I specifically ask for sources to my questions and to notify me of any possible controversies or counterclaims.

Some of the capabilities of todays’ AI’s are incumbent on the user, not the system itself.

Before AI’s existed you could also get badly sourced claims or outright misinformation. The key is to remain critical and sceptical about ALL your sources. I don’t see AI as a new source of information, just as a new way to get and organize that information.

Down bad son?

“This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years!”

Ferdinand Foch, 1921

Technically, an orbital “Rods from God” weapon would also still qualify under “sticks and stones”. Just very big ones.

Conversely, there are many other people from his time that definitely did exist and verifiably so. I have a bronze coin minted in Judea by Pontius Pilatus. I can look at it, I can touch it, it’s real. Even as an avowed agnostic, I see no reason why Jesus couldn’t have been a real person (minus the miracles that were almost certainly later additions).

I do agree that in the grand scale of things we’re actually very early. That alone would explain a lot.

Unfortunately we’ve pretty much used up all easily available resources. Anyone ‘starting over’ would have a much harder time getting the things they need to really get the ball rolling again.

When humans first discovered gold they practically only had to scoop it out of rivers. You’ll be hard pressed to find any streams with such appreciable production anywhere in the world today.

Nah, I’m willing to bet there is actual physical life in our very own solar system (apart from all life on Earth, of course). Europa’s oceans for example have a decently high probability of hosting microbial life.

Of course, discovering primitive life all around us would be a bad sign the great filter is still ahead of us instead of behind us…

The most boring one: most species off themselves before they fully get off their starting planet. We will go the same way. Take your pick from climate change, war, pandemic, … or even a combination of several!

Exactly this. In ancient Roman times, emperor Caracalla was infamous for having many of his enemies outright killed. One of these was the brother of a soldier who was assigned to his personal guard at the Rhine border regions. When Caracalla got off his horse for a piss, he got a gladius thrusted between his ribs. For all his might and power, he very much brought that on himself.

Sometimes people like that soldier are the last line of justice in the world.

I’m gonna go with “no” judging by how things have been going in the past. I hope to be proven wrong, but I’m not holding my breath.

I agree, all the evils of yesteryear are still there and active, just either well-hidden or people simply don’t care/pretend not to know (cfr football world championships in Qatar, …).

We’ve made enormous progress technologically, but humans are still the exact same as 2000 or 5000 years ago. We’ve changed exceedingly little in that time, and the few things that have changed could be reverted very quickly if shove comes to push concerning climate collapse etc.

Best I can do is a token effort as long as it doesn’t upset the shareholders.

Depends on the capabilities. If i can automatically open my garage door with my mind or draw a bath, or control a cursor on a screen, then no. If it enables entire new ways of experiencing sensations or memories, or ways to share them, or fully immerse you in a virtual world indistinguishable from reality, then maybe. If it’s not from a company Musk has any hand in.

Actually yes, but that has more to do with 20 years of crippling depression and chronic pain than the coming climate disasters.

Nope, there’s nothing special about me or my family. We’re just insignificant eurotrash. Odds we’d be among the survivors are very low.

And honestly, would that be such a bad thing? 8 freaking billion of us is at least 7.5B too many.

Did you miss the memo that current AI is already using more power than everything we’ve managed to save with green energy in the last decade? We ARE fucked, the only thing we’re still debating is the exact timespan. Which is asinine, the result will remain the same either way.

The only way I see to a path to salvation is a huge pandemic or world war, becausing nothing else will convince people. We’ve been trying (and failing) for decades.

I do, but like most other people, I’m preoccupied with short term crises since, well, I need to survive those in order to be ready for the long-term ones.

In my opinion though, we don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. The elite will manage to hang just a bit longer, but eventually they’ll cook and burn with the rest of us, or in their bunkers.

Anyways, shit’s already fucked to the point that I’ve given up. Just sit back, relax and take whatever life gives ya.

Yes!! Such a classic.

My hognose once surprised me by “throwing” rocks off his ridge. He was trying to burrow and apparently thought they were in the way, so he carefully yeeted them down one by one. I was rather impressed by that as well.