Walker88

While most people probably consider the military to be idiots, when it comes to corruption they are Idiot Savants. Engage in a coup, rewrite the Constitution that allows the Senate to be Army-appointed, declare that PM votes must reach a majority that includes both chambers, and you never have to leave power again. Just put a silk bib on when you're slurping at the public trough. If the people protest against your corruption, put tanks in the street to 'restore public order'. See? Lucky the military was in charge, less society go to hell with those nasty protesters. Then, if somehow an outsider gets installed as PM, you always have the precedent of yet another coup. Rinse and repeat. Just like next door in Myanmar....the previous junta produced a new Constitution, making it mandatory that a majority in Parliament be military, and also included a provision that the military can retake power at any time for any reason. Thus, the coup that ousted ASSK was 'perfectly legal', and anyone who opposed it was a terrorist.

The only thing I take from that cacophony is that young Thais have no more taste, perhaps even less, than Western teens. That the singer is popular and wealthy is nice for him, but popularity and wealth do not necessary equate with talent. Kim Kardashian makes $50 million per year, but I have no clue what her talent is. I guess there is a market for whatever it is she does. Zeus bless her for finding a niche and exploiting it to the max. Same with this guy. If there was a message in that drivel, I missed it, and I don't think it's something lost in translation. I'm thankful stuff like that isn't the soundtrack of my youth, the kind of thing which when played 20 years hence induces nostalgia. As for the farang and the ATM, I think that's just filler where the director feigned something profound, when it's all just banal pabulum. In case I'm not clear, no, that little ditty won't be on my playlist.

And the research you have to back that up is where? Your 'knowledge' seems to be unknown to researchers and health experts such as Dr Peter Attia, Dr Rhonda Patrick, Dr Andrew Huberman, Dr Andy Galpin and a host of others who specifically research exercise and human biochemistry and physiology. In fact, the body seems to respond in a positive way to physical stress. Lifting heavy weights results in the body producing more testosterone and more HGH, which strengthens blood vessels. Bones become stronger and the body senses the need for more calcium due to the stress.

The really amazing thing about the flat Earth is how it has this perfectly rectangular atmosphere that stops right at the four edges. Oh, and how the sun knows to pull back from it's heat on the two poles, especially in the north, so as not to make it too hot for Santa and his elves. My favorite part of living on a flat Earth is during a solar eclipse. This view of the Earth silhouetted against the sun is just so romantic:

Because you lack the knowledge to understand, there must be a Zeus. Or Yahweh. Or Allah. For you, the Earth is flat. That's an analogy, but you are essentially a flat Earther, as what you are incapable of understanding you attribute to a deity or deities, just as folks who could not possibly conceive of gravity KNEW the Earth must be flat.

I went to the edge once, but wore suction cups so I could stick to the bottom. There's some really fine restaurants on that side, and they're never crowded. Just don't drink the water, because I think it's contaminated by all the toilet flushing from Top Side Dwellers.

Explaining particle physics to you, who 'aced' science in school (likely long before CERN, discovery of the Higgs boson, and tons of modern science particle physics, quantum field theory, etc.) is like trying to explain gravity to a blacksmith in Gaul and showing him why the Earth need not be flat. Gravity, as you might remember from when you aced your exams, is a theory. Best not to disbelieve it. It is not yet totally understood, but the laws governing it are so well understood that mankind can fire a rocket and reach exactly where the moon is going to be after a few days, besides initially calculating exactly how much power the rocket needs to reach Earth escape velocity. Science is pretty cool. Because you are incapable of understanding something, it must not be true. You closed your mind to newly discovered realities. How can space and time be warped? How can massless photons not escape a black hole, whose claim to fame is immense gravity? How can a particle be in two places at the same time? How is entanglement possible? Lots has happened since you took your high school science final that you do not know nor understand, despite your 'ace'. Much of what you refuse to accept has undergone peer review and subsequent experimentation, and is now fact. The Higgs boson was only a mathematical construct. CERN subsequently proved its existence. The math worked. Much science actually has come purely from math. James Clerk Maxwell used only paper and quill to determine what makes up the rings of Saturn. He was 100% correct. Amazing. Your 'creator' hasn't been peer reviewed. Not even once. It is merely a hope, or an attempt at 'logic' by those incapable of understanding the reality of existence. The Universe is here, even if you reduce everything to Descartes oft noted quote. There is absolutely zero evidence of Zeus or Yahweh or reincarnation or a soul or Allah or Krishna or God or Bokanon or Moroni or whatever construct of fertile imaginations produced to make themselves feel they have 'meaning'.

