Being Killed by AI and Robots collapse

The #1 trending youtube video right now is the one by Boston Dynamics, of the robot that can jump up on crates, balance itself, and do back flips. Some people from other subreddits have become very afraid at what is going on.

Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking have all said that AI and robots is something you need to be scared of. Musk especially is really, REALLY scared of it. However, people like Ray Kurzweil have claimed that after we reach the singularity, a new "enlightenment" type of phase in human evolution is going to happen, where the super-smart AI will be able to solve problems which we humans with our un-upgradable brains might never be able to, like find new cures to cancer, etc.

Now, Sam Harris has done two podcasts talking with people about whether the Robots would eventually come and kill humans.

http://ift.tt/2AUfU6B http://ift.tt/2ftaA1k

I remember once watching this documentary about the possible situation that an alien species comes to earth and decide to kill us all Independence Day style. It turns out that at the core of the space ship is some giant super-computer doing all sorts of analysis and makes some final conclusion that humans should be exterminated.

This type of "marix" style situation can play out.

Our lives are now so connected to the internet. Almost everyone just works in front of a computer. We do money transactions using computers. Our electrical system is based on computers. Even some of the locks for the door to our house is computer automated.

If the AI that is built becomes sentient one day, it could literally make some calculation and decide that humans must be killed. Anyone ever seen the 3rd Terminator movie, when Skynet turns on and the drone shoots up the military base it is housed in?

Or the Matrix movies? Or Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex?

People maybe 30 years from now get these chips embedded, and everyone wheres some Google Glasses visor and the AI decides to turn us off, or blinds us all. Our doors are locked, and the heater turns on, radiator shuts off, our tesla cars all swerved into traffic, fighter jets gets turns on, bombs are dropped, and our infrastructure all go done. The banks stop working giving error messages. Electric trucks all stop working so food don't get delivered. Even the refrigerator gets locked.

and we all get silently killed off slowly.

Submitted November 17, 2017 at 01:36PM by Raptorbite http://ift.tt/2AUfVrb collapse

Getting used to a lower standard of living collapse

Whenever I post in economics collapse threads, I often write posts about Americans just accepting a lowered standard of living. I think our current standard of living is bloated and unsustainable, environmentally, financially, and spatially unsustainable. I do think the American standard of living is going to be lowered as the standard of living in the rest of the world rises.

I do think Americans of the future are going to have to get used to a lowered standard of living. They will have to get used to things like eating less meat, having fewer cars on the road, and eating more local and seasonal food. I see the 1-bedroom and studio apartment models as incredibly wasteful- it is incredibly resource and space intensive for 1 person to have their own kitchen, bathroom, refrigerator, and 600 square foot apartment space, plus a carport. I do think Americans need to get used to living with family or sharing the living room, bathroom, and kitchen with others in a dorm or Communist style apartment. This "move out at 18, live in an apartment by yourself" is a completely unsustainable way of life, it was never going to last, people lived with family and shared resources with their tribe throughout all of history, its not something to be ashamed of.

Whenever I suggest that Americans simply get used to a lower standard of living and a life that involves more resource and space sharing, as well as cutting back on resources used, I always get so much anger. Americans are so shocked and angry at my suggestions that life in the future is just going to be more similar to life in the pre-WW2 America. I just see it as inevitable that the standard of living for a lot of Americans is going to decrease, we can't rely on the post WW2 boom and the USD as World Reserve Currency propping up our standard of living forever.

Submitted September 26, 2017 at 06:12AM by TropicalKing http://ift.tt/2xGhSsd collapse

Glimmer of hope collapse

Pasted below, Spain's sub-replacement birth rate has finally resulted in deaths outpacing new births in 2015. In a few years at this pace, Spain's population will fall. Rather than the government realizing that this is a good thing, they are trying to boost their birth rate. Spain has a high unemployment rate! A drop in population will open up employment opportunities for younger people.

Instead of encouraging First-worlders to have more children, third-worlders should be encouraged to have fewer children (and focus on nurturing those children).

