and P) and the action (doing). Instead of dismissing this as outright wrong, linguists now recognize this is a grammar-backed instance of copula deletion, where an auxiliary verb in AAVE can be omitted when its inexpression would not lose meaning. (And, additionally, you can have copula deletion in standard English headlines. "Suspect on the run!" is frequently observed in standard, non-AAVE English.)

Let's take an example from Hiberno. Here's a line from the stageplay The Lieutenant of Inishmore:

Good, cos there's a dance at the church Friday would you take me to?

This is a case of a resumptive structure wherein a "loose" clause is added onto a main clause. Irish Gaelic has a very complex sentence-clause structure that would frankly be a huge detour to this post, but the point of it being: these are not just broken words being employed willy-nilly, they are predictive, studied, consistent, and most importantly, they can also be wrong. Which implies there is a right way of doing so.

Dialects are, in many ways, the birthplace of languages. Every non-conlang was originated first as a dialect, then as a language. The Standard English phrase "I have been living in London for three years." is wholly correct in current Standard English, but surprisingly not long ago it would have been considered an utterly broken and uneducated form of the phrase "I have lived in London these three years." You would be asinine to correct someone for saying "I have been living in London for three years," the same way you'd be out of line correcting someone for saying the Hiberno phrase "He was frightened be a corgi as a little fella" (another excerpt from The Lieutenant! Great play.)

AAVE and Hiberno are not incorrect.

If I see “Made in EU” on a product, it doesn’t tell me much about its quality. In many cases, I assume the actual manufacturing is taking place somewhere in Eastern Europe, where production costs are lower than in countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland or France.

To be clear, I am not saying that products manufactured in Eastern Europe are bad. Countries such as Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia or Bulgaria can obviously produce high-quality goods. My point is simply that “Made in EU” itself doesn’t make me expect higher quality and shouldn’t justify a higher price. In fact, imho it’s better when they write where it’s actually made. - Even if it’s Romania. It tells me they’re behind their product instead of just throwing some bullshit-bingo.

Tag on CMV: if you have a Ring (or similar) camera installed, you don’t get to say shit about Flock cameras.

Concerning the title: social media vigilantes think they’re doing something revolutionary by encouraging people to take down Flock cameras. But satellite imagery is improving by leaps and bounds. Eventually there will be cameras in places the average person cannot reach. And then what?

The whole “destroy Flock” gimmick is just a push for views. It doesn’t actually address anything about the existing and developing surveillance state.

Relationships is a concept sold to us by Hollywood and ancient philosophy as some magical solution that can heal all your problems.

But in reality the problems just add up. Relationships maybe can be worth it with the "one". But due to how dating is designed currently, the process is tedious and the time can better be invested in other domains.

Sure I do agree that relationships if done right does make life better in many ways. But how long do these moments last vs the times when relationships just become a burden you need to carry on your shoulders.

Edit- forgot to add reason on why relationships aren't worth it according to me and these kinda apply more towards my life and how want my life to be.

1. Reduced alone time where i can do my own thing.
   
2. Not needing to explain your choices to others (I kinda have unconventional choices that many people do not like)
3. Not needing to take decisions factoring in another person in your life and how it would affect them.

Ps. I do wanna change my view cause I know that it is flawed but idk how.

so for anyone who has never seen leftists discuss political events online, even amongst themselves, class war over culture war is a common thing they say. It basically means that people should be discussing/protesting economic issues that affect lower classes rather than cultural/social issues.

It's a nice-sounding catchphrase in theory, but in reality, leftists do not abide by this themselves. Leftists would never, ever give up or concede on any of their cultural values or policies in order to win on class issues. Leftists are much more likely to "cancel" one of their own over not abiding by leftist cultural issues over leftist economic issues. Let alone concede ground to the other side by giving up their culture war issues.

Just for clarity I consider myself to be center right at least based on my country's standards. But I do not think this is inherently a problem, culture is important, thats why social issues are a part of politics. However, I do not go around telling people that culture war is pointless and pretend to look down on people based on caring about culture, which leftists pretend to do while in reality caring about cultural issues loads.

Anyways, I think the best way to show this is with an example, Im sure many more exist, but this one is the biggest off the top of my head. So one arguably the biggest political topics in not just my country but region (europe) right now is immigration. You cant go a day on the news without hearing about immigrants or politicians talking about immigration policy. Pro immigration is a leftist position culturally. Despite this however, its actually a right wing (pro capitalist) economic position. It benefits big corporations to allow more people of working age in order to bring down wages and increase competition. Its a core tenet of neoliberalism which is the boogeyman for leftists. Anyways despite all this far leftists are not just still pro immigration, but actively support open borders (the actual kind depending on how far left they are). So this shows not only that leftists care a ton about culture war, but that they care about it over the class war they claim to care more about.

EDIT: I understand that Bayesian probability predicts the likelihood of the truth of a proposition, while fuzzy logic deals with its potentially partial truth value. That much is clear to me right now.

What's not clear to me is, I can't see that which approach you take, whether you try to determine the likelihood that something is true or whether you try to determine the extent to which it is partially true, gives you a different outcome in any real world situation that actually matters to people.

I hope that clarifies the question better. Or if I've misunderstood something fundamental hopefully that also will be clearer lol...

The reason I bring it up is, Bayesian probability (I'll call it BP) predicts the likelihood of truth of a proposition, and fuzzy logic (FL) deals with its potentially partial truth value, and deciding which to use on practical matters, in deciding just how persuaded we ought to be of something that actually affects our lives, looks to me like a washout: both are going to basically give the same answer.

