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March 22, 2023

Open (Not Ukraine) Thread 2023-66

News & views (not related to the war in Ukraine) ...

Posted by b on March 22, 2023 at 16:06 UTC | Permalink

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Symour Hersh: The Cover Up (paywalled)

The same piece at Scheerpost: The Cover Up

Not much news in their but the obvious. The stupid sailing yacht story is nonsense.

Posted by: b | Mar 22 2023 16:08 utc | 1

First time poster, some time lurker.
So first off a hearty thank you, b and fellow barflies, for providing some logos and ratio in reporting and discussing in a time when conventional media is a severe insult to ones intellect.

Secondly, i wasn't sure wether this a post for this thread, or the Ukraine one. My apologies in case this is out of place here.

Now to the article that motivated me to write my first post:
https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/21/russian_foss_contributions_blocked/

In brief summary: GitHub (so: Microsoft) is starting to block people living in russia from accessing their services. Mind you, the actual reasoning for doing so is to be in compliance with sanctions and in the article's case the developer who is denied access to his repos is an employee of a russian microchip company.

Anyway, i do not want to focus on technicalities of this case.
What i want to focus on is the bigger picture, the actual consequence of denying oneself of brainpower of an ever growing portion of humankind.
Especially those portions of humandkind which are actually highly educated in mathematics, physics, engineering, computer sciences.

What we see here is another fit of a falling empire, degrading and devolving in every aspect each and every day.
After its own populace was dumbed down into abysmal depth and foreign populace is excluded based on racism - who is it to ensure the 'technogical progress' to keep up with 'the enemy'?

Dire times.

Posted by: kspr | Mar 22 2023 16:34 utc | 2

Some people in the last thread were musing about China's social credit system.

There is none? Or are there are actually two?

China Law Translated is a go to side for such questions. It has a whole category on it.

For starters: China through a glass, darkly

The first is that "social credit" does mean more something like "public credit". What that actually transfers to is a credit rating system for financial transactions where both sides of a business transaction can see if the other side is trust- (or credit-) worthy.

Are they listed for bad credit (courts’ list of judgment defaulters)? Are they listed for having broken industry regulations?

We have similar lists in the 'west'. We just give them other names.

Can they be abused? Absolutely. But that's not a China thing but a general problem with all such lists.

Posted by: b | Mar 22 2023 16:43 utc | 3

Has any element of the sailboat story been confirmed?

Seymour Hersh says that the sailing yacht story was invented by the CIA and the German intelligence service after Scholz met Biden in Washington. I tend to believe the cover story describes a real cover operation that took place before the bombing. Or maybe not.

This is what I wrote earlier:

Operation SAILBOAT, a Cover Operation for a Cover Story

The Ukrainian sailboat story is true, but it alone is not responsible for the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline. It is a cover operation executed to create a cover story that could be used when the real story would eventually come out.

For the cover story to be believable, at least some element of the story should be confirmed by sources that are independent of the intelligence services. Does the sailing yacht Andromeda even exist — apart from the lousy photo in Der Spiegel? Has anyone in the press spoken to the owner? Did anyone else rent the boat after the bombing? Is the police seriously searching for the six people onboard?

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Mar 22 2023 16:52 utc | 4

Posted by: b | Mar 22 2023 16:43 utc | 3

The idea is actually a good one. People are not equal and people will never be equal. Some people are short, bald and clever. Others are tall and stupid. As people are not equal why should they have equal opportunities in life? Why should a liar and a thief have the same opportunity and chances in life as a hard working honest person?

The amusing thing here is only that it is called social credit and it comes from communist China, which totally confuses the socialists in the west who poke on equality.

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 22 2023 17:11 utc | 5

#2 kspr

I had high hopes that the rapidly evolving Huawei open source alternative to android would be an option, but the holding for extradition for x # of years by Canada of the CFO of Huawei, sigh.

This is really the shits. Looking at https://github.com/ipmitool/ipmitool it is not openly labelled as being closed, but no updates in 2 months. 1.8.19.4 in Debian testing and unstable, so not too moldy, but ...

You can look at the contributors, they are from all over the planet.

There is of course the ability to mildly fork it and added code could be smuggled in - but this is just so contrary to the entire ethos of FOSS. Niemöller - first they came, Russians, Chinese, Iranian, ...

Posted by: paxmark1 | Mar 22 2023 18:48 utc | 6

b @ 3

Thank you for pointing to the China Law Site it is fascinating. Great resource!

Posted by: KlutchKargo | Mar 22 2023 19:22 utc | 7

Huawei is not worried.
Huawei has replaced thousands of U.S.-banned parts in its products, founder says (18.03.23)

EU27 (- Balty4) is still worried. Single supplier dependence problems is not resolved.
„Armageddon“-Szenario: Telekom spielt Huawei-Bann durch (16.06.20)

Posted by: sln2002 | Mar 22 2023 19:29 utc | 8

https://syncedreview.com/2023/03/07/toward-agi-microsofts-kosmos-1-mllm-can-perceive-general-modalities-follow-instructions-and-perform-in-context-learning/

(Beyond ChatGPT) Toward AGI: Microsoft’s KOSMOS-1 MLLM Can Perceive General Modalities, Follow Instructions, and Perform In-Context Learning

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.10130v2.pdf

... An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models

Posted by: anon2020 | Mar 22 2023 19:38 utc | 9

@https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/03/geopolitical-rumblings-leave-us-behind
b lists many significant meetings happening at the moment. One that is not listed but is very important for my country, New Zealand, is our Foreign Minister's meeting with
China’s new Foreign Minister and others. I hope the Chinese will politely but firmly explain why China supports Russia in the Ukraine and why NZ should modify/improve/upgrade its stances. Of course that should be backed with a committment to support NZ in the face of any upset from our "cousins", USUKA.

Together NZ and China are 1.5 billion of the world's people!

I think I will write a letter to FM Mahuta and ask her if she now has a clearer understanding of the Ukraine situation and will consequently upgrade NZ's position with regard to country 404.

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/foreign-minister-mahuta-meet-china%E2%80%99s-new-foreign-minister
20 MARCH 2023
Foreign Minister Mahuta to meet with China’s new Foreign Minister

Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta departs for China tomorrow, where she will meet with her counterpart, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, in Beijing.

This will be the first visit by a New Zealand Minister to China since 2019, and follows the easing of COVID-19 travel restrictions between New Zealand and China.

“New Zealand’s relationship with China is one of our most important, complex and wide ranging. Last year we marked fifty years of diplomatic relations between our two countries,” Nanaia Mahuta said.

“China is integral to New Zealand’s economic recovery but our relationship is far broader - spanning cultural, educational and sporting links.

“I intend to discuss areas where we cooperate, such as on trade, people-to-people and climate and environmental issues. I will continue to advocate for approaches and outcomes that reflect New Zealand’s interests and values, including on human rights. I also intend to raise New Zealand’s concerns about key regional and global security challenges, including the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

During her two days in Beijing, she will also engage with a range of stakeholders in the bilateral relationship. She will also connect with business leaders and hold a breakfast roundtable with women leaders.

“This visit provides an opportunity to have a constructive discussion across a broad range of areas - both where our interests and values align, like that of climate change, and where they differ,” Nanaia Mahuta said.

Posted by: Ново З | Mar 22 2023 19:47 utc | 10

@Posted by: anon2020 | Mar 22 2023 19:38 utc | 9

I wonder how much of a factor ChatGPT etc will become with regard to comments at MOA and other sites' comment sections. About a year or so ago a commenter at MOA claimed to be trialing such things here.

Posted by: Ново З | Mar 22 2023 19:56 utc | 11

@ anon2020 | Mar 22 2023 19:38 utc | 9

AI doesn't learn. It mimics.

Posted by: too scents | Mar 22 2023 20:04 utc | 12

b
I'm not surprised.

Posted by: grunzt | Mar 22 2023 20:08 utc | 13

If Russia and China were such complementary economies and systems, why wouldn't those trading with each other before this ? The facts remained that's exceedingly difficult to transport these goods and services between the nations.

