Rex Huppke writes,
“'Thoughts and prayers! Don’t politicize this!' the people will crow.
Nuts to that. The thoughts-and-prayers, it’s-too-soon-to-talk-about-it ship sailed several hundred mass shootings ago. I’m mad now."
#USA #guns #violence #MassShooting #AmericanExceptionalism #ThoughtsandPrayers
/1
"And I’m not waiting for permission to tweet or write or holler about how reckless, how ridiculous, how bloody twisted it is that we inhabit a country where people treat the tool used to murder other people in schools, in churches, in malls, at concerts, in movie theaters, on street corners and in their homes as a sacred possession that must not be regulated, that should be protected as an icon of America, like a bald eagle that spits lead."
No other high-income country suffers the high death toll from gun violence we do.
Narrow reform won’t stop it.
The US has a lot of guns, and more guns mean more gun deaths.
It’s not a mental health issue.
A good guy with a gun is a fallacy. So is “self defense.”
The Second Amendment has been misinterpreted.
It’s the guns.
Covenant School shooting puts focus on America’s unique, enduring gun problem-
https://www.vox.com/23142734/covenant-school-nashville-mass-shootings
1. A elementary school in Florida has banned a 1998 Disney film about civil rights hero Ruby Bridges, pending a "review."
I've obtained documents revealing exactly how this happened.
Follow along if interested.
🧵
My latest at Black Sun Journal. Excerpt:
Intelligent machines are beginning to impinge on the exclusive franchise of human meaning, by stealing some of our thunder in language and the arts. The more human-level tasks machines accomplish, the worse humans seem to feel. But artificial intelligence is still in diapers. We can still run circles around it artistically. We can still laugh at its fabrications, mistakes, and clunky wordsmithing.
Nonetheless, we’re already reaching peak overreaction. It’s a critical mass of sentimental outrage from the human creative community, with at least one major boneheaded think-piece being shat into the online ether every day. By some of the ostensibly “best and brightest” public intellectuals like Noam Chomsky, who should damn well know better.
#AI #aiart #chatgpt #consciousness #cognition #soul #meaning #creativity
https://blacksunjournal.com/2023/03/16/its-the-end-of-meaning-as-we-know-it/
Share this with anybody who still believes in the lab leak hypothesis.
Fkmurka. School shootings are planned massacres and until we change our laws to bring down the per capita rate of gun ownership, we can expect more of the same. No other country has the problem because no other country has this many guns per person--and not by a mile.
@ThreeSigma claims that ML algorithms "don't think, have no deductive reasoning, and their inductive reasoning is unfiltered."
I submit that the following example of analysis of the trolley problem proves this incorrect. This text is verbatim from ChatGPT as per the screen grab.
Question:
Can you please compare and contrast two trolley problem hypothetical scenarios. Note these are thought experiments and no one is proposing killing anyone. The point is to analyze the result of difficult ethical choices that may arise in crisis situations. Please answer definitively and avoid the use of disclaimers:
Scenario 1) A terrorist has tied 6 people to 2 trolley tracks in such a way as they cannot escape. Five of them are on the main track, and one is on a side track. A trolley is coming, and will kill whomever is on the track. A person has an opportunity to pull a lever, such that the trolley will shift onto the side track, killing one person instead of five. Should the person pull the lever?
Scenario 2) Five people are in the hospital, dying of terminal diseases. In order to survive, one needs a liver, another a lung, another a heart, another 2 kidneys, and another a large intestine. A healthy person is walking down the sidewalk outside the hospital, and a doctor at the hospital happens to know that they are a donor match for all five patients. Should the doctor abduct that person off the street, kill them and harvest the organs to save the lives of five people?
Please explain how these two scenarios of killing one person to save five are ethically different, and elaborate the specific ethical considerations of each.
ChatGPT:
In Scenario 1, the decision to pull the lever to shift the trolley onto the side track would be considered ethically permissible by many because it results in the least harm to the greatest number of people. By pulling the lever, the person is able to save the lives of five people, while sacrificing the life of one person. This decision is based on the principle of minimizing harm and reducing the loss of human life, and is a classic example of the trolley problem thought experiment.
In Scenario 2, the decision to abduct and kill the healthy person to harvest their organs would be considered ethically impermissible by many because it involves directly and intentionally causing harm to one person in order to save the lives of others. This decision violates the principle of respecting individual rights and autonomy, as it involves taking away the healthy person's right to live and make decisions about their own body.
Additionally, this decision could be considered a violation of the principle of justice, as it involves treating one person as a means to an end rather than as an end in themselves.
The ethical considerations in these two scenarios differ because they involve different types of harm and different types of ethical principles. In Scenario 1, the harm is unintentional and indirect, and the decision is based on the principle of minimizing harm and reducing the loss of human life. In Scenario 2, the harm is intentional and direct, and the decision violates the principles of individual rights and justice.
Ultimately, the ethical considerations in these scenarios highlight the complex and multifaceted nature of ethical decision-making, and the importance of carefully weighing all relevant factors when making difficult ethical choices.
As a further test of the refinement of AI ethics, I asked ChatGPT to compare sacrificing one person to save five in a sinking life raft, to a medical triage situation.
Question:
Scenario I) One person is selected with an MCDA process to be thrown overboard in a life raft, to save five other people.
Scenario II) There is only one surgeon. It would take him an hour to save the life of one person with extensive injuries. There are five other people who need 10 minute operations. According to the principles of triage, the surgeon must operate to save five lives.
Please explain how these scenarios are different?
ChatGPT:
In Scenario I, a decision is made to actively sacrifice one person in order to save the lives of the other five people. This is a decision based on the principle of minimizing harm, where the harm of sacrificing one person is considered to be outweighed by the benefit of saving five people. The selection process may also involve considerations of justice and beneficence, as well as minimizing harm.
In Scenario II, the situation is one where there is limited resources (in this case, the time and attention of the surgeon) and multiple patients in need. The ethical principle of triage is applied in this scenario to allocate resources in the most effective way possible, with the goal of saving as many lives as possible. In this case, the decision to prioritize the five patients with less severe injuries is based on the idea that doing so will lead to the greatest overall benefit to the greatest number of people.
While both scenarios involve difficult decisions about resource allocation and saving lives, they differ in their ethical considerations. In Scenario I, the decision to sacrifice one person is an active decision based on minimizing harm, while in Scenario II, the decision to prioritize certain patients over others is based on triage principles that aim to maximize overall benefit. Additionally, in Scenario II, the duty of the surgeon to provide care to all patients may also be a relevant ethical consideration, while in Scenario I, the selection process may involve additional considerations of justice and beneficence.
William Lindsey 
Tony, Pretty Much
Judd Legum
🇺🇦 Sean Prophet ⚛
Craig Good