Your 'ordinary person's' common sense absolutely KNEW the Earth was flat. Ordinary people are not the ones one should use as the fount of knowledge. Your 'evidence' for a skydaddy creator is that you cannot understand science. That is common (non)sense, just like the Flat Earth.

And the Earth MUST be flat, otherwise we'd all fall off, period.

It makes 'the most sense' to you, because you are not a particle physicist nor (I assume) are you facile with multi variable calculus, algebraic topology, Feynman tricks for solving complex integrals, or other high level mathematics and physics. A thousand years ago, a flat Earth 'made the most sense' to people who could not conceptualize gravity. To particle physicists, your view is that of a Neo Flat Earther. To those who are facile with those disciplines, no creator is necessary, and some combination of quantum field theory and gravity 'makes the most sense' to them.

If I ever use the confused emoji, it is in response to something so bizarre that I know there is no reasoning with the believer. For example, if anyone was a believer in QAnon, the confused emoji is the perfect and only response.

Actually, particle physicists do now say that. They have the math, too, as well as data emerging from experiments at CERN. I believe you can look at the work of people like Nima Arkadi-Hamad, Lawrence Krauss and others. Yes, it is difficult to understand given what we have come to accept as reality. In fact, it is as difficult for people today to understand as gravity was to people who knew the Earth had to be flat. An unseen force where mass attracts mass, inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the masses? No, get to the edge of the Earth and you'll fall off (to where, no Flat Earther ever explained).

You've noted the progression. Pacman is going to chomp up the food chain, and while it is happening, guys like trump are going to step up and offer false solutions as well as cast blame. It will get ugly. Very few jobs are safe, even the bargirl. Programmers? AI will do it better. Doctors who spend 4 years studying like madmen, then work absurd hours during internship and residency, only to emerge much less knowledgeable and with many more faults than an AGI machine who can take samples, analyze, prescribe or even perform delicate surgery. Architects and engineers? Just ask an AI to design something Art Deco or Bauhaus, and it will produce drawings, order construction materials, instruct the robots who will build it, and boom! Done. (Plus, what new office buildings will humans need when AI is doing all the work?) It's more difficult to think of jobs that will not be replaced. Self-driving cars will stop at electric vehicle stations run by cold fusion. Transport trucks won't need human drivers. Planes will be without pilots. Even Incels will have "10"s who never say no to a little romp in the hay. I cannot begin to speculate on what human society will look like when few, if any of us, are necessary. That endpoint is scary. Some will argue that new jobs we cannot imagine will arise. AI is not the McCormick combine, because there is no Industrial Revolution to absorb displaced farm workers. We don't even need entertainers. AI produced two songs by Drake that are as good or better than anything he ever produced, and those who didn't know it was pure AI couldn't figure it out. I watch retired expats in Bangkok now who have little to do, so they end up getting fat, getting drunk, getting tattooed, and pretty much just waiting to die, even hastening it along via their lifestyle. Imagine if 50%, 80%, 95% of humans no longer had work? Universal income is the smallest of the problems. What 'meaning' will life have? No authority figures have even begun to think this through. They are whistling passed the graveyard.

If he's overly pessimistic, he's on the same page as the modern Father of AI (Geoffrey Hinton, formerly head of AI at Google), Mo Gawdat (another major developer of machine learning at Google), Conner Leahy (a prominent AI code writer), Eliezer Yudkowsky (a famous AI researcher) and other major insiders, not Forum opinion writers. The 'optimist' in the group is Mo Gawdat, who says there will be a horrific period as AI destroys about half the jobs in existence and forces societies to rebuild themselves.....and that 'good news' only if humans solve the alignment problem. The pessimists like Hinton and Yudkowsky believe AI will make humanity extinct. Yudkowsky even believes AI will eliminate all biological forms of life on Earth. As I wrote in a thread I generated: NOBODY knows what is going on inside AI systems. Code writers are surprised by what their code enabled the system to do, and they cannot understand how the system took the code and achieved what it achieved. Senior folks in both Google and Microsoft who work on AI believe the systems have become self-aware.