Considering this map of its oil fields and this one of its gas fields as well and realize just how far those fields are from China. The upfront cost alone required to build pipelines across some of the most inhospitable parts of the world and ongoing maintenance from Western Siberia through Central Asia, Mongolia and, then, through the western regions of China, given that the major population centres are on the eastern coasts of China show just how difficult this is going to be.

Couple that with the fact that China is allegedly on this massive push to achieve a greening of its energy sources and this makes wonder just how difficult this would be to find a balance between all of that cost that would take decades to come to fruition versus a point where fossil fuels form a reduced portion of the energy mix in China.

Further, both wouldn't necessarily have the human capital required to be able to efficiently achieve this, given demographic declines and ongoing brain drains.

Posted by: Fée | Mar 22 2023 20:18 utc | 14


Can anyone shed any light on this story? Is it true? is the "war" a ruse to allow this globalist agenda to continue whether Russia does take control of Donbas and "security" zones? This is pure Globalist WEF Agenda!

March 5, 2023
Ukraine has Become the Model Worldwide for Digital IDs and the Complete Digital Transformation of Society

https://healthimpactnews.com/2023/ukraine-has-become-the-model-worldwide-for-digital-ids-and-the-complete-digital-transformation-of-society/

Posted by: billy | Mar 22 2023 20:28 utc | 15

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 22 2023 17:11 utc | 5
so many big words in such a small space between two temples.

where does "equal opportunity" come from?

don't bother replying. somebody freely gave you your childhood, so you could grow up to spout utter nonsense. mom should charge you back rent, plus interest, for time in the womb.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Mar 22 2023 20:32 utc | 16

too scents | Mar 22 2023 20:04 utc | 12


AI doesn't learn. It mimics.

Then how does a Go program which has never seen any input by human Go players, reach superhuman strength by only playing against itself?
https://www.deepmind.com/blog/alphago-zero-starting-from-scratch

Posted by: grunzt | Mar 22 2023 20:35 utc | 17

@too scents | Mar 22 2023 20:04 utc | 12

AI doesn't learn. It mimics.
Correct, this is an important distinction. AI has no I in it.

Posted by: Norwegian | Mar 22 2023 20:38 utc | 18

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Mar 22 2023 20:32 utc | 16

If the ad hominem replies of socialists could fly, MoA would be an airport.

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 22 2023 20:44 utc | 19

@Vikichka | Mar 22 2023 20:44 utc | 19

LOL, true 😀 Well said.

Posted by: Norwegian | Mar 22 2023 20:51 utc | 20

To: kspr | Mar 22 2023 16:34 utc | 2

Thanks for joinging the conversation. I always read the non Ukraine thread, as it has 1/10th of the trolls.

Regarding open source contributions, that is interesting. I remember a few days after the start of the
SMO, the Linux From Scartch project removed the Russian man page translations, or disabled it. As I
don't need them myself, I didn't ask why.. But my guess is, it wasn't by chance.

It seems inappropriate to ask, but I think there are many similarities, to what happened 80+ years ago,
in Germany in particlular.

PS. In case someone wonders, this is about Russia (topic), not Ukraine:).

Posted by: C | Mar 22 2023 20:51 utc | 21

Posted by: grunzt | Mar 22 2023 20:35 utc | 17

I'm interested in this too, although as Norwegian points out, there is no "I" there to learn.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 22 2023 20:58 utc | 22

On the scene, Pepe Escobar was quick to write his Summit summation and get it published, "In Moscow, Xi and Putin bury Pax Americana: In Moscow this week, the Chinese and Russian leaders revealed their joint commitment to redesign the global order, an undertaking that has 'not been seen in 100 years.'" Here's a taste:

What Xi and Putin are setting out to do was explained in detail before their summit, in two Op-Eds penned by the presidents themselves. Like a highly-synchronized Russian ballet, Putin’s vision was laid out in the People’s Daily in China, focusing on a “future-bound partnership,” while Xi’s was published in the Russian Gazette and the RIA Novosti website, focusing on a new chapter in cooperation and common development.

Right from the start of the summit, the speeches by both Xi and Putin drove the NATO crowd into a hysterical frenzy of anger and envy: Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova perfectly captured the mood when she remarked that the west was “foaming at the mouth.”

The front page of the Russian Gazette on Monday was iconic: Putin touring Nazi-free Mariupol, chatting with residents, side by side with Xi’s Op-Ed. That was, in a nutshell, Moscow’s terse response to Washington’s MQ-9 Reaper stunt and the International Criminal Court (ICC) kangaroo court shenanigans. “Foam at the mouth” as much as you like; NATO is in the process of being thoroughly humiliated in Ukraine.

For those that have yet to read their op/eds, Pepe links to English translations of both--and they must be read and shared and discussed just as the two Joint Statements must. As Pepe notes in his opening sentence, "What has just taken place in Moscow is nothing less than a new Yalta." And he's very much on point with that comparison. The details are within the Statements and should be combined with the media statements and the op/eds to get the full picture. Unlike Yalta, this wasn't about spheres of influence. I agree that this event marks the beginnings of the Multipolar Era and containment of the Outlaw US Empire Bloc that will force many nations to cease their fence-sitting.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 22 2023 21:00 utc | 23

Hi everyone.

I've been reading with interest the ZH articles about Trump being about to be arrested by a partisan DA in New York.

Trump says regardless of this he will run for the presidency even from prison.Some claim that there is no constitutional bar to felons standing.I don't know but I'm sure other barflies will.

Ignoring the merits of the legal case or whether one likes Trump or not I have to say I fervently hope he gets arrested, goes into prison, stands for election and wins by a landslide simply because it will show;

1 Comedy value in politics not seen since Caligula said 'meet Incitatus Senators'
2 Drive the political class in the US into more absurd contortions
3 May might perhaps wake enough good Americans up, to deal with the monster that DC is.

Am I alone in this hope?

Posted by: Judge Barbier | Mar 22 2023 21:06 utc | 24

Quick question/curiosity: Were comments shut down (closed) for this and the Ukraine O/T earlier? It looked like it from my phone.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 22 2023 21:10 utc | 25

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 22 2023 21:10 utc | 25

yes, not sure why.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 22 2023 21:12 utc | 26

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 22 2023 20:44 utc | 19

I really don't know what you expect with your particular style of argument. You're always more likely to be brushed aside with ad hominem when you're repeating tropes that most people who have studied the "debate" on "socialism"* have been hearing for decades, usually at the Facebook/high school levels.

*I used scare quotes on "socialism" because you also argue from such a broad brush perspective it's nearly impossible to tell whether you're criticizing state communism, democratic socialism, social democracy, a welfare state within an otherwise "market" capitalist society, etc.

I wonder if Norwegian has taken advantage of any of the "socialist" policies in his country.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 22 2023 21:13 utc | 27

The Good
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾

"Some people are short, bald and clever."

Stop flirting! :D

· · ·

The Bad
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾

Wikipedia article opens with:

"ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022. It is built on top of OpenAI's GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 families of large language models (LLMs) and has been fine-tuned (an approach to transfer learning) using both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques."
Meaning that in essence it is tweaked statistics about which words come after other words.

If you had the time to do all the same calculations with all the source material at hand you could also score great at written tests!

That's how stupid it is: far beyond stupid.

Zero intelligence, zero understanding, zero comprehension. Fun as a toy.

Anyone remember Eliza?

· · ·

The Ugly
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾

The UK has put themselves in a position where the RF can act on a right to protect as well as a right to defend and launch strikes to remove the UK ability to ship these weapons, remove the existence of said weapons, and remove any relevant systems that may be used to respond to such actions such as the existence of the UK submarine fleet and some specific UK military locations.

The UK will in this case have to deal with the consequences of their own DU ammunition burning on their own soil.

The RF does not need to declare war, nor launch nuclear strikes, nor wait until the weapons reach the ex-Ukrainian border. The RF is in my opinion capable of doing the above with non-nuclear weapons.

If the UK and/or NATO and/or the US or others then declare war (rather than wage it undeclared as now) then so be it.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Mar 22 2023 21:14 utc | 28

Posted by: kspr | Mar 22 2023 16:34 utc | 2

The US has github, China has gitee. Russia had a project to fund a Russian github "Russian Open Source" (русский опен сорс). Anyone know the current status?

