Neanderpundit

at Where there’s a will, I’ve been discussing with Mr Will the idea of strong AI, and one of the issues I have with the idea is the fact that we as humans are capable of holding the most vastly contradictory ideas and still function. You cannot make a machine capable of reason and also make it capable of containing conflicting “Facts”. Especially when those “Facts” are not.

And we ended up at moral absolutes. There are such things, and they are, as the word says, absolute; they do not relate to humans nor machines but to everything.

An example of a moral absolute is this: Theft. When being A acquires the property or the product of the enterprise of being B without agreed upon compensation, being A has stolen. This is always wrong.

“But he needed that loaf of bread to feed his family!” Great. Theft is still wrong. “but that other person has so much!! They didn’t even notice!! they waste more than that every day!!” Still wrong. Theft is theft, and it is a moral absolute, to every being in the universe, period.

For any of you who are not aware of the term greysplaining is when somebody older than you tries to tell you something and since you already know everything there’s no way that anything that they have to say can be relevant.

I have certainly in my time accused my elders of this or at least put up patiently with it.

I have apparently arrived at the age where everything I say is greysplaining to somebody. Even people who I had previously thought were bright enough could benefit from somebody else’s experience. It would be easy to be irritated at being ignored, but I actually find it sort of amusing. I know what that experience costs, and anybody not bright enough to learn from somebody else will pay that price themselves. And I am fine with that. I may even stick around and help pick up the pieces. Actually no I won’t I don’t care that much.

I tend not to advertise when I am on vacation. But I have at least have the opportunity to rest and relax and enjoy myself, most of which involved a good deal of sleeping and a good deal of reading. Also a good deal of missing the new pupper doggo, and I look greatly forward to having him try to chew off my ears. Lots of things have changed in the last year, and I am changing with them as this is a necessity in the modern world. Technology is not going to leave me alone.

It would be wonderful to cut back and live like an Amish family, and I think about this a great deal, but the amount of cash required to do this would not be insubstantial. Insurance, medication, Etc require a real world income.

Still, left to my own devices, I would live quite simply, and probably alone, and without much in the way of Technology. I figured cutting the line off at 1935 or so gives me the very best in Centerfire Rifle and Pistol cartridges, decent pickup trucks, central heat, Etc.

I dreamed last night, that Canada was filled with strange religious sects that each had its own place in time. Like the Mennonites who seem to be stuck in the late 1800s, there was a sect that was stuck in the 40s, another one the 60s, another one the 70s. Each sect had its own period dress to which it clung. The 50s group were nearly indistinguishable from many of the Mormons I know.

Anyway the dream didn’t involve any accordions at all, so I didn’t wake up screaming which is a blessing.