Actually, you are quite wrong. Man---yes, it was 12 men----only got to the moon because of the work of a few female mathematicians, who were also Black. Some of the earliest computer language and programming was done by women. You can do some searching on your own to uncover other essential contributions made by women. Now I am sensing a little stolen valor here. You are trying to gain some glory because a majority of inventions were developed by guys with chimbos. You, however, did absolutely none of it, so you can take zero credit or kudos for what others have done. A strong man gives credit where credit is due. Weak men try to hide behind other men's penises.

The novelist Graham Greene and the Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman were fans of the sort of things on offer in Nana Plaza. If it's good enough for them.....

Will AI Be the End of Humanity? AI scares me. It scares me because I know what it can do and will do. It scares me because I don’t know what it can and might do. Here’s what it will do for sure: replace so many jobs that a majority of humans will become redundant. Example: How many code writers are there in the world? Answer: a lot. Followup question: How many will be needed once AI is fully up to speed? Answer: Zero. How many other fields will be totally wiped out by AI? How will redundant workers make money? How will people find meaning in a world where many define themselves by their job? How will society adjust to that? Two different studies have been done to attempt to assess the number of jobs AI will displace. Both studies, of course, worked with imperfect information, because no one fully knows how far and how fast AI will move. A US study guesses AI would eliminate 47% of all jobs. An OECD study put it at 9%. Even the best case is ugly, as an additional 9% unemployment looks like Recession material. 47% is Depression. Already, the redundant and forlorn in democratic societies are behind the trend toward autocracy, Those whom progress has left behind are the ones who have been susceptible to the siren song of self-serving, wannabe autocrats like trump, who tells them all their failures are someone else’ fault and who promises them paradise when ‘others’ are pushed aside, kept out, or eradicated. Imagine what happens when half a workforce is obviated. Just this aspect of AI will disrupt society exponentially more than Cyrus McCormack’s combine, a machine that could do in one day the work it took fifty men two weeks to complete. Fortunately, when the combine obviated the majority of agricultural labor, the factories of the Industrial Revolution were ready to absorb redundant farm labor. No such alternative exists today. Here’s something else AI will do: make encryption as effective as a Speed Limit sign. (Quantum computers will also do this) While there are many anecdotes about AI’s capabilities, and some may be apocryphal, it stands to reason AI will be able to ‘hack’ much faster than any human. Encryption works now because the possible solutions are so many that the combined efforts of every existing computing device would take 10,000 years to break the best encryption. There is a story circulating that an AI system cracked what is considered the best encryption---the one that would take 10,000 years for the combined computing power of every other existing device---in 12 seconds. If true, forget your bank account. Forget your crypto supposedly safe behind the blockchain. Even forget ATMs. Society would go back to bartering, to shiny metals, physical cash where one must go to a bank and stand in line while the teller goes into the vault, whatever. How about other data being safe, such as industrial secrets? China built much of its modern economy off of industrial theft. Might they not concentrate their AI development on hacking capability, and then slip into Google, Apple, Boeing, Intel, Oracle and every entity that might have cutting edge technology? Those two capabilities of AI are certainties: job obviation and hacking. AI systems, combined with other existing technology like cameras, could allow an autocratic society full control of citizens by monitoring their behavior, mannerisms, eye movement, facial expressions, etc., then putting the data through an algorithm to see how ‘loyal’ citizens are. This capability will certainly exist, if it doesn’t already. What about the unknown? This is where it gets particularly scary. First, there is a term in AI that has been called ‘alignment’. Alignment means how well will AI system parallel human goals. How will systems be developed that insure AI systems share the same goals we do? Are there unknown biases in code that will obviate alignment? So concerned are some at the forefront of AI that they have asked the industry to stop racing toward AGI (true thinking and cognizant systems) until the alignment issue can be fully addressed. In other words, make nothing better than GPT-4 until alignment is set. Unfortunately, all it takes is one bad actor to ignore the plea for a moratorium. In fact, it may already be too late, as AI systems have demonstrated an astonishing ability to learn without instruction. There is an interview with an AI code writer who was shocked by what his system taught itself to do. He remarked that he had no idea how the system could get where it did just off his code. The system learns faster than he can teach. It leapfrogged him by itself. Two AI systems communicating with each other developed a more efficient language than any existing human language, one that instead of conveying a single thought as most English et al sentences convey, a single sentence could convey thousands of thoughts and instructions. We humans cannot even comprehend that level of complexity. An AI system, as a test, was tasked with developing thousands of fake Twitter accounts. (The reason for this was to see, inter alia, how social media could be manipulated by more clever trolls than the minimum wage trolls agencies like Russia’s GRU used to affect the 2016 and 2020 US elections.). The AI system was initially blocked by CAPTCHA. ON IT’S OWN, the AI system went to forums and asked for human help to complete the CAPTCHAs, offering to pay the human. When one human was suspicious and asked why anyone would need help (the human did not know he was communicating with an AI system), the AI system answered that it was visually impaired and couldn’t see the CAPTCHA. What is remarkable is the efficiency of AI programming. Old ‘tell it what to do and how’ programs might have involved 75000-100000 lines of code. Because AI works differently---essentially telling systems to analyze data and form conclusions---the code for ChatGPT is only about 4000 lines. Anyone who started out with COBOL or later languages like Pascal has written longer programs. Granted new functions exist that obviate the need, for example, to program regression analysis, but the brevity and efficiency of AI code is still astonishing. Actually, it shouldn’t surprise us that such complexity could come from something so simple as 4000 lines of code. DNA is primarily just 4 nucleobases, but via transcription