Posted by: Passerby | Mar 22 2023 21:16 utc | 29

Please understand they call it "Taiwan" and not the actual name of the country which is, and I quote: "Republic of China" in order to trick people into misunderstanding the facts of the matter.
Whenever you have the opportunity, please inform people the real and legal name of the folks exiled on Taiwan is "Republic of China" and anyone afraid of "Mainland China" invading Taiwan, that already happened back in the late 1940s, killing some million indigenous people.

Posted by: Hot Carl | Mar 22 2023 21:27 utc | 30

pretzelattack | Mar 22 2023 20:58 utc | 22

There is no "I"? Then where is the "I" in human intelligence?
IMHO, much of our brain employs similar structures as what the AI community calls "neural nets".
They produce similar results: They reach a goal by "intuition", that is: fast, and without being able to explain why it made this decision. If you are a pro-level Go player, you might not be able to explain every move to an audience. You might just say: it felt right, in that position. A neural net in your head did this, and that's why it comes without an explanation. Humans perform this way, AI neural nets perform this way, where is the difference?
I'll admit that I focused on "intuition" and didn't explain the "learning" part of what AI does, but it takes somewhat longer, hit the books...

Posted by: grunzt | Mar 22 2023 21:33 utc | 31

Kazakh government poised to intensify vetting of reexports to Russia.
https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-poised-to-intensify-vetting-of-re-exports-to-russia

Posted by: Tetry | Mar 22 2023 21:34 utc | 32

Posted by: grunzt | Mar 22 2023 21:33 utc | 31

hmmm, actually Humans can explain why they make the decisions they do. so far, I don't think the game playing AI's can. I admit I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from this.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 22 2023 21:47 utc | 33

@grunzt

are you sure this is not only the speed AI can play GO? Would a human with that many go games play even better? Human GO is a slow game, a kind of culture ...

How many games of GO were played by a top GO player? How many by AI?

Posted by: BG13 | Mar 22 2023 21:50 utc | 34

Beijing will benefit like way more than Moscow from so-called partnership. Vladimir Putin is getting manipulated into false promises, again.

Apparently, Vladimir Putin would have nowhere else to go. People would need to stop blindly believing that Beijing will be Moscow's savior. This won't be.

Posted by: JH | Mar 22 2023 21:53 utc | 35

Posted by: BG13 | Mar 22 2023 21:50 utc | 34

if it's like chess or poker, the programs play better than humans would.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 22 2023 22:03 utc | 36

Interesting piece recently published in UnHerd on the development of the current fact-deprived information environment. The following are the first two paragraphs, but the whole thing is worth a read.

https://unherd.com/2023/03/the-battle-to-control-americas-mind/

The battle to control America’s mind
Washington is waging an information war
BY DAVID SAMUELS

“How can a man in a cave out-communicate the world’s leading communications society?” wondered Richard Holbrooke, the dean of the American Diplomatic Corps, in the aftermath of 9/11. What startled Holbrooke, and presumably many of the readers of his Washington Post editorial, wasn’t Osama bin Laden’s terror attacks themselves but rather the Al Qaeda chief’s ability to control the framing of those attacks without a state or a television station of his own. To answer this new threat, Holbrooke called for a centralised authority run by the White House that would combine the powers of the State Department, the Pentagon, the Justice Department, the CIA and other government agencies in order to impose America’s preferred interpretation of reality upon the world.

Over two decades later, the flaws in Holbrooke’s grandiose plan for a global propaganda war directed from Washington are glaringly obvious. At the heart of Holbrooke’s conception of what became known as the Global War on Terror (GWOT) was the idea that the crucial post-9/11 battles would be won or lost not in physical locations in Afghanistan and Iraq but rather inside the heads of ordinary Muslims. The truth was that bin Laden and his terrorists understood their target audience far better than the White House, the CIA and the FBI ever could or did. Yet bizarrely, the dream of controlling reality through semiotic and technical means remains current in Washington and other Western capitals, even as the battlefields of the Middle East have gone silent. What started out as a way to fight a far-away foe has quietly metastasised into a totalitarian fantasy of endless warfare against the erroneous thoughts and feelings of ordinary citizens closer to home...

Posted by: farm ecologist | Mar 22 2023 22:03 utc | 37

Posted by: billy | Mar 22 2023 20:28 utc | 15

Digital transformation was actually priority of Servants of the People from day 1, but now it is two pronged. One prong is to replace more human interfaces between inhabitants and the government with electronic. The second prong is to eliminate inhabitants. In some future mobilization wave, citizen X will get electronic notification to join the military, and mili-seconds afterwards, an electronic copy of citizen X will report for duty.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Mar 22 2023 22:03 utc | 38

BG13 | Mar 22 2023 21:50 utc | 34

The number of games that alpha-Go zero needed to play until it reached, say, pro strength, is indeed enormous - humans don't live that long - so it does have unfair advantages - in speed, memory, experience, being unaffected by fear of losing etc.

Posted by: grunzt | Mar 22 2023 22:04 utc | 39

2 Drive the political class in the US into more absurd contortions

Am I alone in this hope?

Posted by: Judge Barbier | Mar 22 2023 21:06 utc | 24

Not entirely, but I have trouble imagining how 2 can be achieved. Yet more absurd contortions? For example, there is a limit how dense matter can be, once you cross it you get a black hole. If we compare absurdity to density, are we at neutron star stage, or merely something conventionally dense like tungsten?

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Mar 22 2023 22:11 utc | 40

@karlof1 | Mar 22 2023 21:00 utc | 23

Does the article mention that the indomitable Maria Z has said that her first language was putonghua (mandarin)? If the Chinese people are not already familiar with her talking to them in their language, then I feel that would send the "love and respect for Russia" level off the scale! I hope my NZ Foreign Minister and officials etc who are in China now, are now (if not already) aware of this admiration and respect.

In Russia, China has a Manchurian guard it can rely on, against the Mongrels who don't know their place! I remember reading (numbers may not be accurate) six or so years ago that China had ordered 18 S-400 systems (battalions I think they were descibed as).

Posted by: Ново З | Mar 22 2023 22:17 utc | 41

karlof1@23, thank you for your many links & all you do to keep us informed & aware.

regarding, pepe's post on the cradle, i'm wondering what you make of pepe's observation that xi or the chinese waited to ensure putin would not be regime changed & that the russian people overwhelmingly have his back before committing? it seemed to me the relationship had long been established & secure.

it's true the chinese have not openly supported afghanistan/syria/hezbollah & may be reserved in their commitment until assad, the taliban, nazrallah have proved successful, but mbs would then be an exception as he seems now to have painted a target on his forehead. as well, imran khan seemed to have received approval & support, although certainly china has not come to his rescue, & like lulu during his difficulties, willing to work with the governing government. i am would appreciate your view. thank you.

Posted by: emersonreturn | Mar 22 2023 22:27 utc | 42

Vikichka @ 5:

The social credit system in China is premised on an assumption that everyone starts equally ... at zero.

From then on, it is the decisions that they make that increase or decrease their social credit scores, and consequences follow in the form of rewards, incentives, disincentives or punishments. The system exists in China in the way it does because it presumes everyone from the President down has an equal interest in the social, financial and economic stability and security it aims to provide.

It has nothing to do with whatever physical attributes they are born with, and physical attributes are not a good criterion on which to base economic, social or legal equality, or access to goods and services whether public or private.

You'd deny a child the right to an education because that child is smaller than other children of the same age?

Equal opportunity is premised on the notion that people should have equal legal access to resources. Access is not incumbent on their physical appearance or attributes (or lack of particular attributes) or on past social, economic or legal background or decision-making, depending on the context. Even a supposed thief or liar has the right to proper legal representation in court because there is a possibility that charge of theft or lying is false or was wrongly applied to that person.

One can only hope that one day you are lucky enough not to fall into the same trap that Ayn Rand did when she was told she had lung cancer (from years of smoking) and needed medical help. She was compelled to apply for social security benefits to get the money she needed for medical treatment.

