Told you you wouldn’t understand. I put it right in your face, yet you cannot comprehend.
First, the book is likely not a real school book.
Second, it describes bullying, not sex acts.

My take is he’s reading about a bully taunting a gay kid….something that happens daily in most schools beyond 1st grade today.
If you think every 6th grader in America hasn’t heard, even used the exact same insult then you are insane.
Scratch that. No if/then statement required here.
You are insane.
Every 6th grader in America has heard most have used some variation of that insult.
This was likely a high school, not a convent preschool. Grow up, or home school and make more ignorami.
This is in schools already, which is more than enough justification to teach about it.
This is normal prime time broadcast tv conversation, but makes you go nuts.

You didn’t notice the two young kids in the audience…why wasn’t his display completely inappropriate in front of children then? In his and your tiny brains you think it’s perfectly fine to read these things to children if it helps your hate filled anti-freedom movement.

Edit: If you want to protect school children from disgusting indoctrination into groups known for abusing children sexually, start banning any mention of religion from schools and keep MAGA republicans away. No other group is more likely to sexually abuse children than the Christian church besides possibly NAMBLA….but Republican politicians are a close third.

It’s not the dick in mouth part you can’t stand or find offensive, it has nothing to do with the act, it’s the mental image of two men that you can’t stop thinking about that’s getting you amped up. You know it, I know it, we all know it. Homophobes are always angry at themselves for having homosexual thoughts they’re afraid to act on….always.

What a delusional fool you are.

I don't think indoctrination means what you think it means.

Showing that there are many variations of anything out there is not indoctrination. It helps kids know that if they don't feel the same way as other people that's ok.

Indoctrination is teaching one thing as the unquestionable truth, be it sexuality, religion, political view, or one of many other subjects.

Kids are indoctrinated all the time. This fights against that.

I did. And I'm happy with the way things are going generally. At least, regarding Joe Biden.


Big picture: there's a lot of terrible things happening in the world. My own half-assed-survey based on personal experience: most people don't follow passing laws and what the executive branch really does with any kind of seriousness. They may self-proclaim they "like reading the news" But most people who say things like that are content with a surface understanding of what's happening.

I mean, you know inflation is up AROUND THE ENTIRE PLANET right? https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/15/in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world-inflation-is-high-and-getting-higher/


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Besides Israel, other countries with very large increases in inflation between 2020 and 2022 include Italy, which saw a nearly twentyfold increase in the first quarter of 2022 compared with two years earlier (from 0.29% to 5.67%); Switzerland, which went from ‑0.13% in the first quarter of 2020 to 2.06% in the same period of this year; and Greece, a country that knows something about economic turbulence. Following the Greek economy’s near-meltdown in the mid-2010s, the country experienced several years of low inflation – including more than one bout of deflation, the last starting during the first spring and summer of the pandemic. Since then, however, prices have rocketed upward: The annual inflation rate in Greece reached 7.44% in this year’s first quarter – nearly 21 times what it was two years earlier (0.36%).

Annual U.S. inflation in the first quarter of this year averaged just below 8.0% – the 13th-highest rate among the 44 countries examined. The first-quarter inflation rate in the U.S. was almost four times its level in 2020’s first quarter.

Regardless of the absolute level of inflation in each country, most show variations on the same basic pattern: relatively low levels before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in the first quarter of 2020; flat or falling rates for the rest of that year and into 2021, as many governments sharply curtailed most economic activity; and rising rates starting in mid- to late 2021, as the world struggled to get back to something approaching normal.

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The pattern of rising and falling inflation happened because that flu that "will just go away like a miracle" ended up affecting the whole world's economy in a somewhat predictable pattern when it comes to inflation. Maybe the people who only casually glance at the news when they are flipping channels don't know better, but come on - you know that inflation rates in the United States are not specifically Joe Biden's fault right?


You still think they are? OKAY - HOW? Exactly. Point to legislation passed or not passed and the timeline of inflation in the United States.

Something like "Here you can see inflation beginning to spike, and it's the result of XXXXXXXXX that Joe Biden did, here's exactly how what he did affects inflation in this way."


Who wants to bet $20 that I'll get some response like that? What should the odds be set at if I am 100% certain all I'll get is just some snarky bullshit from an old bullfrog.

If anyone's in the mood for a darker variation on Pinocchio you might enjoy the fun tale of Mr. Stiks:
https://archives.sluggy.com/book.php?chapter=37#2003-10-19

(Note that every character in that strip other than the puppeteer and the townfolk have long and rich stories themselves, which may or may not make sense out of context)

Yes, but day to day you don’t know if you need .05 of one for groceries or a wheelbarrow full. It’s unstable. That’s the entire point I’m making.

Unsecured “tokens” with no intrinsic value (like gold has) are only worth what a moron will pay….today. That varies wildly.

Gold is worth what nations have agreed is it’s value worldwide (with minor local variation)….and it has actual uses, and a finite measurable volume.

Yes the manner she's complaining is there to draw attention and hopefully embarrassed the person. As I said above this, she's not complaining about something happening, she's just complaining that the person exists.