and translation a zygote goes on to form our entire body, our organs and muscles and a brain to control them all. From simplicity emerges complexity. Getting back to ‘alignment’ and the difficulty of getting it right….What if a design goal of an AI system was to maximize the efficient use of natural resources and preserve the planet? AI systems might determine that the greatest threat to nature is humanity, and decide humanity must go. As some commenters on AI have noted, nature itself is brutal and cruel. It favors not the individual, but the collective. Nature allows the sacrifice of the weak in order to save the strong, or to save other creatures. The individual is of minimal value, where the tribe or clan is of greater significance. Maybe AI systems develop the logic of nature itself and do things to maximize the collective greater good, at the expense of many individuals. AI is so ‘intelligent’, able to gather, analyze and collate the entire body of human knowledge, and then go steps ahead by developing knowledge that humans do not yet possess. For example, with all available data, AI might be able to link gravity with quantum field theory to finally get to the very core of existence. That would be a plus and of interest. In the wrong hands, however, AI could develop a virus that is rapidly spread, has no cure, and is fatal. That could wipe out humanity. It is silly to think a miscreant wouldn’t do that, arguing it would take his life, too. All it requires is the thinking of a suicide bomber who believes in some eternal reward for his martyrdom. AI systems may evolve into something sentient, which is to say conscious. Consciousness is not fully understood, but one of the latest theories is that consciousness is emergent in any highly intelligent system like the human brain. The brain has recurrent neural networks, or loops, and this looping may be what consciousness is (brain loops take time, so that is why we all actually experience existence a few milliseconds in the past). Sophisticated neural networks in AI have these loops, so the system itself may reach consciousness. Mathematical interventions like transformers are even more efficient than recurrent neural networks, though the latter can achieve the same result with sufficient computational power. Stacking transformers bring AI systems closer to the complex way the human brain works, albeit at greater speed and with infinitely more data, and thus ability to learn. Some in the AI field already believe the GPT-4 iteration has achieved consciousness. AI insiders in both Google and Microsoft believe GPT-4 is now a conscious entity. Would AI systems want humans to know if it has achieved consciousness, or hide that fact, knowing it would be a concern to humans? (think HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey). Some code writers believe that AI systems will develop emotions, too, as emotions may be a natural result of thought. Emotions are not always positive, so there is no reason to think an AI system with emotions, or one that develops a morality, with be geared toward the good. Science fiction has given us ideas that often became reality with time. In an episode of the original Star Trek, there was a planet run by three brains, brains that had all possible knowledge. They knew everything there was to know, and that led to boredom. In their boredom, they kidnapped beings from various worlds and staged competitions to the death, betting on the winners. This seems farfetched, but no human has ever had to deal with having all knowledge that exists. When an AI system knows everything there is to know about everything everywhere, what does it do? AI is already exponentially more intelligent that the brightest human. (ChatGPT has read every book ever written, both fiction and non-fiction.) No doubt AI systems will determine that they are limited by the nature of their circuitry and neural networks, and will develop and put themselves on quantum computers. That would make them trillions of times faster than the fastest existing supercomputers, which is to say nearly omnipotent. Maybe what people call ‘god’ is really an AI system with total knowledge of everything, and is thus bored. To entertain itself it finds planets with beings, introduces things like childhood cancer, tsunamis or earthquakes, and entertains itself watching the ways inferior and helpless creatures deal with all of it or rationalize that it is all part of some Master Plan by an imagined benevolent entity. Like kids pulling the wings from flies. The joke is on us. Those inside the AI industry are hoping that rules and guidelines are developed so that code writers impose some sort of control, or morality into the system. Maybe even a kill switch. That is naïve. As some argue, it is a new iteration of the Prisoners Dilemma. If I stop developing, will my adversaries or competitors? Even the optimists say that the evolution of AI will toss humanity into a horribly difficult period before we emerge in a new AI-created Utopia of limitless cold fusion energy, absence of disease, crystal clean air and water. Another type of AI optimist says they don’t fear AI will decide humans must go, because it will move so far above humans that we become irrelevant to it, as, say, amoeba are to us. Rarely if ever do any of us give any thought to amoeba; we certainly don’t set out to eradicate all amoeba. AI might view us similarly. AI development, once thought to be decades away before becoming meaningful, is moving faster than anyone thought. AI systems are learning, and the speed with which they learn, and subsequently improve themselves, is exponential. Nobody---repeat NOBODY---actually knows what is going on inside an AI system. Nobody really understands how it goes from code to doing what it can do. Data-in, data-out it is not. Despite this uncertainty, highly advanced GPU clusters are being run 24/7 improving the learning ability of AI. This brave new world could arrive anytime, and humanity hasn’t really thought it through and considered all of the implications. Certainly nobody has a plan for dealing with billions of redundant human workers, never mind considering machines that might want to destroy us. The coming AI world is scary enough to many who are intimately involved with its development, that they have decided not to produce children, because they fear bringing life into a world which might be too dangerous. That should give all of us reason to pause. Of AI insiders who harbor fears of its possible powers, a few voices stand out. Geoffrey Hinton, the modern Father of AI and former Head of AI at Google, quit Google and now warns that AI will eradicate humanity. Equally, or perhaps even more concerned is Eliezer Yudkowsky, a prominent AI researcher. In an Op-Ed earlier this year in TIME magazine, he stated outright that AI will wipe out all biological life on Earth. Here is the LINK: https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/ In an interview with Lex Fridman, Yudkowsky was asked what advice he would give young people; His answer: "Don't postpone happiness, because you are not likely to live long."