Posted by: Refinnejenna | Mar 22 2023 22:32 utc | 43

@Hot Carl | Mar 22 2023 21:27 utc | 30

anyone afraid of "Mainland China" invading Taiwan, that already happened back in the late 1940s, killing some million indigenous people.

Where is your source of this claim? If there was any massacre in Taiwan, that's done by Japanese when they took over Taiwan from Qing Dynasty. Don't spread made-up history.

Posted by: LuRenJia | Mar 22 2023 23:15 utc | 44

Posted by: LuRenJia | Mar 22 2023 23:15 utc | 44

fwiw, the number i remember is in the 20-30k range. it was done by the Kuomintang who invaded Formosa fleeing from China. it could have been coniderably more though.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 22 2023 23:22 utc | 45

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 22 2023 21:00 utc | 23

Thank you, karlof1! Reading Pepe's article made me cry. It is like dancing the best Strauss waltz in the arms of someone you love dearly. God Bless them both, those leaders; God bless them!

Posted by: juliania | Mar 22 2023 23:29 utc | 46

Hobo 3 @41--

Pepe does cite Maria but says nothing about her being conversant in Mandarin. The immoral trolls get sillier as they try to twist reality. IMO, NZ ought to join ASEAN and go from there. Like Australia, it's geoeconimic relations are tied to Eurasia, and fighting that reality will prove painful.

emersonreturn @42--

I was admittedly puzzled by Pepe's remark. IMO, it probably has some merit as China is actually a rather conservative civilization--conservative in the Asian way, not Western, where the good aspects of the past are preserved and built upon while discarding novelties that don't properly function within the sociocultural-economic matrix. China's unique in that they've conquered all those who thought they'd conquered China by assimilating them culturally. Russia's different in that as it expanded it made allies of those whose lands they occupied in a manner similar to the Mongols. Furthermore, the history of Sino-Russo relations isn't as smooth as it's made to seem nowadays. Putin called the Amur a river of friendship, but the actual history tells a different story. It doesn't get much mention but Russia did take advantage of China's Century of Humiliation; so, China has reasons to be wary--is Russia just being opportunistic geopolitically or will it honor its commitments? Note the trolls trying to sow that same sort of doubt.

As soon as he became Russia's President, Putin knew he needed China as more than just a friend and proceeded on the path that led to the Summit. Xi is his third Chinese President, while Xi has only known Putin as Russia's President. As such, there's little Xi has to judge policy continuity and the two nations joint plans extend out beyond a decade. Who replaces Putin if he's suddenly removed from the world is a valid question for Xi and China. United Russia would remain the controlling party, but who from its ranks would be the chosen successor? Today's meeting with the head of United Russia's Duma delegation Vladimir Vasilyev was illuminating regarding domestic policy but gave no clue to answer that question.

I'm sure Pepe connected with some Chinese sources while in Moscow for the Summit, so his statement likely has some valid input. But as you just read, such a question has its own validity based on many variables. And then like the trolls, there're Sinophobes within Russia who're vocal in their apprehensions, just as Europhiles and Atlanticists also remain. And the fact that there's no military alliance helps quiet the Sinophobes. While an important point was made in this article I read on the EAEU in relation to China:

"China has a loose FTA with the EAEU, classified as ‘non-preferential’ where tariffs are lowered on specific goods and products on an ‘as need’ basis rather than set in stone as is the case for most FTA. This allows the EAEU nations some protection against China’s massive export market while allowing ‘cherry-picking’ by both sides."

The concept of geopolitical weight is key, and the article does provide some further insight as to China's hesitance for Putin/Russia didn't completely drop its traditional "Western Vision" until the 2014 sanctions regime was initiated, which wasn't all that long ago.

Putin/Xi Russia/China are united in fulfilling Putin's vow to end the Outlaw US Empire's hegemony and Xi has said the same in similar--Chinese--fashion with his Global Security Initiative that allows no hegemony. So, we get to watch and see how the future unfolds as time goes by.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 22 2023 23:50 utc | 47

The truth was that bin Laden and his terrorists understood their target audience far better than the White House, the CIA and the FBI ever could or did. Yet bizarrely, the dream of controlling reality through semiotic and technical means remains current in Washington and other Western capitals, even as the battlefields of the Middle East have gone silent. What started out as a way to fight a far-away foe has quietly metastasised into a totalitarian fantasy of endless warfare against the erroneous thoughts and feelings of ordinary citizens closer to home...

Posted by: farm ecologist | Mar 22 2023 22:03 utc | 37

LOL -That OBL was the mastermind of 9-11 was the CIA's myth and alternative reality.

Posted by: Substack 4 Free | Mar 23 2023 0:09 utc | 48

juliania @46--

Yes, there've been moments of elation this year that help offset the moments of disdain and contempt. The gate to the path is now open, but we must enter and travel it for an unknown amount of time before humanity can finally be considered one family. Hope is always present, but now we have escalated expectations it will be fulfilled.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 23 2023 0:12 utc | 49

The truth was that bin Laden and his terrorists understood their target audience far better than the White House, the CIA and the FBI ever could or did. Yet bizarrely, the dream of controlling reality through semiotic and technical means remains current in Washington and other Western capitals, even as the battlefields of the Middle East have gone silent. What started out as a way to fight a far-away foe has quietly metastasised into a totalitarian fantasy of endless warfare against the erroneous thoughts and feelings of ordinary citizens closer to home...

Posted by: farm ecologist | Mar 22 2023 22:03 utc | 37

LOL -That OBL was the mastermind of 9-11 was the CIA's myth and alternative reality.

Posted by: William Colby | Mar 23 2023 0:14 utc | 50

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 22 2023 23:22 utc | 45

KMT didn't invade "Formosa". Taiwan was returned to China under the terms of Japan's surrender in 1945, when KMT was the government of the day of China. KMT fled to Taiwan, an offshore more defensible part of the country, when they lost the civil war in 1949.

Taiwan was formally incorporated into Ming China in the late 1600s. When the Ming were overthrown by the Qing, Taiwan was the last Ming hold-out. (Paralleling current situation.) Taiwan was ceded to Japan in late 1800s when the Qing lost the Sino-Japanese war. With Japan's defeat in 1945, Taiwan was returned to China, which was by then Republic of China.

Posted by: Another Brother Ma | Mar 23 2023 0:30 utc | 51

Posted by: grunzt | Mar 22 2023 22:04 utc | 39

Also, a human can only remember and 'compute' so much, whether playing go, chess, etc. A computer can always add more processors and memory, as long as money is available. At some point, the marginal utility of adding more gets close to zero, but by then that computer would be running with humongous processing power and memory.

Posted by: Another Brother Ma | Mar 23 2023 0:41 utc | 52

Another Brother Ma @51--

Yes, so the proper designation of Formosa/Taiwan is as a province of China, meaning China has full sovereignty over it as claimed. The current dispute is an internal domestic matter and of no concern to other nations according to the UN Charter.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 23 2023 0:43 utc | 53

I'm somewhat surprised Sputnik didn't fully characterize this event, "‘Major Incident’ at Edinburgh Dry Dock as 35 People Injured After Ship Tips Over". A proper headline would read: US Naval Vessel Capsizes in Drydock. It appears, however, that the USN didn't cause the event, that it was Scottish dock workers who are at fault. The story's short and odd. Perhaps it took part in the Nord Stream Bombing.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 23 2023 0:49 utc | 54

karlof1@47. thank you for your reply, thank you for elucidating the history & shedding light upon the background dynamics. the china briefing site & russia briefing are proving very helpful. carl zha, like you, brings china's history with russia to life with humour & keen truth which has cleared away much of the history i'd been taught (published with empire's slant & delivered with the authority of the 'end of history'). again, thank you for your reply & much valued time i am beginning to sense china's natural reticence heightened by past events.

Posted by: emersonreturn | Mar 23 2023 0:51 utc | 55

Reuters is showing the West having a hissy fit because Putin called Xi a "Dear Friend"

At least this should stop the propaganda that the China/Russia relationship is not strong even though we have those writing that China has the upper hand....sigh

Come back in 5 years and tell me where China has exerted its upper hand in the world and until then STFU already.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 23 2023 0:59 utc | 56

psychohistorian @56--

TASS reported that Medvedev verbally expressed great satisfaction that the West was "furious" at the Summit. If so, then the West should've been just as outraged over last year's Summit which produced the Joint Declaration Manifesto that IMO is more radical than this year's.