As far as the "need more young people to take care of the growing population of elderly" attitude, a better investment would be public health initiatives to encourage physical fitness to reduce chronic diseases and help the elderly remain physically independent for longer periods.

http://ift.tt/2mtNi01

Spain just hired someone to solve its growing sex problem

Edelmira Barreira Diz has a big task ahead of her: As of earlier this year, it is now her job to get Spaniards to have more sex.

In late January, Barreira was hired as a special commissioner in Spain's government to reverse the trend of falling fertility rates in the country. According to CIA data, women have an average of just 1.49 children, well below the replacement fertility rate of 2.2 kids, which demographers say keeps a population steady.

As a result, in 2015 Spain had its first year in decades in which deaths outnumbered births.

Low fertility rates can be both a symptom and cause of larger economic woes. On the one hand, if people aren't reproducing, there are fewer people alive to keep the economy healthy through spending. On the other, low fertility rates can indicate the economy is already weak, and that people don't feel like they have the means to start families.

Barreira, for her part, acknowledged to Spanish press in late February that "it isn't going to be possible to solve the problem overnight." The case in her country is unique in that women in Spain wait longer than most women in Europe to have kids — the average age is over 30 — and that Spaniards live longer, on average, than any other country residents in the European Union.

Over the next several months it'll be Barreira's job to produce a "clear diagnosis" of the problem, according to the Spanish newspaper Faro De Vigo. Already, the unemployment rate stands out as a clear sign the country needs a kickstart, Barreira said. Nearly half of all young people in Spain are jobless.

Similar to how Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has had to address demographic challenges in his home country of Japan, which has young people abandoning their elders outside hospitals because in-home care is too expensive, Barreira will look to develop solutions of her own.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us," Barreira told Faro De Vigo.

She hasn't yet revealed specific plans to combat falling fertility in the face of widespread aging, but other countries may offer some creative ideas.

In Japan, Abe has launched speed dating events and fatherhood classes to get men interested in family life. (Although some scholars argue the real solution involves much more government intervention to change Japan's work-heavy culture.)

In Denmark, TV ads told viewers to "Do it for Denmark." In Singapore, where fertility rates are the lowest in the world, the government held an event in 2012, sponsored by Mentos, that not-so-subtly encouraged people to "let their patriotism explode."

And in Russia, September 12 has been the official Day of Conception since 2007. Women who give birth nine months later, on June 12, win a free refrigerator.

Submitted March 02, 2017 at 09:01PM by BobTheCube http://ift.tt/2mnGn8l collapse

We already know the solution, but we refuse to accept it. collapse

The solution you're looking for is very simple: Degrowth. Accept that we're not going to colonize the universe, you won't strap a jetpack to your back, you'll never take a vacation on Mars, you'll never know for sure if other planets harbor life, you'll never know for sure what the smallest particles in an atom are, your physical body won't be immortal and you won't have your own robot slaves. In fact, you'll never see the inside of an airplane again, you'll never heat your house again nor will you ever eat tropical fruit or beef again.

Counterintuive as it might seem, the idea that humanity won't expand further and colonize other planets is more difficult for people to accept than the idea that they themselves will have to make some kind of sacrifice. The latter takes wilpower, the prior causes an existential crisis and makes you wonder what you dedicated your life towards. Your daily cubicle labor that makes you miserable must be part of some greater linear-progress narrative right? Surely technology and science will eventually create some kind of paradise on Earth, even if I never get to experience it myself?

Look at science and technology not as a messiah or as a puzzle with a big reward at the end, but as a continual ethical challenge. When we say "we demanded more than the Earth could give", we need to mean it. It's not "we demanded things from the Earth that we should have demanded in another way". It comes down to accepting that mankind was not endowed with some kind of divine obligation to fix a series of technological puzzles that would ultimately lead us to escape the expansion of the sun, but that we are a species like any other, here to derive meaning and pleasure from our participation in a functional ecosystem.

And if you think this isn't relevant, this is in fact the only real problem we're dealing with, the secular religion of progress, the worship of man as the source of his own salvation. Even Greenpeace is unwilling to admit that eating meat is a problem. Look at Greenpeace and beneath the facade of environmentalism you will find a narrative that comes down to: "We're using the wrong kind of technologies to satiate our limitless greed." The very fact that we have to accept limits in our lives amounts to the highest form of blasphemy possible in most intellectual circles.