On your second question, I was taking a pee when my kid was in and let me be brutally honest here. I thought she was still infantile enough to file things like this into 'I don't remember ' but she piped up very articulately "daddy, let me see your body" and I swear on my grandfather's grave it's the only time I've felt genuinely self conscious around my kid. I shut the curtain to the tub and explained to her that there are boys and girls, etc. But...and don't get me wrong, I'm not wanting to wander around just naked all the time, however, I see my wife on occasion interact with her like that and I wish I didn't have to feel like worried that my own kid is going to see me naked. If she does it's not the end of the world, but I guess when I'm not doing anything wrong - I wish I didn't have to worry about it. Yes.

I know different cultures have more nuanced views of nudity. Not all nudity is inherently sexual.

Moreover, the woman never even made it clear that they saw anything. She never says they saw it

Double checking

No, she says a lot of variations of "I see" or "he has" those verb forms fit with the other hypotheticals that she lays out to make them sound as close to something happening as possible.


Note - she doesn't say "I saw" or "(s)he showed" or "(s)he had" the way one would if an event happened in the past. She's talking in present tense.

But let's assume someone saw something in a flash of a towel to garment transition. For sayings sake. Yeah... I don't think it's too much to ask that parents sit their kids down and explain "well, you know Elton John? That guy is WAYYYY more manly than these people ever want to be. These people hate manly things so much they have decided they want to be women." Or something like that.

I think he relies on Trump and co. Since he believes in them implicitly and believes what they tell him, by extension he does believe in himself.

Wow, really? I've heard dozens of variations, trust in God probably being used more, but rely on God too. I'm surprised you don't see it on bumper stickers down there on America's wang.

No, you're not blind. You're right it should be included somewhere somehow, but it's a standard by Unicode. Here's a full list:

https://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html

You'd basically just use the shortcode, replacing any underscores or spaces with a hyphen.

©️ 💁‍♂️

Unfortunately it looks like there are some slight variations between the list we're using and the list at ^that page, but they're pretty close.

Ding ding ding.
Give that man a cigar.

I say it's even worse...we each have multiple, varying definitions of words like those that change (in our minds) based on context, but there's no way to transmit to the listener which of those variations are intended with any consistency unless you spell out exactly what you mean every time.

That gets tedious.

That said, I was thinking along the lines that you can't do opposites at the same time, you can't be in the light and dark (literally) together, but you can love and hate the same person at the same moment, but you can't love or hate someone you have complete disinterest in. Love and hate, in that sense, are two sides of the "emotionally invested" coin.

This isn't really true though and greatly understates how amazing this demo, and current AI actually is.

Saying the agents are obeying a set of human defined rules / freedoms / constraints and objective functions would lead one to imagine something more like video game AI.

Typically video game AI works on a set of weighted decisions and actions, where the weights, decisions and actions are defined by the developer; a more complex variation of:

if my health is low, move towards the health pack,
otherwise, move towards the opponent

In this demo, no such rules exist. It's not given any weights (health), rules (if health is low), nor any instructions (move towards health pack). I guess you could apply neural networks to traditional game AI to determine the weights for decision making (which are typically hard coded by the developer); but that would be far less interesting than what's actually happening here.

Instead, the agent is given a set of inputs, a set of available outputs, and a goal.

4 Inputs:
- Position of the agent itself
- Position and type (other agent, box, ramp) of objects within a limited forward facing conical view
- Position (but not type) of objects within a small radius around the agent
- Reward: Whether they are doing a good job or not

Note the agent is given no information about each type of object, or what they mean, or how they behave. You may as well call them A, B, C rather than agent, box, ramp.

3 Outputs:
- Move
- Grab
- Lock

Again, the agent knows nothing about what these mean, only that they can enable and disable each at any time. A good analogy is someone giving you a game controller for a game you've never played. The controller has a stick and two buttons and you figure out what they do by using them. It'd be accurate to call the outputs: stick, A, B rather than move, grab, lock.

Goal:
- Do a good job.

The goal is simply for the reward input to be maximised. A good analogy is saying 'good girl' or giving a treat to a dog that you are training when they do the right thing. It's up to the dog to figure out what it is that they're doing that's good.

The reward is entirely separate from the agent, and agent behaviour can be completely changed just by changing when the reward is given. The demo is about hide and seek, where the agents are rewarded for not being seen / seeing their opponent (and not leaving the play area). The agents also succeeded at other games, where the only difference to the agent was when the reward was given.

It isn't really different from physically building the same play space, dropping some rats in it, and rewarding them with cheese when they are hidden from their opponents - except rats are unlikely to figure out how to maximise their reward in such a 'complex' game.

Given this description of how the AI actually works, the fact they came up with complex strategies like blocking doors, ramp surfing, taking the ramp to stop their opponents from ramp surfing, and just the general cooperation with other agents, without any code describing any of those things - is pretty amazing.

You can find out more about how the agents were trained, and other exercises they performed here:

https://openai.com/blog/emergent-tool-use/

Why, o why do they keep walking over the severely radioactive debris to toss the shovelfuls over? Just one slip...

