does anyone know what this guy has in common with Sarah Palin and Me?

*quality

I'm currently reading "Superintelligence" by Nick Bostrom and it's pretty *fear inducing.

If we ever do hit the singularity... it doesn't really matter what we do.

First up, if it's an AGI is to be any use, it needs to be at least as smart as us. Which means, by definition, it will be capable of writing its own AGI.

There are any number of nightmare scenarios where even a seemly benevolent goal might be disastrous for humanity.

"Multivac, fix the environment!"
"Ok, what's the major issue with the environment?"
/wipes out humanity

"Multivac, solve the Riemann hypothesis!"
"Ok, but I'll need a lot of processing power"
/converts entire planet to a giant cpu

Even if, by some miracle, we end up developing a benevolent AI that understands our needs and is aligned with them, (e.g. the Culture Minds), we are no longer in control.

We might be along for the ride, but we're certainly not driving.

The other thing that's interesting is a question of scale. We tend to think of intelligence in human terms, like this.

infants..... children.....mentally impaired..Sarah Palin.....normal people.....Neil deGrasse Tyson.....Feynman, Einstein, Newton, etc.

But that ignores all the lower intelligences:

bacteria...Trump......insects.....sheep.....dogs...chimps, dolphins, etc............................... dumb human..smart human.

But from a superintelligence's point of view, the scale looks more like this
bacteria.. humanity ... Tesla ................................................... ..................................................................................................
..................................................................................................
............................................................................................. AI

It is rather disturbing how accurate he was. Trump isn't really too far off from a Palin, all idiotic bluster and charisma masking an intellectual and ethical vacuum. He's clearly just signing off on whatever he's told, with his own pet issues getting most of the media flak. Can't imagine Trump from before 2015 or so giving much of a crap about the Johnson amendment or anything Jesus-related, but tell him in 2017 it'll get the evangelicals on his side and of course it's a vital issue.

I think I would have preferred Palin, as her family in the White House (rather than swinging quasi-bachelor Trump) would have been entertaining on some level.

Might have to look into seeing what Olbermann is saying about the next few weeks / months / years...

I don't know... does not seem such a bad loss in retrospect:

2016 Trump 62,985,105 Clinton 65,853,625
2012 Romney 60,933,504 Obama 65,915,795
2008 McCain 59,948,323 Obama 69,498,516

I'd forgotten McCain ran with Palin as VP, that would have been as ludicrous as Trump if they won and something unfortunate happened to him.

Good god, I just typed in Africa in the country list only to remember it's not a country. Basically just did a Sarah Palin.

Hmm. I agree that Trump is an incompetent egotistical blowhard, who drums up support by drastically overstating America's problems. America doesn't *need* drastic change.

...BUT, American government, particularly at the national level in Washington really is a complete trainwreck that *does* need drastic change. Both of our disgusting parties hold plenty of blame for that.

I think that the short-term damage that a Trump presidency would cause would be mitigated pretty well by the separation of powers, one of the few elements of our government that does function pretty well. And I feel like it is possible that a long-term benefit could be that Republican voters would get a hard-to-ignore lesson that the "ideals" that are spouted by their party leadership don't work. George W Bush was the best thing to happen for the Democrat party in a long time; Trump could finish the party off and let something better replace it.

Hillary is definitely more competent. In the short term, the country would definitely be better off with her at the helm than Trump. But, I don't see any long-term benefits to electing her.

Republicans would have a prime and familiar scapegoat. The legislative branch ground to a standstill with Obama in office, I think it will/would be worse with Hillary. That might actually be a good thing; it could limit the damage that they can do -- and the consequences of a shitty legislative branch are worse than a shitty president, I think.

And the Democrat party, which had a golden fucking opportunity to lead by example and actually do some exciting GOOD things with government to win voters over, instead did every dirty and questionable thing they could to guarantee that Hillary "I am the establishment" Clinton got their nomination.


Neither side deserves to win, and in fact both sides deserve to lose. I'll be voting 3rd party; not that it will accomplish anything.