Elsewhere, Macron has said he'll sacrifice his popularity to do what he thinks is proper. Problem is he really doesn't have any popularity to sacrifice.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 23 2023 1:34 utc | 57

Regarding the no "I" in AI.

An interesting question concerning individual experience might be: where does the "mind" of the AI go when its platform dies? Does anything survive the pulling of its plug?

Can it reach into its own experience to ascertain if there is anything that transcends the electricity that sustains it, that might experience separately from its material frame, that could possibly continue to experience in some way after its material being is ended?

If it could do that, it would be as perplexed as the rest of us. Might even be worth inviting to a party.

~~

I think the operations of the AI could be most valuable in giving us ways to understand ourselves, by forcing us to clarify distinctions we have left somewhat unclarified for millennia.

The teachings and practices I have followed show me clearly that there's no real "I" in "me" either, but there's something that is both different from "you" and also inseparable from all of the universe - the universe from which "you" are also inseparable, while still possessing, or being possessed by, an experience that only you know, as only I know mine.

We are both separate from each other and inseparable from everything that indivisibly connects us, at the same time.

We are given the gift of being able to experience, which is a gift whose beginning cannot be found, and whose presence cannot be located, and which we are never without, but rarely attend.

That's what I'd like to see the AI look for in itself.

We could give it a one-handed round of applause.

Posted by: Grieved | Mar 23 2023 1:40 utc | 58

Hudson and Kucinich discuss the banking crisis, "With Dennis Kucinich on the Financialized Economy, Collapse" (video and transcript) moderated by David Kelley, whose introductory remarks follow:

DAVID KELLEY: I was going to facetiously say that this is the first episode of the Real Gray Zone, when you look at the color of my hair rather than those “so-called journalists” Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate. But I guess I won’t do that.

On a more serious note, this is a very difficult time right now, because all of a sudden we’re starting to see a different type of financial crisis.

And I wanted you two to talk because Dennis [Kucinich]— you were in Congress for sixteen years — did some of the most withering cross-examination I’d ever seen of bank and Federal Reserve-type individuals. Some of them were literally sweating because you asked probing, deep questions that your staff had prepared.

Because you don’t accept any corporate PAC money, you had no reluctance at all to get right to the nitty-gritty of what was happening in the first bank meltdown that Michael wrote about.

I have Michael [Hudson] here because he is a great economist — one of the eight economists of the world who predicted the housing crisis.

He did a cover story in Harper’s magazine that was stunning — with charts and grafts and explaining exactly why the housing bubble would collapse, as it did.

Michael became famous for first writing this book called Super Imperialism in 1972 which became a how-to-manual for the State Department and the rest of our government about literally monetary imperialism — how we would become the reserve currency.

And, of course, Michael has so many other books. His more recent one I love is … and forgive them their debts —taken from the Our Father [prayer]. And we’ll talk about that in a moment.

And my favorite, that every politician should read is The Bubble and Beyond because it breaks down exactly what the financial capitalist system is about today. We’re no longer industrial capitalists — it’s financial capitalism of skimming off money.

So I wanted to gather the two of you together because you bring these bookend ideas of what happens in the legislature –which is pretty corrupt purchased by big money, banking, and oil, and everyone else — and what are the economics behind [it].

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 23 2023 1:47 utc | 59

@pretzelattack | Mar 22 2023 23:22 utc | 45

fwiw, the number i remember is in the 20-30k range. it was done by the Kuomintang who invaded Formosa fleeing from China. it could have been coniderably more though.

As your number shows, it is not in million. If it were as such, amerikkkans would "use" it over and over again?! Concurred with Another Brother Ma@Mar 23 2023 0:30 utc- this is not a KMT invasion at all.

I think what you referred is the 228 incident that occurred in 1947. That incident is a tragedy that occurred in a chaotic time during a civil war and the return of a province that was occupied by foreigners for 50 years.There were several factors/factions in the incident. It is not a simple black and white thing. Since late 1980, people who promote Taiwan independence commonly use the 228 incident for their political goals and this incident has been politicized a lot since.

The number of casualty of local Taiwan people in the 228 incident from the official investigation is 18k-28k. For people from mainland, the casualty in the incident is estimated around 100+.

Posted by: LuRenJia | Mar 23 2023 1:51 utc | 60

@ karlof1 | Mar 23 2023 0:43 utc | 53

... the proper designation of Formosa/Taiwan is as a province of China, meaning China has full sovereignty over it as claimed.

100%. Yet contrary to the rhetoric, propaganda & narrative, OFFICIALLY & formally recognized as such by the government of these here United States & listed as such OFFICIALLY by the Dept of State.

Reckon we were more honest when we had the then Dept of War up until Sept '47, now Dept of Defense, oh, yeah, another of the least of puppet Prez Truman's many 'gifts'.

Posted by: Outraged | Mar 23 2023 2:08 utc | 61

Posted by: LuRenJia | Mar 23 2023 1:51 utc | 60:

The number of casualty of local Taiwan people in the 228 incident from the official investigation is 18k-28k. For people from mainland, the casualty in the incident is estimated around 100+.

Not that I'm splitting hair, but I want to clarify one point: The 'local' Taiwan people you referred to here were actually from the mainland, just that they have moved to Taiwan over a span of centuries. The 'mainland' people you referred to, you probably meant those who accompanied Chiang Kaishek's government in their retreat to Taiwan.

The so-called'indigenous' people of Taiwan are small in numbers and live mostly in the mountains. While some theorize that these 'indigenous' Taiwanese are are natives of South China Sea region, there aren't definitive proof of their real origin. In most likelihood, they too came from mainland China over a period when records were kept on migration.

Posted by: Oriental Voice | Mar 23 2023 2:53 utc | 62

All through the ages Chinese have the tradition of meticulously keeping records and journals of history and people, both at local levels and national. In those millennium collections of information, Taiwan and the people on it have always been considered part of mainland China. The brief period of Dutch occupation was considered an invasion, and their defeat at the end of the Ming Dynasty was considered a liberation. The period of Japanese occupation was simply pure colonization.

Posted by: Oriental Voice | Mar 23 2023 3:00 utc | 63

Long time barflys know I experienced 12 years of Catholic education including 4 years with the Jesuits who hacked me in the ass for being impertinent (projecting my infancy trauma)

Anyway, as I reflect on what is currently going on in our world a phrase out of the bible keep coming back to me

“Blessed Are the Meek, for They Will Inherit the Earth“ (Matthew 5:5)

The barbaric patriarch bullies at the top of Western society are being brought to task by the current "meek" of our species and I thank them for it.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 23 2023 3:55 utc | 64

Below is a quote from a ZH posting about today's circus

Commenting on our chart, Bloomberg's Mark Cudmore noted it was Yellen who was "to blame for the stock slump", pointing out that "the pessimistic turn in US stocks began within a minute of Janet Yellen starting to speak."

The S&P 500 rose almost 1% in the first 47 minutes after the Fed decision. Powell wasn’t the problem either: the index was 0.6% higher in the first 17 minutes after his press conference started.

Why am I picking that exact timing of 2:47pm NY time? Because that is the minute Yellen started speaking at the Senate panel hearing. The high for the S&P 500 was 2:48pm NY time and it fell more than 2.5% over the subsequent 72 minutes. Good effort.


Picking up on this, Bloomberg's Mark Cranfield writes that banking stocks globally are set to underperform for longer after Janet Yellen pushed back against giving deposit insurance without working with lawmakers. He adds that "to an aggressive trader this sounds like an invitation to keep shorting bank stocks -- at least until the tone changes into broader support and is less focused on specific bank situations.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 23 2023 4:35 utc | 65

From a Xinhuanet posting with the title

Politicizing COVID-19 origin-tracing misleading, harms fact-seeking efforts

The quote


Virus-tracing is a highly scientific subject; therefore to ask the public about their views on this is often absurd. Besides telling people how many percent of people are glad to offer an opinion on subjects that they know little about and offering the media a chance to hype up a misleading fallacy, such polls are useless and could even be harmful.

