Zompist Bboard Again

it's funny how, when freedom of expression is curtailed, everyone imagine what they want about the clues they imagine they'll find wherever they want... curtailed? Yes. Saying that certain posters should be killed is almost certainly prohibited and perhaps even illegal, Also, troll suppression make...

I mean this nicely, but why does xxx seem to end all their sentences with an ellipsis? It's not important but if anyone can tell, I'd like to know. As a rightist in a den of lefties, he's probably frightened of getting his head bitten off. He was suspended recently, so a little nervousness is not u...

zompist wrote: ↑Fri May 02, 2025 4:34 pmWhat vaccine program in Cuba? So far as I'm aware both the US and Cuban governments prohibit such cooperation.

ssshhhh, its superrrrrrrrrrcovert - only Torco has to clearance to know or disseminate info about it.

i suppose the obvious question is "why does every nation need military bases everywhere?" even the US doesn't use 90% of their military bases in Greenland. the first country that I was going to use as a counter-example, was Tuvalu - they don't have much of a need for their military bases ...

jcb wrote: ↑Fri Apr 25, 2025 2:10 pm Trump is now selling "Trump 2028" hats.
- https://www.trumpstore.com/product/trump-2028-hat/

that'd be a 4th term.

I reopened a Muskogean conlang I've had sitting around for a long time, and it's finally taking shape. congrats! Any suggestions what I should translate first now that's becoming something usable? maybe road signs or passages from media? 'Right Turn Ahead / Right Turn Here' 'You with the freckles. ...

<smartass mode> So Brooklyn borders a city in Ohio now? Things are clearly going really bad if, on top of all else that's happening, the planet's geography has started randomly rearranging itself. </smartass mode> Hey, if it brings in more taxes, why wouldn't regional borders get wibbly-wobbly? Imp...

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:47 pm A little smarter in one domain is one thing, but what if it's clear that the AI can do every aspect of their job better than they can?

That sounds suspiciously like mallocism. (mallokism?)

bradrn wrote: ↑Thu Apr 17, 2025 11:48 pm

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Apr 17, 2025 11:34 pm go ahead, tell me about an existing AI that can reason.

Many current AIs can do so. Not as well as (some) humans, admittedly, but they can do it.

my bad then; mea culpa, I wasn't aware of any, that could do it to any degree. thank you.

(Along similar lines, they do define what they mean by ‘normal technology’. Note that they also define, e.g., the printing press and the Internet as ‘normal technologies’, despite their transformative impacts. It may be a poor choice of name, but the concept itself is reasonable.) Nonetheless, I ma...

you mean like how the world's richest people believed in the aether, or spent fortunes in pursuit of communication with ghosts? yeah, its shocking how rich people are a good barometer of what succeeds. Except that AGI is demonstrably possible given that intelligence arises from physical processes. ...

Just got a letter from my lawyer about the speeding ticket. They say that my charge was negotiated down to illegal parking and that I must pay $225 for the fine. Considering the alternative was six months in jail, that seems like an improvement. *nods* congrats on the good news. Unfortunately it st...

Artificial intelligence by contrast aims to compete with humans at their one strength, matching or exceeding us in creativity, hasn't happened yet, won't happen any time soon. Meanwhile the world's richest people are investing billions into making AGI a reality. you mean like how the world's riches...

No - they are aiming at solving particular problems, such as doing certain tasks cheaper than humans can. I can't believe I'm siding with malloc in this thread for once, I think I'm feeling faint. :) but, well, the more over-the-top ones of the tech, err, "leaders" are aiming for what mal...

It hardly makes sense to treat AI as normal technology ...because it it barely even that. since intelligence itself is hardly a normal property. Intelligence is what allowed humans to take over the world despite being among the weakest and least durable animals relative to our size. I can understan...

Some cultures employ both matriclans and patriclans, for different purposes. Why? Is there something in their environments or modi vivendi that is common to all of them, but not to any cultures that employ only patriclans, or only matriclans? at first, I thought you said patricians and matricians.....

I don't think we mean the same thing by empire. Yes. I mean empires. You mean countries you don't like. only as a contingent matter. what I mean by imperialism is when a country [lets call it the empire] employs both military, diplomatic and economic power for its corporations to expand globally to...

I do not understand this. Xi was one of Trump's best friends during his first term - him and Kim and Putin. I can understand Trump continuing to alienate his minions and others he sees as underlings, throwing various of them under the proverbial bus. But these 150+ % tariffs can't be good for Xi's o...

On the positive side, this does provide an alternative to the costly process of importing animals for our zoos from countries now under staggering tariffs. Instead of importing giraffes from Africa, we can simply engineer their closest American relative, the pronghorn, into passable facsimiles. Gra...

Mornche Geddick wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 11:26 amIs "yippy" even a word? - oh. That's where it came from. Never mind.

I've heard of someone having "the yips" with quirks to their walking or driving (or a gun that pulls one way when fired)...and I've heard Bruce Willis' long-famous "yippie kai yay".