Watching QI, reminded me that in the Middle Ages animals could be tried for witchcraft. Now that LLMs are in charge of human knowledge and wisdom, we could be doing that kind of thing again soon.
@54f74c48 I read that the city of London tried to attract more wealthy people as a way to increase local prosperity but it didn't have that effect. It was realised that rich people spend most of their money buying things from other rich people - mansions, yachts, diamonds, luxury cars etc. They don't eat more bread or get more haircuts, or hang out at the corner pub, so they have no impact on the local economy.
@53645712 Some of us had to listen to it whether we wanted to or not.
Neighbour turned it up so loud I could hear it *without* my hearing aid.
#GrandFinal
@01ae8892 I appreciate your intention, but do we really want the mass purchase of new tools, which themselves have a cost in CO2 emissions, both in manufacture and transport?
A better solution would be to not have lawns, sweep up leaves with a broom, use a screwdriver etc.
A mere 50 years ago I watched houses being built by men with hammers, saws, wheelbarrows. The only mechanised thing was a cement mixer, but for small jobs you'd mix by hand in the wheelbarrow.
We should all re-assess what it means to "need" something and ask ourselves how much "need" has been created by clever advertising by people who want to sell us the goods.
@3967703f@ba041228@c4bbc8e1 Yes. The poorer people will end up living in the uninsurable houses, and they'll be the ones to suffer the inevitable next major flood.
Wish people would put the same energy they put into supporting Australian Rules Football into tackling climate change.
Battle of the Batteries - rival neighbourhoods compete to be first to install a community battery?
Extreme House Moving - Can the team take a house apart and move it out of a flood zone in only three days?
#ClimateSurvival #Climate
@17902f8d I'm contemplating keeping a supply of coffee in a small slow cooker so it's always hot and I can dip in whenever I feel like it. Would this work?
@a3fd556a I now live just round the corner from the school I went to as a kid and they still use the same siren they used 60 years ago to mark break times and the end of the day. It's kind of eerie.
Local Coles has moved on from self checkouts as an option, to bullying people into using them.
They now have only one human operated checkout, and there's always a queue of people willing to wait longer for the sake of the principle that people are more important than corporate profit. So Coles has appointed a staffer to harrass people in that queue.
Perhaps Coles has finally figured that we're not actually computer shy, that our choice is political. (Most times I don't even go to Coles but they do have my favourite coffee.)
Anyway, they've given a staffer the job of gracelessly ordering people to leave the human checkout and follow her to the other.
"No" I said emphatically, I'm going through here", pointing to the checkout in front of me. As she turned away I called, "I don't work for Coles."
Not only am I not going to do the work of a staffer without pay, I'm not going to be rudely bossed around as if I was a staffer, for the sake of Coles' profit.
#ToxicCapitalism
@d3e59536 Congratulations Ireland. 👍🏻 Proud to say the State of South Australia has also reached this goal, exporting renewable energy to other Australian States
#RenewableEnergy
@3fe52772 Can we define consciousness first please? If we can't agree on a definition of consciousness first, the results will be meaningless.
Also, ask babies. They might remember.
@3183cc77@b57823a9 I don't see anything alarmist in the original post. It just passes on facts drawn from a news article. It's not the poster's job to reassure people if they find those facts alarming.
@47954e97 Seems like knowledge is going to be reduced to the lowest common denominator, and the "information highway" will be no better than owning a set of encyclopedias in the 1950s. Possibly less reliable than the encyclopedias.
#AI #LLMs #FutureOfKnowledge
@0d291166 You wouldn't say that if you'd had raw eggs thrown at the brick wall of your house and you could still see where they were ten years later. #Halloween
@e1eb0aaa As we all know, 🙄 #EVs all weigh exactly the same, have exactly the same tyres and drive in exactly the same terrain. And all EV drivers take off at the green light at a screaming speed, because they can.
@4c5b260f In most cases it would be a dangerous thing to do, for the obvious reason that the military leader has command of the military.
If you're planning a coup, you need the military onside otherwise they will simply wipe you out.
@2144e09c I was born in 1952 and I can tell you that clothes were made out of very different fabrics. Synthetics were still a very new thing and a lot of technology is used today to make clothes "easy care".
@cf8f5582 Not sure about the cult idea. Certainly there are denialists that are protecting their own interests. That's cynical, purposeful denial. People in psychological denial, however, are not doing it purposefully. It's something the human brain does when something happens that is very frightening but also unlikely. The brain chooses the "this can't be real" option because it relieves fear. This is why people leave it too late to evacuate from oncoming floods and fires.
#ClimateDenial
@f0af7d07@02439a38 Um, I think the Indigenous people of Australia would think your frst paragraph is a really funny statement.
I wont try and speak for the rest of the world.
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