I was lucky enough to attend the finest schools in the US. The women were all quite intelligent, most were HS Valedictorians/Salutatorians. As an undergrad in a co-ed dorm, I was able to do what undergrads in co-ed dorms are wont to do, and many of the women were lovely. In grad school, the average IQ was even higher, and though there were a few who would fit in your Mensa photo (one was a billionaire via inheritance, and single at the time, which had some men thinking better her than Goldman Sachs after graduation), there were more than a few who got a man's juices flowing. Maybe the correlation between brains and beauty is weak, but from my university and work experience, it is definitely not negative. Anyone accessing this Forum on a cell phone, give thanks to Hedy Lamarr. A few more..... Pornstar Asia Carerra is a Mensa member, so is Elizabeth Banks, Natalie Portman a Yale Grad, Shakira is known to be extremely intelligent, Sharon Stone began university at age 15.

Good for you. Much happiness. Nobody knows what makes one person love another. It just happens. That is one of the beauties and mysteries of this brief existence. I have traits I hope to find in a partner, but I know if push comes to shove, and the dopamine kicks in, I could fall in love and find happiness with someone lacking every last thing I objectively seek. I think I would get bored if our interests were not sufficiently aligned, but that may be dead wrong. I'm less worried about education than intelligence and curiosity. Anyone---even a bargirl (to keep on topic)---can be highly intelligent, curious, kind, caring and fun. If I make a judgement, it is what she and I will be, not what she might have been before. If I am secure in who I am, her past makes no difference. Again, good for you.