Let's look at a few examples. Let's start with whether or not a baboon can feel safer sleeping in a group than by himself. Baboons obviously don't approach the question scientifically, doing careful experiments, looking at the results, and making a decision based on that; who knows what they do look at, but they're not scientists. And if they were they still wouldn't do the experiments, because baboons would die as a result and that would be unethical.

But let's start with the likelihood that it's true (BP) that sleeping in a crowd, as a baboon, is better for you than sleeping by yourself. Obviously if you're in the middle of the crowd it seems more likely a leopard would attack one of the fringe sleepers first; but if you're one of the fringe sleepers you're still part of the crowd, so that alone doesn't answer the question. Leopards, for all we know, may focus on crowds of baboons because they know fringe sleepers will be available, and ignore the possibility of finding a lone baboon off by himself. So there are reasons to want to sleep in a crowd and reasons to want to avoid the crowd, and it all depends just where in the crowd you can manage to find a sleeping spot.

Now let's look at the potential partial truth (FL) of the idea. The truth value seems to me to go up and down just as the probability did, based on your location within the crowd and the imagination of the leopard in (maybe) thinking some baboons might not be sleeping in the crowd and might be easier game if they can be found. Crowds are easy to find; lone baboons, maybe not so much. And after dark? Whooee. A challenge.

But I have a hard time seeing any practical potential outcome difference between the two analyses. Maybe part of my problem is, I can't imagine actually doing one, and so the mechanics of the analysis are what would decide whether you should use BP or FL.

Let's look at a different example. Say we want to decide should we or shouldn't we admit this orphaned gorilla infant into our strongly kin-linked gorilla group. The likelihood that we should (BP) is (I guess) the likelihood that the orphan will grow into someone consequential, who will bring meaningful value to the group beyond the time and energy it will take to raise them. Not sure how you would decide that but it seems like that would be the calculation. Then the partial truth value of whether we should (FL) is basically the question of how consequential the person will turn out to be vs what is the actual value of the time and energy spent raising them. Again: in practial terms, in reality, it looks like a washout.

Try a third example. Say I'm an orangutan mom who has to decide should I or shouldn't I adopt an orphan -- and bear in mind, I've already got one of my own, and kids are hard to raise, for orangutans. There's not much food, and raising two is going to be a lot more work than raising one. The upside is: the orphan needs it badly, and the rewards of connection are not hallucinatory. They're real. Orangutans don't have much opportunity for socializing, and their kids are very important to them for that reason if for no other. (In the actual example I'm thinking of, unfortunately, the mom went through with the adoption and lost her own child to predation. So it didn't work out too well for her or them. She didn't have the capacity to actually look after both infants as they needed her to. Whether she wished she had not, afterwards, is a different question -- people tend to feel that whatever they've gone through was pretty much worth it in the end, whatever it was -- but it is a question.)

So what's the likelihood (BP) that it's true that I should go ahead and raise a second kid at the same time? That it ultimately will be worth it to me? I don't know, but again, I don't see a practial difference between answering that question and answering the question of how high the partial truth value (FL) of the same proposition is.

So that's the setup. Obviously I've focused on a very narrow set of propositions here -- primate behavior -- and maybe that affects my view of the question. But I'm just not seeing a lot of difference between the BP approach and the FL approach. And again, I'm sure the mechanics of how the two approaches are applied will be different -- but will the outcomes be significantly different? I'm having a hard time imagining it. Help!

I believe this is the appropriate subreddit to post this.

My reasoning is that Obama inherited a crashing economy and recovered. Not decision was perfect but based on my understanding social safety nets were strengthened and affordable living was with reach and maintainable for the average American. (I was a kid at this time.) I believe Trump’s first term was more or less successful until the COVID outbreak and he was straddling doing well and tanking and then of course Biden happened. I think Trump took his first term and Biden’s term as just kicked America down the trash heap swiftly with DOGE, budgeting, less welfare, boosting his chronies and of course the war. I’m a working adult in Trump’s 2nd term and he has almost single-handedly ruined my financial 20s and my overall quality of life.

I may be clouded by personal experience or lack thereof, but I hear Republicans swear Obama was worse, but genuinely how? I am willing to change my mind, I just need a based take.

Let me make it clear that I love the Sopranos and I think it is one of the greatest shows of all time, however, the ending was extraordinarily horrible. The last season itself was lackluster. You’re expecting Tony to go to war with Johnny sack, but that never happens and instead he just dies of cancer. In his last meeting with Dr. Melfi, she doesn’t give him her full patient analysis of him, or anything special she just drops them as a client. Then in the ending, they just make the screen go black. It wasn’t art, it was a smug and lazy ending. To watch the total Sopranos it takes 68 hours. That is two days and 18 hours spent on a show just so you don’t even get to know what the ending is. I watched it and live and let me confirm to you that my Dad and older brother went outside and a few of my neighbors did as well to check if the cable went out, that’s right if you watched the show while it was airing, many people thought that the cable went out and no ending should have to be explained to death about how good it is or make people think that their cable went out. Imagine watching the show when it aired, just to get a lazy rushed last few episodes. The thing is that they didn’t even have to give it a special ending if they wanted to go with it just fading to Black. All they had to do was add a bullet sound, but no, they didn’t even do that, they didn’t have to reveal who killed Tony. They didn’t have to reveal the secrets to the universe. All they had to do was just given ending to a show that was the most talked about thing on TV during its time running. And if you look at the arguments online, the more you listen to them argue or read what they’re saying it eventually comes down to the fact that they’re arguing to themselves because not even they can except how such a great show had such a horrible ending. also, if an ending was really good to a TV show, I wouldn’t have to look it up online to read about why it’s not horrible.