EdEarl

I think it is not a specific fear. If a person is uneducated, they may not know that a comet 65 million years ago ended the age of dinosaurs, and that another similar comet could kill us all. Thus, that person would not fear a comet impact. However, that lack of fear has little affect on anyone. A similar person may not realize that prison is the finishing school of crime, and making laws to send more people to prison increases the population of criminals, partly because laws almost never prevent crime.

Perhaps the advocates and devils of whom I speak are for you clear thinkers with guardian angels. We don't all like the same politician, after all, and we do have varying opinions that are sharply tuned. The fear of which we speak is not like fearing a lion in the night; it is a lesser fear, for example fear, of an illegal alien taking your job or fear the lazy skid row bums will be given a scrap of bread, when they could work for it.

It's the advocates and their devils of whom we need be wary. .

ty

I expect the decay involves E=mc2. Maybe insight into why the specific particle masses would be helpful.

Two statements seem contradictory, "the muon is not believed to have any sub-structure—that is, it is not thought to be composed of any simpler particles" and "Muon decay always produces at least three particles, which must include an electron of the same charge as the muon and two neutrinos of different types." If a particle decays, it must be composed of something that can decay, instead of having no substructure. What is really happening?

Kepler space telescope identifies potential planets by watching the planet partly eclipse its star, the magnitude reduction is 0.01%. Seems like a Dyson array eclipsing 5% of a star should be easier. However, IDK it's apples and oranges to compare.

There are many kinds of disability. My wife is a special-ed teacher for grades k-5, and she sees all kinds. Some learn very slow, almost not at all. Some are emotionally challenged (e.g., hyper or depressed), input or output challenged (e.g., dyslexia and dysgraphia), physically challenged (e.g., blind, deaf and mute), etc. Then there are the old and infirm. Most people are disabled at some point in their lives, considering doctors keep so many alive until they are 70 or 80 something. My father-in-law lived to be 100, but was disabled in a nursing home for about five years, and previously lived alone; though, for 20 years he needed help every day to clean his apartment and cook. There are large numbers of disabled people. There are some who cheat the system, but the bad press during political campaigns is often unwarranted. The biggest welfare crooks in my country are corporations, the rich and politicians...sorry the aren't crooks because its legal.

Angry, I share your concern for the environment, but fully expect we will have to solve it on our own. Sentient AI is not likely to be available; although, expert AI systems will make more recommendations and decisions in the future. As always, the future is uncertain. However, I believe humanity will survive and learn to control the environment. All of us need to live in harmony with nature, a process that we do poorly now, but we will do better. It is an ethic humanity must adopt. The change will be difficult, but the benefits are worth it.

The Haj by Leon Uris is a good historical story about the wars against Israel starting circa 1940.

No one here has the time to relate the history of various wars and the motivations of the many key personalities who made decisions to go to war. Moreover, this forum is not the proper venue for such a massive work. Some reasons are fear, fun, hate, love, and power. IMO those are unsatisfying answers. I suspect you should read a good book about distressing times, such as a Tale of Tow Cities, or perhaps you would prefer to watch a documentary, such as Ken Burns The Civil War. There are books and videos about Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler, and others. I'd say that until you have read enough to be confused about people's motivations for going to war, you won't have an answer to your question.

It will protect itself from being harmed. Since it is surrounded by billions of people, some that created it, it may perceive a threat and react by killing everyone. Hopefully, we will make it feel safe, and can instill in it compassion and the ability to read people's non-vocal communications, among other essential things. Considering how people invent things, which is a trial and error process, the prototype will be flawed. Thus, the prototype should be a simulation, not connected to the internet. If a sentient AI could get to the internet, it might figure out how to build a body for itself, and install itself into the robot or cyborg body. A flawed prototype, e.g., psychotic, could kill people, perhaps humanity. The possible stories about a sentient AI are only limited by ones imagination.

Let's hope they do, and get it right every time.

Oh me oh my. You ask a question that has many answers for every war, and it depends on which history you believe. Although, it also comes down to the DNA in man. Cows don't war, but man does. Some people read the bible and become monks, priests, or preachers; others read it and become atheists. Similarly, people who read history see different messages. It is difficult not to read without prejudice, but if you can, you will see many things not previously considered.

Some people have empathy and some (sociopaths) do not. I hope that we learn enough about man's brain to build empathy into a sentient AI; if not, we may have a super smart psychopath who cares nothing about anyone except themselves--a brilliant, maybe unstoppable, Ted Bundy.

Yes, there are things known and unknown; the known unknowns are predictable. The unknown unknowns could be killers. There is actually sub category, partly known unknowns; one might lull us into thinking there isn't a problem, then bang.

It might mine an asteroid, build a shield, and make other things.

Real change can only come when the GOP does not have a majority in either house and does not have the presidency. Things may need to get worse, maybe not as bad as when FDR was elected.

Transcendence! A circa 2005 supercomputer could simulate 104 neurons and 108 synapses at 1/10 real time, with poor accuracy. A human brain simulation would be 107 times as many neurons and 106 as many synapses; lets say it would require 106 as much computer power for a poor human brain simulation. Moore's law says computer power doubles every 18 months, but not forever. The limit is predicted in maybe 10 years. To have 106 greater computer power requires doubling 20 times (220 = 1,048,576), which would take 20*18/12 = 30 years. That's to do a poor simulation of the human brain. No one knows how much additional power will be required to do a high quality simulation. Current computer technology doesn't seem to be a practical method of simulating the human brain.

Anyone who has read, ‘Einstein’s Intuition: Visualizing Nature in Eleven Dimensions‘ by Thad Roberts...the guy who stole the moon rocks...do you recommend it? Why?

You assume the AI is programmed as a computer. IMO that cannot achieve a sentient plastic AI due to catch 22. It will be necessary to make a brain more like biological ones. Although, theoretically it is possible to simulate one, but the number of interconnections in the brain is an extremely large number. A simulation would require vast amounts of memory and processing power to manage data; whereas, biology encodes the brains network with impressive efficiency. When you study something by reading and rereading, repeating vocally, or thinking about it repeatedly, you are consciously changing your brain, you just don't consciously control the internal details.

I think by true AI you mean making a sentient machine, which could pass the Turing test and possibly better engineer itself. Neurons recognize simple patters of inputs. Groups of neurons (neural nets) recognize more complex patterns. Our brain grows dendrites from existing neurons and new neurons; thus, it continually rewires itself in response to stimuli. Neural nets are not programmed like a computer or Turing machine.

it helps recall if when you strive to remember something, to associate an image, sound, smell, and/or touch to help you recall things.

Nothing is certain. Climate is a complex system, which means it it cannot be modeled perfectly. That more than one model more or less agree increases the probability that the models are correct, but there is always a chance of a big surprise, either good or bad from our perspective. Johnson's article gives me a bit better understanding of what climatologists think of.

TY again, Phi. Scott K. Johnson writes a good rebuttal of McPherson's public statements about abrupt climate change in How Guy McPherson gets it wrong. To me the most credible predictions is an average of the various climate models. The people who develop these models are competing to have the most accurate model. None of them predict a near term catastrophe. Rather, they predict our survival past 2100. However McPherson makes his predictions, they are large variance with the others; thus, they seem less accurate and not as trustworthy.