There must be a reason they do not start at the edge and work their wayback, but I don’t see it. I just keep hearing variations on “ In Russia, ...” phrases.

I have two boys, 9 and 14. If they treated people the way Trump, and most of the right, treats people, I'd be ashamed and reprimand them, especially if they did it publicly the way Trump has mocked a disabled reporter, Ford, the parents of fallen soldier... we could go on and on about how he mocks people on a regular basis. Every major religion has some variation of the Golden Rule, treat others as you'd have others treat you, especially Christianity, and yet the entire right ignores this rule, especially when it's somebody they oppose. Be it LGBTQIA+ people, political opponents, economic opponents, they ignore the Golden Rule. They in fact view it as a sign of strength to openly be hostile and rude to others, and yet, when one of theirs is mocked by late night TV, or when Sarah Sanders is kicked out of a restaurant (days after the fact that the entire right was celebrating the Supreme Court victory that they don't have to serve people they don't like), suddenly it is all "why can't people be civilized"? Plank in your own eye ass holes.

As Bob says politics is mean and ugly, but Republicans, Christians, made it that way and have been doubling down on it, ignoring the commandments to Love on another, the commandment to treat others as you'd have them treat you, not to judge least ye be judged and on and on. And somehow the right views that as a strength, as a good thing. They view McCain's efforts to reach across the isle and find a common center ground that everyone can agree on as a weakness. They don't want or will accept a 50/50 solution, they want a solution that is 80 or even better 90 percent on their side, and anything less than that is the other side being obstructionist.

Anyhow, if my kids acted the way Trump does, our President, whom we should hold to the highest standards, I'd make them apologize and be frank with them that I was appalled at their behavior, to mock a person with a disability or a woman or any other person the way Trump does on a regular basis. Yet the entire right is falling over themselves with pleasure at this rude behavior... I just don't get it. I don't get how that is acceptable behavior now from the President of the United States. It'd be one thing if he was still the piece of shit business man (who's business' constantly fail and need bankruptcy protection, even though he rarely pays contractors), 2nd rate reality TV show star, but this is the highest office in the land, where we should expect a person to act with dignity. I may have found Bush Jr to be an idiot and a horrible President, but at least he treated people with respect and the way one would expect of a President. Now we have a man-child and somehow this is a great thing. Fuck our lives when this is acceptable, when this is in fact praise worthy by far too many on the right (and I know, many Republicans said it was wrong of Trump to mock her the way he did, but they didn't really stand up to him, just a quick line to appease the few who might vote for them that would be appalled at that behavior).

EDIT TO ADD: What's upsetting about the Merrick Garland Supreme Court nomination is that they didn't even hold hearings. They had the votes to block him from confirmation, so hold hearings, say "no" and move on, but they wouldn't even do that. And he'd probably have been one of the most moderate justices in the modern era, which would have made explaining the "no" harder perhaps, but at least it would have been fair. But apparently fair is for the weak, one must play the ugly game now... and look at Bob's one reply, they got their eye on Ginsburg, they are hoping she dies so they can replace her with another theocrat like Kavanaugh, and because of that expectation and hope, you can guarantee that all the right will be out in force come November. We really need a miracle turnout to start to change things...

Semites are a race that includes the Arabs the Nazi's allied with so... not so much Semites that Nazi's were against as Jews.

And, your only defence is to basically insist on a variation of, but your accusations against cops are true and fair, but the Nazi's conveniently mischaracterized the all Jews as Zionists.

Or am I wrong and suddenly your pro-zionist all of a sudden here?

You insist that MOST cops are liars, murderers and supporters of same, to the point that exceptions practically can't exist and from postings in other threads it seems not much short of quitting the force in protest is enough distance to escape the taint.

@newtboy -
I like / agree with your take on each of the 4 issues, but 4 really is easier said than done.

Having skills and making yourself invaluable happens quite slowly over time, and only if the arbiter correctly recognizes that value. I think capitalism has such a stranglehold on modern life that minor variations in short term profit/loss potential get overvalued while major intangible things (or at least, less tangible in quarterly reports) get ignored.

And just in general, everybody needs a job or purpose, but we can't ALL stand out and be invaluable. Eagles may soar to great heights, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. Sometimes steady adequacy is, well, adequate.

Thinking that the world owes us happiness is a character flaw, but "checking out" by half-assing or phoning it in is a fairly rational response to a system that doesn't give a fuck about us as individuals, even those that DO go the extra mile. Fix the system (to the extent that it can be), and better results would follow.

There are parts of this video that felt very much like Pro-Monsanto propaganda, though I think the feel was supposed to feel non-biased.

The idea that anyone should be able to patent natural living organisms is plain wrong in my opinion. It wasn't theirs to start with.

So when I hear that they can patent variations or modificatioons, then I start to worry about what happens when the Modified version overtakes and eliminates the natural organism. Using Corn as an example, It's just a matter of time before natural organisms will no longer exist. At least not the ones that we use.

So basically, it's just a waiting game that corporations with the money and technology have to play before they will, in the end, own everything.

Morally wrong in the end.