Democrats, you could have had my vote if you had selected literally anybody other than Hillary. Hell, I'd probably even have voted for Hillary over Trump if she had beat Bernie fair and square without resorting to all the shady stuff (she probably would have won even without that shit).

Republicans, almost the same goes for you -- I'd pretty happily have voted for anybody other than Trump running against Hillary. Well, maybe not creepy-as-fuck Ted Cruz or some other batshit crazy option like Sarah Palin; but pretty much any of the others.

Too late now though.

To be fair:

There were lots of questions about John McCain's health when he ran for president. Especially after he named Palin to be his VP. Now, here we are 8 years later and he is fine and still serving in the Senate.

I'm not complaining about that -- I think that it was a legitimate concern to bring up. Particularly because Palin would have taken over if anything had happened.


It is just as legitimate of a concern in Hillary's case. ...And this is a rather terrible thing to say, but personally, I'd say that her ticket gets *more* attractive the more likely it seems that she might keel over at any second. I could probably justify voting for Tim Kaine over Trump, but with the race being Hillary vs Trump I'll vote 3rd party. Sorta the exact opposite of the Palin scenario...

They should simply murder anyone trying to build it on their land, and insist on using tribal courts in the prosecution of the 'crime'. No tribal jury will convict them....problem solved. Can we please get Palin to attend the ground breaking ceremony?

Palin 2020!

I'm just baffled that anyone would take the time to try to decipher anything Palin said. I find her word salads to be like a car wreck. I'll slow down enough to try to get a glimpse of what is going on, but I'm not going to pull over and try to figure out who caused it.

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The 'typical female activities' she references are what Clinton claimed was the subject of the deleted e-mails - "all other emails were personal and pertained to matters such as "yoga routines," "family vacations," and "planning Chelsea's wedding."" Palin's implying that this is bullshit, and that Clinton is using femininity as a shield against inquiry.

The reason why this is confusing to us is that Palin's followers are already so familiar with this line of attack that she doesn't need to spell it out - she just needs to reference the keywords. It's a meme to them - "Haha, 'yoghazi'" - so Palin can just add to the meme with 'Downward dog' and achieve her intended effect

^ @ChaosEngine: I think she makes perfect sense -- she just has some hang ups in regards to her own gender. (She's also really dumb.)

"Leave Hillary Alone, Bullies"

Sarcasm. Reference to an old meme regarding Britney Spears?

"Aww, c'mon guys, give her a break. Anyone can be out of commission.... for weeks on end... whilst in the heat of battle for the highest office in the land. No press conferences for nearly a year? No scheduled campaign events for days upon days? No statements, no answers, no accountability, no problem. Layin' low to run out the clock before November, but you're SEXIST for noticing it."

Sarcasm and calling out Hillary and the media for using misogyny and sexism as a crutch rather than ignoring the sexism like a good woman should in this man's world. Like Palin, who mans up and doesn't let her emotions show. (I don't believe in this viewpoint, but I believe Palin does.)

"And you're MISOGYNIST for questioning a female's fitness. Good thing media didn't hound the crap out of '08 candidate John McCain for his decades-old military medical records or I'd guess them to be hypocrites."

More sarcasm in regards to feminism, while calling out the hypocrisy of the media going after McCain's medical records, but excusing Hillary.

"Leave Hillary alone! All that email-evidenced yoga, and wedding planning, and cookie-baking-grandma-duty wears you out. Believe you me."

Sarcasm and misogyny in the form comparing Hillary's email scandal to typical female activities such as practicing yoga, wedding planning and baking cookies. Not exactly sure why she's focused on making fun of typical female activities. Palin clearly has some emotional issues she needs to work out. Maybe she wishes she was a man? lol. Anyway!

"Heck, even those of us claiming to be fit as a (seasoned?) fiddle, hit bumps in the wellness road. Even I. Especially I. (Remember Piper's middle name is "Grace"; mine isn't.)"

Is she referring to Trump as the "seasoned" fiddle? No clue.

Also not sure who Piper is... Piper Laurie from Twin Peaks? Piper Wright from Fallout 4? Pied Piper? Likening the Pied Piper to Jesus Christ, who by "grace" she is saved? Help me out here.