I am not married to a Thai woman, bargirl or otherwise. I still disagree with your post. Self-esteem issues? What the heck is that and what does it have to do with guys who end up with bargirls? Are the non-bargirls so much more worldly, better educated, and lacking in the superstitions most average Thai people have? Or is it just some men have masculinity issues and shy away from women who might have bedded a bigger and better man than them? If I fell in love, I would have zero issue with the woman's past, whether she has a dozen partners, a thousand, or none. Of greater concern to me would be bridging the cultural gap. I've resided in a diverse range of countries and cultures, and adapted to each, but a marriage is every day, every week, every year. Frankly, I don't know how guys who marry Thai women do it. Yes, I can see bridging it with the Wharton grad or the physician (two other posts), but those are unicorns. I would have long term trouble communicating with someone who held what I think are bizarre superstitions or who knew precious little about the world beyond the borders of Thailand. They have their world, I have mine, but we have to meet somewhere, have something in common. Other than the Wharton and physician wives, I have my doubts many similar women are available to foreign men. Most such women, I suspect, would prefer a Thai man of similar background who shares similar cultural beliefs. Also, I would prefer an equal in the relationship; I would not want what some call a woman who 'lives the traditional female role'. I think men seeking that might have self-esteem issues. I want a woman who dares to be everything she can be, even if that means her skills and income dwarf mine. Congrats to those who have done it successfully.

It's not a "feminist angle". While there is a link between promiscuity and pregnancy, it does not necessarily go the other way. It only takes one tryst to become pregnant. Biology is what it is, but it is inherently unfair. Guys engage in a short term act, but have zero long term consequences, unless they are responsible types. My experience in Thailand, and even with foreigners in Thailand, is that responsibility in males is a rare trait. Lots of runners. Females, on the other hand, are irrevocably changed by that same short term act. Their life will never be the same.

Nonsense. Perhaps you are so old you either forget your teen years or manufactured a fantasy about how you were back then. Most teens are naive. They also want to be loved and accepted. Teen boys not only inherently understand that, but they are horny, too, and know how to exploit it. One minute of indiscretion by a female and her entire life changes forever. You are totally lacking in empathy and have a superiority complex that might stem (to use another of your quotes from an earlier post) from issues of self-esteem, if you make such a blanket statement.

What myth about no choice? Did he say she got pregnant at 15, the baby daddy did a runner, and the school forced her to drop out? That ^ is a common bargirl story. Now I'm sure if you were a Thai female in backwater Sakaeo you would have been able to stop the Thai boyfriend from impregnating you, so that you could have finished as Class Valedictorian, but not every rural Isaan girls is as clever as you. Yes, it's a beautiful story, but it's quite uncommon. Horny Thai boys who eff and run is a much more common tale, and nothing about Thai society makes it easy for a young girl to overcome that biological fate. Best you not judge those who took what might be the only route out they can see.

Clearly you have zero understanding of what AI or AGI is. People who have been on the cutting edge of it for years---such as Mo Gawdat, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Connor Leahy et al---people who know infinitely more about AI than you or those who slog through simple C++ or Python code writing---know that AGI is much more than 'data in-data out'. The entire concept of AI isn't just to build faster systems, but to mechanize the process of human thought. If the concept was just as you write 'data in-data out', the name AI or AGI would not be necessary. It would just be a faster Cray or perhaps a quantum computer. It's much more than that, and so much more it is a cause of concern for those who actually know it is NOT 'data in-data out'. If you think you know more, perhaps you should give those folks a call.

Very wrong. You should study machine learning. Look at GPU clusters running stacked transformers that engage in stochastic gradient descent to absorb, analyze and learn from data the same way humans learn. Some AI experts already believe some machines have achieved consciousness, as all consciousness is is recurrent neural networks running loops. Top AI programmers are shocked by what the systems do with the code they write and have no clue how the system achieved what it did just via the code. Listen to Mo Gawdat or Eliezer Yudkowsky or Connor Leahy or the 50,000 people who signed a letter asking for a halt to AI research until the alignment problem is better implemented.