WoodScientist

joined 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I was going to say they should send her down to hold get out the vote rallies in Puerto Rico.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Require all philosophy professors at the Athens University philosophy department to be middle-aged gay men with 20-something twink lovers.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (3 children)

We should give a bunch of military aid to Greece. But make it all contingent on them recreating the Sacred Band of Thebes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

Full self driving should only be implemented when the system is good enough to completely take over all driving functions. It should only be available in vehicles without steering wheels. The Tesla solution of having "self driving" but relying on the copout of requiring constant user attention and feedback is ridiculous. Only when a system is truly capable of self-driving 100% autonomously, at a level statistically far better than a human, should any kind of self-driving be allowed on the road. Systems like Tesla's FSD officially require you to always be ready to intervene at a moment's notice. They know their system isn't ready for independent use yet, so they require that manual input. But of course this encourages disengaged driving; no one actually pays attention to the road like they should, able to intervene at a moment's notice. Tesla's FSD imitates true self-driving, but it pawns off the liability do drivers by requiring them to pay attention at all times. This should be illegal. Beyond merely lane-assistance technology, no self-driving tech should be allowed except in vehicles without steering wheels. If your AI can't truly perform better than a human, it's better for humans to be the only ones actively driving the vehicle.

This also solves the civil liability problem. Tesla's current system has a dubious liability structure designed to pawn liability off to the driver. But if there isn't even a steering wheel in the car, then the liability must fall entirely on the vehicle manufacturer. They are after all 100% responsible for the algorithm that controls the vehicle, and you should ultimately have legal liability for the algorithms you create. Is your company not confident enough in its self-driving tech to assume full legal liability for the actions of your vehicles? No? Then your tech isn't good enough yet. There can be a process for car companies to subcontract out the payment of legal claims against the company. They can hire State Farm or whoever to handle insurance claims against them. But ultimately, legal liability will fall on the company.

This also avoids criminal liability. If you only allow full self-driving in vehicles without steering wheels, there is zero doubt about who is control of the car. There isn't a driver anymore, only passengers. Even if you're a person sitting in the seat that would normally be a driver's seat, it doesn't matter. You are just a passenger legally. You can be as tired, distracted, drunk, or high as you like, you're not getting any criminal liability for driving the vehicle. There is such a clear bright line - there is literally no steering wheel - that it is absolutely undeniable that you have zero control over the vehicle.

This actually would work under the same theory of existing drunk-driving law. People can get ticketed for drunk driving for sleeping in their cars. Even if the cops never see you driving, you can get charged for drunk driving if they find you in a position where you could drunk drive. So if you have your keys on you while sleeping drunk in a parked car, you can get charged with DD. But not having a steering wheel at all would be the equivalent of not having the keys to a vehicle - you are literally incapable of operating it. And if you are not capable of operating it, you cannot be criminally liable for any crime relating to its operation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Profanity? In terms of four-letter words, I doubt it. But I could absolutely see a conservative house making political hay by deadnaming her and refusing to use her correct pronouns on the House floor.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago

In many cities, nighttime noise level is limited by decibel level. But even low-level noise is allowed if below some level. So you could have some extremely quiet speakers gently wafting spooky sounds while you do this. Or if that's a bridge too far, whose to say you don't personally just like listening to Gregorian chants and quiet levels while you work?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago

This is by design.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Life pro tip for those nocturnal. Even those nocturnal folks need to mow their lawns. For modestly sized lawns, a scythe can be a great option! It's also perfectly legal to mow your lawn with a scythe at three in the morning, dressed in a long black hooded robe.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

Well you see, according to conservatives, women doing any of those things are acting counter for their god-given gender roles. As such, they are transgender, and deserve to have their rights taken away...

Did you really think the focus on trans people is actually ultimately about trans people?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago (2 children)

It would have to be a young male child of color for even a small portion of his base to care.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago

Not to be confused with the most common name. World wide, the single most common first name is Mohammad. The single most common last name is Wong. Therefore, the most common name globally must be Mohammad Wong.

It's simple statistics!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

This is myopic thinking. We all live in one big housing market. If you don't have enough houses built, it doesn't provide housing for the working class. You just end up with multi-millionaires living in tiny homes.

When you restrict the ability of builders to build new homes, they focus on maximizing the profit of the few homes they can make. We had cheap housing in the US in eras where we made it possible for builders to build vast numbers of housing on a colossal scale. That way you can really harness economies of scale and drive down the price tremendously.

There are two ways to make money by making something. You can either make high-margin luxury goods, or you can make vast numbers of low-margin affordable goods. Our current restrictions on home buildings encourage developer to take the former path, when we want to encourage them to take the latter.

 

The Planet of the Apes film franchise has single-handedly shaped entire fields of biological research. As long as it remains in the public consciousness, no biologist or geneticist will ever experiment with trying to engineer chimps and other apes to be more intelligent. Any research proposal remotely related to the topic will be immediately shot down by someone simply stating, "do you want Planet of the Apes? Because this is how you get Planet of the Apes!"

 

Forget grand corruption. I want to see some small-time thievery from our presidents. If we're going to have a criminal president, I want them to be less "mobster," and more "meth addict."

Become president. Procede to start a four-year personal petty crime wave. Break into people's homes to just to steal their televisions. Break into construction sites to steal copper wiring. Habitually steal catalytic converters from cars parked in the Pentagon parking lot. Offer the proceeds of your crimes to a local charity, in cash, just to break into their office at night and steal it back.

Oh, and after each crime, issue a formal pardon to yourself, completely absolving yourself of criminal liability. Also, don't forget the best part. As you embark on this wave of petty crime, you'll have Secret Service protection! So even if someone does catch you, in broad daylight, laying on a dolly under their truck, stealing their cat with a sawzall, they won't be able to even get near you! The Secret Service will prevent anyone from being able to physically stop you! Hell, you can break into people's houses at night, just to rough up the place!

 

We'll cover all our bases and hire people of all faiths. We'll have tens of thousands of people praying to boost our science output. It's sure to work!

 

Your campaign slogans will be things like:
Whelp, we invented crocks. I think we're done here.
The fact we built ChatGPT proves we need to be sent back to the Stone Age.
We've had a good run. Time to quit while we're ahead.
Time to see if nuclear winter cancels out global warming.

When campaigning, promise that you will only do one thing in office. Upon taking the oath of office, you will immediately demand the nuclear football and order the launch of the entire US nuclear arsenal, all at once, in a completely unprovoked first strike against every other nuclear power and against every national capital on the planet.

In debates, your answers will be simple and direct:
What will I do about our falling education standards? I'll start a nuclear war!
What will I do to ease America's tax burden? I'll start a nuclear war!
How will I improve racial justice in the country? I'll start a nuclear war!

 
 

Bonus points if you can get a bunch of friends together and assemble a whole fleet of them.

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