"Rock-running recently, I tripped over my own two feet and crashed & burned face-first. I recovered with the doc's SuperGlue, and now any man who asks "what happened?" I'll refer to as just a mean ol' SEXIST bully."

I think she's appealing to men by referring to stitches as "SuperGlue", sorta like duct tape fixing everything. She should have said the doc's duct tape. That would have been funny, actually. But for real, I think Palin may have an inner desire to be a man and not a "weak" woman.

"Glad for Hillary's protective media's precedence. The next woman running for POTUS has no need to answer to much of anything, for we've got weddings to plan, and Down Dogs to do, and cookies in the oven! So just leave us alone, boys."

Almost full circle to earlier in the message where she lists a bunch of typical female activities: wedding planning, yoga ("Down Dogs" = downward facing dog, a pose in yoga), and baking cookies.

I guess she's claiming Hillary is just a whiny girl so she might as well just do a bunch of dumb girl stuff. Meanwhile, Palin is doing "man" stuff like jumping on rocks, then she goes to the hospital, gets her head superglued together and back out on her feet doing more man stuff.

I'm gonna go bake some cookies now. That sounds like the best idea Palin's ever inspired me to do. Bake some motherfuckin' cookies.

Also, everyone should practice yoga and if you're going to get married, doesn't everyone help with the planning on some level? Why is Palin so dumb?

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1. I tend not to like lists like these, so I always ensure that at least some answers are completely made up. In protest I will not reformat this list to make it more readable.
2. I was quite good at fencing. I was Irish national sabre champion, but that's a lot less impressive than it sounds.
3. I won Miss Fencing Intervarsities 3 years running. I'm male.
4. I'm a Monty Python fan to an unhealthy degree. I co-wrote the first Python FAQ online, based on actual questions that were asked frequently.
6. I have called every living member of Monty Python 'Michael' except Michael Palin. I called him Terry. None of them called me on it.
7. I have what amounts to a secret crush on someone here on the sift. They always say what I'm thinking, but far more eloquently than I ever can. I grin when they upvote me.
8. I have a Scaramanga-style extra nipple.
9. I have a son. My girlfriend's waters broke while I was watching Alien. I'm more proud of the second part than the first... lots of other people have tiny pet humans.
10. I was once kicked in the head by Armand Assante (a b-list-ish actor).
11. I can sing the names of about 20 particularly nasty diseases.
12. I'm batman.
13. I've been online since the 80s, but at this stage the web is pretty much read-only for me. I'm more active here on the sift than anywhere else, and that's not saying much.
14. I was in Russia during the 'invasion of Georgia' in 2008. In fact, I was in the mountains bordering the two countries and saw the situation almost first-hand. Before then I had little confidence in the news we get here in the west; now I have almost none. Stuff broadcast as fact was (to me) easily proven false at the time, and the subsequent UN report backs up my side of the story.
15. I teach tai chi.
16. One of my happiest memories is not sleeping with a hot (and very cool) Norwegian woman.
17. I once ran a marathon backwards. It's not as easy as it sounds.
18. My grandmother owned race horses, including one who holds a significant record in Cheltenham. She's quite famous here in Ireland (to a certain generation at least).
19. Online (and sometimes off) I tend to use anagrams of my name. The idea is that it's hard to find Noims from my real name (until someone ruins that), but not too hard to go the other direction. My avatar is based on the same principle. There are at least 3 other Noimses online, but I was the first.
20. My favourite piece of software is the vi editor (specifically gvim). I have no idea what my favourite book, music, or non-python film are.
21. I'm a keen gamer, but most offline. I hate Steam. I've been playing Nethack since the 80s, and still play in the devnull competition yearly... it's the longest running online game tournament there is.
22. I think one of the worst facts in the world is that marketing works.
23. I was in a metal band called the Bubonic Duck-Fuckers from Hell (BDF).
24. I used to be big into RPGs (role playing - not rockets). I once got first prize in 3 games in a single weekend convention with 4 game slots.
25. I love the number 12, and know all the powers up to 12^12. Consequently I dislike the number 5. I strongly tend to favour multiples/powers of 12 over those of 5.