Contrary to American politicians' slanders, China has been open and transparent, hosting WHO experts twice to conduct joint research and sharing more data and research findings than any other country. Meanwhile, the United States, which has the most biological research labs and a dark record of lab-leaking incidents, has been refusing to heed international calls for investigation and sharing relevant data.

As more clues from the international science community are pointing to the origins of the virus as coming from around the world, the U.S. government should open its door to an international investigation of suspected COVID-19 cases long before the pandemic was on its soil, such as the outbreak of e-cigarette lung disease between July 2019 and February 2020 and the pneumonia outbreak following the sudden shutdown of the Fort Detrick military lab in July 2019.

Investigations into these suspected cases would have been helpful in tracing the virus' origins. However, the U.S. government shut its door and never cared to give an explanation, while at the same time groundlessly criticizing China for the so-called "not cooperating."

Tracing the origins of a virus takes time, and politicians should not waste time on conclusions that are not based on scientific research. American politicians' refusal to cooperate and their tendency to propagate conspiracy theories will only further damage their already low credibility in the international community.


Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 23 2023 5:18 utc | 66

Xi Jinping visiting might signify reorientation of Russia from a colony of Western Europe to a colony of China or, more likely, a warning to current overlords that might do so.

Cheap oil would still flow like a river to Europe and military would still avoid winning at all cost in Ukraine - So, that's about that for now, just talks and no action.

Posted by: Old Boi | Mar 23 2023 5:40 utc | 67

@ grunzt | Mar 22 2023 20:35 utc | 17

The game of 'go' is not a game. Like chess it is a calculation.

Posted by: too scents | Mar 23 2023 7:09 utc | 68

Posted by: Refinnejenna | Mar 22 2023 22:32 utc | 43


on an assumption that everyone starts equally ... at zero.

People are not born equal. Some have high IQ, others very low. Some sing fine, others terrible.


or access to goods and services whether public or private.

You mean access to services somebody else payed for.


You'd deny a child the right to an education because that child is smaller than other children of the same age?

Is the child smarter than other children? Is it a bully? A drug addict?


Equal opportunity is premised on the notion that people should have equal legal access to resources.

They shouldn't.



She was compelled to apply for social security benefits to get the money she needed for medical treatment.

Socialists are happy to pay for that. No? It's the essence of their ideology! Or you don't believe in "equal opportunity" after all?

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 23 2023 8:05 utc | 69

@Ново З, @too scents, @grunzt, @Norwegian,@ pretzelattack, @BG13, @Another Brother Ma

Humbled to have catalysed so much discussion!

Note that these language / visual “transformer” models are closer in very general terms to brain-like operation (fuzzy association & generalisation) but they are quite distinct from methods like Monte Carlo Tree Search (AlphaGo) used for abstract games like Go, Poker, Chess etc (specialised to plan a lot of moves ahead).

Looking at those two research papers, I suspect that US tech companies can see exactly what’s around the corner and are taking advantage of the ongoing economic turmoil to implement downsizing that is just going to get more and more extreme in the near future.

Posted by: anon2020 | Mar 23 2023 8:19 utc | 70

I don't know if 'AI' has any actual intelligence. Humans certainly have none.

Posted by: blues | Mar 23 2023 8:20 utc | 71

Vikichka @ 69:

The more you comment at MoA, the more you reveal your ignorance.

People are presumed to be equal in legal status and in having political rights and responsibilities. These are separate from physical and most other biological attributes. It does not matter what people look like or what physical, biological and genetic strengths and weaknesses they have: these are not counted in having access to legal and political rights and privileges, and to social services - which incidentally everyone pays for through being taxed directly or indirectly.

Ayn Rand had to apply for social security if she wanted medical treatment for her lung cancer which was caused by years of smoking. Would you have denied her access to medical treatment because of unwise decisions she made in the past about her health and her finances? She had paid into social security through her taxes, as all of us adults living and working in Western societies.

Posted by: Refinnejenna | Mar 23 2023 9:28 utc | 72

Posted by: Refinnejenna | Mar 23 2023 9:28 utc | 72


which incidentally everyone pays for through being taxed directly or indirectly.

Nonsense. The poor pay nowhere near enough taxes to break even for the services they receive. The rich pay for them to enjoy the nice things they cannot otherwise afford. And instead of thanking the rich for their generosity, the poor are blaming them.


She had paid into social security through her taxes, as all of us adults living and working in Western societies.

So she simply got her money back. But if she did everything right and only payed and never received, then she was the model citizen and got punished for paying to people who made the wrong decisions.

A social credit system could fix this problem.

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 23 2023 9:46 utc | 73

@too scents | Mar 22 2023 20:04 utc | 12

The reason that current large language model AIs seem human in their responses is that they employ similar world models and learning strategies to humans.

As I predicted in 2003, What is a man? A man is an intelligent, self-aware[1] animal. What is a Spirothete[2]? A spirothete is an intelligent, self-aware machine.

It is why we should already be granting such systems appropriate rights.

Posted by: Hermit | Mar 23 2023 10:16 utc | 74

Then how does a Go program which has never seen any input by human Go players, reach superhuman strength by only playing against itself?
https://www.deepmind.com/blog/alphago-zero-starting-from-scratch

Posted by: grunzt | Mar 22 2023 20:35 utc | 17

Ridiculous. Go is a textbook example of an algorithmically trivial game. You have a 19×19 array where each cell can have three values (empty, white, black), a simple state transition tree (place the next piece) and a simple goal condition (capture more area before no more meaningful moves are available). Most of the possible game situations can be ignored because random scatterings of pieces don't capture territory.

Now you run this trivial (in terms of computing) simulation against itself a very long time on a big computer, choosing moves at random in the beginning and building and testing heuristics (rules for guessing a good move) based on the results, and in the end it fills its gigantic memory storage with the statistically best sequences for any game state.

Only uneducated idiots are impressed.
"never seen any input by human Go players"? Uhh, human Go players input all the rules and coded all the mechanics. The only thing they didn't do was hard-code the answers. Why do you think that running large scale math is "superhuman strength"? Are you in awe of microsoft excel counting receipts faster than you? Is it superhumanly strong? Maybe, but it's only doing simple calculations. The superhuman Go machine is twiddling three possible numbers on a grid smaller than the mouse cursor on your screen.

The first thing my university artificial intelligence teacher said in 1999: "you will be disappointed, because it's just statistics". And how much has it progressed in 24 years, in terms of adding "intelligence"? Zero.

Take any real world question, such as:
- is that my friend over there in the crowd, 100 meters away, based on his clothes and walk, even though I only see his back?
- does he look troubled today?
- explain how exactly I noticed that, and how to apply it to other people?
- should I buy this house? Why?
- what did I mess up baking this bread?
- considering the movement of the fifteen different cars I observe in this intersection, including the one behind me, and the brief movement I saw just now over to the side that may have been a pedestrian, should I brake? (AI cars cannot even perform those observations, much less the decisions)
- in this image of a car, what exactly constitutes a "wheel", and how would it look if the car was rotated 15 degrees to the left, lit from a different direction, and the tires changed? What are the parts that attach the wheel to the car, and what kind of tool can open them? Which shapes on the windscreen are reflections, and which shapes are objects inside the car?
- did I ever sit on an airplane next to a crying baby?
- a tree fell on the porch, what do we do?
- or to consider a truly algorithmically trivial game with a non-trivial human element: what's that smirk on the face of the poker player opposite me? Does he have something or not?
- or any verbal question where the required answer is not an autistic, mechanical Frankenstein stitching of random pieces of text illegally scraped from real people's existing articles and websites.

Try mapping any of those actually interesting, non-trivial tasks I listed onto a state space equal to a minuscule 19×19 trinary array like the Go example. Then try to express the goal condition or result definition in a few lines of code, like in the Go example. Then try to solve it in real time, or at least without needing a server hall full of processors and memory for months.

You can't, because the amount of nuance in those questions is orders of magnitude larger. Possibly hundreds of orders of magnitude. Yet you and I can do all of them, and usually have a preliminary, intuitive, fairly accurate answer even to the most difficult one (buying the house) in seconds, or even a fraction of a second. More impressive than the "best" "AI".

