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The importance of Truth

15 Sep

Mi gente,

Listening to the news these days, I am forced to reflect on one theme in all my posts. The theme, if you look at enough of them, is fundamentally (pardon the high mindedness), the evaluation of reality. How do you know what is true? A subtext of many of my posts is the importance of the scientific method as the avatar of discerning what we can approximate as the “Truth”. At the foundation of the scientific method is the critical role of quality evidence for claims.

I have to say that the presidential campaign is highlighting the danger of not being able to rationally evaluate evidence. We are seeing an infamous figure in American life routinely lie and say fantastical things and convincing half the voting populace that he deserves the most power a human can have in the world.

As horrible as this is, it is only a symptom of the problem of the decline of our society…. To list some others are …Zika denialism, climate change deniers, alternative health claims, vaccines, religious bigotry abroad and in the USA (gay, transgender issues), AIDs origins, gender role issues (women & high heels)… the list goes on.

In my view, this is part of an avoidable decline of our society…when people don’t know how to tell what is true or not and don’t even care. Trump success proves that. Millions and millions don’t know what he says is true and don’t care even though the consequences will bite them in the ass. Its the swirl of lies and half lies that get thrown in the public arena that most folks can’t tell what’s what. Telling what’s what is a key human endeavor.

Those of us who have a set of tools that include the requirement for quality evidence (eg. NOT national enquirer lead stories) have an advantage, but are not immune either. Confirmation bias is rampant. Truth discernment is an on-going struggle to figure out what’s what.

However, when you throw the need for evidence out the window, as someone progressive recently told me …(to paraphrase…”I don’t use evidence”), then we reap the whirlwind. As people of color we should be particularly sensitive to this. White supremacy has lies at its foundation…lies about biology, history so on. I would contend that we have to have a high standard, its not just their lies…but lies in general. People of color should strive to attain to the highest degree possible our best discernment of the truth. We shouldn’t even tell comforting lies to ourselves. We have to strive towards truth, or we and all our fellow citizens and humans are on a road to a lesser dark ages, where superstition, tyranny and oppression rule the day. All of this, truly has at its foundation lies, untruths and mendacity.

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Part 3: My AI Overlord — I just watched the movie “Transcendence”

4 Jul

So I just finished the movie “Transcendence”! I found it thought provoking, fairly accurate, but ultimately it didn’t go far enough. It did not present what an intelligence on an exponential curve of self-improvement would ultimately lead to in terms of capabilities.

An intelligence like that, with quantum computing, would be able to run every possible simulation imaginable and many we could not. Humans could not even come close to challenging it. In the movie, it had limitations that I think would be preposterous if it was exponentially I erasing its intelligence.

Once it had ability to interact with the physical world, forget it. The nano, pico and femto- machines would re- organize the world.

However, it is Hollywood, so they had to give the public part of the diet it has been fed for a long time. You need for humans to win in the end. Love beats all etc. The movie could’ve contemplate “losing” a conflict. That was so unrealistic, the AI would have re-written its code so long ago, it wouldn’t resemble at all what it started like. Plus, wouldn’t it would’ve guessed they’d try a virus and have defenses?!?!

The movie had to scale back what it tried to do. Otherwise, people would have to eat a new food and that would NOT go down well.

HW has bred a fan base on a certain diet of stories. The viewers come to expect it. That is all they have ever eaten. Simple example . They can’t have the AI “win”. That is against the diet of happy endings. This movie leaned more on the humans win side, with a hint of otherwise. Couldn’t be the reverse.

They couldn’t have envisioned a world where the human species has evolved beyond now. They could have even pictured a scenario where “normal” humans have been preserved if they want to be, but they would be handicapped so to speak. They’d be like a person with Down’s syndrome now. That would be a negative message for viewers, a downer and hence not in the diet. Even if it was speculation. The spec can’t stray too far from humans now! Iron rule!!

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