AlbertCory

No, the Japanese implosion came at the end of the 80's and early 90's. That book is from 1982.

You might well be 100% right. I'd like to see the Japanese succeed, actually.

However, it was simply not possible for anyone to succeed at AI in the early 80's. It took some Nobel-prize-winning software, a change of approach, and a massive increase in compute power to finally break through.

You made some nonsensical statements on HN, and now you're dropping out rather than trying to defend them. Got it.

Let me just repeat: So what ARE your limits? Or are there any?

So I guess you're saying there are no limits? Every project should be funded to the max?

and since you're against taxation, does that mean ordinary people are to be compelled to "voluntarily" fund them? Or where is the money supposed to come from?

It's somewhat appalling that they don't mention that there's a book with this title:

https://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Generation-Artificial-Intellige...

As for "The important thing is that they tried" : would you give them credit for "trying" to invent real-time, neuron-by-neuron brain imaging, in 1982? And giving billions of taxpayer Yen to the effort? How about quantum computers?

Or would you have been justified in saying that there are projects with a better prospect of success right now, and we shouldn't waste the taxpayers' money on things guaranteed to fail?

So what ARE your limits? Or are there any?

This seems kinda confused. The Nobel is now controversial because after all, Nobel invented dynamite and he wanted to expunge his guilt. Yet you said it was "prestigious" -- but you want to cancel that, regardless?

But somehow the Nobel Prize in Computer Science would be too controversial even given all that.

OK, I get that you don't like Bezos-Gates-Zuck-Musk. Maybe you're just jealous.

I'd be more surprised if you linked to any of Krugman's recent columns and I actually thought they were worthwhile.

The "Nobel Prize in Economics" was not one of the original ones endowed by Alfred Nobel. As the name implies, it was created by a bank.

Is there any reason Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk can't endow a Prize in Computer Science? That would end the controversy about whether AI is "Physics."

indigenous people who get colonized

Academic talking points. Talk about the indigenous Irish who got "colonized" by the Celts, or the Britons who got "colonized" by the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, or the native American tribes who got "colonized" by other tribes, or the Gauls who got "colonized" by migrant tribes.

The fact is, everyone is on "stolen land" including the "indigenous." The Spaniards were more exploitive than the English and other northern Europeans (look up "Potosi"), but that doesn't make the latter perfect.

The New World was going to be integrated with the Old World sooner or later, no matter who did it.

Krugman is controversial at times

Kind of like saying Lysenko was controversial at times.

He's not "controversial," he's just a bloviator. His credentials as a serious economist expired long ago when he signed up with the leftist team and agreed to never challenge them again, on anything.

When you have to spend many words on explaining the "context" in which someone's quotes should be viewed, you are losing.

Hear. I don't know if I'd want to get to zero.

And on special occasions the rules are suspended.

Old word:

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-teetotaller-3530549

Canada’s latest guidelines, which Dr. Stockwell advised on, are more stringent: Low-risk drinking is defined as no more than two drinks total per week, regardless of sex.

That's where I'm at. Heading down to one, and then someday zero.

Alcohol is poison, unfortunately. Denying that is, well ... "denial."

And therefore, we need censorship. Right?

Where we'll be told the "correct" way to think. I'd rather see it all and decide for myself. And end up watching PBS but never, never pledging in their interminable pledge drives. Somehow, they still manage to stay on the air.

By the way, in Hell they have PBS pledge drivers on the TV, 24x7, for all eternity. You can't mute the sound.

Great article. Reinforces my reluctance to see movies in theaters anymore. At home, you can turn on subtitles. People who are not at all hard of hearing do it.

Hypothetical.

In my experience, they say "your credit card is failing, please give us another one." Because credit cards fail all the time. It's not Red Alert.

You go to the page to change your credit card, and THEN you usually can find the "cancel my account" link. As long as you're not still using their service, you don't owe anything. They cancel you, and that's that. No collections agency.

If someone has an actual event, not a hypothetical, speak up.

Interesting. I grew up in Roseland, and there was a hill east of Michigan Ave. going down. I always thought that was from Lake Calumet which used to be a lot bigger.

Every time I bring this up, someone says "oh, they'll ruin your credit rating!"

No, actually they don't, unless you do something fraudulent. If you cancel your subscription legitimately and then kill the credit card, you've just made sure there aren't any "accidental" charges.

I'd never heard of this, despite growing up in Chicago. It makes you wonder how many other archeological treasures are underwater and undiscovered, given how water levels used to be lower.

I was about to pan this as yet another shallow "all great art gets criticized" take (ignoring that a lot of things that get criticized actually ARE crap). But then I got to the last paragraph.

Yes, it's been rejected now, but maybe someday people will reevaluate it. Maybe they'll still think it's crap; maybe not.

The chances of a nuclear bomb being used in the next 30 years is at least 90%. That's an opinion so don't ask for a link.

Why? Purely because of the combinatorial math of proliferation, and the likelihood of either an accident or a crazy person getting control of a bomb.

I wish it weren't so, but eventually your luck runs out.

unbiased would mean presenting all the pertinent facts

Exactly. As Edward R. Murrow used to say,

"Don't tell me what you think. Tell me what you know."

I use DDG most of the time. Sometimes I try Google, and then I'm disgusted by all the non-result garbage they put at the top nowadays. Once in a while they do have something valuable that DDG misses.

So yeah, I find DDG perfectly adequate.

So you went to Wikipedia. Now do some real research.

"Unbiased" means presenting the facts: what actually happened. You're right; it's not the same as "presenting both sides."

Trying to be unbiased is a futile effort

That seems to be the conventional wisdom. I sometimes get on newspapers.com (not free, unfortunately) for my articles, and for the Pullman Strike series I used the NYT for excerpts. This was 1894-95.

So no, it's not futile; it's just difficult. They were doing it, and that's part of what made them the "newspaper of record" (a rep which they're busy squandering now).

I'll refrain from the shameless self-promotion for a change and not include links, but I posted all of them to HN. Or of course you could use the 7-day free trial on newspapers.com.

As for your last, sentence: no, the adjective "genocidal" is not OK. "Unbiased" would be a description of what the army is doing, with another story "Does this qualify as genocide?" Or quotes from organizations calling it genocide.

No, the difference is whether they try to be unbiased or not. Wikipedia used to try, somewhat, occasionally. Now they are indeed "merely left-wing advocacy essays.”

Hardly any news outlets are trying anymore, so I can see why you think that.

Consider the Nobel in economics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Econom...

It was not one of the original five, but it was endowed by a bank.

SO: you tech billionaires, why don't you endow a Prize in Computer Science? That would end the dispute about whether ML is "really" physics?

Rather, my experience is that young readers are eminently capable of critically engaging in long form content, but they’re rightfully demanding a seat at the table where decisions about texts are being made.

There's never been a time when kids didn't demand things that are "relevant" to them. Soul on Ice and The Teachings of Don Juan certainly seemed more relevant than Macbeth 50 years ago.

The fact is, they're not capable of deciding that. That's why they're in school. The teacher's job, which this person refuses to do, is to make the classics relevant.

If you're one of the people repeating the facile, shallow, and dumb cliche that "the older generation has always been critical of the younger generation" then you are, ironically, part of the problem. You have no insights that younger people value, so of course they're going to ignore you.

There are lots of other opinions in this thread that it's a false thing to say. It implies that the theory is respectable just by listing it. The fact that someone said something ridiculous is not worth mentioning.

I don't know what other arguments would make an impression on you, so why don't we just drop it?

I guess you don't want to read anything by actual military people, then. Dehumanizing the enemy is a requirement for those folks.