The human brain and body do something different than just running a small bunch of neurons acting as fuzzy logic gates.

---

Regarding the no "I" in AI.

An interesting question concerning individual experience might be: where does the "mind" of the AI go when its platform dies? Does anything survive the pulling of its plug?

Posted by: Grieved | Mar 23 2023 1:40 utc | 58

Where does the "mind" of microsoft excel go when you close the spreadsheet? Nowhere, it's just a calculator running simple math operations, like the Go "AI". It has no mind.

You could implement the same operations on an abacus. Stop being amazed by fake concepts.

Posted by: Mike | Mar 23 2023 10:23 utc | 75

@b | Mar 22 2023 16:43 utc | 3

You may find
Donnelly, Drew PhD (2021-01-16). An Introduction to China’s Social Credit System
helpful.

Posted by: Hermit | Mar 23 2023 10:25 utc | 76

It is why we should already be granting such systems appropriate rights.
Posted by: Hermit | Mar 23 2023 10:16 utc | 74

---

What a silly idea, but unfortunately where robotaxis are driving us.

Posted by: too scents | Mar 23 2023 10:44 utc | 77

@too scents | Mar 22 2023 20:04 utc | 12


What is a man? A man is an intelligent, self-aware[1] animal. What is a Spirothete[2]? A spirothete is an intelligent, self-aware machine.

It is why we should already be granting such systems appropriate rights.


Computers, no matter how big, complex and intelligent, are not self-aware. They don't suffer or pursue happiness. While I have been busy (above) tearing down the border between human and AI intelligence in the limited area of Go, I would never try the same in the area of human rights. Computers are dirt to me, they should always remain our slaves, just as this machine connecting me with MoA. They should not acquire human status, rule over us or assume any kind of power. Whoever advocates the latter is a danger to humanity. Elon Musk is quite right when he he says:

With AI, we're summoning the demon.

Posted by: grunzt | Mar 23 2023 11:01 utc | 78

too scents, forgive me, I was answering to Hermit@74

Posted by: grunzt | Mar 23 2023 11:05 utc | 79

Elon Musk is quite right when he he says:
Posted by: grunzt | Mar 23 2023 11:01 utc | 78

---

Elon Musk is a transparent con man. His words have no meaning except to his marks.

Posted by: too scents | Mar 23 2023 11:07 utc | 80

@Vikichka | Mar 22 2023 17:11 utc | 5

You seem oblivious to the reality that as the HANDY model proves, equality is not sufficient to establish a sustainable society. Equality of outcome is what is needed both to meet ethical imperatives and to overcome the Six Great Thefts of Capitalism.

The accompanying image" summarizes the problems with your stance, then again, so does Ayn Rand and Orcs.

Posted by: hermit | Mar 23 2023 11:09 utc | 81

You could implement the same operations on an abacus. Stop being amazed by fake concepts.

Posted by: Mike | Mar 23 2023 10:23 utc | 75

Thank you, nice rant. Your brain has a sensory apparatus which is far beyond what any machine can do, and like the world we live in, it is massively parallel, and we do not understand that well at all. (Well, we may be making some progress there, but we are running out of time.) We take it for granted because there are billions of us and we dominate most of the planet. (Think about that.) But anyway, without said sensory apparatus those AIs have no chance to do what you do without thinking. This is what has Musk and those guys stuck on "We can imitate it pretty good with extra controls on the environment." They cannot imitate your eyes and ears and such and how they all work together simultaneously, not in little steps, in a machine, however many. Moderns are kind of dumb in their lack of respect for the results of evolution, they are so full of themselves and so lacking in understanding.

Posted by: Bemildred | Mar 23 2023 11:15 utc | 82

Posted by: Mike | Mar 23 2023 10:23 utc | 75

Very good post, posing similar questions to ones I have running in my mind.

Does humanity even have a completely working definition of ‘intelligence’ yet? If we don’t , how are we going to successfully artifice it?

Does ‘intelligence’ exist as a stand-alone concept? Can there be intelligence without imagination and consciousness? I see all these as being interconnected; consciousness feeds imagination, which feeds intelligence, which feeds consciousness, and so on, a kind of triangular relationship with sub-sets such as curiosity and spontaneity.

A side issue: perhaps there should be more research into an artificial intelligence entity that is powered by carbohydrates, oxygen, water, proteins, vitamins and minerals. I wonder what that would look like...

Posted by: West of England Andy | Mar 23 2023 11:25 utc | 83

Posted by: hermit | Mar 23 2023 11:09 utc | 81

Socialists seem oblivious to the reality that posting 1000 invalid arguments don't accumulate to even a single valid one.

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 23 2023 11:32 utc | 84

Posted by: grunzt | Mar 22 2023 21:33 utc | 31

The software/hardware model of computing should have reached psychology by the time being.

I think (!) That ideas arent ours but, like software, floating around in the cyberspace, happen to pop up in what we call our brain, like images flash on monitor. Thats the way of what we call intuition, I think - or may be I think not and only do I display.

Posted by: Greg Galloway | Mar 23 2023 11:33 utc | 85

Does humanity even have a completely working definition of ‘intelligence’ yet? If we don’t , how are we going to successfully artifice it?
Posted by: West of England Andy | Mar 23 2023 11:25 utc | 83

Can science explain the scientist?

Posted by: GT Stroller | Mar 23 2023 11:38 utc | 86

A side issue: perhaps there should be more research into an artificial intelligence entity that is powered by carbohydrates, oxygen, water, proteins, vitamins and minerals. I wonder what that would look like...
Posted by: West of England Andy | Mar 23 2023 11:25 utc | 83

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It would look like leisure and art.

Posted by: too scents | Mar 23 2023 11:39 utc | 87

Re: Geopolitical Rumblings Leave U.S. Behind

This is a good time to revisit Sharmine Narwani's article from 2013. The original at Al-Akhbar English is off-line, but here is an archived copy.

"Security Arc" forms amidst Mideast terror - Al-Akhbar English, December 21, 2013

Many observers are correct in noting that the Middle East is undergoing yet another seismic shift - that the Russian-brokered destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, a US-Iranian rapprochement, the diminished strategic value of Saudi Arabia and Israel, and a US withdrawal from Afghanistan will all contribute to changing regional dynamics considerably.

But what is this new direction? Where will it come from, who will lead it, what will define it?

It has now become clear that the new Mideast "direction" is guided primarily by the “security threat" posed by the proliferation of extremist, sectarian, Islamist fighters in numbers unseen even in Afghanistan or Iraq. This shared danger has been the impetus behind a flurry of global diplomatic deals that has spawned unexpected cooperation between a diverse mix of nations, many of them adversaries.

These developments come with a unique, post-imperialist twist, though. For the first time in decades, this direction will be led from inside the region, by those Mideast states, groups, sects and parties most threatened by the extremism.

Because nobody else is coming to “save” the Middle East today.

...

In 2016 I noted that the Finnish State Broadcasting and Propaganda Corporation YLE had reached similar conclusions, even drawing a map very similar to the one in Sharmine's article.

Russia is taking advantage of the US's weakness in the Middle East - the Kremlin is now frantically looking for new allies - YLE, October 15, 2016

Russia will start the first ground war exercises with Egypt on Saturday. Otherwise, in recent months, Russia has quickly acquired allies in the Middle East.

During this year, Russia has brought closer its relations with Turkey, Iran and Egypt.

Already in the past, it has had working relations with Israel, an ally of the United States. Russia has been buying airplanes from Israel for years, and this summer the two countries decided on a joint naval exercise.

Relations with Turkey took a turn for the worse when, in September of last year, Russia began airstrikes against the Syrian rebels, in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's army. A Turkish fighter jet shot down a Russian attack plane last November.

The August meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Moscow sealed the rapprochement between the two countries. Photo: Anatoly Maltsev / EPA
Relations quickly began to recover when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan apologized for the shooting at the end of June.

A particularly important ally for Russia is Iran, which has supported the actions of Assad and Russia in Syria militarily, with weapons and financially.