America as a society is great, because it serves as a perfect example of what we shouldn't be doing. It's a case study of a society that refuses to accept limits. When you receive a promotion, you relocate to the other side of the continent. When two people marry, family has to fly in from all sides of the continent. I'm Dutch, I can step on my bicycle and visit most places my family has lived since we began keeping records.

In China, India and many other places, three generations can cohabit in the same house. In America, if you move back in with your parents after graduating college, you must be a pathetic loser who failed to get his shit together. Among hunter-gatherer tribes, it's common for men to have their own hut and for women to have their own hut. Among Americans, the main household form is now a single person living by himself. Think of the vast amounts of resources you're wasting because everyone needs his own toilet, shower, TV-screen, automobile, refrigerator and so forth.

Among some African tribes, the villagers refuse to modernize agriculture and use heavy machinery, because they enjoy singing communal songs together as they harvest the fruits of their labor, that's what their culture is based around. In America, you work in a cubicle, your parents live in a nursing home, your children to go daycare and your food is harvested by a machine. Is it any wonder people have nobody to confide in any longer?

What we are dealing with is a cultural model that is dysfunctional. There is an error in our cultural operating system. Solar panels, space lasers and Thorium reactors are not going to solve it for us. You have replaced functional communities, where people feel a sense of belonging and dedication to one another, with unsustainable material wealth that's meant to prove to other people that you're not a loser. That's going to blow up in your faces sooner or later.

Submitted March 01, 2017 at 10:00PM by ForWithycombe http://ift.tt/2mFlvqx collapse

GOING DOWN THE ROAD collapse

GOING DOWN THE ROAD Most things in our world have an industrial history. Behind the computer, the T-shirt, the vacuum cleaner is an industrial infrastructure fired by energy (fossil fuels mainly). Each component of our car or refrigerator has an industrial history.

Mainly unseen and out of mind, this global industrial infrastructure touches every aspect of our lives. It pervades our daily living from the articles it produces, to its effect on the economy and employment, as well as its effects on the environment.

Most of us don’t thnk about the road we are on. It is just there unless it has huge potholes or other problems. It allows our mobility from home to work to shopping to play or even to the hospital. It allows us to visit friends and relatives near and across the country. Huge trucks criss cross this country on this dark ribbon bringing goods and food. It allows us to drive to the airport. It allows the planes to take off and land.

ASPHALT IS EVERYWHERE AND WE DON’T REALLY SEE IT. See videos and more at: http://ift.tt/2gsA1Bz SO, IN 10 TO 25 YEARS WHEN CRUDE OIL IS SCARCE AND TAKES AS MUCH OR MORE ENERGY TO GET THAN IT GIVES - THEN WHAT?

Submitted November 26, 2016 at 10:25PM by sunweber2 http://ift.tt/2fzcACc collapse

If civilization has peaked, shouldn't we at least celebrate at the top? collapse

I feel like we should put a flag in the top of prosperity mountain.

I get that collectively, we're all responsible for potentially screwing up the planet. But if that's true, then we're also collectively responsible for everything good that's happened.

It took billions of years for our solar system and life on our planet to evolve to where it is today. Even a couple hundred years ago people were living without electricity, refrigerators, etc., etc.. Now we can sit at our desk and look at pictures of the surface of Mars. It seems strange that people whose lives just happen to overlap the peak of it all are sad because it may not last forever.

I imagine if the people who lived in the past and went through the plague, civil war, slavery, etc. could look down from the heavens and see us complaining about student debt levels or that kind of thing.

If you think things are always going to get better, it makes you long for the future. By the same logic, if you think things will get worse, shouldn't you think today is the best day ever.

Everything dies. Pets, people, planets and stars. Even if you do everything right and live the perfect life, the worst thing that could happen to you, will (dying).

I know everyone's personal situation is different and people that lost their houses and jobs in 2008 may have a hard time being happy now.

I've already decided to spend the rest of my life working toward becoming more resilient against an economic downturn and to keep my eye on the risks out there. After doing that for a few years though, I think I'm going to spend more of my time trying to enjoy what we've got (in a frugal and responsible way).

Submitted March 22, 2015 at 01:55AM by haole1 http://ift.tt/1AXJn83 collapse