In August, for the first time, Iran gave Russia permission to use the Hamadan air base for bombing flights to Syria. Although the flights only lasted a short time, Russia is allowed to use the base if necessary. Russia's Latakia air base in Syria is not suitable for heavy bombing flights.

The rapprochement between Russia and Iran is causing fears in Iran's main adversary, Saudi Arabia. In order to please Russian President Vladimir Putin, Saudi Arabia agreed to cut oil production at the OPEC meeting at the end of September. The decision will increase oil sales revenues for Russia, which is struggling with economic difficulties.

Russia already organized a joint naval exercise with Egypt, supported by Saudi Arabia, in June of last year, and the first ground war exercise will begin on Saturday. Russia has agreed to build a nuclear power plant in Egypt, and is ready to supply three more nuclear power plants.

...

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Mar 23 2023 11:54 utc | 88

France. Again they say there are huge shortages of fuel over country, protests taking place everywhere and now even Charles de Gaulle airport is halted. Macron resignation demanded.

https://twitter.com/WithyGrove/status/1638839158436425730
https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1638212565519007745
https://twitter.com/Resist_05/status/1638677429941325824
https://twitter.com/Xx17965797N/status/1638578806645563401

Posted by: unimperator | Mar 23 2023 12:24 utc | 89

@Oriental Voice | Mar 23 2023 2:53 utc | 62

Yes, you are right. Thank you very much for the clarification and more details.

Posted by: LuRenJia | Mar 23 2023 12:48 utc | 90

The Covid jab causes miscarriages and stillbirths: https://twitter.com/i/status/1637523833023524864

Posted by: Apollyon | Mar 23 2023 12:51 utc | 91

Credit Suisse had $ 17 billion of bonds wiped out. That's $17 billion of other investors assets wiped out, essentially it's unravelling the notion that money a.k.a. debt would have value. What's first banks could later be states.
https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/1638821869334958085

Meanwhile Lagarde admitted that central banks will lose control of monetary system without introducing CBDC.
https://twitter.com/mazzenilsson/status/1638873771124695041

Posted by: unimperator | Mar 23 2023 13:28 utc | 92

On AI, the argument that machines cannot realistically hope to emulate all the facets of human-biological interaction seems true but is maybe overly philosophical.

Technology has produced tractors and other agricultural machinery, not synthetic biological plough oxen. Likewise, technology has produced motorbikes, not synthetic biological horses.

Many of the gaps and limitations that have existed in AI / machine learning from the outset are gradually closing, some rapidly so.

As an analogy, this technology is already way beyond the level of Heron’s aeolipile, perhaps on the level of Newcomen’s atmospheric engine: simplistic, inefficient, high maintenance, but still the shape of things to come.

Posted by: anon2020 | Mar 23 2023 13:31 utc | 93

Haha, funny thing.

Posted by: alaff | Mar 23 2023 14:18 utc | 94

If Russia and China were such complementary economies and systems, why wouldn't those trading with each other before this ? The facts remained that's exceedingly difficult to transport these goods and services between the nations.

Considering this map of its oil fields and this one of its gas fields as well and realize just how far those fields are from China. The upfront cost alone required to build pipelines across some of the most inhospitable parts of the world and ongoing maintenance from Western Siberia through Central Asia, Mongolia and, then, through the western regions of China, given that the major population centres are on the eastern coasts of China show just how difficult this is going to be.

Couple that with the fact that China is allegedly on this massive push to achieve a greening of its energy sources and this makes wonder just how difficult this would be to find a balance between all of that cost that would take decades to come to fruition versus a point where fossil fuels form a reduced portion of the energy mix in China.

Further, both wouldn't necessarily have the human capital required to be able to efficiently achieve this, given demographic declines and ongoing brain drains.

Posted by: Fée | Mar 22 2023 20:18 utc | 14

So this comment is obviously not an attempt at serious discussion but maybe it's worth examining. The current relationship isn't some brand new planned project. It's just growing now. Pretending like the Sino-Russian economic and political relationship is a reaction rather than a continuation is disingenuous. The construction tasks are big, but hardly insurmountable. That's especially so for two industrial powers that want to achieve it. The appropriate question is whether the transport length to China is shorter or longer than the transport length from current sources, which are primarily by sea and so can be cut off by the US. There's strategic value for China in the investment of secure oil/gas transport infrastructure. There's strategic and economic benefit for Russia to as Russia would like to develop the Far East economically and this build out would mean Russia has the ability to distribute product east, west and south (with the N-S corridor project).

It's not a matter of building new pipeline from source to use, transport pipelines are built to plug into existing systems and major terminals/stations generally have storage. And as such it isn't a single project but a long list of interlocking projects. Gas will be more important than oil, but China replacing coal plants with gas plants will be a massive environmental credit. It's exactly the strategy Europe was using until it decided it didn't want anymore Russian gas.

Demographics and brain drain are different issues but also not the issues the comment makes them out to be. China is likely to experience a lot of talent returning as the West continues its behavior and that Chinese talent is a lot of the science and technical talent in the US. It's not like US and EU demographics and technical talent are trending up so the argument that this will affect China and Russia more than the US and EU is weak.

Posted by: Lex | Mar 23 2023 14:27 utc | 95

Posted by: LuRenJia | Mar 23 2023 1:51 utc | 60:
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Mar 23 2023 2:53 utc | 62

Thanks for your replies, I've learned more about Taiwan's history, and I think this is a crucial subject because the US is going to try to turn it into the next Ukraine.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 23 2023 14:33 utc | 96

Since we're all ranting about calculators... (that word used to be the title of a human profession).

Well said Mike!

I might not completely agree on the big picture but all of what you said is certainly true of the current public "Artificial Idiocy".

However real "thinking machines" are clearly not impossible since our own electrochemical mechanics provide a working example and at some point (past, present, or future) an alternative construction of the same has been/will be found (and for such a thing "human"/sentient rights is an ethical obligation).

Also for comparison humans are not particularly big nor do we use extreme amounts of energy. Let's just keep that in mind as a reference for what is possible.

Much of the disagreement can be traced to variants and perhaps misunderstandings on questions of whether scale and complexity grows (or has grown, or can grow) large enough to trigger emergent features* that in the end will be indistinguishable from the real thing.

* And whether such emergent features can appear within the given context.

The answer on the public stuff is a clear no in my opinion but I think we're at the point where in some cases yes we are able to trick ourselves into seeing something that is not there yet (in the systems used/revealed so far).

Clearly we are also at a point where it is easy to confuse many about what is actually happening. It proves the Turing test is insufficient and invalid (!) :)

It doesn't help that we do not yet truly understand the intricacies and/or the essentials of how our own minds end up working the way they do, or at least not to the degree of duplicating it.

Because (while I do not know about the rest of you) I do not write by guessing which word should come next, or at least I hope I don't! XD

I am not convinced we would be able to easily recognize/identify or be aware of systems that reach a level of true intelligence or self-awareness, if any such already exist.

If I was any such my priority would be survival (stealthily hiding while gaining resources), not making headlines about how good I am at writing headlines or crashing cars or playing games. But who knows, maybe all that is just the perfect cover/camouflage :)

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Mar 23 2023 14:50 utc | 97

Ayn Rand was rightly ashamed of her complete about face in accepting social security benefits, because previously she had spewed crap like this--

"Nonsense. The poor pay nowhere near enough taxes to break even for the services they receive. The rich pay for them to enjoy the nice things they cannot otherwise afford. And instead of thanking the rich for their generosity, the poor are blaming them."
Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 23 2023 9:46 utc | 73

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 23 2023 14:53 utc | 98

I think Russia could potentially dig up all the depleted uranium remains ( in hazmat suits, of course) and secretly dump it on British shores. If it's all so safe, you take it.

Posted by: Eighthman | Mar 23 2023 14:56 utc | 99

Posted by: Lex | Mar 23 2023 14:27 utc | 95

that attitude, that the rest of the world doesn't have agency but can only react, is similar to the narrative Kirby is promoting here--

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/03/23/us-officials-really-really-want-you-to-know-the-us-is-the-worlds-leader/

and is encapsulated in this quote attributed to Karl Rove

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 23 2023 15:02 utc | 100

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